Saturday, February 26, 2011
A Similarity Between Philosophy and Science
This third difference, specifically, generates an interesting connection between philosophy and science. D and G explain that “concepts and functions appear as two types of multiplicities or varieties whose natures are different” (127). They contrast the multiplicity of science, which is defined by space, number, and time, to the multiplicity of philosophy, which is expressed by the inseparability of variations. Although the nature of these multiplicities differ, D and G explain that they create a correspondence between philosophy and science; like the coordinates of extensive abscissas in functions, there are multiple internal components within the concept. Not only do their respective multiplicities allow individuals to judge their possible collaboration, D and G also believe that they allow individuals the opportunity to determine “the inspiration of one by the other” (127). When compared to other similarities between philosophy and science (their specific relation to creation and experimentation, the “I do not know” feeling that is included in each, etc.), it seems as though this particular similarity is the least concrete. Understanding this parallel between philosophy and science involves having a proper conception of both the functive and the plane of reference. However, by drawing these types of connections between philosophy and science, we will no doubt be able to better understand each of them individually. Their similarities (in addition to their differences) will provide us with a foundation as we further explore philosophy.
Consistency?
The recognition of chaos and the management of disarray are critical to understanding why this first difference is foundational to move forward. Immanuel Kant communicates and reiterates D and G’s perspective by stating “God has put a secret into the Forces of Nature so as to enable it to fashion itself out of chaos into a perfect world system.” The primary concern with this statement to D and G are the “forces” that are involved within the reconstruction of chaotic mess. D and G define chaos as “not so much by its disorder [but] by the infinite speed with which every form taking shape in it vanishes” (118). So to further this description, chaos is the state of forms appearing and disappearing at immeasurable speeds. It is through the thought that helps to organize these chaotic states, and in this depiction it is in particular to philosophy and science, two of the three modes of thinking for D and G.
Philosophy utilizes the plane of immanence to create forms or consistency. We have discussed the plane of immanence before in class, but to clarify the plane of immanence “cuts through the chaos, selects infinites movements of thought and is filled with concepts formed like consistent particles going as fast as thought”(118). Philosophy strives to create consistency, “by giving the virtual a consistency specific to it” (118). This is where I was still a little confused in class. What does he mean by consistency? I think this is critical to understanding the plane, yet I am having trouble conceptualizing it and comparing it to the Science.
Verificationism. Also Pragmatism Jumps The Distinction Between Science and Philosophy
That being said I think philosophy loses quite a bit when it completely separates itself from science or from the practical world. Without using the practical world to verify itself, I believe that philosophy becomes victim to the theory of verificationsim. It is an idea that a theory only has meaning if there is some way that one can test it to be true. With things like pragmatism, philosophy can be tested by viewing how it works in the real world; pragmatism would allow itself to be tested by the real world and would not be subject to this problem, other philosophies cannot. This is my problem with D&G they completely separate philosophy from the real world so it cannot be tested, and according to verificationism it would therefore not have any meaning. Without the ability to test itself to see if it is true I can believe anything and be just as justified in it. I can believe there is a giant space turtle out in the universe that eats black holes and craps planets. Without having to subject myself to testing it I would be justified in holding those beliefs. From what I can understand you cannot verify anything that is in that infinite that D&G talk about, because as soon as you stop to test it and relate it with the real world it becomes science, unless you disproved it logically.
You cannot simply create a clear separation between the two when we can see examples of people verifying epistemic beliefs based on their experience of the world. Pragmatism argues that meaning can be found in the practical consequences of accepting that it is true. It is a question of whether our beliefs are consistent with our experiences and other beliefs that we have. For example with pragmatism I can believe that a statement like A=~A is true, as long as I can function in the everyday world and form other beliefs. That is a logical belief completely under the realm of philosophy. Anyone that beliefs quantum mechanics may have to accept that as the case. An example of this being the case would be some sects of Buddhism who can believe stuff like they both exist and don’t exist, or at the essence of everything is nothingness. If this belief turned out not to work in the real world, than we would have to create a new philosophical idea. A pragmatist looks to the real world to see if there philosophical beliefs have basis in the real world.
