Manuel DeLanda - The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. 2007 1/5

[pawsoned]

@Hofsteder read "Gilles Deleuze - an Introduction" by Todd May. He explains Deleuze's philosophy and gives plenty of examples of "valuable, original insight by Deleuze". However, to put them in a short comment limited to 350 characters is simply too reductive.

[erzzr]

@royalyon "non-evolutionary" something tells me you haven't read DeLanda or Deleuze...

[Ontologistics]

Deleuze does not offer anything of insight. It's superficiality dressed as depth.

It gives Philosophy a bad name.

[Pizarrosdb]

@Ontologistics

You just don't understand it. Too bad.

[DrMerkwuerdichliebe]

02:35, and there we have Gilles reincarnate...

[SuricataJoe]

Well, may be they are charlatans, maybe they aren't. Thats the whole point of thinking, is it not? If you feel theoretically strong and fierce enough do care to enlighten the rest of the community, we will be very thankful. But if it is just BS do not bother, there is already plenty around in the world…

[OmarThePug]

Gilles was crazy. The only merit in his craziness was that he was able to write in down. His philosophy is not philosophy it was pure craziness. His craft was not philosophy but art. Guattari is only complicit nonsense. These two clowns should not be considered serious...only fraudulent!

This PHILOSOPHY IS CRAP!!! Wake up!

[DaimonTheFallen]

@OmarThePug Just because it appears to be 'crazy' to you doesn't make it so. It's kind of funny how many people misread Deleuze so constantly.

[siamesecats1959]

Deleuze and Delanda (and friends, such as Guattariare taking advantage of the unsophisticated architecture audience to perpetrate a fraud. Many of the statements in these videos are demonstrably false. Read Sokal and Bricmont. Architects are easy prey for these charletans. They have been tossed by serious philosophy, and can now only find a home with those uneducated in serious theory and philosophy. Some say this is poetry. Do not insult poets this way. This is sophistry.

[TheHerm18]

you really aren't sure what you're talking about here, are you? Care to demonstrate some falsehoods?

[MrNomadologist]

@siamesecats1959

Sokal and Bricmont just take passages out of context and point to them, and basically shriek at the reader "SEE????!?!??! SEE!???!!? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!??!??! WORDS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS!!! DON'T LOVE THEM!!!! LOVE MEEEE!"

[Rahab111222]

I like pizza

[et6yEhzxexzhrz]

@Rahab111222 This is relevant to my interests....

[siadbarrbar]

to consumed by politics, not that its not important.

im glad he through in the not important part because i would hardly get that impression from reading deleuze.

[unwrinkledear]

de landa is only a mediocre interpreter of deleuze. his earlier books (war in the age of; 1000 years of) before he decided to explicate deleuze like we were all adolescents were much better.

besides, who the fuck types his name into youtube and wants to watch him lecture? - i wanted to see his fucking films

[synchretist]

well give us better inrerpreters

[rajasmasala]

egs, manuel delanda, thank you, thank you, thank you. you're making everything a lot easier for me.

[glovearm]

The HUMAN IDEA of expression is based on consciousness and that is the point; expression is NOT dependent on consciousness but receptivity.

[paintacanvass]

Yes, but the human unconscious is productive, and the human idea of expression is not enough to account for human production and its products, which is why expression takes precedence over anthropocentrism in all its forms. Even your negation, when you use "NOT", is not enough to account for the production of that negation's problems. In other words, the negation of the negation is useless, because the unconscious is productive and knows no negative. An obvious example is automatism.

[pilkingtonphil]

"In other words, the negation of the negation is useless, because the unconscious is productive and knows no negative."

That's kind of the problem with Deleuze though. He gives full precedence to the unconscious even though both Freud and Lacan stressed the importance of the conscious and preconscious agencies in the make-up of consciousness. Just look at Freud's paper on "Negation". He seems to imply that in order to become conscious, to organise ideas etc. we first have to introduce negation.

[egapnala65]

@pilkingtonphil And then again Lacan also stated that his erect penis was equal to the square root of minus one so how seriously should we take him either?

[pilkingtonphil]

"In other words, the negation of the negation is useless, because the unconscious is productive and knows no negative."

But the unconscious only "exists" (in Freudian metapsychology) in relation to the conscious and preconscious agencies.

Freud and Lacan are very clear on this - see Freud's paper on Negation, for example.

Without the "negating" agencies of the conscious and pre-conscious (secondary processes) the very idea of the unconscious couldn't come into existence.....

