razorsmile :: philosophy//magic //revolution

Category: for my students

  • Entering the conversation of Deleuze

    Entering the conversation of Deleuze

    I discussed, in the seminar of the 17th, some of the difficulties we have in approaching the text Difference and repetition, not least amongst these the inherent sense of a ‘conversation being overheard’, something I think is interestingly shown in the essay ‘The method of dramatisation’ in which Deleuze presents some of the central concepts of DR to the French academy (I will be examining this essay in more depth in the Volcanic Lines seminar on Monday 22nd). There’s a lovely description of this ‘overhearing of a conversation’ contained in a quote on the following blog…philosophy.com

    This notion of an ongoing conversation that Deleuze is engaged in has a number of pertinent implications. Firstly, if we simply accept that it is the case, then the identification of the various positions that are being discussed is crucially important to developing a critical understanding of Deleuze’s ideas in DR – such as the work on gens/species that we’ll be looking at with regard Aristotle. Secondly, if we question why Deleuze presents like this – aside from the ‘historical’ approach that was part of his academic-cultural background – then we might want to say that it is in part because to present, as an objective observer and assessor, philosophical arguments is always to present an object (such as a concept or argument) as fixed and clear, as identifiable for assessment. This assumes, of course, something like an ‘ideal object’ that can be identified and understood. If, as we might suggest is the case for Deleuze, a concept in fact arises from a struggle or inter-play of more than one idea, then to grasp the concept we in some sense have to re-enact the inter-play (the ‘field’) from which the concept derives. We need to contextualise it, though not historically but conceptually. In fact, even the context is not enough, we somehow have to re-animate the concept in order to find its limits and virtues, ‘what it can do’. The issue of judgement becomes less crucial than the animation of a set of problems in which the concepts make sense, precisely as ‘differences that make a difference’. It is this task that forms the ‘method of dramatisation’ in which we have to do more than merely describe (interpret) a concept from outside but where we must, instead, find the problem (situation or case, the ‘scene’, if we were to pursue the metaphor from drama), animate the characters involved in the problem (the various concepts) and then understand the inter-play between these characters in the specific scene. Through doing this we open up both an understanding of the philosophical problems a concept is responding to as well as open up a space for critical response in the form of creating other dynamics or differences from those that already exist.

  • Phenomenology and the content of thought

    So in Lecture 2 I talked about the act/content distinction and the way it’s set-up within Husserl, with a view to understanding the critical role of a thought-content for our later investigations into Husserl’s phenomenological method. These are notes from that lecture and are a quite quick and ‘formalised’ account of Husserl. In other words, the account I’m presenting is a specific version intended to guide us in our reading – it is not a detailed nor a particularly critical account. There could be some radical alternatives found in other presentations and there are a number of features – notably to do with what we might call ‘linguistic referentials’ or ‘things the words refer to’ – that I’m glossing over quite heavily here. The point of lectures like this is not to give you a full and finished account but to open up the texts for you to read yourself and develop a critical understanding of. If something I’m saying here and something you think after reading Husserl doesn’t seem to match then ask in the seminars. We will also be returning to some of the same distinctions numerous times as we fill in our understanding through the ongoing discussion of Husserl and the Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty’s development of phenomenology in their own directions.

    Let’s begin then by recalling the elements Husserl draws from Franz Brentano. (Here I am drawing on an account given in the book Husserl by David Bell, Routledge 1990 – for further reading you are welcome to turn here, in particular to the first section of Bell’s book ‘Prolegomenon’).

    Remember, Husserl’s two big influences are the foundations of mathematics (what makes it secure and certain as a form of knowledge) and the newly forming science of psychology. Brentano, then, is part of the psychological legacy within Husserl. Brentano argued that:

    • CLAIM1: all phenomena are mental phenomena
    • CLAIM2: mental phenomena are acts with content

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  • Phenomenology and the question of ‘the given’ – notes from lecture 1 (part1)

    Phenomenology begins with the work of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). His project develops out of an attempt to understand the basis of mathematics as well as an engagement with the (at that time) newly formed science of psychology. Philosophically, however, it can be seen as a critical point in the development of philosophy. From Descartes onwards, modern philosophy was dominated by something we can refer to as the ‘Epistemological Project’. As its name suggests, this placed the emphasis of philosophy on discovering the forms of knowledge (epistemology – theory of knowledge), but it did this with certain commonly agreed preconceptions. The ‘Epistemological Project’ refers to the attempt to discover the forms of knowledge by searching for two key things:

    • Foundations
    • Certainty (the ‘quest for certainty‘, a notion derived from John Dewey’s work ‘The question of certainty’ from 1935)

    Descartes ‘cogito’, for example, is proposed as an answer to the epistemological problem because Descartes thinks he has discovered the foundation of all knowledge in the certainty of the ‘cogito ergo sum’. The method of doubt reveals that the concern is with certainty in that it rejects anything that can be doubted precisely because it can be doubted. It was not, however, simply the rationalists who were part of the ‘Epistemological Project’ – the empiricists, from Hume onwards, were also constrained by similar concerns even though their attempt to resolve the problems of knowledge used radically different methods.

