The present PhD dissertation aims to examine the relation between modality and change in Aristotle’s metaphysics. -/- On the one hand, Aristotle supports his modal realism (i.e., worldly objects have modal properties - potentialities and essences - that ground the ascriptions of possibility and necessity) by arguing that the rejection of modal realism makes change inexplicable, or, worse, banishes it from the realm of reality. On the other hand, the Stagirite analyses processes by means of modal notions (‘change is the (...) actuality of what is virtual insofar as it is virtual’). In other words: to grasp what change is, one has to resort to the modal idiom of potentialities, while the fact that there is change is indicative of the fact that nature is full of modal properties. -/- Aristotle’s modal and kinetic realism finds a negative in the figure of the Megaric Diodorus Kronus. The polemical situation of Greek philosophy has indeed the dialectical advantage of not opposing the Aristotelian position to a sui generis straw man. Both in its reduction of modal judgements to temporal quantifications and in its dissolution of the reality of the state-of-being-in-motion in favour of a cinematographic view of processes, the philosophical figure of reductionist antirealism embodied by Diodorus constitutes an alternative that takes the opposite view of Aristotle’s realism. -/- The present study is structured as a discussion between these two positions. In the face of Diodorus’ antirealist challenges, Aristotle articulates modal and kinetic considerations: the answers he gives to Diodorus’ puzzles thus provide valuable insight into his metaphysics. Moreover, the examination of Aristotle’s and Diodorus’ metaphysics, because of their insight and originality, will not fail to interest the philosopher concerned with the metaphysical foundations of modern physics, insofar as the entanglement between modalities and processes is nowadays at the core of mechanics (phase spaces, path integrals, etc.). (shrink)

By questioning the attribution of a primary role to the eyes as bearers of identity within traditional Western culture, this paper will problematize the agentivity performed by the lower mereology of the face, identified with the mouth-nose assemblage. In particular, the study will focus on the manipulation of such facial spatiality through the intervention of three “lower face” artifacts: the grill, the ball gag and the gas mask. This piece of work will examine their plastic and figurative dimensions in the (...) technological interaction with the facial organs. Furthermore, we will take into consideration the sociocultural context of wearability performed by the different bearers with the aim of grasping the identity shift that the artifacts trigger. The study, therefore, will organize the corpus as a sequence that starts inside the oral cavity where the grill is worn; then moves to a progressive exteriority with the ball gag that emerges from the mouth through the straps fastened around the head; eventually dealing with the exterior projection operated by the gas mask which by means of its filters portends beyond the anatomical face. Ultimately the three artifacts are presented as a threefold articulation of a liminal agency towards an expanded form of humanity including animality embedded within and without the space of meaning represented by the face. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este artículo abordamos la cuestión del poder en el pensamiento de Deleuze. Según nuestra hipótesis, no hay en su obra un único concepto de poder sino diferentes enfoques no incompatibles entre sí pero que no se dejan reducir a un solo punto de vista. Esta variedad de abordajes puede ser reunida alrededor de dos posiciones generales adoptadas por Deleuze: primero, tiende a relativizar su eficacia respecto de otros elementos más fundamentales, realzando así los límites o la impotencia del (...) poder; segundo, le quita valor con relación a otras entidades y procesos en los que deposita su apuesta filosófica. Nos proponemos desarrollar estas perspectivas a fin de ofrecer un panorama integral de una temática relevante de la filosofía política deleuziana. ABSTRACT In this article, we address the question of power in Deleuze's thinking. According to our hypothesis, there is not a single concept of power in his work, but different approaches not incompatible with each other but that cannot be reduced to a single point of view. This variety of approaches can be gathered around two general positions about power, adopted by Deleuze: first, he tends to relativize its effectiveness with respect to other more fundamental elements, thus enhancing the limits or impotence of power; second, he takes away value in relation to other entities and processes in which he places his philosophical commitment. We intend to develop these perspectives in order to offer a comprehensive overview of a relevant theme of Deleuzian political philosophy. (shrink)

This article reads Monique Wittig's Le Corps lesbien through Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of le corps sans organes and devenir-femme, devenir-animal in order to illuminate both Wittig's formal and figurative concerns and her larger literary objectives. The dismembered and dismember-ing lesbian lovers that Wittig describes in Le Corps lesbien illustrate a process of becoming-woman, becoming-animal and becoming-other that leads to a becoming-minoritarian and a renunciation of stratification and subjectification in the body without organs. This process is a celebration of dispersed, (...) multiplicitous identity that exists in haecceities. Wittig's lesbian lovers undergo various becomings in the text to illustrate the multiplicity of possibilities as they move towards the BwO, and the text as a whole uses this BwO to resist and dismantle the hetero-patriarchal order. (shrink)

What we generally regard as ‘the face’ should be semiotically understood not as something given and monolithic, but rather stratified – it is at least threefold: biological (face), physiognomic (expression), perceivable (visage) – and relational as it has to be put within a narrative in order to make sense. The face lies at the centre of a whole semiotic system, the form of life, revolving around the issue of identity (which the face – the visage, to be precise – embodies (...) and still does not resolve). What we may call ‘the natural face’ is not, as common sense would suggest, the precondition of the ‘culturalized’ one (featured with modifications ranging from make-up and proper masks to surgery), but rather just one of the possible semiotic masks a person may choose to wear. At the same time, the mask does not have to be reduced to a deceptive device only (nor to be meant merely as a material object), being in fact at the centre of a more complex axiology. The classic veridictory square articulating the opposition between Being and Seeming may provide a suitable model for the semiotic square of ‘visageness’, so that we would have: Face, Disguise (the place of the mask proper), Fake, Anonymity. Based on these theoretical premises, the paper finally addresses popular music and outlines a provisional map of the pragmatics of the mask (subtractive vs. additive, ritualistic vs. continuous, material vs. virtual, mask as face vs. face as mask), as a suggestion for further studies. (shrink)

