Besides, the map is not the territory.

there being more anatomical features than an anatomist's painting of the human body entails. — Posty McPostface

And that point had to do with the fact that maps must always be pluralized to be of better use: that anyone seeking 'one map to rule them all' was seeking after an illusion; and thus to place the accent on 'there being more' than the map can express is to miss the point entirely: the desideratum is to eliminate - ruthlessly - features: we don't want more least the map loses its efficacy. That the map is not the terrain is the best and most useful thing about maps. Those who think this expresses an inadequacy about maps don't understand, or have been seriously mislead about the point of a map.

Those who think this expresses an inadequacy about maps don't understand, or have been seriously mislead about the point of a map. — StreetlightX

A map is a two dimensional depiction of a three dimensional plane or surface with features on it. How can you argue that this doesn't jive with treating philosophy as a cartography?

A map is a two dimensional depiction of a three dimensional plane or surface with features on it. — Posty McPostface

Because this is an incredibly simplistic, and dare I say, naive, definition of a map. Maps at their most abstract are simply ways of condensing and communicating relations though abstraction and, traditionally, though graphic and symbolic means. Not only is any reference to dimensionality entirely superfluous, but so too is any reference to 'planes and surfaces'. What I'm suggesting is that those means do not necessarily have to be - and in fact are often not - strictly graphic or symbolic. Or differently, they can in fact be properly symbolic: though words and even concepts. Here is a link to an interactive map of Spinoza's Ethics that was doing the rounds the other day, one which puts paid to any trivial understanding of maps as 'a 2d depiction of a 3d plane': http://ethica.bc.edu/#/visualization (or, for a 3D version: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/3d)

(sample)

I'm simply suggesting to think of maps in a different medium, as the above in fact already is; and mediums are - as medial, as mediators - able to be swapped out, in the right circumstances. In fact, if you want to get 'technical' about it, there's a reason why, in math, another name for functions are mappings, insofar as they map domains to codomains - that is, insofar as they express a relation or set of relations in abstract terms (here is the function/mapping of a one-to-one function):



A function is, in this respect, nothing other than a particularly abstract map: there's an argument to be made that math too is nothing other than a cartographic exercise. The difference here to a 'traditional map' is that the relations expressed are not geometrical but simply numerical (geometry in fact being a more restricted, less generic form of math). Again, all I'm suggesting is that the same thing can and does occur at the level of the conceptual.

I think part of the debate here stems from a higher-order language game that emerges organically when you try to characterize anything in opposition to another characterization. This inevitably creates a binary where one perspective is selected over and against another. Or at least a selection of one characterization against a multitude. So out of that emerges a language game (external to, tho in contact with) the object-level being discussed. The game of defending one view against another. The most obvious way to play this game is to do it in terms of truth. Philosophy is essentially this, not that. But this higher-order defense, in this case, replicates the same object-level logic its putting into question.

Another way to play the game of defense is to cast the recognition of ones view as right as an index of some indefinable element of worthiness (this worthiness can take a lot of forms: aesthetic sensibility, requisite experience, nobility of mind etc. The rhetorical use of prostitution, for example, sets up a pure/defiled distinction, casting the opponent as someone who uses something good for bad purposes, and so besmirches the good. Plus you run the risk of slut-shaming philosophy, which maybe is a willing agent in the exchange, and doesnt need or want protection from the john or pimp.)

In either case its a fair rhetorical move for ones opponent to say that the sketch of a non-absolute object-level is being anchored by a meta-level absolute.

I think the only way out of the impasse is to assert, on the meta-level, that a philosophy of valuation is itself a product of valuation. You have to jettison an essence of philosophy and say: I think this is the type of philosophy that is worthwhile. And this is where rhetoric, persuasion, poesy, politics and the rest come in. If you state that its a matter of valuation, then any recourse to essence is in bad faith while any immediate use of high/low distinctions is tautologous. The use of the latter, at this point, is just re-emphasizing, but with a praise/shame undercurrent, that you value what you value and that the other person doesn't

But none of that (persuasion, rhetoric, poesy, politics) is inherently cynical. If you value what you value, then all you're trying to do is get others to see what you see, feel what you feel, and so forth.

