Before I get into the meat of my blog there was something I wondered. When hearing about the difference between science and philosophy in class I couldn’t help but draw a connection to Henri Bergson. D&G’s claim that science slows down the infinite in order to gain reference of the virtual is similar to Henri Bergson’s claim. Henri Bergson claimed that science is a system of snapshots throughout an infinite plane. There is a difference between both of these theories though, Bergson argues that these snapshots does not actually completely convey reality because by taking these snapshots they lose the movement that would connect all of the individual snapshots. I was wondering if there was an influence by Bergson on D&G.
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.
To speak to your initial charge that D and G's work in unverifiable, I too originally felt this way. I changed my mind in class the other day when I said, "We talk about philosophy of science, so what is the science of philosophy?", and Dr. J answered "They're doing it right now, in this book." It's true, they are. The opportunities for verification are already present in the reading and multiply with every passing chapter. I think that I had trouble seeing this because I was used to reading analytics, who hand you a thesis and short summary of their argument up front. With D and G, we got only a thesis in the first chapter. The book itself is written in a highly expository manner, such that we won't get their entire argument until we get through the entire book. For that reason, I have learned to hold off on the criticisms until the book's end. Over and over again, D&G have answered my attacks in the very next chapter, and I think that your issue with their idea of Philosophy, and their text will soon be alleviated.
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