Magazines, leaflets, weblogs, and a variety of other media incessantly spread messages advising us on how to achieve or maintain our health or well-being. In such messages, the iconic representation of the face is predominant, and reveals an interesting phenomenon: the “face of health” seems to be unattainable as such, and is generally represented in a differential way, that is to say, by making reference to its opposite – the “face of illness”, or at least of malaise. In fact, the (...) face is crucial in the medical domain: since ancient times, face observation has played an essential role in diagnostic practices, both in Western medicine (which resorts to the concept of facies, intended as the distinctive facial expression or appearance associated with a specific medical condition, for the description of pathological states) and Eastern preventive and healing techniques (within which the so-called Mian Xiang, or ‘face reading’, is fundamental, and connects the medical sphere with other aspects such as personality, talents, and dispositions). Drawing on the semiotic analysis of relevant case studies extending from classical iconography to present-day digital mediascapes, this paper investigates the representation of the face of health (and illness) across time and space, specifically focusing on the analogies and differences between the Western and the Eastern semiosphere. To this purpose, it relies on both literature concerning the representation and understanding of the face and studies on medical sign systems and discourses. (shrink)

This paper leads us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by two main sources: the Zhuangzi--a multifarious compilation from Warring States China (ca. 4th c. BCE)--and José Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955) Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in Metaphysics)--the transcripts of a course on metaphysics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20th century. Much as other ontologically subjective entities and events, situations do not preexist the intentional subject: instead, they are created alongside our act of (...) noticing. In Classical Chinese, shi , commonly rendered "propensity" and the closest the language comes to our concept of situation, denotes a dynamic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situations--as in the creation of worlds--hence the importance of understanding what the agent notices and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world's plural affordances. The relational affordances that we actualize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-create one another over time. This acknowledgement is crucial to retrain our agency in order to illuminate our blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move beyond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world. (shrink)

Em maio de 1643, Elisabeth da Bohemia endereçou uma questão a Descartes que inaugurou uma Correspondência de seis anos, até a morte do filósofo. Ele dedica à Princesa o seu trabalho de maturidade metafísica (Princípios de Filosofia Primeira, 1644) e redige Paixões da Alma (1649) como um dos resultados do diálogo com a filósofa. O silenciamento dos últimos cem anos de historiografia sobre o legado de Elisabeth da Bohemia nesta troca epistolar causou distorções e, em alguns casos, lastreou o viés (...) como regra e como a história. Uma das consequências dessa distorção está na leitura de que a questão da filósofa consistiria em uma crítica ao dualismo substancial. Neste estudo busco oferecer uma interpretação da natureza da primeira questão, com o intuito de esclarecer o pensamento da filósofa e o seu papel no diálogo, de uma maneira compreensiva, sem subscrever o paradigma literário do solilóquio cartesiano, e seu viés na literatura filosófica. (shrink)

De moderne filosofie lijdt aan muziekvergetelheid. Opvallend is echter dat filosofen, wanneer ze toch aandacht schenken aan muziek, hun aandacht bij voorkeur op één bepaald genre richten, namelijk de opera. Filosofen zoals Søren Kierkegaard en Friedrich Nietzsche lieten hun gedachten over Don Giovanni, Parsifal en Carmen gaan, terwijl omgekeerd de filosofie van Arthur Schopenhauer de opera heeft beïnvloed via Wagner. Diens werk lijkt zich op het snijpunt van het grensverkeer tussen moderne filosofie en moderne muziek te bevinden. Het was zijn (...) ambitie de menselijke existentie en de menselijke geschiedenis in één panoramisch oeuvre te vatten, vanaf het primordiale begin tot en met de dramatische finale die ophanden leek: een catastrofale apotheose die een geheel nieuwe toekomst mogelijk zou maken. Dat is althans de verhaallijn van zijn meesterwerk Der Ring des Nibelungen. Aan het slot van Götterdämmerung lijkt zich een algehele verwoesting te hebben voltrokken: ‘Everything is destroyed and there is an enigmatic kind of hovering over the scene of destruction’ (Badiou 2010, p. 106), een ambivalente stemming van hoop en destructie zette Wagner op muziek. Voor Wagner is dan ook een hoofdrol in deze studie weggelegd: voor zijn muziektheoretische geschriften (waarin hij over een ‘muziek van de toekomst’ filosofeerde), maar meer nog voor de muzikale totaalkunstwerken die hij daadwerkelijk componeerde. (shrink)

This is the Introduction to a collected volume.

« Esprit de corps » is a now globally uttered phrase, which designates the strong inner cohesion of — and attachment to — a human organized group. Since the Encyclopaedists up until Bourdieu, the term is usually critical and pejorative in French thought, used to fustigate the groupthink of privileged social casts. But in their famous chapter on war machines, Deleuze and Guattari proposed a much less well-known yet promising U-turn in the way esprit de corps was theorized. Far from (...) the now common paranoid idea of discipline, often defended by Foucauldian exegetes, this overseen aspect of nomadology, inspired by Bergson’s ideas on esprit de corps, but also by medieval guilds and oriental martial art communities, reopens the path to what could be called a politics of hieropoiesis, a communal and secular production of the sacred. (shrink)

