Manuel DeLanda. Materialism, Experience and Philosophy. 2008 8/12

http://www.egs.edu/ Manuel DeLanda speaking about materialism and experience, Gilles Deleuze, materialist philosophy, left and marxist movement, a world of experience, philosophy of nature, social constructivism, sociology, materialism, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. Free public open video lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS, Film Media and Communication Studies department program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe, 2008. Manuel De Landa.

Manuel DeLanda, (born 1952 in Mexico City), is a writer, artist and distinguished philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University (New York), a Professor for Contemporary Philosophy and Science at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, a professor at the Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He is the author of War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1991), A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (1997), Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2002) and A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (2006). He has published many articles and essays and lectured extensively in Europe and in the United States. His work focuses on the theories of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze on one hand, and modern science, self-organizing matter, artificial life and intelligence, economics, architecture, chaos theory, history of science, nonlinear science, cellular automata on the other. De Landa became a principal figure in the "new materialism" based on his application of Deleuze's realist ontology. His universal research into "morphogenesis" - the production of the semi-stable structures out of material flows that are constitutive of the natural and social world - has been of interest to theorists across many academic and professional disciplines.

Alongside his intellectual work, DeLanda made several short Super 8 and 16mm films in the 1970s and early 1980s, all of which are now out of circulation. Cited by filmmaker Nick Zedd in his Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, DeLanda associated with many of the experimental and art filmmakers of this New York based movement. Much of DeLanda's film work is inspired by his interest in philosophy and critical theory; one of his best known films, Raw Nerves, has been described as a 'Lacanian thriller' by at least one critic.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Manuel
• Delanda
• materialism
• experience
• philosophy
• gilles
• deleuze
• nature
• world
• history
• society
• lecture
• media
• studies
• European
• Graduate
• School
• EGS

[AAGMach]

This may or may not make a difference, but I was referring to the specific reaction and its apparent contradiction to your statements about 'taking a stand' and 'integrity' (which you covered). But in the same breath I must add: your points (Spinozist and Deleuzian) made in response to me are well taken! It was a hasty reactionary (passive in the Spinozan sense) comment. Though i'm inclined to add that your ready-made comment about 'taking a stand' also seems at least somewhat 'passive' ;)

[AAGMach]

Also, it is, as he says in 'Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy', that he focuses on Deleuze's ontology, that is, on his world not his words.

[paintacanvass]

Oh, what a petty question. To ask "why the reaction...?" attempts to rationalise your own implied reaction. That doesn't work on me. I'm a Spinozist ACTION man! lol However, yes, I was thinking about altering the 'overrated' bit of my previous comment earlier, but then I changed my mind. What I meant to say was that "people's integrity" is overrated because the people are missing (in the Deleuzian sense), and to try to apply a hazy notion of integrity to such a hazy entity is a bit silly.

[AAGMach]

Delanda does touch on the deterritorialization of language in Deleuze's work, in 'Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy' (mainly in the appendix called 'Deleuze's Words', also a little in the introduction called 'Deleuze's World'.

As for the 'stigma', it is not against language but against how it is applied conceptually by idealists. And even then it is not so much how they use it, as it is how they reduce everything to how they use it.

1/3 of '1000yrs' is dedicated to language.

[AAGMach]

If it is overrated, why the reaction to yours being given a thumbs down?

[AAGMach]

Well by that logic... apparently they stand for giving you a 'thumbs down', so what's your problem with it?

[GodlessXVIII]

No philosopher can write for any length of time without surreptitiously 'retaining' some classical theme or two.

Overrated maybe, but better left untouched when discussing things with complete strangers on the net, eh?

[paintacanvass]

The overall Deleuzian project was not to destroy platonism, but to overturn it, and indeed it even retained a platonic theme or two, the reasons as to why, I still struggle with today. A bit like trying to catch a couple of gemstones beyond one's grasp in the depths of a black hole: doomed to futility. As for people's integrity, it's overrated. Alas, if only that were enough to live a good life.

[GodlessXVIII]

Not to be supportive of the thumbs down, but your comment above impugned people's integrity. At least, that's the most straightforward reading.

[paintacanvass]

Whoever gave my comments thumbs down, know this: if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything!