Deleuze and his Chiasmus

This excellent missive just over the transom from a long-time correspondent, the erudite Claude Boisson.  He is responding to yesterday's On Gilles Deleuze. 

Many French philosophers can surely be infuriating. They are to me too, even though I am French. In fact *because* I am French and I remember that there was a time when the French philosophers were not infatuated with Heidegger and did not try to ape his silly mannerisms. Why I mention Heidegger is explained below.

 

The French used to be praised for their clarity of expression. They are now known for their pretentious preciosity and complete lack of rigor. 

I agree entirely.

The empty chiasmus structure that you found in Deleuze (the A of B and the B of A) has indeed become fashionable in French academic writing, particularly in the literature departments.

 

Where does this fad come from? It is a fact that there has long been a rather strong rhetorical tradition in the French schools and universities. We have all been taught to write cleverly, as if we were all aspiring Voltaires. And this may conceal a lack of substance at times. 

 

But in the case of Deleuze, I suspect there may be another explanation. The post-war philosophical scene in France saw the rise of Hegel, Heidegger and Marx. And Heidegger was particularly influential in the so-called « khâgnes », which are preparations for the prestigious Ecole normale supérieure, which, de facto, does the piloting or philosophical studies in my highly centralised country. I won’t go into this extremely exotic system. 

 

So Heidegger may bear some responsibility for the love of chiasmus, at least that is my hunch. 

 

See for instance (italics in the original, as Heidegger seems to be quite pleased with himself for the profundity of his ‘thought’):

 

« Wahrheit bedeutet lichtendes Bergen als Grundzug des Seyns. Die Frage nach dem Wesen der Wahrheit findet ihre Antwort in dem Satz: das Wesen der Wahrheit ist die Wahrheit des Wesens » 

 

(Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, 1930, Gesamtausgabe Band 9, Anmerkung, page 201).

The reference checks out!  I just now re-read the Anmerkung in question. I have a whole shelf of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe in my personal library which I will defend with my AR-15 and Remington 870 should any Antifa/BLM thugs attempt to de-colonize or de-nazify it.  (Heidegger was a member of the the Nazi Party for a time.  Does that shock you? Then it should shock you that the later Sartre was a Stalinist.)

German post-Hegelian bullshit, if you want my opinion. 

I am now writing an amateurish monograph on Heidegger, and I have numerous passages devoted to Heidegger’s infamous sophistical tricks. Heidegger sure asks big questions, but he never answers them, so, instead, he keeps writing nonsense. On four-dimensional Zetilichkeit, Beyng, Lichtung, Ereignis, Geviert, das Nichts (Das Nichts ist das abgründig Verschiedene vom Seyn als Nichtung und deshalb? – seines Wesens), the whole lot, and more. 

 

Und deshalb !!!

While I sympathize with Professor Boisson's animadversions, I myself  do not consider Heidegger's work to be bullshit. Portentous, yes, and perhaps needlessly obscure in places; but he raises legitimate questions.  But to be able to follow him, you have to have done your 'homework' in Aristotle, the scholastics, Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl.   Sein und Zeit (1927), for example, blends transcendental philosophy, phenomenology, Lebensphilosophie, and existentialism in an assault on the being question raised by Aristotle as this question was transmitted to Heidegger by the dissertation Brentano wrote on Aristotle and the several senses of 'being' under Trendelenburg.  There is a lot going on, just as in the preceding sentence, but both make sense to those who are willing to put in the time.

 

Now the typical analytic philosopher simply won't do that. He will seize upon a passage taken out of context and proceed to mock and deride. What is not instantly comprehensible to them, they dismiss as meaningless.  I expand upon this theme,  with clarity and rigor, in Heidegger, Carnap, Das Nichts, and the Analytic-Continental Schism.

 

Germans are too serious and dour to be bullshitters in philosophy; I can't think of a well-known German philosopher who bullshits. The French, on the other hand . . . .  Amiel:

The thirst for truth is not a French passion. In everything, what appears is more relished than what is, the outside than the inside, the style than the stuff, the glittering than the useful, opinion than conscience. . . .

From Henri Frederic Amiel on the French Mind.