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing semiotic research over TV series targeted to early childhood in Italy. In particular, it focuses on discussing and explaining the great success of the animated series Peppa Pig aired in Italy on the thematic channel Rai YoYo, by comparing it with other series available in the same channel, in the period of its first launch. Most of the programs taken into account refers to animals with the purpose of using them as (...) a mean to speak about manhood, in a simplified and appealing way. Nothing new. Fairy tales have always been filled with animals to mean vices and virtues of the humans. Aim of the paper is to reveal the complexity of such reference to animals in Peppa Pig’s stories. This goal will be achieved by comparing it to another series which references to pigs aired simultaneously in the same Italian network. Moreover, this paper will consider other animals embodying the bouquet of meaning proposals offered by Rai YoYo: a dog and some shapeless creatures known as Barbapapas. As a conclusion of such enquire a synthetic model which positions each of the series analyzed will be presented. (shrink)

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

Studies on Jean Rhys have been fragmentary concentrating on one or two aspects of Rhys’s thematic concern with the alienation of the white creole without laying emphasis on Rhys’s exploration of the Creole’s identity. There has been no attempt to examine if the creole has to struggle harder and more than whites and blacks to come to terms with her personal identity until now. The answer is affirmative because the creole is a composite human being. Indeed, the white creole is (...) the ‘fruit’ of a mixed union. Born into miscegenation, hybridity and creolization, the creole is physically, linguistically, socially and religiously a diverse human being. Within the scope of this paper, the term identity is used in a broad sense. The creole’s personal identity refers to the different identities the Creole can have at different times and in different circumstances. Correspondingly, she must negotiate the white and black elements of her identity. The Creole must deal with the complexity of her identity through a web of tangled relationships with both whites and blacks. Read from this light, the personal identity of the creole is not “either/ or,” but reluctantly “both/ and.” In various ways, the creole is an ‘Everyman.’ The Creole undergoes an awareness, and is eventually, redefined through the image of the ‘other.’ Indeed, her jump toward her black friend Tia reflects Rhys’s basic concern for a Caribbean society in which assimilation and personal identity must blend in a single humane goal, that is, to co-exist beyond the lines of race, gender, class and sex in order to avoid annihilation. (shrink)

We present some ideas on logical process descriptions, using relations from the DIO (Drug Interaction Ontology) as examples and explaining how these relations can be naturally decomposed in terms of more basic structured logical process descriptions using terms from linear logic. In our view, the process descriptions are able to clarify the usual relational descriptions of DIO. In particular, we discuss the use of logical process descriptions in proving linear logical theorems. Among the types of reasoning supported by DIO one (...) can distinguish both (1) basic reasoning about general structures in reality and (2) the domain-specific reasoning of experts. We here propose a clarification of this important distinction between (realist) reasoning on the basis of an ontology and rule-based inferences on the basis of an expert’s view. (shrink)

The recently rising field of Critical Data Studies is still facing fundamental questions. Among these is the enigma of digital subjectivation. Who are the subjects of Big Data? A field where this question is particularly pressing is finance. Since the 1990s traders have been steadily integrated into computerized data assemblages, which calls for an ontology that eliminates the distinction between human sovereign subjects and non-human instrumental objects. The latter subjectivize traders in pre-conscious ways, because human consciousness runs too slow to (...) follow the volatility of the market. In response to this conundrum Social Studies of Finance has drawn on Actor-Network Theory to interpret financial markets as technically constructed networks of human and non-human actors. I argue that in order to develop an explicitly critical data study it might be advantageous to refer to Maurizio Lazzarato’s theory of machinic subjugation instead. Although both accounts describe financial digital subjectivation similarly, Lazzarato has the advantage of coupling his description to a clear critique of and resistance to finance. (shrink)

In the two volumes which make up Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari propose new concepts of “machine” and “organism.” The problem of the relationship between machines and organisms has a long philosophical history, and this essay treats their work as a contribution to this debate. It is argued that their solution to this problem is found in their difficult concept of the “body without organs,” a concept that is given some much-needed clarification in the essay. The first section details (...) Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the machine, examining the ways in which it differs from the traditional concept as described by Canguilhem: their machines do not have predictable movements, but instead produce events; they do not have a purpose; they are able to reproduce themselves. The second section details their conception of the organism through their account of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: organisms are bodies which normalize and which create hierarchies; they also do not have a purpose; they have a “unity of composition.” The final section argues that their concept of the “body without organs” shows us how to understand the relation between the two transformed concepts, and defines the body without organs as the becoming-machine of the organism. (shrink)

This paper argues that in daycare centres in France, where children are cared for from four months to age three, the competence of female staff members is usually denied and unvalued vis à vis the expert opinions. The paper highlights empirical research on early childhood and gender, providing pragmatic access to children's languages of desire, a language mostly ignored. Incorporating the ideas of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, the paper draws upon the conceptualization of Fernand Deligny who took care of autistic (...) children in mapping what he called ‘lines of wandering’, an idea that shows how desire can become accessible. In the present ‘society of control’ which Deleuze analyses and which coexists with Foucault's discipline and biopower, such lines of flight enable the emergence of a new narrative for young children's desire, and for the competence of the female staff members in their departure from the highway of normalization. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 181-205.