Pragmatist ethics would rely completely on how it worked in the world. As soon as it stops and looks to see how it works, it becomes science. So to say that philosophy exists on the infinite, and science does not, throws pragmatism out the window every time it tries to relate itself to the world and the experiences that we have.
Pragmatism uses experience of the world as a foundation for beliefs drawing connection for which we can form a belief. I don’t think anyone would argue whether the question of vigilantism is just falls under philosophy, but analyzing how it works practically in the world would be science to D&G. Either pragmatism constantly jumps between philosophy and science every time it verifies itself with experiences of the world or the dividing line drawn by D&G is not there. I may be misunderstanding D&G, but I think that this is a possible objection to the idea that there is a clear separation between science and Philosophy. I might be wrong and only large scale philosophical ideas are philosophy but when applied to the real world it becomes science. Like the idea that we should believe something if it works practically is philosophy, but actually seeing if it works practically is science. But once again that would mean that science changes philosophy. Just the general idea that experiences form all of your beliefs means that a scientific look at the world affects everything in that infinite D&G describe. The theory that experience will define your ethics, your epistemology etc, gray’s that line. Even brand new concepts don’t come out of nowhere, they come from experience.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Conceptual Personae vs. Partial Observers
We have, I think, established that the conceptual persona, while a "life," is also a tool which the philosopher uses to create concepts which solve problems. The partial observer is a "force" which is also a sort of tool. While the identities of the conceptual persona and the partial observer are not completely separate from the philosopher or scientist, they can each be "let loose," as it were, in order to solve problems in the appropriate way.
A useful way to phrase things might be to say that the conceptual persona's job is to think, while the partial observer's job is to experience or perceive. This distinction is, as we noted, not absolute. And each entity, or whatever we call it, is also a part of the system it is analyzing. These entities function in different ways because philosophy and science solve problems differently. Philosophy is syntagmatic, science is paradigmatic.
I think that what was being objected to was the "passivity" of the partial observer. But the partial observer isn't passive so much as receptive. The partial observer observes and takes in everything around it on the plane of reference, funneling this data into the system in the form of functives. It is actively taking in information.
This is what seems to be the "point" of the partial observer. Just as the conceptual persona allows the philosopher to assume a role in order to think in ways that she otherwise would be unable to, the partial observer allows the scientist to operate on the plane of reference, divesting him of normative claims or conceptual ways of thinking and allowing him to view the plane as a set of coordinates, out of which the functives come.
Professor Johnson seemed to resist this description; I'm wondering what a more accurate account would look like. I don't think we're saying that the conceptual persona is somehow more "active" or "living" than the partial observer, unless we simply want to say that concepts are more important than functives, which I don't think D and G want to do. The partial observer is still very much a subject of experience, but that experience is interpretation rather than construction (maybe?).
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Approach to Subject of Artistic Beauty
Although intimate, the aesthetic experience escapes all inquiry of its nature. We had searched, in vain, for centuries. The history of aesthetics from Plato in the 5th century B.C.E to Hume in the 17th attempts to locate the beautiful in the object. During this time, the beautiful either unveils itself directly—e.g., in the work’s quality of mimesis, greek term signifying the imitation or impression of the real, or, beauty unveils itself indirectly—e.g., in taste, which is none other than the capacity of the rational subject to recognize the objectives conditions of beauty in the work. It’s not until the 18th century that Kant recognizes that beauty possesses a subjective element, a certain pleasure evoked in the subject. This seems evident now. To experience the beautiful is to experience a particular sentiment.
Thus reasons Kant in the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment in examining the deep tension between subject and object by way of four movements or conditions of the beautiful. This allows him not only to resolve problems of objectivity/subjectivity but also though concerning, for example, the difference between natural beauty and artistic beauty, the origin of the work, etc. Nonetheless, these conditions don’t suffice to formulate a complete aesthetic theory; they neglect certain artistic mediums, specifically conceptual art. It’s also not evident how these conditions are unified as a class, an absence inviting us to suspect them as an arbitrary medley.
