This brings to my mind something similar, namely an image of fiction writing that stops people from "finding" their own voice which is always already there. I'll stop there and see what others might have to say.The history of philosophy has always been the agent of power in philosophy, and even in thought. It has played the repressors role: how can you think without having read Plato, Descartes, Kant and Heidegger, and so-and-so's book about them? A formidable school of intimidation which manufactures specialists in thought - but which also makes those who stay outside conform all the more to this specialism which they despise. An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking. — Deleuze
He says this and yet his "image of a free man" is stark-nakedly a central myth itself. I love this quote, and I'm invested myself in this idea of the radically free man or strong poet. But it's a myth or a compelling image that one shapes one's self after, like all the others, except that it's perhaps a final myth, the "creative nothing" or "hole in Being."( Stirner's book is a mess, but this same image of the free man is its beating heart.) I'm pretty committed to the idea that "spiritual urge" is always stirred and directed by usually unstable images of "the hero" or "the sacred." One idol is smashed in the name of the next. Until one acheives a sort of self-recognition as "pure negativity" or "poetic genius" (Blake) and "becomes the dragon."The speculative object and the practical object of philosophy as Naturalism, science and pleasure, coincide on this point: it is always a matter of denouncing the illusion, the false infinite, the infinity of religion and all of the theologico-erotic-oneiric myths in which it is expressed. To the question 'what is the use of philosophy?' the answer must be: what other object would have an interest in holding forth the image of a free man, and in denouncing all of the forces which need myth and troubled spirit in order to establish their power? — Deleuze
My only problem with this is that the tradition isn't alive, so we still need actual other human beings to recognize and be recognized by, admittedly through a medium like philosophy, though I would stress that this is mixed in fact with one's exposure to literature, etc. I think there are a few explosive, central realizations (radical self-possession or freedom or instrumentalism) and then lots of footnotes to be read by the fire of these realizations. The tradition, having passed on the gift, loses its aura. It's an ethical/egoistic Copernican revolution. One loves a "great" thinker (assents to this reputed greatness) only when one detects their possession of "fire." Did they hear the "laughter of the gods"? Hell, do you hear the "laughter of the gods"? I ask earnestly, in a friendly spirit. Or do you have no idea what I'm getting at and why I think the "real" meaning of any dead man's quote is quite secondary?To speak of an 'image of thought called philosophy' is the desire to feel one's (philosophical) writing 'mirrored' in the tradition, to appeal to that 'image' for recognition and continuity. — SX
Please, be poetic all you like. Half the fun here is in the writing of an especially self-aware "poetry."
If the person in question takes historical traditions in philosophy very seriously,then yeah,he would be reluctant to stray beyond the well-worn paths etched through the lands of thought by the ancients who travelled before him(sorry,felt like being poetic there).
However,on the flip side,if the person in question is adventurous in spirit and contemptuous of tradition,then this "power of history" that Deleuze refers to would have no effect on him and he would go on to discover original ways of thought. — hunterk
Can we add desire and fear to the mix, too? A thinking being with fears and desires to drive his thinking. I think everyone is a at least a part-time philosopher. Is there a god? What happens when we die? What should I do? How can I know for sure? Can people who disagree both be right? Is life worth living? Is this or that sexual practice wrong? Is revenge wrong? Do words have exact meanings?All you need, in order to be a philosopher, is to be, in Descartes's words, ''a thinking being''.
That's how I understand as well. (Of course the issue of what he "really" meant seems secondary to the exciting and independent theme of thought-idols constraining thought.If I understand this correctly, it's that Deleuze is concerned with the "canonization" of philosophers, and the subsequent assimilation of thought. Thus thought is constrained by the thought-idols of the past. — darthbarracuda
I relate completely. Harold Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" is basically exactly this. We don't want to be imitations or acolytes or fanboys. To distinguish one's self and to have one's own philosophy is to be, in Bloom's terminology, a "strong poet." For me philosophy is deeply parricidal. It becomes conscious of and incorporates the very anxiety of influence that largely drives it. But, anyway, yeah, none of the old masters are sacred. They're dead and their world is dead --or at least radically transformed. And yet I, too, have been hugely influenced by some of them. Schop and Nietzsche were big figures for me. I can almost sum up what it is that I've think I've learned in "reading NIetzsche against Nietzsche" in order to sort the wheat from the chaff. Hegel via Kojeve was also a book that set me on fire. Then, of course, there's W. James, a man of style and heart.If this is true, I have to agree. In fact this kind of reasoning has been running through my mind a lot recently; although I get a lot of influence and inspiration from the philosophers of the past, I also feel the need to distinguish myself and have my own philosophy. I don't want to just be a philosopher-fanboy, an acolyte of one single person's ideas. Aristotle didn't have the Truth, nor did Aquinas, nor Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc. — darthbarracuda
Thus I try to take a more hermeneutic approach, synthesizing the thought of many thinkers before into my own thought. I think the best method of doing this is by identifying the questions/problems that each thinker struggled with: for even if their answers are insufficient or incorrect, they at least identified an issue that must be dealt with. The answers change, the questions remain (unless you're Wittgenstein). If you limit yourself to the answers (the "story") — darthbarracuda
The focus on problems reminds me of Popper. If memory serves, he insisted philosophers be read in the context of the intellectual difficulties of their time. For me the questions that remain are first and foremost existential. Who should I be? That for me shapes almost everything else, because even the questions we concern ourselves with seem strongly related to the value we assign to that sort of questioning.Thus I try to take a more hermeneutic approach, synthesizing the thought of many thinkers before into my own thought. I think the best method of doing this is by identifying the questions/problems that each thinker struggled with: for even if their answers are insufficient or incorrect, they at least identified an issue that must be dealt with. The answers change, the questions remain (unless you're Wittgenstein). If you limit yourself to the answers (the "story") without identifying the question structure, you essentially end up with an extremely narrow and blind view of reality, believing in an interpretation without understanding what the interpretation is of.
I guess you could call me a scavenger of some sorts. Systems inevitably get updated or replaced - philosophical systems are no different from the OS on your laptop. I like to take a look back at the previous versions, see how the current versions build upon them, and mod the hell out of my rig for my own preferences while adding my own personal touch. — darthbarracuda
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