    Both rationalists and empiricists are located inside the ‘Epistemological Project’ through their concept of ‘the given’ (ie; something that is ‘given to us’ rather than ‘created by us’ and thus liable to distortion by opinion). Something is needed, goes the argument, that can be taken as the ‘absolutely given’ and thus the starting point for building up our knowledge. This ‘given’ is to be found, the rationalists and empiricists think, by examining subjective appearances – in other words, by examining that which is given to the subject.

    • For Descartes and the rationalists the given is thoughts
    • For Hume and the empiricists the given is impressions or sensations

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  • logos, phusis and appearance/s: notes on reading Heidegger’s ‘Introduction to metaphysics’

    logos, phusis and appearance/s: notes on reading Heidegger’s ‘Introduction to metaphysics’

    This is nothing more than some reading notes – primarily for the students of my Heidegger class at Greenwich University, though they may be of interest to others. They’re not intended to be a thorough interpretation, nor to engage with secondary literature, but were the basis of my lecture given on December 12th. The class had been requested to do a section analysis of this passage and these notes constitute, in effect, the basis of my own. Discussion is of course welcome provided these caveats are understood.

    Notes from pages 190-199, Heidegger; Introduction to metaphysics, trans. Fried and Polt, Yale Nota Bene 2000

    1) The first move (or, better, position) – that there is a disjunction between phusis and logos, a disjunction that is stated here but the grounds of which would be found elsewhere in the text – for example, pp186-7 and the connection that is drawn there between logos and the Being of the human being/Being (that is, both the way in which we are as well as the individual beings that we are). The claim locates the beginning of a ‘movement’ in the history of Being. At the beginning of the disjunction between logos and phusis, logos is not set against Being, it does not “step up” as a court of justice. Logos initially has no power of determination or judgement when it comes to understanding Being, it cannot – or does not – judge what Being is. We cannot – at the inception of the understanding of Being – simply judge what has Being through using language (that is, we cannot decide what exists, what is real or what is true simply within and through language – although these terms such as ‘real’, ‘exists’ and true’, whilst more easily appealing to a ‘common sense’, hide within themselves a lot of presuppositions). However, one aspect of language – reason, logic, the ‘logy, the ‘science of…’ – begins to assert itself, begins to assert its’ right to judge Being and eventually reinterprets phusis, a reinterpretation we now live within – for example, the opposition between the physical and the psychical arises as a result of the reinterpretation of Being and is not a universal but a specific historical moment in the history of Being. The process of reinterpretation is, in effect, the history of Being and is the movement that is being examined within ITM.

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  • Kierkegaard philosophy carnival

    I’ve been off ill for a couple of weeks, bad enough to have to cancel last weeks set of lectures (apologies to students but unavoidable I’m afraid), though during that time there was of course the usual ongoing work which I’m now catching up on. Amongst the things that need doing is passing on news of the new Kierkegaard Philosophy Carnival which should be of interest for my ‘existentialism and phenomenology’ (EP) students. I have a post in the carnival, one where I discuss ‘the work of faith’ – something I focussed on in one of my lectures and which I find quite a fascinating theme within Kierkegaards’ existential.

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  • ‘Everyone’s right’ : a useful reminder of the principle of charity

    ‘Everyone’s right’ : a useful reminder of the principle of charity

    As I keep telling my students, one of the main skills of philosophy is the ability to read well.  Along with logic, this art of reading forms perhaps the most basic of philosophical skills…trying to hear what an author is saying often relies upon the ‘principle of charity’.  There’s this interesting quote I came across today whilst I was going through some notes of mine from a course I delivered a couple of years ago (a third year philosophy of mind course at Wolverhampton University) – it’s from Brian Cantwell Smith:

    “Everyone’s right.  Or anyway that’s what I tell my students.  ‘Look’ I say, ‘this paper you are reading was written by a dedicated, intelligent person, who has devoted their life to studying these issues.  The author’s had an insight, uncovered some subtelty, which they’re trying to tell us about.  Imagine that they’re showing us a path through the forest.  Problem is, people write in words; and words are blunt instruments: intellectual bulldozers … big bruisers, that cut wide swathes …

    ‘So here’s my advice’ I go on. ‘Don’t assume this text is written in a language you know, and take your task to be one of figuring out whether what they’ve written is true or false.  You will almost certainly judge it false.  Be more generous!  Assume what you are reading is true, and tell me what language it is written in … tell me, if we were to follow their path further, where would it lead” – p.170; Philosophy of mental representation, ed. H.Clapin; Oxford 2002.

    Good advice…