In fact, if you want to get 'technical' about it, there's a reason why, in math, another name for functions are mappings, insofar as they map domains to codomains - that is, insofar as they express a relation or set of relations in abstract terms (here is the function/mapping of a one-to-one function): — StreetlightX

I understand that; but, you have limited the range by excluding/restricting another dimension. I don't have anything more to add of coherence on the matter.

that a philosophy of valuation is itself a product of valuation. — csalisbury

If I understand you right, this is more or less what I think is the case: the problem of how to understand philosophy is itself a philosophical problem like any other: and as such, it's form is dictated to a certain degree by shape of philosophy itself, if I may put it that way. Basically I think any strict bifurcation between 'object level' and 'meta level' needs to be seriously put into question: any work of philosophy carries within in an implicit 'meta-philosophy' simply by virtue of it being philosophy to begin with. One can isolate, artificially, this 'meta-philosophy' and start comparing it, as if a car-catalogue, to other 'meta-philosophies', but I think this is a doomed exercise from the start: if you disconnect the principles that animate the philosophy from the philosophy itself, you're just playing a shell-game. It's 'philosophy on holiday' in the same manner that Witty referred to certain strains of analysis as 'language on holiday'.

The question then is not "how does this meta-philosophy compare to that meta-philosophy?", or "how do you compare between the two?", but does this approach to philosophy capture what seems to be its relevant aspects? Does it leave out anything of significance with respect to what it claims to capture? In other words: is this approach adequate to the very object it aims to specify? And this can be answered in all sorts of interesting and creative ways. For example, one thing a cartographic approach does is to temporally 'flatten' the field of philosophy: it makes Plato our contemporary no more than Foucault: time is given a particularly short shrift.

("The life of philosophers, and what is most external to their work, conforms to the ordinary laws of succession; but their proper names coexist and shine either as luminous points that take us through the components of a concept once more or as the cardinal points of a stratum or layer that continually come back to us, like dead stars whose light is brighter than ever. Philosophy is becoming, not history;
it is the coexistence of planes, not the succession of systems." (Deleuze, What Is Philosophy?)

Is this a 'price' worthy paying? Maybe there's an argument somewhere that it isn't. And that would be interesting debate because it would be motivated by the object itself: philosophy as problem. The only thing not to do here is treat 'meta-philosophy' as a closed field in itself, which'll invariably lead you to the sort of clinical hysteria of Psuedonym's questions: but how do you know??; what's the meta-meta-philosophy that authorizes you to say that? And the meta-meta-meta-philosophy of that? It's a very sad game that needs to be headed off at the pass.

I understand that; but, you have limited the range by excluding/restricting another dimension — Posty McPostface

The second part of this sentence betrays the first as a falsehood.

One can isolate, artificially, this 'meta-philosophy' and start comparing it, as if a car-catalogue, to other 'meta-philosophies', but I think this is a doomed exercise from the start: if you disconnect the principles that animate the philosophy from the philosophy itself, you're just playing a shell-game. — StreetlightX

But isn't it the case that you set up the comparison between different meta-philosophies in this thread and the ones prior to this one? Could we not describe as car-cataloguey the distinction betwen philosophies that are cartographic and those that rely on tracing ? There's a depth hermeneutics to cartography/tracing that requires work (sussing out the implications of thought) but it's still, in the end, dependent on a firm criterion. What makes one criterion better than another?

The potency of car-catalogue as epithet derives from the well-known image of a boorish consumer so stripped of the ability to create values (castrated?) that he has to choose between a pre-existent set of 'minor differences' laid out easily for him.

To differentiate oneself from this sad-sack consumer it would be necessary to show that one is the source of one's own valuation rather than someone choosing from among a series of options based on pre-existing values one has adopted.

The sad-sack consumer, as we all know, stakes a lot on his choice, and will mock the taste of those who choose otherwise. Or, less sad-sack, more flashy-but-vapid: the business card scene in American Psycho.