Academentia

The Mandatory Banality of University Presidents. Excerpt:

Outrage has been stirred. An “incomprehensible loss” (Bacow) has befallen us. “Anger, pain, and fear” (Casey) have been unleashed. Something must be done to bring about communities that are “truly safe, supportive, and inclusive for all” (Price). Worse, this killing comes on top of the epidemic that “has profoundly disrupted the lives of people worldwide” (Bacow) and we “know it is even more challenging to support and lift each other up during this global pandemic, with the added difficulty of social distancing” (Barron).

On Gilles Deleuze

Reader Hector C. poses a question:

What do you think of Gilles Deleuze? I have recently been reading Gabriel Marcel and it seems such a shame to me that such a brilliant writer should be nearly forgotten when the work of a poseur (as he seems to me) like Deleuze has become the basis of an academic industry. 

I'll take Marcel over Deleuze any day, although both display that typically French flabbiness of thought and expression that I find exasperating.    Here are some thoughts, perhaps a bit churlish, from about 15 years ago (27 May 2005, to be exact) that I just now found on an earlier version of this weblog. 

The Trouble with Continental Philosophy #2

Today’s example of objectionable Continental verbiage is taken from Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (tr. H. Tomlinson, 1983, first appeared in French in 1962). Before I begin, I want to say that this is a book worth reading. I read it fifteen years ago, and am re-reading parts of it now. A sympathetic reader will garner some insights and suggestions from it despite the Continental slovenliness.

What to Do if a Cop Stops You

The following advice can save your life, especially if you are an impulsive black not brought up to respect legitimate authority. And yes, the authority of the police is legitimate even if the particular cop you encounter is an arrogant asshole as some of them are.

Pull over when it is safe to do so. Roll down the driver's side window. Do not exit the vehicle! (That's cop talk for 'don't get out of the car.') Put both hands on the top of the steering wheel. This shows the cop that you do not have a weapon, at least not in your hands, and it demonstrates submission to his authority. Have the scruffy guy riding shotgun put his hands on the dashboard. When the cop arrives at the window, greet him, "Good morning, officer!" Be aware that cops deal with the scum of the earth on a daily basis and they are nervous. They just want to get home to their families alive at the end of the shift. Put him at ease.

"May I see your driver's license?" "Certainly, it is in my cargo pants pocket." Point to the pocket. Then SLOWLY pull out your wallet and hand him the license.

"May I see your registration and insurance papers?" "Absolutely, they are in the glove box." Now open the glove box and pause for a second or two to allow the cop a look into it. Then SLOWLY take out your papers and hand them to the officer.

If you follow these steps, then, instead of getting roughed up or shot, the cop may likely say, "You were doing 70 in a 55 zone, but I'll let you off with a warning." Or maybe he writes you up. If the latter, then you accept the citation and you pay it. The law is reasonable; you violated it; you accept the penalty. Don't try to bribe the cop or tell a story about whatever. Be a man or a woman, not a scofflaw leftist punk. Take responsibility for your actions.

Another Reason Why Defunding the Police is Idiotic

Government is by its very nature coercive. To be effective, it has to have the power to force people to do what they might not want to do, and to refrain from doing what they might want to do, such as drive drunk, loot, and rape. It follows straightaway that eliminating enforcement agencies eliminates government.

In an ideal world in which everyone is an angel, there would be no need for government. But our world is not ideal and there is no reason to think it ever will be. Government is therefore a necessary evil as are the enforcement agencies without which government cannot exist.

To think otherwise is to live in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Identity Politics: Is it Possible to Remain Classically Liberal?

Cross-posted at my FB page. Good discussion there.

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There is an identity politics of the Left and an identity politics of the Right. The second kind became obvious to me when, after objecting to the tribalism of blacks, Hispanics, and other racial or ethnic groups, and after calling for a transcending of tribalism, I was countered by certain alt-rightists or neo-reactionaries who reject any such transcending and think that what is needed is a white tribalism to oppose tribalisms 'of color.'

While I reject the literally insane claims of left-wing tribalists, and understand the urge of 'alties' to oppose them with vigor, I don't want to go into reactionary mode if I can avoid it. The reactionary is defined by what he reacts against. I want to move in a positive direction. I want to reject identity politics of both the Left and the Right by transcending them both. To be identity-political is to take one's PRIMARY self-identification to be a tribal or group identification, an identification in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, socio-economic class, or some combination of these.