I propose a thesis in which I hold that these four conditions or movements of beauty described by Kant should be interpreted as a necessity of the effect of the work on the powers of introspection. This introduces the possibility to introduce further conditions of the same type which would incorporate neglected art forms (e.g. much non-visual art). This will push beauty towards the subjective. Like Kant, I’ll work to balance a theory of beauty containing subjective and objective elements: the work unveils itself as an object providing a particular impact upon specific internal mental states of the subject; nevertheless, this relation between work and mind reflects an objective fact of nature.
Genius and the Aesthetic Experience
Luckily, Kant wrote his senior thesis on this subject as well. Kant argues that we cannot make judgments about beauty unless be do so from good taste. Hence the only way we can go about creating/understanding “beauty” in art is through our faculty of taste. In order to make judgments from good taste, however, we must first have a necessary “skill” or “talent” for doing so. This “skill” is what Kant calls genius. While genius enables the artist to acknowledge her obligation to making aesthetic judgment from good taste, it is taste itself which “disciplines” our genius.
Moreover, Genius equips the artist with an ability to create art that does not depend upon an a prior concept of beauty itself. This makes our encounter with the “beautiful” object subjectively possible. Thus genius and taste go hand-in-hand throughout the “aesthetic experience”.
Perhaps a brief analogy will present the connection between genius an taste more fully in light of our aesthetic experience. Take, for example, the artist who finds inspiration from another work of art. The artist finds beauty in that particular work of art and wishes to recreate what she finds “beautiful” from that work of art in her own work. This is an example of bad taste. If the artist applies what she finds “beautiful” from the already existing work of art to her own composition, then she lacks the genius to create purely original art. Thus her creative process for making art originated from bad taste.
The same is also true of bad taste when an artist tries to convey beauty in an overly abstract way. Perhaps this is because the artist is without the necessary skill or talent that is required for her genius to prevail. Instead, the artist compensates for her lack of genius by creating art that in no way communicates beauty as something desirable. In both cases the viewer is “turned off” by the art, either because the art lacks creativity, or because the artist has produced the art in a way that is virtually incommunicable to the listener.
This is where I’d like to commence with my study of taste. I find it fascinating how taste can support a subjective encounter with the “beautiful”, while at the same time making that encounter “universally understood”.
Who's Afriaid of Red Yellow Blue
Trying to Put My Thoughts in Words
First of all, aside from scientific explanations, the world is absurd. The unreasonableness I identify has more to do with the “why” than the “how”. Science can explain how something happens because these things can be observed and identified; why they occur is a different matter entirely. We are drawn towards a universal perspective or “god’s-eye-view” of the world where there is a single standard of truth but I can find no evidence of this. Instead, I believe we all have our individual perspectives which we work off of. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we can do whatever we want because there is no standard, but rather that all our perspectives are equally valid, in a certain sense, and we have to respect each other’s perspectives equally. In this way we are able to make our own meanings in our lives and are not required to subscribe to anyone else’s ideas. This realization also frees us from feeling bound by what we view as universal or community standards. We have to keep in mind at the same time to respect each other’s perspectives, so while we may disagree with others, we should regard other perspectives with same respect we expect for ourselves. This leads us to come to something like the golden rule of treating others the way we would like to be treated. If we reach this point, then we might come to the realization that helping other people helps ourselves because the goodness of the community trickles down to the individual.
I have a lot of ideas I’m trying to incorporate here and I know I’m forgetting something that might make it more sensible, but I’m interested in what you guys have to say about these things. I’m still trying to flesh these ideas out in my head and any suggestions for where I should turn for explanations that will help me with my ideas would be appreciated.
Monday, February 14, 2011
More Taste...
