El proyecto transhumanista de mejoramiento humano viene proponiendo ya desde hace tiempo una superación de los límites humanos que nos permita convertirnos en una nueva especie. A pesar de que dicha posibilidad es todavía lejana en la práctica, las hipótesis han invadido la ciencia ficción y están generando la imagen colectiva de lo que se considera posible o, incluso, deseable. Al mismo tiempo en la ciencia ficción esos desarrollos artificiales se llevan hasta sus últimos límites y se ponen en cuestión. (...) En el presente estudio se revisan las tensiones en relación con el posthumanismo que aparecen en la serie de ficción Westworld. En concreto, el artículo estudia cómo se desarrolla en ella el concepto de identidad, uno de los que más están cambiando en nuestra época. El análisis revela la necesidad de abordarlo desde un punto de vista complejo, en el que se dé una importancia especial a la vivencia personal, tanto desde el punto de vista corporal como psicológico para el despertar de la conciencia. A su vez, dichos elementos se mostrarán esenciales para comprender la propuesta de identidad narrativa que subyace en la serie. Por todo ello, los planteamientos de Westworld suponen una interesante reflexión sobre cómo se concibe la identidad hoy en día. (shrink)

The concept of second nature has a long and complex history, having been widely employed by several philosophers and even scientists. In recent times, the most famous thinker who has employed the concept of second nature, and has actually grounded his philosophical program precisely on this notion, is probably John McDowell. However, it is also possible to find some occurrences of the concept of second nature, “zweite Natur”, in Nietzsche’s writings, both published and unpublished. In this contribution I will develop (...) a discussion of this important topic, the nature of the human being, in Nietzsche and McDowell, and attempt to establish a comparison between them on the basis of this concept. It is the guiding idea of this article that McDowell’s “Naturalism of Second Nature”, though representing one of the most original and indeed ambitious philosophical programs today, actually suffers from some problems in defining the peculiar nature of the human being, and that referring to some of Nietzsche’s ideas on this topic may be of help in order to broaden and strengthen McDowell’s own philosophical perspective. There is almost no reference to Nietzsche in McDowell’s several philosophical works, notwithstanding his great interest in, and his careful attention to, other authors belonging to the tradition of modern German philosophy, and nobody has inquired yet into the potential Nietzsche/McDowell relationship. The paper will trace the development of certain philosophical-anthropological insights from 19th- and 20th-century German thought up to the present age, and provide an original and relevant contribution both to the specific field of Nietzsche studies and to the more general domain of inquiries into contemporary philosophical problems. Comparing the ideas of Nietzsche/ McDowell on the question concerning the nature of the human being relationship is intriguing from a philosophical point of view and may lead to a better understanding of this subject and disclose new perspectives in this field. There is a lot of philosophical insight to be gained in comparing these two figures. (shrink)

This paper argues that Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy attempts to reopen the question of human transcendence in contemporary terms. While his conception of language as self-transcending is deeply Husserlian, Ricoeur also responds to the analytical challenge when he deploys a basic distinction in Fregean logic in order to clarify Heidegger’s phenomenology of world. Ricoeur’s commitment to a transcendental view is evident in his conception of narrative, which enables him to emphasize the role of the performative in literary reading. The meaning (...) of the self in time provides Ricoeur with a discursive basis for distinguishing his own position from that of Kant and other philosophers in the transcendental tradition. (shrink)

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first, I indicate some aspects of the analytic -continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and philosophy' plays in it. In the second part, I give a (...) short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy. I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss how the themes of individuality, freedom and education are articulated in Stirner's thought. It begins with a brief history of Stirner's reception. Next, the paper analyzes the subversion of Hegelian dialectics and the critique of Feuerbach's and Marx's atheistic humanism, which remain linked to Christian theology by deifying an abstract human essence. Then, the focus shifts to Stirnerian nominalism and its criticism of God, State, humanity and society as ideological constructs that dominate the concrete individual. (...) Finally, the paper analyzes the proposal of a new ethics and a new education, based on the singularity of the mortal and corporeal self. (shrink)