That is not how I self-identify, and I believe that no one should self-identify in that way. I identify as a person, as a rational being, as a free agent, as a conscious and self-conscious SUBJECT. I do not primarily self-identify as an OBJECT in nature, a two-legged land mammal. Of course, I am an animal, a genetically human animal, essentially (not accidentally) Caucasian, and essentially (not accidentally) male, whence it follows, contrary to current leftist lore, that I cannot change my race or my sex. But while I am an animal, I am also a person, a spirit.

How personality and animality cohere in one unitary individual  is a problem that has never been solved, a problem reasonably viewed as insoluble; but this is no reason to reject either personality or animality.  My present topic, however,  is not the metaphysics of  the person, but a rather more practical political question.

Here is one problem I face. Our enemies on the Left reject this scheme which ultimately rests on a personalist and theist foundation. They are an existential threat to us, where an existential threat is not merely a threat to one's physical existence, but also, and more importantly, a threat to one's way of life as a spiritual, cultural, and historical being as opposed to a mere biological system for whom biological survival is the only value. There is no reaching these people with talk of persons and rights and the equality of persons and rights. That is to them just bourgeois ideology that serves only to legitimate the extant social order. They are tribalists who refuse to transcend their tribal identifications and see themselves as persons, as rational beings, as autonomous agents. But not only that, they are also race realists despite their obfuscatory talk of race as a social construct.

The problem, then, is that it is probably not possible to defeat our enemies — who do not want coexistence — except by going tribal ourselves, and race-realist, and engaging them in the way they apparently want to be engaged, with blood and iron. Either that, or we accept political dhimmitude.

Is Life Good? Questioning the Question

I do not begrudge the man who exults: Life is good! For it is good for some at some times and in some places. Such a one is living and exulting, not philosophizing. He is expressing his experience of his particular life: he needn't be trying to be objective, even if he expresses himself in objective terms.  He is offering us his slant, the view from his perspective.

Nor do I begrudge the man who complains: Life is hell! A joke! A business that doesn't cover its costs! Absurd! A tale told by an idiot! A mistake! Not worth perpetuating! Wrong to perpetuate! For he too is expressing his experience of his particular life. That's the view from his perspective.  

The question that arises for the philosopher, however, is whether there is a question here that admits of an objective answer. Does it makes sense to seek a non-perspectival answer to the question whether human life is good?

The only life that can be lived is the life of the situated individual bound to his perspective. The species does not live except in a derivative sense; it is the individual that lives.  One might be tempted by the Nietzschean thought that human life cannot be objectively good or objectively bad because the quality or value of life cannot be objectively evaluated at all, either positively or negatively. As Nietzsche writes in The Twilight of the Idols, “The Problem of Socrates,”

Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. . . .the value of life cannot be estimated. (Der Wert des Lebens nicht abgeschaetzt werden kann.) Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men — they were not only decadents but not wise at all?1

As I read Nietzsche, he is telling us that life is in every case an individual's life. There is no human life in general and no fact of the matter as to whether or not human life is objectively more bad than good. Judgments of the quality of life are all essentially subjective, reflecting as they do nothing more than the quality of the particular life that is doing the judging. The negative evaluations of the weak and decadent are merely symptoms of their weakness and decadence. And similarly for the positive evaluations of the strong and healthy. The affirmations of the robust are not objectively true; they are merely expressions of their robustness. Life is the essentially subjective standard of all evaluation; as such it cannot be objectively evaluated. One cannot sensibly pronounce it either good or bad in general. There is nothing outside of it against which to measure it and find it wanting.

As a philosophizing gastroenterologist might say, “The quality of life depends on the liver.” Pessimism and anti-natalism are merely symptoms of physiological-cum-cultural decadence on the part of those who advance such doctrines.

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1 Kaufmann, W. ed. and tr., The Portable Nietzsche, New York: The Viking Press, 1968, p. 474)

 

Is Philosophy Justified in a Time of Crisis?

The country is unraveling, and you sit in your ivory tower pondering arcane questions about time and existence?  How is that a justifiable use of your time, energy, and brain power?

Here is my answer. Or rather one of them.

There have always been crises.  Human history is just one crisis after another.  The 20th Century was a doosy: two world wars, economic depression, the rise of unspeakably evil totalitarian states, genocide, the nuclear annihilation of whole cities, the Cold War that nearly led to World War III (remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962?), and then after the Evil Empire was quashed, the resurrection of radical Islam. I could go on.