Personally, my exposure to the notion of taste (in its philosophical context, that is) comes mainly from professor Grady’s class on Aesthetics. When it was all said and done, we focused on the notion of taste for almost half of the semester, considering the different interpretations of taste through likes of Hegel, Kant, and Hume. The question we were most concerned with dealt with how taste determines our judgments of aesthetics value (i.e. what constitutes our calling an object beautiful/desirable). In other words, when we make judgments about beauty (especially in art and nature) are such judgments made from good taste? This also applies to how we properly go about creating beautiful objects through means of fine art (i.e. music, painting, etc…). Whether we are creating beauty or calling an object beautiful we must acknowledge taste as the principle faculty for such. Thus one of our goals in the class was to unpack the notion of taste with hopes of uncovering how it is properly used in the context of beauty and its conceptual importance to aesthetics.
For both Kant and D&G, taste is ultimately what unites our faculties (e.g. reason, imagination, and understanding). While Kant finds the notion of taste important to forming aesthetic judgments, D&G apply taste in a similar manner to the creation of concepts via the “laying out, the inventive, and creating” process that constitutes the “philosophical trinity”. In chapter 3, D&G explain that “philosophical taste” is “the love of the well-made concepts” (77). If we apply this notion of taste furthermore, we see how Kant employs a similar notion of taste in our forming of aesthetic judgments.
Kant insists that we cannot rely upon prior concepts of beauty when describing the “Beautiful” (that is, if we want to make what we call “beautiful” universally understood). Instead, we must understand beauty as that which constantly develops new conceptual features on its own “limitless plane”. Identifying these new conceptual feature demands that we do not appeal to, nor recreate prior concepts of beauty, but requires a highly creative/inventive process that pry’s into the faculty of our imagination. If we neglect to consider this when creating new conceptual features of beauty, then we are acting in bad taste.Hence, we cannot simply recreate what we call “beautiful” from a prior concept of beauty. D&G’s example of Van Gough’s “yellow” on page 78 highlights this feature of taste in an accurate manner consistent with that of Kant’s own understanding.
“Van Gough takes yellow to the limitless only by inventing the man-sunflower and by laying out the plane of infinite little commas. The taste for colors shows at once the respect with which they must be approached, the long wait that must be passed through, but also the limitless creation that makes them exist” (78).
Here, D&G’s example of Van Gough brings to mind the attentive process that one must undergo when building upon existing concepts. This process, which is only possible through means of taste, is manifest in the “well-made concept” that is creates. Thus the principle similarity between Kantian and D&G is how taste essentially allows us to create/develop new concepts.
Overall, I find the notion of taste rather fascinating in its context of philosophy; particularly how it lends to us the capability of making beautiful things. Perhaps this comparison to Kantian taste underscores the salient features of taste when applying the term to the D&G’s “philosophical trinity”.
Taste: The Philosopher's Duty to Philosophy
Yet philosophy requires more than simply possessing reason, imagination, and understanding, which alone does not properly qualify one to engage philosophy. This is where the notion of taste finds relevance to our study of philosophy. Taste, as an independent faculty, allows for the “philosophical coadaptation” of reason, imagination, and understanding. Taste is essentially the cornerstone of philosophy which unites the philosopher’s faculties of reason, imagination, and understanding. Taste creates a philosophical harmony between our faculties of reason, imagination, and understanding and allows them to work unison. It is through the faculty of taste that the philosopher’s duty to philosophy ultimately becomes manifest.
If the philosopher is a like a three-piece puzzle, comprised of reason, imagination, and understanding, then taste is how we go about putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Moreover, if taste is the “love of the well-made concept” then disciplining our faculty of taste becomes an integral part of philosophy.
An issue I take with D&G’s notion of taste examines where taste comes from. Reason, imagination, and understanding are seemingly inherent faculties of the mind, but where and how do we employ our faculty of taste. More importantly, how do we cultivate taste? If we taste is the “love of the well-made concept”, then where do we find the “well-made concept”.