The aim of this article is to discuss the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds on the basis of contemporary ethnobiological research. I argue that ethnobiological accounts of taxonomic convergence-divergence patters challenge common philosophical models of the relation between folk concepts and natural kinds. Furthermore, I outline a positive model of taxonomic convergence-divergence patterns that is based on Slater's [2014] notion of “stable property clusters” and Franklin-Hall's [2014] discussion of natural kinds as “categorical bottlenecks.” Finally, I argue that this model (...) is not only helpful for understanding the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds but also makes substantial contributions to contemporary debates about natural kinds.to contemporary debates about natural kinds. (shrink)

This research attempts to throw light on and show the fundamental similarities and differences between the African and Western ethical conceptions by examining the foundation of ethics and morality in the two systems, using the Golden rule principle in African ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative in Western ethics as tools of comparative analysis. The African indigenous ethics revolves round the “Golden Rule Principle” as the ultimate moral principle. This principle states that “Do unto others what you want them to do (...) unto you”. This principle compares favourably with Immanuel Kant’s whose main thrust is found in his “Categorical Imperative”, with the injunction for us to “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” The categorical imperative becomes for Kant, the principle of universalizability, which according to Kant, is categorical and must be equally binding on everyone. This idea of Kant, we argue, compares with the “Golden Rule Principle”. Both are rationalistic and social but the limitations of Kant which we hope to point out, make it quite insufficient as the foundation of morality. The Africans’ which is more humanistic describes morality and is better served. The main difference between the two ethical systems lies in the fact that whereas the “golden rule” starts from the self and considers the consequences on the first before others, the universalizability principle on the other hand considers the consequences on others first before self. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Deleuze’s treatment of the Nietzschean problem of nihilism. Of all the major figures in contemporary continental thought, Deleuze is at once one of the most luminous, and practically a lone voice in suggesting that nihilism may successfully be overcome. Whether or not he is correct on this point is thus a commanding question in relation to our understanding of the issue. Many commentators on Nietzsche have argued that his project of overcoming nihilism is destined to failure (...) because of the affinity between the problem of nihilism and the logic of negation. While Nietzsche wants an absolute affirmation of life, Spinoza’s principle that “all determination is negation,” as well as Hegel’s dialectical conception of negation, suggest that affirmation free of negation is not possible. However, some commentators indicate that Deleuze successfully shows how overcoming nihilism is possible because his “logic of difference” allows for an affirmation which is not dialectically reappropriated by negation. This paper argues that beyond such logical considerations, there are metaphysical and existential reasons why Deleuze’s interpretation of nihilism fails to show that it can be overcome. For Deleuze, the overcoming of nihilism hinges not just on a logic of difference, but on a radical interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return as “selective being.” Drawing on recent scholarship and on Nietzsche’s own writings I argue that this is not a tenable interpretation, and also, more importantly, that the metaphysical and existential implications of this understanding of eternal return reinstate nihilism at the very point where it is supposedly overcome. Moreover, I argue that there are attendant ethical and political dangers to Deleuze’s position on nihilism. (shrink)

This essay examines the capacity of language (‘word’) to convey what there is (‘world’). It draws on philosophical thought, which it seeks to apply to law while making specific reference to comparative legal studies, that is, to the investigation of law that is foreign to its interpreter.

In this paper Foucault’s thought on monstrosity is explored. Monsters appear whenever and wherever knowledge/power assemblages emerge. That which eludes the latter, and which threatens to subvert them, is the monstrous. Foucault distinguished the production, throughout history, of juridical-natural monsters, moral monsters, and political monsters. In this paper it is argued that Foucault must have sensed that monstrosity eludes all notions of identity and difference, and therefore also the notion that places it ‘outside’. It is the space of emergence itself, (...) i.e. the location where sheer potentiality becomes the possible of and in the event. All monstrosity is therefore deeply, and inevitably, political. It is the promise of unsettling subversion. (shrink)