Reliance on external values leads to venemous shut-downs. Theyre checks backed by the confidence of others. wonder if this is also tied to the pronouncy thing I'm addicted to. I like much of the same philosophy you like. But pronouncing and shaming seem like interrelated smokescreens. Valuation from within, rather than adoption of values from without, seems inherently persuasive; it talks to rather than tells. It no longer feels the passion for imitation, or 'you know, what theyre saying is this' -- "it is known"

The question then is not "how does this meta-philosophy compare to that meta-philosophy?", or "how do you compare between the two?", but does this approach to philosophy capture what seems to be its relevant aspects? Does it leave out anything of significance with respect to what it claims to capture? In other words: is this approach adequate to the very object it aims to specify? — StreetlightX

'what seems to be relevant' or 'of significance' , then, can be understood in by reference to the adequation of approach and object. Do we understand relevance and significance through this sort of adequation, or adequation through relevance and significance?

Is this a 'price' worthy paying? Maybe there's an argument somewhere that it isn't. And that would be interesting debate because it would be motivated by the object itself: philosophy as problem. The only thing not to do here is treat 'meta-philosophy' as a closed field in itself, which'll invariably lead you to the sort of clinical hysteria of Psuedonym's questions: but how do you know??; what's the meta-meta-philosophy that authorizes you to say that? And the meta-meta-meta-philosophy of that? It's a very sad game that needs to be headed off at the pass. — StreetlightX

I disagree, not because I think Pseudonym is 'right'. I disagree because I think he's right that the tone and presentation of these ideas, here and elsewhere, remains the same as the old tone and old presentation of old ideas. Present in that way, defend it that way - its fair.

Craftsmanship and mastery: yes, all day.

But another metaphor in the vein and tone of the car catalogue one:

Artisan at a public forum hawking his goods and shaming as lacking appreciation all those who won't buy. Those who will: Ah but i can see youre a man of taste: witness the vulgarity of the customer just before you- can you believe?


Alternative vision: the artisan who gets to know his customers and what they value and, since hes interested in them and his own work, shows them, on their terms, why his wares are of value.

Philosophers should have to take five years off during which they neither talk to other philosophers or read their works. Then return.

But isn't it the case that you set up the comparison between different meta-philosophies in this thread and the ones prior to this one? Could we not describe as car-cataloguey the distinction between philosophies that are cartographic and those that rely on tracing?

The potency of car-catalogue as epithet derives from the well-known image of a boorish consumer so stripped of the ability to create values (castrated?) that he has to choose between a pre-existent set of 'minor differences' laid out easily for him.

To differentiate oneself from this sad-sack consumer it would be necessary to show that one is the source of one's own valuation rather than someone choosing from among a series of options based on pre-existing values one has adopted. — csalisbury

No, this isn't it. The distinction isn't between 'being the source of one's own valuation' or 'choosing from a series of pre-set options'. All 'options' are 'sourced from one's own valuation' - the only question is whether that's recognized as such, or not. Or to put this otherwise, the so-called 'meta-philosophy' is internal to the philosophy itself, it does not stand over and above it; it's the philosophy itself that structures and generates even the meta-field, the array of seemingly 'opposed positions' form which it distinguishes itself. You wouldn't even be able to 'see' or recognize the 'other' 'meta-philosophy' from the 'outside'. There's no such thing as meta-philosophy. It's all very Hegel I know, but it's what's needed to short-circuit the endless proliferation of "meta-metas" that end up seeping their way out if you really think that 'meta-philosophy' constitutes its own self-enclosed field. The only justification is immanent. If you don't like it - create.

.

Or to put this otherwise, the so-called 'meta-philosophy' is internal to the philosophy itself, it does not stand over and above it; it's the philosophy itself that structures and generates even the meta-field, the array of seemingly 'opposed positions' form which it distinguishes itself. You wouldn't even be able to 'see' or recognize the 'other' 'meta-philosophy' from the 'outside'. There's no such thing as meta-philosophy. It's all very Hegel I know, but it's what's needed to short-circuit the endless proliferation of "meta-metas" that end up seeping their way out if you really think that 'meta-philosophy' constitutes it's own self-enclosed field. The only justification is immanent. If you don't like it - create. — StreetlightX

I agree with this. I worry that it leads to effective (not metaphysical) solipsism. Or at least a shared, niche, solipsism.