The paper deals with the conditions of the possible renewal of the “Constitutio libertatis” project on the basis of the 20th-century experience. The global political conflict, resulted in severe intellectual confrontation, produced the split of philosophy into two isolated movements: the “continental” and the “analytical” movements, each promoting its own logic of thinking. The paper shows the influence of this fundamental philosophical schism on the key versions of the contemporary political philosophy. A new formulation for the main political problem emerges (...) pointing to the mutual untranslatability of the languages of freedom and of justice. The two languages are traceable to the two competing philosophical logics, those of difference and of representation. The notion of “form of life”, used politically by Plato and analyzed logically by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, is introduced as a conceptual basis for a new political theory that should solve the main political problem. Finally, some basic propositions are discussed, that should be observed in trying to resume the project of the “Constitutio libertatis”. It is shown that the negative definition of the concept of freedom must be abandoned. Freedom has a certain logical form, but it does not logically imply that various forms of life, with their liberties expressed through various logical forms, inevitably come into mutual conflict. The foundation of the “Constitutio libertatis” is based on the autonomous “forms of life” and is justly distributed throughout a complex non-Cartesian texture of political reality. (shrink)

A PARTIR DE UM DIÁLOGO COM ALGUMAS INTERPRETAÇÕES CONSAGRADAS DE NIETZSCHE, ESTE ARTIGO DEFENDE A CENTRALIDADE DA NOÇÃO DE INDIVÍDUO NO PERSPECTIVISMO NIETZSCHIANO, SUGERINDO COM ISSO A SUA FILIAÇÃO AO PROJETO CRÍTICO KANTIANO. TRATA-SE DE UMA LEITURA QUE SE DEIXOU INSPIRAR, EM GRANDE MEDIDA, NAS INTERPRETAÇÕES DE FRIEDRICH KAULBACH E ANTONIO MARQUES.

This paper comments on ‘Critique and Negativity: Towards the Pluralisation of Critique in Educational Practice, Theory and Research’ by Dietrich Benner and Andrea English. Negativity is a disquieting ghost for teachers, educational researchers, administrators and other professionals of this field, including those involved in the design of policy. First, I make some remarks in response to the essay by Benner and English in order to draw attention to the importance of dealing with negativity. Second, I introduce a further problematisation of (...) negativity: I deal with the practical issues that emerge from the conceptual reactivation of negativity and the possible consequences that result from this in the context of teaching graduate seminars. I am especially concerned with the ways in which negativity is inscribed in the process of knowledge production (that is, research), and in the possible consequences of subscribing to one or the other concept of negativity (teleological negativity, parasitic negativity, and relational negativity as the sine qua non condition for any ontology). Lastly, I raise some points for discussion with regard to certain possible consequences of the use of one or another notion of negativity in teaching and research. (shrink)

La première préface à l’Histoire de la folie est un texte riche qui propose une conception originale de la culture : celle-ci se définirait non par ce qu’elle affirme, mais par ce qu’elle rejette. Or, s’il existe une littérature secondaire qui en fait mention, la préface n’est presque jamais traitée pour elle-même. Nous pensons pourtant qu’en plus d’offrir une conception de la culture, elle permet de penser l’œuvre et la folie à travers une certaine confrontation, à savoir celle entre la (...) dialectique et le tragique. C’est en suivant cette confrontation, voulue par Foucault, que nous dégagerons les points forts de la préface. On se demandera, enfin, si Foucault, dans ce texte, dispose des moyens pour mener la véritable confrontation des « dialectiques de l’histoire » ou si, comme le pensait Derrida, il ne s’agit que d’une contestation de l’ordre rationnel. (shrink)

Resumen Propongo interpretar la inversión de Deleuze del platonismo como la creación de conceptos nuevos a partir de elementos teóricos tomados de la filosofía del propio Platón. En primer lugar, consideraré el origen nietzscheano de la inversión y su interpretación heideggeriana, de la cual, creo, Deleuze se vale para ciertos argumentos. En segundo lugar, me basaré en la hipótesis de Francis Wolff e Isabelle Ginoux de que la filosofía platónica tiene un carácter ambiguo en la obra deleuziana para analizar esa (...) ambigüedad en términos de la pregunta por los elementos positivos que Deleuze rescata para la creación de una nueva imagen del pensamiento.I propose to interpret the deleuzian reversal of Platonism as the creation of new concepts from the same elements the French philosopher extracts from Plato’s thought. To justify this I will first examine the nietzschean origins of the reversal as well as Heidegger’s interpretation of it, which I think inspires Deleuze. Then, based on the works of Francis Wolff and Isabelle Ginoux, I will explore the ambiguity of Plato’s role in Deleuze’s philosophy, especially in those elements he recovers and exploits to build a new image of thought. (shrink)