Here, I offer a candid response to bell hooks's call for a testimony to the “movement beyond a mere ‘us and them’ discussion” that purportedly informs contemporary radical and feminist thought on difference. In alignment with a tradition that includes bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Aurora Levins Morales, I offer a personal testimony to the ways in which I—a middle-class, French, immigrant, continental-philosophy-bred incest survivor—envision both that movement and its limits. To establish these alliances means forming necessary communities. (...) I call on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to propose an account of the production of such communities that does not depend only on shared lived experience, but also on shared marginal spatiality, temporality, and “medicinal history”. I suggest that on the one hand, Deleuze's philosophy of immanence may indeed find apt expression in the politics of integrity that hooks, Lorde, and Morales call for. On the other hand, a genuine politics of integrity may benefit from drawing on the philosophy of immanence, which alone offers alternatives to the traditional, oppositional models of difference informed by transcendence. Finally, I propose the concept of “immanent forgiveness” to capture the movement at issue. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue how education might be considered and practised if not under the logic of the formation of childhood. As such, it puts into question the traditional way of considering children as representing adults’ opportunity to impose their own ideals, and considering education to be an appropriate instrument for such an end. More specifically, it considers how the purposes of practising philosophy with children might be affirmed as other than in the service of the social and political (...) education of childhood. This complex issue calls for a redefinition, not only of philosophy and education, but also of childhood itself. Several ancient (Heraclitus) and contemporary (Deleuze, Lyotard) philosophical contributions are offered in order to reflect on new concepts and vocabularies for childhood. What they have in common is a non-chronological concept of childhood—one that considers the child under the sign of aión rather than chrónos, and therefore as something inherently constitutive of human life, which therefore could never be abandoned, forgotten or overcome. As an example of this deterritorialisation of the relation between childhood and education, a practical project undertaken in a couple of public schools in the environs of Rio de Janeiro and its environs is presented, in which a strong emphasis is placed on the concept of the ‘experience of philosophical thinking’. The paper unpacks each of these three terms—experience, philosophy, and thinking—appealing to Foucault, Deleuze and Hadot for conceptual reconstruction. In addition, some basic pedagogical assumptions that informed this project are presented in the context of two philosophers who inspired it—Socrates and Jacques Rancière. The last section of the paper reflects on how the practice of mainstream schooling seems actually hostile to the experience of philosophical thinking, thus challenging the practitioners to encounter the pedagogical space of the mainstream as if it were possible to establish a new educational relationship to childhood there, and to work fully expecting what cannot be predicted. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo propone una lectura de la meseta “10000 AC. La geología de la moral ” desde el punto de vista de una ontología del espacio. Nos concentraremos específicamente en el concepto de estrato. En los primeros dos apartados se mostrará que todo estrato supone aspectos materiales y semióticos. Para ello se explicitarán algunos conceptos de la geología y de la lingüística utilizados por Deleuze y Guattari. Los apartados 3, 4 y 5 se ocuparán, sucesivamente, de los conceptos de (...) substrato, epistrato y paraestrato. En la articulación de estos conceptos se juegan tres aspectos fundamentales para pensar la configuración de todo espacio actual: la territorialización, la desterritorialización relativa y la codificación/descodificación. Esta tipología de estratos da cuenta de lo diverso espacial y será estudiada a partir de algunas de las fuentes utilizadas por los autores. Se hará un énfasis especial en la obra de Pia Laviosa Zambotti, fuente crucial para comprender la tipología de estratos, como así también en ciertos aspectos del pensamiento de Jacques Monod y Jakob Von Uexküll, claves para pensar el concepto de mundo circundante en la determinación de la noción de paraestrato. Palabras clave: Estrato; Geología de la moral; Codificación; Territorialización; Espacio: The article proposes a reading of the chapter “10000 BC. The Geology of Morals ” from the perspective of an ontology of space. We will deal specifically with the concept of stratum. In the first and second paragraphs we will show that every strate is composed of both material and semiotic aspects. In order to do so we will develop some notions of geology and lingüistics used by the authors. Then, paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 will deal, succesivelly, with the concepts of substratum, epistratum and paraestratum. Three fundamental aspects of actual space are configured in the articulation of these three concepts: territorialization, relative deterritorialization and codification/decodification. This tipology of strates gives an account of spatial diversity and it will be studied through some of the sources utilized by Deleuze and Guattari. The thought of Pia Laviosa Zambotti will receive special attention since her work is an essential source of the tipology of strates. Some aspects of the thoughts of Jacques Monod and Jakob Von Uexküll will also be taken into account, especially those concerning the concept of umwelt and paraestratum. Key Words: Stratum; Geology of morals; Codification; Territorialization; Space. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims to shed light on the concept of “problem” developed by Gilles Deleuze in Difference and repetition by analyzing the presence in that book of the Norwegian algebraist Niels Henrik Abel. Deleuze attributes to this mathematician having invented a method that breaks the “vicious circle” which consists in tracing the problems to the image and similarity of the solutions. We will argue that Deleuze’s interpretation is based on Jules Vuillemin’s work La philosophie de l’algèbre, which draws a (...) parallelism between Lagrange’s algebra and Fichte’s transcendental philosophy to show a common flaw in both their methods. We will begin by characterizing the aforementioned “vicious circle”, and then go through the general characteristics of the algebraic problem and its parallel with critical philosophy, in order to show, finally, the main features that Deleuze seeks to highlight in the abelian method – presented by Vuillemin as the overcoming of Lagrange (and, consequently, of Fichte). (shrink)

There is no consensus regarding whether Gilles Deleuze offers a cogent theory of the Other. Deleuze develops the notion of the Other-structure, but given his scarce remarks on this concept, his treatment of this issue is debated. This article argues that to elucidate Deleuze's philosophy of the Other, his notion of the Other-structure must be analyzed in parallel to Edmund Husserl's intersubjective theory. This comparison, made possible by Natalie Depraz's reading of the Husserlian alterity, reveals nuanced phenomenological traces in Deleuze's (...) Other-structure and its implicated structural moments while substantiating his affirmation of the Otherless world, as an impetus to surpass phenomenology. (shrink)