Should we conclude that philosophy has never been justified?  But then science has never been justified and much of the rest of what we consider high culture.  For they have their origin in philosophy.

Perhaps you don't agree with my 'origins' claim.  Still, plenty in life is of value regardless  of its utility in mitigating whatever crisis happens to be in progress.  Or do you think Beethoven should have been a social worker?

And what makes you think that your activism will make a damned bit of difference?  The world is a mess; it always has been.  You are not going to change it. Live for what is beyond it. Strive for the Higher Things.

But the really fundamental error is to think that philosophy needs justification in terms of something external to it. I demolish this notion with the precision and trenchancy you have come to expect in Should One Stoop to a Defense of Philosophy or the Humanities? 

Of Time, Annihilation, and the Reality of the Past

This is the third in a series on Lowe's presentism.  It has two prerequisites. Here is the first entry; here is the second. 

We have seen that for E. J. Lowe, temporal passage is real, objective, mind-independent. Temporal passage "consists in the continual coming into and going out of existence of entities . . . ." ("Presentism and Relativity," 137)  Lowe insists more than once that the italicized phrases are to be taken seriously and literally: what passes out of existence is absolutely annihilated.  A thing's ceasing to be present, and becoming (wholly) past is an existential change that reduces the thing to utter nonexistence.

What Lowe is telling us is that a correct metaphysics must take the ordinary language locution 'ceases to exist'  to mean that what becomes wholly past becomes nothing at all. It cannot be taken to mean that what has become wholly past exists in some sense but at an earlier temporal location.   For if that were so, the wholly past would not be absolutely annihilated. Similarly with other ordinary language expressions such as 'no longer exists.'  For Lowe, what no longer exists is nothing at all. It has been annihilated by the passage of time.

One ought to find this puzzling. Scollay Square, to invoke my favorite example, did exist, and we know that it did. We also know that what did exist is different from what never existed.  That is an obvious distinction that must be accommodated by any adequate theory of time.  Can Lowe accommodate it?

Perhaps we can make some headway with this question by distinguishing between absolute and relative annihilation.

AA.  X is absolutely annihilated by the passage of time iff  said passage brings it about that x ceases to exist in such a way that after x ceases to exist there is no distinction between x's having existed and x's never having existed.

RA. X is relatively annihilated by the passage of time iff said passage brings it about that x, upon ceasing to exist, is nothing now or at present.

It seems to me that (AA) is what we ought to mean when we speak of absolute annihilation.  For what the phrase suggests is a reduction to nonbeing that is unconditional. Absolute annihilation is the ultimate in annihilation.  Imagine that there are no constraints, logical or non-logical, on divine power: God can do anything. If so, he can bring it about that Socrates never existed despite his having existed.  God would then have the power, not to re-write history, but the power to 're-write' that of which history is the record.  That would be a type of absolute annihilation.

Of course, I am not saying that God has this power, or that the passage of time has this power.  I am not even saying that it is really possible that anything have this power of absolute annihilation. To the contrary!  Given that Socrates existed, I say that there is no power on earth or in heaven that can 'undo' this fact.   (Similarly for his having drunk the hemlock: given that he drank hemlock, there is no power that can bring it about that he never drank hemlock.) All I am saying is that (AA) is what we ought to mean by 'absolute annihilation' if we are to use that phrase seriously and precisely.

Given the above definition of 'absolute annihilation,' I say to Lowe: the passage of time, which we assume is mind-independently real in opposition to all B-theories of time, does not have the power of absolute annihilation; it has only the power of relative annihilation.  I say this because I take it to be a non-negotiable datum that (i) what did exist is different from what never existed, and (ii) what did exist cannot be retroactively consigned to absolute nonexistence, and (iii) what ceases to exist, when it ceases to exist, does not become something that never existed.   (Corollary: when a contingent being, and thus a possible being, ceases to exist, it does not, upon ceasing to exist, become an impossible being.)

So all Lowe is entitled to say is that what ceases to exist is relatively annihilated by the passage of time: said passage brings it about that the thing, upon ceasing to exist, is nothing now or at present.  It is nothing now, but it was something yesterday, and so it cannot be the case that it is now nothing at all. It retains some sort of reality. It is difficult to say exactly in what the reality of the past consists; but the past is real.  Lowe cannot accommodate the reality of the past.