Through a reading of Nietzsche's texts, primarily of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this article develops a phenomenological description of the variety of intoxication exemplified in conditions of drunkenness, or in states of emotional excess. It treats Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a literary expression of such intoxication, arguing against attempts to find a coherent narrative structure and clear authorial voice behind this text's apparent disorder. Having isolated the intoxicated characteristics of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - its hyperbolic rhetoric and emotions, its lack of (...) balance, its injustice, its shifting and conflicting moods, and its self-contradictions - I then offer an interpretation of the work, and by extension of intoxication itself, in terms of Nietzsche's model of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of forces. At the same time, I argue for a multiple and dynamic conception of personality in general. (shrink)

Nietzsche is considered by Deleuze one of the philosophers who most critical efficacy contradicts the classical conception of thought as search for truth and exercise of love for truth. This article analyzes the significance for Deleuze of Nietzsche's opposition to the philosophical tradition in that sense. The believe that thinking wants and loves the truth is also the believe that we are away from the action of foreign forces thought (from the body, passions, interest, etc.). Thus Deleuze shows how these (...) forces involved in thought itself refers to the forces underlying it as thought. (shrink)

RESUMO A ética é um tema constante na obra de Gilles Deleuze, ainda que aparentemente não figure como assunto principal de nenhum de seus livros. Isso se explica, pois, para ele, a filosofia prática, formada pela ética e pela política, é coextensiva a toda a filosofia. Por um lado, não há um aspecto puramente teórico ou especulativo da filosofia; por outro lado, a ética não é uma dentre outras disciplinas filosóficas, mas a sua dimensão prática e sempre presente, não havendo (...) qualquer motivo para que seja tratada em separado. Sendo assim, abordar a ética em Deleuze exige percorrer todos os seus escritos e escolher uma chave de leitura. Aqui, pretende-se explorar como Deleuze lança as bases para a sua própria concepção de ética a partir da grande identidade Spinoza-Nietzsche produzida por ele. Propõe-se uma fórmula para a ética em Deleuze: um corpo que experimenta e avalia. Dessa fórmula, destaca-se o primeiro eixo a ser trabalhado: a ética deleuziana como ética do corpo. O segundo eixo é a importante oposição entre ética e moral. O terceiro, a relação entre ética e ontologia. E o quarto e último eixo, a formação ética como aprendizado contínuo. ABSTRACT Ethics is a constant theme in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, even though it does not seem to figure as the main subject in his books. This happens because, according to him, practical philosophy - formed both by ethics and politics - is coextensive to philosophy as a whole. On the one hand, there is no purely theoretical or speculative philosophy; on the other hand, ethics is not one amongst other philosophical disciplines, but its practical and always present dimension, there being no reason to be treated separately. Thus, to approach ethics in Deleuze’s thought means to go through all his writings to choose one key. The aim of this paper is to explore how Deleuze launches what he calls a great Spinoza-Nietzsche identity as the key, the basis for his conception of ethics. A formula is proposed for ethics in Deleuze’s philosophy: a body that experiments and evaluates. From this formula, a first axis to be worked is highlighted: Deleuzean ethics as a body ethics. The second axis lies on the important opposition between ethics and morals. A third axis is the relation between ethics and ontology. Finally, a fourth and last axis is ethical formation understood as continuous apprenticeship. (shrink)