The fundamental basis of the project concentrates upon an interactive manoeuvre involving Modern Continental Philosophy and the Postmodern Visual Arts. The primary components that structure the thesis conduct a Deleuzoguattarian "process” of action to produce a series of mechanisms designed to “open-up" a space in which to manifest a range of interpretations/translations that follow the developmentary trajectory of designated specific areas of art production. The primary aims concern the advance of the action to communicate an innovative/original set of expositions with (...) a view to both “animate" and enhance these designated perspectives. The structural framework of the project tracks through “passages'/lines of flight” that occur/result from the impact of the Deleuzoguattarian mechanisms upon chosen material - "Introduction" sets forth some guiding themes. “Tours of the Black Clock" elaborates the Nietzschean background that informs the philosophical basis of the complete project. “Electrolite”, “Where Angels Play", “Not to Touch the Earth” “Across” are sections designed to trace a number of alternative pathways through the major texts of the Deleuzoguattarian enterprise. “Becoming X" initiates a secondary movement of experimentation. “Animal Nitrate" effects “an encounter" with the work of painter Francis Bacon via the Deleuze text “Logique de la Sensation", “Time and Again" introduces and articulates a number of instances from Deleuzian film-theory “The Fountainhead” is the main section of the project which evolves a detailed process analysing the paintings of American painter David Salle “The Mirror of Enigmas" traces related Deleuzeoguattarian themes through the films of David Lynch, maintaining as a background an examination of Postmodern American culture/society. “Breaking into Heaven" returns to the more specific analysis of the late paintings of David Salle and uses the mechanics elaborated in Deleuze's book “Le Pli”. “Final Cut”/”Last Exit”/”Memorial Beach" is an attempt at a series of concluding remarks within the project divisions are resolved within a comprehensive Deleuzoguattarian structural system - evolving to be primarily defined in terms of two “active" processes/movements which engage theory and explanation, practice and application respectively, being therefore both a philosophical /academic debate while incorporating a high-level of “creative" experimentation. The first sections of the project detail an extensive series of explanatory “pathways/journeys” through the texts of Deleuze and Guattari with a view to indicating measures that can be deployed/utilized in a Deleuzoguattarian process of art/cultural analysis. Constructing the architectural pattern/”anatomy” of a series of interpretative surfaces to reflect the dimensions of the cultural material approached. The sections in the second part of the project enact a number of experimental designs, dispatching Deleuzoguattarian mechanisms in the body of the chosen cultural material. An interpretative surface is never under the influence of a single differentiated flow it constitutes the mutual boundary of numerous adjacent flows. The same interpretative surface is therefore available to be understood in as many different ways as there are adjacent flows along its fractural surface. This project is essentially a speculative enterprise, a philosophical experiment whose aim is to enhance, enlarge and intensify our “knowledge" of the area defined, through a synthesis, here labelled as a “Deleuzoguattarian process of Art analysis”. For Deleuze, thought creates what it thinks, as perception creates what it perceives. The philosophical concept does not refer to the lived, but consists through its own creation, in setting up an event that surveys the whole of the lived no less than every state of affairs Deleuzoguattarian philosophy does not establish a relationship “between” philosophy and other disciplines, other ways of making sure, but eliminates this relationship to the advantage of a type of “greater philosophy” Thought/Philosophy thinks the sufficient reason of the actual in this manner. For Nietzsche, whose enterprise constitutes the base/departure for the Deleuzoguattarian program, “the world" we know lies in our interpretation of it. However, the task of interpretation is not to discover “truth" but to “create" it. According to Nietzsche, there is no “world-in-itself, no unconditioned and stable entities that await our discovery, but a dynamic and turbulent “becoming" in which the forms we perceive are not separate from our interpretations of them Because we are ourselves part of this becoming, there is no vantage point from which it is possible to gain the absolute/unconditioned knowledge that we have imbued with the idea of “truth”. The exercise merely becomes self-reflective. However, despite this skepticism, Nietzsche realizes that the game of truth is unavoidable, so therefore he, and In consequence we, departing/initiating the pathways through this project, have to cast in the role of the philosopher who knows what he invents and invents while he knows. In Postmodern Art no style dominates. Alternatively we experience endless improvisations and variations on themes, parody/playfulness. Postmodern artists are unabashedly eclectic and call attention to it, combining traditions borrowing from rituals and myths. All the world's cultural symbols are now available in the public domain - “SANTA CLAUS IS ON THE CROSS". The Deleuzoguattarian process of art delineated is a play with the game of “truth” and not an explanation of a “whole" a description of the network of the "dynamic”/fluid nature of our transitional relationship to it. It is the flow of energy that encompasses what Deleuze/Nietzsche refer to as “the whole" A flow invokes the dynamic/fluid nature of becoming, while energy/activity implies a potentiality - the inherent capacity and growth actuated by the will to power. The flows of energy are manifested into differentiated flows within flows, “Ad infinitum” and powered by the parameters of state space - a potential i.e field defined by the characteristics of the subject flows associated Nothing exists in isolation Differentiation exists only via relations to other flows in a dynamic/non linear network of resistances. (shrink)

Se analiza la importancia de Bataille en El Anti Edipo de Deleuze y Guattari, para mostrar la deuda o filiación entre la noción de “gasto improductivo” y la noción de “producción deseante”. Explicando el sentido de la primera en el marco de una economía general, se muestran afinidades entre dicha reflexión y la propuesta de D-G en AE, en relación con una lectura de la tesis marxiana sobre la identidad entre hombre y naturaleza. Se concluye con posibles inscripciones que los (...) trabajos de Bataille y de D-G pueden tener en la trayectoria del marxismo y del pensamiento contemporáneo. (shrink)

Resumen: La intención del presente artículo es reexaminar el concepto bergsoniano de Duración entendido como coexistencia de niveles de multiplicidad heterogéneos. Si bien dicho concepto ha sido pensado a partir de una comprensión que podría ser caracterizada como continuista, el mismo Bergson evitará confundir dicha continuidad con la idea de homogeneidad. Intentaremos mostrar que la determinación del concepto de Duración se alcanza al definirla como tensión o entrelazamiento entre sucesión y simultaneidad, y por consiguiente, como una multiplicidad que hace coexistir (...) diferentes flujos de duración. Para ello, Bergson propone la existencia de un Tiempo impersonal y único como base para la relación entre duraciones. Nuestra hipótesis es que esta misma situación puede entenderse mejor si se articula el concepto de ritmo en la obra de Deleuze, concepto ligado íntimamente a las nociones de duración y coexistencia. Mediante los movimientos de contracción, dilatación, reunión y división, el ritmo opera junto a las duraciones disponiéndose como un campo de relación, pudiendo ocupar el lugar que había sido asignado al Tiempo único.: The aim of this paper is to reevaluate the Bergsonian concept of durée, understood as a coexistence of heterogeneous levels of multiplicity. Although this concept has been thought of from a point of view that could be characterized as "continuist", Bergson himself avoids confusing this continuity with the idea of ​​homogeneity. We will try to show that the determination of the concept of durée is reached by defining it as a tension or interlacement between succession and simultaneity, and therefore as a multiplicity based on the coexistence of different flows of duration. Bergson proposes the existence of an impersonal and unique time as the basis for the relationship between durations. Our proposal is that this same situation can be better understood through the concept of rhythm as articulated in Deleuze's work, a concept closely linked to the notions of Durée and coexistence. Through the movements of contraction, dilation, reunion, and division, rhythm operates along with the available durations as a field of relation, being able to occupy the place that had been assigned to unique time. (shrink)