[paintacanvass]

So actually, what you just said is that the unconscious only started to exist with Freud, with psychoanalysis, that he invented it. Does it matter? After Deleuze, I don't think it's useful to focus on psychoanalysis, but as you like. Anyway, what I said was that, regardless of Freud, the human unconscious is productive, that's all.

[28g34ajbsd]

Umm... I don't believe Deleuze would use the term unconscious except to trash it.

[anothersunsetfalls]

i dont think so. he uses this term in several writings, just like the anti-oedipe, there the unconscious is the internalized and at the same time externalized machine of capitalism

[paintacanvass]

We didn't actually disagree about anything, just different perspectives. I said that there is an order of expression and that it cannot be reduced to anthropocentric interpretations, and you said that there is an order of unconscious production, that the pre-conscious and conscious are secondary processes. There is no contradiction. It's all expression, and our little duologue was both an animal and a human expression; but there is so much nonhuman artistic expression to be affected by!

[paintacanvass]

And by the way, both Freud and Deleuze are dead, so it's also useless arguing about dead people. As to their theories however, they've been reinterpreted in so many different ways that it's difficult to think about what is actually happening in the present anymore. If you read Deleuze and Guattari's book on Kafka, their explanation of language and what Kafka did with it, is brilliant.

[paintacanvass]

...Although there are serious chunks of that book I reject completely. Back to your comment though. Does focusing on secondary psychoanalytic processes deny the history of psychoanalysis and its effects?

[paintacanvass]

I don't know what happened to the first part of the comment. It seems to be missing. I repeat more or less what I wrote before... The serious chunks of the book I reject are from Deleuze and Guattari's work on Kafka. I think I said something about the way they perceived Kafka as creating from language, a machinic use for expression, rather than providing material for distressing psychoanalytic reproductions.

[NikkazPunx]

Manuel Delanda is totally annoyed by the ah-nuld like introduction.

[ArnoldKlein]

Yes, he is, and me too.

[MullisInk]

Amen, brother!

[FritzThaulove]

Why dont you put them on, do a fashion shoot and get in the next issue of vice?

Maybe that would pass as beauty too.

[CCSalisbury]

I've only watched the first part so far but isn't the idea of expression dependent on some sort of consciousness? Isn't really all Deleuze is doing is reducing expression to merely existing in a certain form. Which makes expression meaningless or equivalent to being since to exist something has to exist in a certain form. So in the end, all he's saying is that stuff exists and has traits. Certainly mere animal or not, man is unique in his awareness of expression.

[StopTouchingMyFood]

Sorry, but after the "Sokal Affair" I'm surprised that people are still foolish enough to give lectures such as this one.

[FreethinkingFun]

That "sokal affair" was BULLSHIT he took advantage of an honest institution and then claimed to have "exposed" their lack of intellectual rigor...you can tell it's bullshit because the book that they published after the scandal totally missed the point of most of the philosophers they criticized and the context in which they were working, and you also no it sucks because Dawkins blindly supported it. Either way...the sokal paper actually made a good point or two haha oh well

[eydos]

I agree with your statement FreethinkingFun. I think the sokal affair signifies the unfortunate divergence between philosophical and scientific usage of language and narrative as a whole which is a pity, a gap is opening when there should not. Sypmtomes of misunderstanding shows that there is need to communication not oneway denunciations.

[robbo9942]

The Sokal thing was an indictment of some sloppy morons trading in fashionable non-sense.

That doesn't immediately write off any writer they cited.

[StopTouchingMyFood]

"divergence between philosophical and scientific usage of language"??

Hardly. There's plenty of rigorous, reasoned, unambiguous language to be found in (analytic) philosophy journals. But you won't find any in this video. Because a professor or architecture talking about Deleuze has little to do with philosophy.

[28g34ajbsd]

Yes, and this is why analytic philosophy is actually *the* most boring thing in the world.

[littleumbrellas37]

@28g34ajbsd

I'm inclined to be sympathetic to this view. Luckily, continental philosophy is quite interesting. And Deleuze certainly belongs to that group of thinkers labeled "continental."

[stephenblack]

I don't know if this is what is meant by postmodern talk or not. The problem is understanding them when they speak like that or even knowing whether their words are intended to make any sense or not. Dawkins and the rest are able to criticise them but I don't know how they do it when what they are criticising seems so out of this world. For me, to criticise you have to first find some sense in the object of your criticism. 'Atoms have personalities', 'crystals have identities'. Give me a break!

[volumexxvii]

Dawkins' language always remains trapped in a superficial scientific framework, while the language of Deleuze penetrates philosophically. Deleuze may sometimes be difficult, but most certainly worth the effort.