As you pointed out in an earlier post, the meta-meta proliferation is ultimately a endlessly deferred (necessarily infinitely deferrable) question of authority. The only way to stop a regress of authorization is immanent self-authorization.

Drawing on your recent threads:

(1) Expression versus possession: 'the thing (whatever it is) coincides entirely with its expression: it is not something apart from its expression and does not possess it as though it stood outside of it’s own ‘properties’.

(2) Levinas on Shame (keeping in mind possession as a thing standing 'outside' of its own properties): "It is therefore our intimacy, that is, our presence to ourselves, that is shameful"

(3) Infelicity : 'the very effectivity of speech has failed, and not just it's 'content', as it were'


I want to say something like this:

There's a way of discussing Deleuzian philosophy that fails. It provides the 'content', but is not effective. It doesn't express it, precisely because it is still trying to possess it. What's expressed is not the purported content, but the will-to-possession itself. The will-to-possession is expressed in a kind of triangulation, which is legible in the form. There is the writer, the content, and a specific didactic form: the authority of one who speaks what is known to be true. The content is approached and handled in the way that form dictates. Its a kind of ownership.

The 'content' of Deleuze is something like immanent self-authorizing expression. If the form is not as much a part of this self-authorizing expression as the content, then the speech will fail. It will be read, correctly, as a kind of insular self-authorization.

It's insular because it's really speaking to an absent third-party. It can neither fail nor succeed because the third party isn't present. That's the solipsism part. It's self-authorizing, because it authorizes itself through reference to a third party that is guaranteed not to arrive. But this makes it only authorized to itself, or to others who also have the absent third party in mind- which is not actual authority.

If the expression doesn't render effective its content through its expression (especially when the content is the philosophy of expression) then there isn't any content. It's deeply infelicitous

And somehow this is all related to shame and joy

I agree with this. I worry that it leads to effective (not metaphysical) solipsism. Or at least a shared, niche, solipsism.

It's insular because it's really speaking to an absent third-party. It can neither fail nor succeed because the third party isn't present. That's the solipsism part. It's self-authorizing, because it authorizes itself through reference to a third party that is guaranteed not to arrive. But this makes it only authorized to itself, or to others who also have the absent third party in mind- which is not actual authority. — csalisbury

But wait, it's not about a third party: the authorization is taken from the problem(s) it sets out to address - it's internal to the philosophy, true, but there's still a dialectic of self-differentiation (and hence individuation) where implications are built upon and extended into fields beyond whatever jumping-off point served as the initial impetus (which in turn become self-consistent areas of investigations onto themselves - 'rhizomatic', not 'arboreal' logic); and yeah, in all cases form and content self-modify accordingly according to a logic of expression.

But a third party? No, that's not the reference point towards which it's all oriented. The third party's role is simply in providing further points of extension, further issues to be explored, additional problems to be addressed. But in all cases it's the problem(s) to which philosophy addresses itself, not the third party, who is just an occasion or source of encounter.

W/r/t authorization then, authorization is never complete or absolute: there's always more to explore, there are always more implications to be teased out, more fields which have not been addressed. And this is the case in principle and not merely 'in fact', not only because the world will always throw up new, unforeseen things which with to engage, but also because every new step in an argument will have retroactive effects on the whole: philosophy is kaleidoscopic.

Finally, there's also no reason why different approaches need to be in any way commensurate; different approaches might bring out or highlight different aspects of a problem, [cartography/maps discussion here, etc etc]. I'm happy to be pretty damn pluralist about this, which may or may not also effect the worry of solipsism, but that's for you to tell me.