This essay focuses on and attempts to uncover the truly radical character of Nietzsche’s early “philological” work, specifically asking after the benefit he claims the study of classical culture should have for our present, late-modern historical moment. Taking up his study of the Pre-Platonic thinkers in 1873’s Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen , the first section analyzes Nietzsche’s statement that history’s principle task is the uncovering of Persönlichkeiten . I argue that it is not at all the subjective character (...) of a psychologized individual that Nietzsche has in mind, but rather the moment of persönliche Stimmung or ‘being attuned’ to the world, which grounds and gives rise to thinking. In the second section, I show that the phusis or ‘nature’ to which the thinker is exposed in this attunement is comparable to the tension between the Dionysian and Apollonian natural forces in tragic poetry, as Nietzsche understands it. This dynamic conception of phusis does not provide a metaphysical substrate or an objectively real ground to which we might return via that Greeks, but is rather essentially phenomenal , i.e. it is nothing other than the movement into and out of appearance, which always entails and requires its reception by the human being to whom it appears. In the final section of the essay, this origin proves for Nietzsche not to be located in a distant past moment. Rather, it is the abyssal origin of the tradition that is always already effective in our present moment, informing our contemporary conceptions of our world and ourselves. (shrink)

The present paper investigates Nietzsche’s theory of power. The first part analyses the concept of will to power, understood as a synthesis of the multiplicity of forces. The connection between the will to power and interpretation is dealt with at length in the second chapter of this text. Interpretation means domination, organization, the adjustment of something in view of its usefulness to a dominant will to power, but also the creation of values, their infiltration into things, and not least the (...) internalization of the belief that values are universal, because through them, domination becomes effective. The next chapters of the text focus on the main strategies of domination, i.e. the internalization of values and the language. Since values are not only the most important tools of domination, but also the main lies and illusions of man, the language provides shortcuts for giving commands and for understanding them. (shrink)

Tras elaborar una versión de la Historia Universal motorizada por la producción deseante, Deleuze adoptó un viraje anti-historicista, desplazándose a los devenires no históricos y multiplicando perspectivas negativas sobre la historia. En el marco del debate entre quienes le adjudican posiciones exclusivamente anti-historicistas y quienes le atribuyen una filosofía de la historia o una metodología historicista, proponemos elucidar las críticas deleuzianas a la historia sirviéndonos de la distinción entre la historia como realidad objetiva y la disciplina histórica. Además, analizamos la (...) primacía otorgada a la filosofía sobre la historia a partir de su concepción del acontecimiento y su temporalidad. (shrink)

Cet article s’inscrit dans la lignée de précédents travaux visant à rapprocher l’entrepreneur schumpétérien et le surhumain nietzschéen. Les deux partagent une créativité pouvant s’interpréter comme l’extériorisation d’un surcroît de force qui, dans l’optique nietzschéenne, s’assimile à la source extra-morale de l’accroissement de la vie. Reste à savoir si le cadre dans lequel ils évoluent est le même. Au-delà d’une approche historique du cycle de la conjoncture, notre hypothèse est que l’approche philosophique d’un cycle du devenir s’avère être féconde pour (...) une interprétation enrichie du cycle de la conjoncture, complétant et prolongeant ainsi notre interprétation du surhumain et de l’entrepreneur. (shrink)

Deleuze considera a Fichte un moralista, que por tanto juzga con un criterio que trasciende el punto de vista del sujeto concreto y corporal. Sin embargo, teniendo en cuenta la doctrina de los impulsos presente en la _Sittenlehre_ de Fichte, es posible considerarlo ético en sentido deleuziano: el valor depende del aumento de potencia emergente de composiciones o armonías. Por otra parte, en Deleuze las leyes de composición y las relaciones constitutivas no son afirmadas dogmáticamente, sino como fruto de un (...) proceso genético rigurosamente determinado entre Ideas e intensidades individuantes. (shrink)