In my opinion, D&G’s explanation of taste as the “philosophical coadaptation” of reason, imagination, and understanding is the most important point they’ve made thus far. Nonetheless, it demands close attention for we cannot progress on the subject of philosophy without a clear understanding of taste.
The Presumption of Atheism
Saturday, February 12, 2011
All thinking is Conceptual Persona
In addition wouldn’t any question posed by an outside source be considered CP because of subjectivity of experience. As it is said earlier people cannot share the exact same concepts as one another, even if there is complete understanding they are different because different people are thinking them. If a person proposes a philosophical question to a person that person is interpreting that concept, they are therefore creating their own concept through the interpretation. They are creating their own CP by interpreting the information they got earlier. And by working through those concepts it would be the same as if it were figured out through CP and working through it. Therefore reading a philosophy book would be the same operation as Descartes Cogito. Through the act of interpretation and translation to propose the question to ourselves, we are constantly creating Conceptual Persona. And if this is the case, it would seem that all thinking then would require conceptual persona, not just Philosophy. In addition where does the CP end does my thinking 10 minutes ago qualify as a completely different person? Every time we are thinking we are constantly putting on different costumes in order to analyze the things we are thinking. Our experiences form our thinking and build our costumes so all of our thinking would be the result of something that happened earlier in our lives. We put on a Kant costume because of our experiences with Kant. So philosophy is really just a remembering of past experiences so it is a plane of reference in that sense. Now I bring myself back to the question I had a couple weeks ago about whether or not science is just a philosophy. In science to figure out the patterns in the real world based on the data we have experience with. In Philosophy we are doing the same exact thing, the only difference is philosophy has trouble being tested in the real world. Philosophy at our level is merely a science because it is based on our experiences with the things we have read and we try to find some truth in it, some pattern. We haven’t truly created completely new concepts we were taught them. Our philosophical data that we have been acquiring over the last 4 years has been combined to make our thoughts, and every blog post is merely trying to find truth or debunk some of the data we may have seen. Unless the ideas came completely from our own head it is the same as science because every bit of data we acquire is turned into a conceptual persona that we try to make truth from.
The "Conceptual Persona" is an inevitable product of the yet-unproven theory of immanence.
When Descartes, for instance created the cogito, he almost certainly did not concieve of "the Idiot" (itself a moniker applied later) as a conceptual persona. I believe this, because Descartes, like the vast majority of historic Philosophers believed in transcendence. If we were to take a transcendent bearing with respect to the Idiot, we could very easily characterize Descartes as the "creator", and the Idiot as a step in his thinking process, functioning essentially as a premise in the proof for the Cogito. To say, as D&G do, that Descartes could not reach the Cogito without the Idiot is true, but only in the sense that a proof without a necessary premise isn't a functioning proof at all. To say that the Idiot has autonomy apart from Descartes' will that allows it to do things that Descartes cannot is absolutely absurd. The Idiot -- all of its choices, its goals, and its ultimate end -- are products of Descartes, not of the Idiot's own autonomy. No, Descartes can't actually doubt away all of his beliefs, but he can explore the possibility in his head. The Idiot is just a tool in this process, something that Descartes wields as he shapes the Cogito from other concepts, concepts that, incidentally belong to Descartes' memory, not the Idiot's.
This model is so simple, so natural that I think we have to ask why D&G take the tack that they do, fighting for the autonomy of the conceptual persona. I think it is because they cannot do otherwise while remaining committed to the idea of immanence. To take up the simple model of thought that I have framed above, they would have to admit of a "creator" and "created" distinction, which they absolutely cannot do while advancing the idea of the plane of immanence. Therefore, the Idiot (and all their other examples of conceptual personae, for that matter) must exist on the same plane as the end-concept's "signer" and the concept, itself. After we understand what D&G want to say in chapter three, chapter two must read the way it does. If D&G want me to take chapter two or three seriously, they are going to have to better explicate the reasons for me to buy into immanence. As of now, it doesn't click with me, despite my outside reading. The transcendence model is so much more natural to me, and What is Philosophy? has not given me the slightest reason to feel differently.