Also, you're discerning alot more consistency in my threads than I am! I'm not saying there isn't, but most of them are a confluence of very dim, general intuitions about various things which were brought out by specific occasions (the pride thread was a response to fdrake's thread on political discourse; the expression thread because I just finished reading a particular book, etc, etc).

There's a way of discussing Deleuzian philosophy that fails. It provides the 'content', but is not effective. It doesn't express it, precisely because it is still trying to possess it. What's expressed is not the purported content, but the will-to-possession itself. The will-to-possession is expressed in a kind of triangulation, which is legible in the form. There is the writer, the content, and a specific didactic form: the authority of one who speaks what is known to be true. The content is approached and handled in the way that form dictates. Its a kind of ownership. — csalisbury

I agree with you, just want to add that the constellation “There is the writer, the content, and a specific didactic form: the authority of one who speaks what is known to be true” is actually constituted by what Deleuze and Gvattari call “an abstract machine of faciality”: “Significance is never without a white wall upon which it inscribes its signs and redundancies. Subjectification is never without a black hole in which it lodges its consciousness, passion, and redundancies. Since all semiotics are mixed and strata come at least in twos, it should come as no surprise
that a very special mechanism is situated at their intersection. Oddly
enough, it is a face: the white wall/black hole system. The white wall/black hole system is constructed, or rather the abstract machine is triggered that must allow and ensure the almightiness of the signifier as well as the autonomy of the subject”

The 'content' of Deleuze is something like immanent self-authorizing expression. If the form is not as much a part of this self-authorizing expression as the content, then the speech will fail. It will be read, correctly, as a kind of insular self-authorization.

It's insular because it's really speaking to an absent third-party. It can neither fail nor succeed because the third party isn't present. That's the solipsism part. It's self-authorizing, because it authorizes itself through reference to a third party that is guaranteed not to arrive. But this makes it only authorized to itself, or to others who also have the absent third party in mind- which is not actual authority. — csalisbury

I would like to question what you call “insular and solipsistic” characteristics of “self –authorized, possessing expression.”
Your analyses are not entirely Deleuzian since if one starts looking for the foundations of this conceptualization, it could lead
to closed off or transcendental conditions.” Particular assemblages of power impose significance and subjectification
as the primary forms of expression, in reciprocal presupposition with new contents: there is no significance without a despotic assemblage, no subjectification without an authoritarian assemblage, and no mixture between the two without assemblages of power that act through signifiers and act upon souls and subjects. It is these assemblages, these despotic or authoritarian formations, that give the new semiotic system the means of its imperialism, in other words, the means both to crush the different semiotics and protect itself against any threat from outside.”
So, according to Deleuze and Guattari, there are no entirely insulated utterances, and if the statements or discourses are spoken in the regime of faciality, they are determined and conditioned by the concrete socio-political assemblages.

@Csalisbury ^ This, btw, is the kind of 'Deleuze-speak' I absolutely hate. Just quoting long passages with no attempt to explain or engage with the quite obviously incomprehensible vocabulary. I think that if you can't speak about Deleuze (or any philosopher at all) without resorting to simply rehashing the vocabulary (especially vocabulary that quite obviously needs explaining in a public forum), then you've basically demonstrated that you have no idea what you are talking about. It's just regurgitation.

That's the solipsism part. It's self-authorizing, because it authorizes itself through reference to a third party that is guaranteed not to arrive. But this makes it only authorized to itself, or to others who also have the absent third party in mind- which is not actual authority. — csalisbury

It is these assemblages, these despotic or authoritarian formations, that give the new semiotic system the means of its imperialism, in other words, the means both to crush the different semiotics and protect itself against any threat from outside.” — Number2018

:sad: :gasp:

Anyone can juxtapose quotes. Explain youself on your own terms, or don't bother at all.

Also, you're discerning alot more consistency in my threads than I am! I'm not saying there isn't, but most of them are a confluence of very dim, general intuitions about various things which were brought out by specific occasions (the pride thread was a response to fdrake's thread on political discourse; the expression thread because I just finished reading a particular book, etc, etc). — StreetlightX

Oh, I figured. All the threads I cited felt, to me, like they were drawing on a family of conceptual knots, so I thought it might be useful to bring them together as a way of gesturing toward something.