De modo semelhante aos rompantes etnocêntricos de uma cultura humana frente a outras, as relações entre humanos e primatas não humanos incluem um estranhamento pontuado por atração e repulsa, identificação e diferença. Ciência, arte e mitologia são a expressão viva e atualizada disso. Desde 1960, a primatologia destaca-se nesse cenário por contribuir significativamente na revisão das definições sobre o comportamento dos primatas e, consequentemente, na redefinição do humano ao apresentar a polêmica proposição de existência de "culturas" entre animais não humanos. (...) Assim, a aproximação entre humanos e primatas não humanos parece inexorável e irreversível. Isso implica, por exemplo, em cogitar se esse processo engendra, ou não, a constituição de novas alteridades a partir de um novo outro (não humano), carregado de significados. Isso incluiria, por exemplo, a reformulação de representações e de categorias de classificação, bem como o aprofundamento do debate sobre os direitos dos animais não humanos. Ao dirigir tal tipo de desafio a situações de pesquisa antropológica deve-se ter aguda consciência de que o registro etnográfico das relações entre humanos e os outros primatas será uma construção empírica, perceptual e teórica. Dado o tipo particular de relação estabelecida entre humanos e outros primatas, pautada em um universo fronteiriço de incômodas semelhanças e diferenças, constituem-se aí coletivos híbridos em que o alcance e a profundidade das interações possíveis ainda são desconhecidos. The relations between humans and non-human primates resemble the ethnocentric reaction of one human culture in relation to others, and include an estrangement marked by attraction and rejection, identification and differentiation. Art, science and myths are the vivid and updated expression of these phenomena. Since the 1960's primatology stands out in that scenario for contributing significantly to the revision of the definitions about the behavior of primates and, consequently, for the redefinition of human beings, and for making the controversial proposal of the existence of non-human animal "cultures". Then, the close connection between humans and non-human primates seems relentless and irreversible - and raises the question on whether or not these processes engender a new kind of otherness deriving from a non-human other that is full of meaning. This would include, for example, the reformulation of the representations and categories of classification, as well as deepening the debate about the rights of non-human animals. When the challenge is taken up in situations of anthropological research that address the relationships between human beings and the other primates, the ethnographic register that describes the relations between human beings and other primates will be an equally sharp empirical, perceptual and theoretical construction. Given the peculiar type of relationship established between human beings and other primates, implemented in a frontier universe of uncomfortable similarities and differences, they constituted a hybrid collective where interactions are possible but we do not know exactly how complex or how depth they are. (shrink)

Focused on manifestation, semiotics has nevertheless constantly considered its surroundings, the imaginary that makes the image and gives it meaning. The article tries to problematize this relationship. It separates the picture from its imaginary share, the image, and seeks to support its general propositions on plastic analyzes, a painting by Francis Bacon, an installation by Abdelkader Benchamma and another installation by Adrien M and Claire B. It focuses on reductions and the tipping points of the picture, where the “opening” occurs, (...) striving for a structuring of its proposals. It thus instructs both sides of the enunciation, an enunciation centered on the visible and an invisible enunciation still premeditated by the enunciation. (shrink)

This article was first published in City, Territory and Architecture, volume 5, Article number : 4 under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. We thank the authors for the permission to republish it here.: The recent, rich scholarship on rhythms, following in the wake of Lefebvre's book Éléments de rythmanalyse, proves that rhythmanalysis is an important sensitising notion and research technique. Despite its increasing recognition, - Urbanisme – Nouvel article.

In the aftermath of the Spanish War, the Catalan philosopher Eugeni d'Ors and the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset offered a reading of Einstein’s theory of relativity in which discussions of unity and plurality connected their respective synthetic philosophies and nationalist projects of political and cultural analysis and reform. Besides their philosophical views, references to Einstein tracked their territorial concerns and personal circumstances in the relations between Catalonia, Spain and Europe. Einstein’s theory symbolized the saving connection between the classical (...) and the modern, Europe and the Mediterranean, and science and philosophy. In this paper I focus on the case of Ors in relation to Catalan nationalism and the project he called Noucentismeand the case of Ortega in relation to Spanish nationalism and his political philosophy in España Invertebrada. (shrink)

I introduce and compare Russian and Japanese notions of community and space. Some characteristic strains of thought that exist in both countries had similar points of departure, overcame similar problems and arrived at similar results. In general, in Japan and Russia, the nostalgia for the community has been strong because one felt that in society through modernization something of the particularity of one's culture had been lost. As a consequence, both in Japan and in Russia allusions to the German sociologist (...) Ferdinand Tönnies' book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft are frequent. In the end I associate the Japanese as well as the Russian ideas with neo-Darwinian versions of the theme of evolution as it has been developed by Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. (shrink)

The intertwining of landscape and face belongs to human spatial epistemology: as suggested by Matteo Meschiari, primitive humans used to orientate themselves in landscape through recognition of facial patterns. By reflecting upon Marlen Haushofer’s novel The Wall (Die Wand), the article aims to question the semantic of the “face of the landscape” in the wake of an imagined nuclear apocalypse that leaves behind a cat, a cow, a dog, a woman and a wall. The wall transcends the boundaries between human (...) and other-than-human: in terms of Roberto Marchesini, it creates a somato-landscape – a hybridization of inner and outer landscapes typical of post-human awareness. Finally, such a landscape culminates in the dismissal of the pre-apocalyptic culture of the face: faces no longer function as a means of recognition. (shrink)

In the deep joint work Deleuze-Guattari there is the demand of consider it as a political theory of literature, a literary politics. The following paragraphs, to some extent respond to that demand, enroll the Deleuze-Guattari micropolitics in a concatenation between the revolutionary and artistic machines, in this case, literary. Considering this conjecture, in this article we propose to address the relationships between the concept of minor literature, the spatial dynamics and the informative order.