[Victimoftheinsane]

did you even watch the lecture?

clearly you are still entrenched in the very sort of anthropomorphic thinking that the lecture, and deleuze's philosophy at large, sets out to refute.

[guido737]

wake me up when he finish

[kazbsmfe]

nietzsche correctly predicted the end of any 'aristocratic' value a human might carry.

[pilkingtonphil]

Incidentally, does anyone ever get the impression that aesthetic theories derived from Deleuze's work are to actual art what attempts (such as those of Timothy Leary) to ground psychological theories in the experience of chemical induced delirium are to actual psychology?

And if such is even remotely the case wouldn't it follow that establishing some sort of quality control would be impossible due to the impenetrably narcissistic (i.e. shut-off) character of the psychologist/aesthetician?

[pilkingtonphil]

Crystals expressing themselves?

Why is it that somebody ostensibly setting out to discuss scientific ends up sounding like a proponent of some new-age "crystal healing" tripe?

I mean if the vast majority of what we convey to each other is through the use of spoken/written language then isn't it important to recognise when certain expressive and terminological methods overlap?

[pilkingtonphil]

Crystals expressing themselves?

Why is it that somebody ostensibly setting out to discuss scientific ends up sounding like a proponent of some new-age "crystal healing" tripe?

I mean if the vast majority of what we convey to each other is through the use of spoken/written language then isn't it important to recognise when certain expressive and terminological methods overlap?

[pilkingtonphil]

Crystals expressing themselves?

Why is it that somebody who is ostensibly setting out to discuss aspects of the sciences ends up sounding like a proponent of some sort of new-age "crystal healing" tripe? I mean if the majority of what we convey to each other takes the form of discourse then isn't it important to point out to these similarities in expressive style and terminological usage?

[marxesque]

it seems to me that there's much more to be gained by simply reading the chapter from A Thousand Plateau's which he discuses then listening to someone lecture on it...

"better a fool on your own account than a sage on another's approbation"

[matheme]

the fact that this guy argues for people being more like animals basically speaks for itself.

[robpoe]

I'm pretty sure he makes it explicit what he means by that in both lectures that are posted on YouTube. So really it does speak for itself, but not the in way your fake sarcasm indicates.

[Rahab111222]

Says the person with a justin timberlake video in his favorites.

[ashburnhouse]

But people are animals.

[28g34ajbsd]

to be "more like"? :)

you mean, more like the animals that therefore we always already are? :)~

[joyclean]

american yaqui indian philosophy

paraphrased. carlos castaneda as

continental; poisoned in a river

of come-lately discourse.

[cevemeve]

Paraphrasing american yaqui indian philosophy is not a bad way of developping ideas... specially when you have a more global vision than just tie your theory to one single culture, on a region, or a time period. Yaqui philosophy, by the way, joins many other visions... just as the one practiced (actually) by the kogi in Colombia.

[sssswwwsssss]

What Delanda is getting at here is Deleuze's transcendental realism, which for philosophers of most guises has to be seen as (at least) a bold and novel move. Unfortunately, we're going to get the whole history of his thinking before we get to a discernable philosophical point. The way that much of continental philosophy is communicated does it no favours at all.

[isolateslowfaults]

@sssswwwsssss I'm not claiming to be an expert on Deleuze, but I thought his whole thrust was abolishing "transcendence" in favor of "immanence" as a limitless plane with all thoughts cross-fertilizing

[Discogen]

Thanks Manuel. Thanks EGS. Keep it coming! More Deleuzeans, please!

[Rahab111222]

DeLanda is wonderful, this speech is awesome, Deleauze is awesomesauce. 5 Stars!

[jackspicerisland]

Stick-in-the-muds everywhere will tell you that Deleuze is 'not philosophy.' Of course these folks are animated by the same spirit that claimed Nietzsche wasn't philosophy, that Spinoza wasn't. These are the accountants of philosophy who, I guess, would have us all reading Russell and Frege and nothing else. Ick.

That said, DeLanda WAS more fun when he was driving the getaway car for Joe Coleman.

[mikebott]

i am very curious as to who discounted spinoza as a philosopher.

[jackspicerisland]

If you're curious, check out the school of Soviet philosophers in the late 1920's who understand him not as a philosopher but as a particularly gullible theologian.

[ZombieJesusBrainz]

Don't let rigourous argument get in the way of philosophy!!!!!!!! (haha!) no seriously. I think people who are into this sort of worship of intellectuals (its good they should be worshiped) but from a philosophical perspective there are much more exciting discussions out there they are just taking place in journals and stuff. I am a sartre expert but I am an "analytical philosopher" and thats where I argue my perspective. My heart is continental, the mind analytic.