I guess I'm still just circling around the same conceptual knot thats been troubling me for a while now. What I really want to talk about is the use and abuse of philosophy for life, but that's another subject, only tangentially related to this.

Something like: The philosophy of immanence seems doomed to chase its own tail, if its presented in a legible philosophical style. It seems like the ultimate end is to say being. To speak the truth of being. But to say the truth of being, in the philosophical sense, is to possess (my whole fixation on 'pronouncing.')

It goes right up to the edge and then stops.

I did lose track of this conversation though and and how it progressed. I had a bunch of ideas kinda sparking up but didn't really express them well or fully, and now theyve gone away a bit.

Something to do with: this kind of philosophy talks a lot about jettisoning imperial or assimilationist tendencies. But the extra-philosophical fields it draws on seem like wells from which to draw a series of examples furnished to emphasize a conceptual machinery thats already there. Deleuze actually more or lesse admitted this in some interview comparing himself to a mountain that brings with it a whole set of established concepts.

I think you're right that the problems and metaphilosophies are driven from within and can only be understood by immersion. But then how often do practitioners of this philosophy extract from e.g. chomsky without seeming to have mastered the linguistic probelms (it would take a long time to do this) from which his ideas developed?

This isn't very clear or an argument. Its just a dim uneasiness that I'm still trying to articulate.

If everything is immanence, and has to be understood in and of the world, what is this philosophy (as concretely practiced) doing? what are its effects, what ends is it serving?

It really feels to me like a wittgensteinian ladder that has been turned into something else.

I guess I'm still just circling around the same conceptual knot thats been troubling me for a while now. What I really want to talk about is the use and abuse of philosophy for life, but that's another subject, only tangentially related to this.

Something like: The philosophy of immanence seems doomed to chase its own tail, if its presented in a legible philosophical style. It seems like the ultimate end is to say being. To speak the truth of being. But to say the truth of being, in the philosophical sense, is to possess (my whole fixation on 'pronouncing.') — csalisbury

I think I have an idea of what you mean, if only because I think I've struggled with similar thoughts before as well (and still do, though their intensity is not as strong). The major thing that's helped me through it is in finding my own locus of interest (or 'project', if you will) that's somewhat independent of my previous immersion in 'the study of philosophy'. The problems I'm interested in seem now to belong more to me, and I'm no longer studying the problems of others (or, when I do, I'm studying them on my own terms, and not theirs). That's one side of it.

The other, and it's occasioned and prompted by the former, is in coming to understand the role of philosophy differently. You ask what is philosophy doing? Here I've I've found the notion of the relay useful: philosophy as relay, connecting - at the level of thought - heterogeneous domains, enabling and facilitating communication flows between discourses and practices that might otherwise be silent about each other. It's a conception of philosophy as a 'potentiator' or as 'potentiating': it doesn't 'act', it doesn't 'make a change in the world' (that much is obvious), but it can rearrange relations, draw attention to things where there weren't any before (this is its creative function).

One thing about relays is that they can't exhaust their sources: the very idea doesn't even make sense. You're simply a kind of differential gear, transmitting torque from one element to another: there's no effort of subsumption at work here, no 'belly turned mind' (to use Adorno's quip about Hegel).

I mentioned before that Anne Sauvagnargues' work has been influential to me on this question. One of the things she captures very nicely is what happens in the shift from Deleuze's early to his late work, and it's something that I'm finding resonates with me at a personal level as well: "In Deleuze’s thought, immanence [is] conceived as the auto-consistency of thought, then increasingly as an outright empiricism and heterogeneity. Thus, the very constructed, formal characteristic of the first studies bask in an annoying atemporality, whereas his encounter with Guattari transforms the theoretical regime, which falls into a whirlpool of theoretical sections and joyous, transversal constructions, even though the last works pick up a more constructed regime". (Deleuze and Art); there's something to this, and I don't think it is specific to just one particular philosopher.