Hastings reads the novel Comme dans un film des frères Coen by Bertrand Gervais as addressing both the midlife and the blank page crisis. Indeed, the main character of this novel is a writer in his fifties who still suffers from the failure of his last novel ignored by the critics. Disenchanted, he slowly enters a world of fantasy, and falls in love with the voice of his GPS he called Gwyneth “parle trop” therefore recalling the name of the actress (...) with the same name. He gradually loses contact with his wife and his son, a successful painter, and is transformed into “the man who was not there” another character from a movie by the Coen brothers entitled The Barber: the man who was not there. Hastings asks: How could one get lost with a GPS? After the main character had initially bought his GPS for a trip in Australia in order to find his way, it started to go beyond its role as a road guide and questioned where he was in his relationship with his wife, in his career as a writer, and in his skin as a mature man. Not only was the GPS not fulfilling its purpose but also it started to ruin a fragile relationship hoping to find its way back to love during a last minute trip in Australia. Even after destroying the annoying talkative GPS, it continued to disrupt the couple in the plane on the way back to Canada. As much as Gwyneth the GPS is synonymous with escape and freedom, it is also showing the main character the wrong way, the way out of his reality, out of his family and out of his life. His attempts to free himself from Gwyneth are worthless, her image is still there, haunting his thoughts like images from a movie. But the displacement happens at another level than just the diegetic one. The confrontation of the text with moving images has consequences on the shape of the text itself. The mapping of the text on the page is influenced by this amalgam. The white page becomes a space where words are rearranged in different ways, some of which suggest poetry, other cartoons or cinematic images. The displacement of literature in areas that were previously foreign to it is at the heart of creative activity, and determines its renewal. Hastings presents the consequences resulting from the confrontation with the GPS, both on the mapping of one’s identity as well as the mapping and the shaping of the text itself. (shrink)

El ensayo siguiente consiste en una reinterpretación de la obra de Frantz Fanon a partir de la problemática biopolítica iniciada por Michel Foucault. Se analizan los procesos a través de los cuales las vidas de los colonizados se determinan como inhumanas, y se insertan dentro de un "lenguaje de pura violencia", es decir de una red de poderes violentos, soberanos y totalizantes. Fanón va a pensar una puesta en jaque de aquel estado de excepción permanente colonial a partir de la (...) violencia misma, ya que se tratara para él de transformar, sobre la práctica de las luchas, la violencia en ejercicio del descubrimiento de la verdad. In this essay we approach Franz Fanon's work from a biopolitical standpoint as initiated by Michel Foucault. We analyze the processes that lead to the notion of colonized people's life as less than human with a "language of pure violence", that is, within a network of violent powers at the same time sovereign and totalizing. Fanón intends to check that permanent "state of emergency" of the colonies by means of violence itself, since fighting can be transformed from violence alone to the fight for the discovery of truth. (shrink)

The collection Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference brings together a range of new philosophical engagements with mathematics, using the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as its focus. Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics in order to reconfigure particular philosophical problems and to develop new concepts. These alternative conceptual histories also challenge some of the self-imposed limits of the discipline of mathematics, and suggest the possibility of forging new connections (...) between philosophy and more recent developments in mathematics. This component of Deleuze’s work has, to date, been rather neglected by commentators working in the field of Deleuze studies. One of the aims of this collection is to address this critical deficit by providing a philosophical presentation of Deleuze’s relation to mathematics; one that is adequate to his project of constructing a philosophy of difference and to the exploration of some of its applications. This project developed as a result of encounters with an increasing number of researchers who have been working on the mathematical aspects of Deleuze’s work and the key role that these play in his philosophy. By bringing this work together for the first time, this collection makes an important contribution to the emerging body of work that endeavours to explore the broad range of Deleuze’s philosophy. (shrink)

The paper identifies three recent lines of interpretation of the politics that can be derived from Deleuze and Guattari, all of which share a way of reading the dualisms in their work that can be traced back to how they understand the actual/virtual partition, and to an alleged pre-eminence of the virtual over the actual. It is argued that this reading is not only inaccurate, but obscures the political dimension of Deleuze and Guattari's work. Clarifying the latter requires a reinterpretation (...) of the dualisms involved (as dyads rather than binaries), of the relation between virtual and actual (as a formal distinction where one acts back upon the other), and the drawing of a clear distinction between what Deleuze calls a ‘transcendent exercise’ of thought and sensibility and the properly metaphysical exercise that sets up the distinction between virtual and actual. What then appears is an image of Deleuze's and Guattari's thought that is far more concerned with practical questions and with a situated political practice of intervention. (shrink)

Contemporary capitalism is in effect, if not in intent, Deleuzian. As a network of networks, it is rhizomatic, flexible, chaosmotic, evolving, expanding. In the negativist spirit that characterizes the work of the Frankfurt School, this article shows via an analysis of the goverment of the self, the commodification of culture and the modification of nature, how contemporary capitalism does colonize not only the life-world but also life itself.

This paper sets out a series of critical contrasts between Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of the event. It does so in the context of some likely objections to their positions from a broadly analytic position. These objections concern problems of individuation and location in space-time. The paper also explains Deleuze and Badiou's views on the event through a literary application on a short story by John Cheever. In conclusion it is argued that both thinkers have good answers to (...) the objections, but that they diverge on the ontological commitments of their definitions of the event. (shrink)