[StopTouchingMyFood]

Delanda has a BFA and teaches at an architecture department. I'm really not sure how his work gets tagged as "philosophy".

[egsvideo]

thank you for the comment. please read and enjoy: A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History

by Manuel De Landa. i hope this helps. thank you.

[StopTouchingMyFood]

I've already read "War in the Age of Intelligent Machines". That was enough for me.

[metallicon3]

really, you know, I can already see the majoritarian discourses trying to come down on Deleuze and now DeLanda, on the youtube videos. You just keep wasting your time posting negative comments, each time you do that Deleuzians and those who appreciate DeLanda's work get better.

[metallicon3]

really, you know, it's so blatant from reading the negative posts from the Deleuze and DeLanda videos that there is already a majoritarian discourse trying to come down on them. You just keep being negative, and us Deleuzians who appreciate DeLanda's work just keep getting better.

[StopTouchingMyFood]

"majoritarian"? philosophers are hardly in the majority anywhere.

I don't call philosophical articles "math" or "chemistry", so I don't see how the fine arts world and the cultural theory world can call their work "philosophy".

[0neironaut]

appeal to tradition.

[FeastFX]

@StopTouchingMyFood because academic "domains" dont have rigid boundaries, but we sure like to claim they do

[ingmar013]

@StopTouchingMyFood Do you have to have an academic degree in philosophy to be a philosopher?

[AmbientDisorder]

@StopTouchingMyFood - listen closer and you may hear it.

[HolyShizzle]

@StopTouchingMyFood architecture is philosophy

[Rahab111222]

I like this. Thanks for uploading!

[alexandergnum]

I must be too stupid to recognize any sense of philosophy in it. It all sounds just like most of books in Fantasies section of any bookstores. It sounds like quite authentic and intereseting fable or at least idea for new fable. But I can't sense any relation between what he says and what I used to recognize as philosophy.

Of course it is purely my personal feeling - nothing more. Who am I to say?!

[robpoe]

I guess the best question would be: What do you recognize as philosophy? Philosophy seems to me to be making sense of the world, though sometimes it is making the world senseless by undermining concepts such as transcendence. What are the "fable" elements in this for you?

[4ourthofjuly]

The humanities should be restructured in general. I cant buy in to deleuze having any explanatory power, it does seem more like art. I think he said something like art, philosophy, and science are 3 different ways to understand the world. I only see science, and some sort of "analysis" innate to humans. A bit like Russell wrote about.

[hairhorn]

I don't know a single professional philosopher who studies Deleuze. They're all in Literature, Art, and so on.

So please stop calling it "philosophy".

[Vlady011]

I agree. That's the problem with philosophy departments in North America and elswhere. Let me tell you, my Political Science lectures where we actually study Deleuze, Derrida, Levinas (and even Badiou) are filled with philosophy students. Philosophy as a disciple has stopped being serious as a result of the emphasis given to the analytical tradition.

[adrianleverkuhn]

I'm a philosophy teacher specialized in Greece, and let me tell you, I didn't know what philosophy was all about until I read Deleuze. I can't think of anything closer to philosophy than his books.

[thrystero]

Well, you obviously aren't acquainted with too many "professional philosophers, then.

But that's ok, no need to feel sad...

[StopTouchingMyFood]

this is the stuff of fine art departments, not philosophy departments.

[0neironaut]

ahah oh really?! what is it that 'real' philosophy "knows so well about knowing that nobody else knows so well"?

[Rahab111222]

Philosophy has it's hands on every aspect of everything that is.

[Rahab111222]

Philosophy has it's hands on every aspect of everything that is.

[bigpiimpiiin]

Deleuze was influenced by the artistic side of humans.

[aslimuslim]

I am a human who looks out!

[sicknessuntodeath]

It's as if the slave is saying: 'I am sparticus!'

I'll continue though, in the hope of autochthonus entelechy. Chuckle.

[WinstonAMC]

if you are going to try to come off as more intelligent than your imagined reader, why don't you try to use well and spell correctly the BIG words you use, or else your the reasons for your chuckle should remain...autochthonic to yourself

[albertomunoz1]

It is very important for the world to upload all this videos from EGS!!!!

[jakob0815]

46th viewer!

[synthum]

Finally! Way to go, EGS!! Just what the Dr. ordered! Marshall McLuhan and Teilhard de Chardin would be proud! Get it all up on YouTube! Global Education for all! Thanks!