This article moves from the observation that one of the key characteristics of contemporary Italian fiction is a preoccupation with ethics and more specifically with the issues raised by the “ethical turn” in contemporary philosophy and theory. Current literary criticism, it is argued, has been slow to respond to the ethical dimension of these narratives whose innovative and important cultural contribution has yet to be fully appreciated. It is therefore necessary to develop a keener sensitivity to the ethical discourses developed (...) in these literary texts, but this can only be achieved by first confronting some fundamental questions about the relationship between ethics and literature today. The answers to these questions make it possible to elaborate an initial conceptual framework that can re-orient reading and enable the critic to respond adequately to the ethical issues raised in and by the narrative. Accordingly, in this article the author proposes to explore from a theoretical perspective the relationship between ethics and literature in the context of the historical and philosophical predicaments of contemporary society. The discussion is divided into two parts: the first is devoted to an exploration of contemporary ethical thinking, and the second on the contribution that literature can make to that thinking. In the first part, the author proposes an approach to ethics based on the virtue tradition which, since Aristotle, has defined ethics as the search for "the good life." This tradition, however, is transformed through an engagement with the work of Gilles Deleuze and Immanuel Levinas. From Deleuze the author draws the idea that the good life is one devoted to pursuing human plenitude through the multiplication of connections and intensities. From Levinas, on the other hand, emerges a powerfully haunting description of an ethical life marked by absolute responsibility for and obligation to the other. These two seemingly opposed views are not construed as irreconcilable and contradictory but rather as vectors which keep opposing tensions in check and ultimately define a necessary negotiation between the desire for human plenitude and the acknowledgement of responsibility for other human and non human life. Ultimately my argument is that such tensions establish the ethical terrain in which contemporary narratives seek to intervene. In the second part of the article, the nature and possibilities of such an intervention are explored through six theses which provocatively articulate the relationship between literature and ethics. The cornerstone thesis is that literature is an encounter. Each subsequent thesis endeavours to develop this initial assertion and explore its consequences. The theses are accompanied by a gloss which unfolds its meaning and significance: the answers that the given thesis provides but also the questions that it raises. Together, the theses provide a heuristic framework for a literary criticism sensitive to ethical issues and therefore capable of grappling with the important cultural work carried out in fictions that have struggled to receive the recognition they deserve. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo busca investigar possíveis significações da palavra “imagem”, que se depreendam dos textos de Deleuze sobre as artes, através de uma pesquisa filológica que respeita a cronologia de suas obras. Essa noção de imagem, fundamental para a Estética, aparece em seus comentários sobre Proust, o cinema, Bacon e Beckett, principalmente, seja com o uso do termo “imagem”, seja com os termos “signo” e “ideia”, àquele correlatos. Assim, verifica-se um vácuo na década de 70, de modo que, se a (...) noção de signo é estudada na década anterior, ao tratar de Proust, e a de ideia, em Diferença e repetição, o tema “imagem” é retomado nas duas décadas subsequentes com toda a intensidade, ao abordar a pintura de Bacon, o universo cinematográfico e a obra teatral e televisiva de Beckett.: The present article seeks to investigate possible meanings of the word “image” that can be deduced from Deleuze’s writings on the arts, respecting the chronology of his works. The notion of image, which is fundamental to aesthetics, appears in Deleuze’s comments on Proust, the cinema, Bacon, and Beckett, whether with the use of the term “image” or with the correlated terms “sign” and “idea”. Thus, there is found in Deleuze’s writings a vacuum in the 1970’s: the notion of sign is studied in the previous decade when dealing with Proust and the notion of idea in Difference and repetition, and the theme of image is intensely taken up again in the following two decades in dealing with Bacon’s painting, the cinematographic universe, and Beckett’s theater and television work. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the notion of monetary debt does not displace but merely conceals our deeper, ontological debt to the sources of our being and way of life. I suggest that first Christianity and then modern science attempted to find a means of redemption that could free us from debt, but that both were unable to reconcile the ideas of freedom and indebtedness. I then examine the way in which Friedrich Nietzsche tried to resolve the apparent contradiction (...) of our debt to the past and our freedom to shape the future by developing a new form of redemption rooted in his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. (shrink)

This thesis seeks to understand the nature of and relation between science and philosophy articulated in the early work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It seeks to challenge the view that Deleuze’s metaphysical and metaphilosophical position is in important part an attempt to respond to twentieth century developments in the natural sciences, claiming that this is not a plausible interpretation of Deleuze’s early thought. The central problem identified with such readings is that they provide an insufficient explanation of the (...) nature of philosophy’s contribution to the encounter between philosophy and science that they discern in Deleuze’s work. The philosophical, as opposed to scientific, dimension of the position attributed to Deleuze remains obscure. In chapter 1, it is demonstrated that this question of philosophy’s contribution to intellectual life and of how to differentiate philosophy from the sciences is a live one in Deleuze’s early thought. An alternative, less anachronistic interpretation of the parameters of Deleuze’s early project is offered. The remaining chapters of the thesis examine the early Deleuze’s understanding of the divergence between philosophy and science. Chapter 2 gives an account of Deleuze’s metaphilosophy, alongside a reconstruction of his largely implicit early understanding of science. The divergent intellectual processes and motivating concerns that account for Deleuze’s understanding of the differentiation of science and philosophy are thus clarified. In chapter 3, Deleuze’s use of mathematical and physical concepts is examined. It is argued that these concepts are used metaphorically. In chapter 4, the association between modern science and the Deleuzian concept of immanence that has been proposed by some Deleuze scholars is examined and ultimately challenged. The thesis concludes with some reflections on the significance of Deleuze’s early work for contemporary debates concerning the future of continental philosophy and the nature of philosophy more generally. (shrink)