The Geophilosophical Domain(?)
In the beginning of Deleuze and Guattari’s chapter on Geophilosophy, there is a frenzy of new assertions which appeared messy and troublesome to me. It seems helpful to dissect the beginning distinctions which are laid out. D & G state “thinking is neither a line drawn between subject and object nor a revolving of one around the other” (86). Clearly they are attempting to draw the distinction which has been made a focal point in philosophy since the early modern period – that between the observation and that which is observed. In shirking off this dichotomy, D & G are attempting to go past what have become familiar mainstays in philosophy. Instead, D & G believe that “thinking takes place in the relationship of territory and the earth” (85). This territory is constantly re-molding and shaping in accord with the contours of thought which are being deterritorialized – or rearranged and changed, destroyed, etc.
This alteration of the domain of thinking can be carried out in two ways, and is either relative or absolute in scope. Relative deterritorialization has as its object “the historical relationship of the earth with the territorites that take shape and pass away on it…” (88). This form of deterritorialization seems to be concerned primarily with connections between the tangible and actual in the world. On the other hand, deterritorialization is absolute when it crosses over, or extends into the conceptual plane of immanence. D & G state that an absolute deterritorialization entails that “the earth passes into the pure plane of immanence of a Being-thought…a Nature-thought of infinite diagrammatic movements” (88). In this moment, all the elements of the earth are somehow conferred upon this plane and thus help to re-invent the earth by giving the base from which a new world is posited. The words may make sense to me, however the conceptualization of this process is still difficult.
Trying to Speak on D&G
Similarities between D/G and Descartes??
First, there is the issue of knowing that “I think.” Descartes proves this argument by doubting anything and everything that he think he knows, that is apparent in his knowledge, and experienced in his life. When he finally can’t doubt anything else, he is able to make the claim that because he is at least thinking these thoughts he has the ability to know. In the beginning of chapter three, D and G propose the idea of the idiot. The idiot is brought about through their interpretation of the conceptual personae, and perceived as a conceptual personae. The idiot is described as “the private thinker… [that] forms a concept with innate that everyone possess on their own account of right.” The idiot within the context of the conceptual personae was depicted in class as the devils advocate or the ability to step away from what we think we know and “doubt” our knowledge. Although there is a difference drawn between them, it seems that Descartes does this exact thing throughout the cogito to prove the claim that because I am thinking, this constitutes a sort of existence.
Secondly, D and G reiterate the other claim of Descartes that because I think, I am able to know truth. I feel that it is this claim that creates the opposition between the idiot and Descartes cogito. The idiot plays the role of being “dumb” to reiterate the knowledge that is attained, and to further know the knowledge that is assumed over time. Within the cogito, Descartes does assume that through recognizing his ability to doubt and rebuild the world through assumptions there is a sense of “knowing.” Although there seems to be a difference, does the idiot not do the same thing? Does he not play dumb in order to reiterate the point or the knowledge that he has attained?
I may be misinterpreting the text, but these two oppositions two Descartes cogito seem to have similarities, just different names. Did anyone recognize or feel this same way. Also, if there seems to be a misinterpretation of the reading, I would appreciate some guidance to help me further understand.
The Success and Failure of Philosophy
Within this specific description, D and G seem to suggest that an individual’s reaction to the inner workings of philosophy directly entails its success or failure. Although the three elements of philosophy (the prephilosophical plane, concepts, and conceptual personae) may work together to properly and effectively determine the truth value of opinions, the “success” of these instances is based on whether or not the individual finds them notably unusual and meaningful. Must philosophy be “interesting,” “remarkable,” and “important” to the philosopher to be successful (and, therefore, to avoid “failure”), or is philosophy still able to flourish in the absence of these characteristics? The development of these philosophical elements is clearly dependent upon the mind of the individual, but it seems as though their construction alone is significant enough for them to stand, even if the individual finds them boring, ordinary, and unimportant. Can philosophy exist at any point on its own, or is it always dependent upon the mind and categories of its creators?