The Argument Summarized

1) What was is not the same as what never was.
2) The wholly past was. 
Therefore
3) It is not the case that the wholly past never was. (1,2)
4) If temporal passage brings about the absolute annihilation of the present and its contents, as per (AA), then it is the case that the wholly past never was.
Therefore
5) Temporal passage does not bring about the absolute annihilation of the present and its contents. (3, 4)
Therefore
6) Lowe's presentism is untenable: it is not the case that what passes out of existence is absolutely annihilated.
7) On the other hand, if the passage of time effects merely a relative annihilation of the present and its contents, as per (RA), then triviality results: if a thing, ceasing to exist, is relatively annihilated, then the thing is now nothing.  But this is trivially true.  If what exists, exists now, then the wholly past, which by definition does not exist now, does not exist.
Therefore
8) Lowe's presentism is either untenable or trivial.

What Can a Sane individual Do in the Present Political Situation?

This is a repost from last November. Given how fast things are unraveling, what I wrote then sounds  a bit lame now. Still, I think my suggestions are sound. They are things I do. Whether you should do them is your call.

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What can an individual do? Not much, but here are some suggestions.

Exercise your rights and in particular your Second Amendment rights; the latter provide the concrete backup to the others. A well-armed populace, feared by the totalitarians, is a strong deterrent without a shot being fired. Money spent on guns, ammo, accessories, and range fees goes to support our cause.  Be of good cheer, and hope for the best. But prepare for the worst.

Vote in every election, but never for any Democrat. And don't throw away your vote on third-party losers. The Libertarians are losertarians and the other third parties are discussion societies in political drag. Politically, they are jokes. Politics is a practical business. It's about better or worse, not about perfect or imperfect. Don't let the best become the enemy of the good. Make your vote count — not that any one vote counts for much. Thanks to Trump, the Great Clarifier, there are now real choices.  The days of Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee are over. 

Vote with your wallet. Contribute to conservative causes, but never give money to leftist causes, organizations, or publication outlets. Did your alma mater ask for a contribution? "Not one dime until you clean up your act."  That's what I tell them. PBS and NPR programming is sometimes surpassingly excellent, but to give money to these left-leaning outfits is inimical to your interests as a conservative. Don't be a fool who empowers his enemies. 

Vote with your feet. Do you live in a sanctuary crap hole such as California? Leave. But don't come to Arizona, this rattle-snake infested inferno crawling with gun-toting racists. Keep heading East.  Move in with Elizabeth Warren. Her 3.5 million dollar pad near Harvard Square has plenty of room.

Punish any leftist 'friends' you may still have by withdrawing your high-quality friendship from them. Let them experience consequences for their willful self-enstupidation. Ceteris paribus, of course. 

Finally, show some civil courage and speak out: blog, facebook, tweet. But temper your rhetoric and don't incite violence. That's what they do (Maxine Waters, for example, hiding behind her Black Privilege.) But if you are young and need gainful employment, be careful, be very careful.  Never underestimate the mendacity and viciousness of leftists.  To them you are a deplorable 'racist.' Truth and morality are bourgeois fictions to them.  Power is what they believe in. 

Don't retreat into your private life lest you wake up one morning to find that there is no private life.

In this article, Rod Dreher admits that he has no idea how to go about fighting the 'woke' militants.

No Fool Like an Old Fool

Ed is an 80-year-old neighbor of mine. We've been casual acquaintances for years, running into each other on the trails, exchanging greetings and snatches of conversation. The other day politics came up for the first time, and to my surprise I learned that Ed, originally a Republican, had become an Independent, and was now a Democrat. I said, perhaps with a bit of surprise, "How can you support the Dems, given their current leadership?"

Ed, the quintessentially nice guy, said, "Let's stay friends, Bill, and avoid politics." I agreed that this was the wisest course, and we parted amicably. But my opinion of old Ed had dropped, and I resolved to limit my contact with him, limited as it already was. I knew there was no reaching him.

What explains the utter political stupidity of otherwise good, intelligent, and basically conservative people? Doesn't Ed understand what is in his and his family's interest?

One factor is mindless Trump hatred. A second is that old people live in the past and simply cannot see what is happening. A third is a life too much absorbed in the private and the quotidian. Luckily, old Ed probably won't be around to wake up to the day when the private life is no more.

No fool like an old fool.