‘À quoi sert la littérature?’, Deleuze opens his book on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with a question that this paper will pose again, trying to propose an answer to it, and to put to test the methodological approach that can be obtained from that answer: what are the uses of literature and, more specifically, how could the philosopher use literature, what could be done with it? To this end, this paper will focus on Deleuze’s symptomatological conception of literature. The second part (...) of the paper will be dedicated to the reading of two novels, 1984 by George Orwell and The Circle by Dave Eggers. The novels will be put in in a relation of resonation with two concepts sketched in Deleuze’s Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle: Foucauldian disciplinary societies and control societies. These novels will be considered as signaletic material, symptomatologies of two conditions of society, from which this paper proposes to extract two types of signs: Signs of Order and Signs of Suggestion. These signs will be made react with the concepts of Foucault and Deleuze, in order to see if they can produce the ground for a therapeutic. The paper will therefore combine literary symptomatologies and philosophical aetiology, in the attempt to make them react together, Foucault and Orwell, Eggers and Deleuze, to extract and describe signs from the literary material considered that may be brought to the fore only after the consideration of the causes of the most important symptoms of discipline and control. (shrink)

RESUMO O intuito deste artigo é estudar o objetivo principal da estética musical de Boulez, para o início das comemorações de seus 90 anos, desde certas categorias de Deleuze, considerando que elas nos permitem compreender e delinear uma lógica da sensação sonora. Se Deleuze se ocupou em detalhe do trabalho de Francis Bacon, por exemplo, a fim de criar uma "lógica da sensação visual" em que o conceito de "Figura" fosse central, propomos que o trabalho musical de Boulez, analisado a (...) partir do pensamento de Deleuze, possa mostrar os momentos decisivos de uma "lógica da sensação sonora." Por meio de alguns trabalhos de Boulez podemos ver dois elementos muito importantes para nossa pesquisa dados na estrutura instalada pela filosofia de Deleuze. Esses dois elementos que darão forma a este artigo são: as "figuras" da música e as "forças" do som expressivo. ABSTRACT This article aims to study the main objective of musical aesthetics of Boulez, to begin to commemorate 90 years, since certain categories of Deleuze, as they allow us to understand and outline a logic of sound sensation. If Deleuze worked in detail the work of Francis Bacon, for example, to create a "logic of visual sensation" where the concept of "Figure" is central, we propose that the musical work of Boulez, analyzed from Deleuze's thought, be possible to show the decisive moments of a "logic of sound sensation." Along some works by Boulez we can see two very important elements for our research in the framework installed Deleuze's philosophy are given. These two elements will shape this article are: the "figures" of music and the "forces" expressive sound. (shrink)

This article embodies the result of a collective work that seeks to understand the manner in which the notion of conflict is transformed by the attempt to apply it to reality, according to the doctrines hereby comprise as “ontologies of conflict”. It seems that there are three resulting “logics of conflict” which may receive the following qualifications: logic of contradiction, logic of contrariety and logic of difference.

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)

The ethics of designing has often been organised according to moral imperatives, and social design not only aligns with such moralities, but perpetuates them without providing a clear critique of the systems to which they adhere. To rid itself of such reactive ideologies, and so to create other conditions for the possibility of its creativity, social design might occupy itself with a different account of ethics altogether. This paper will seek to elucidate such a different ethics along the lines Baruch (...) Spinoza proposed and Gilles Deleuze championed. That is, it will therefore call for an affective designing that operates by creating ethical ontologies. This article will bring an affective, ethical, ontological design to bear on a social entity that emerges from the relations affectivity requires insofar as it is one that is designed. (shrink)