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loseyourname
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So we're discussing an article on Deleuze by Manuel DeLanda in a seminar of mine. We were given a question to answer and bring to class to start discussion with, and I've copied and pasted what I wrote into this post. I don't know if anybody is interested in discussing this topic here, but I find this stuff rather fascinating. I wasn't too sure where to post it, as the question my professor had us answer explores the metaphysical and ethical implications - if there are any - of the Deleuzian ontology. On the other hand, the article itself that we are seminaring seems to be a prescription for the philosophy of science. Frankly, with all due respect to my professor, I do think that this was the intention of DeLanda, but discussion can go either way. Here is the answer I've written to the discussion prompt:
And here is the article itself:
http://www2.uiuc.edu/unit/STIM/ontologies/delanda2b.pdf
You can do a quick google search on "deleuzian ontology" and come up with some pretty diverse links. If anyone would like to discuss either what I've written or any other take on this ontology that can be found online, I'd be more than willing to oblige.
In particular, if anyone is familiar with either Deleuze or DeLanda and thinks that I am flat-out wrong (this is my first exposure to either), I would love to see your argument.
Acceptance of DeLanda’s understanding of the Deleuzian ontology would require one to accept that one two kinds of things exist in the world: individual singularities and universal singularities. While it might be objected that these seem to constitute a taxonomy by which we delineate existing entities into categories, there is an important qualitative difference between these two means of classification, and the categorizing that DeLanda specifically objects: under the Deleuzian ontology, no entity of one classification exists as a member of a category that is of another classification. That is, no individual singularity or universal singularity is a member of a category that is itself an entity granted real existence in the ontology. The categories themselves are not reified.
That said, to get at the implication for an understanding of death under this ontology, one must first figure out whether death can be considered as an individual singularity or universal singularity. Under the Deleuzian system, an ‘individual singularity’ is understood to be any physical entity that is uniquely describable. That is, a book, a rock, or a species of bacteria are all individual singularities. A ‘universal singularity,’ on the other hand, would be those most general laws which govern the behavior of the processes by which individual singularities come into existence. The example given is of the ‘minimum point’ rule is a mathematical expression of how physical systems move into and out of equilibrium. Rules such as these create what Deleuze calls “intensive differences” which drive the coming into existence of unique individuals.
Does death match either of these descriptions? It certainly does not seem to be an individual singularity, as it is not really a substantial object of any sort, nor is it uniquely describable. On the other hand, death does not really seem to be a universal singularity either, as there is no ‘law of death’ dictating the behavior of physical systems. To figure out how death might fit into this ontology, let us look at what death is: death is a state of biological organisms which were once alive but no longer are. Specifically, an organism dies when it ceases to carry out the metabolic processes necessary to maintain the chemical disequilibrium driving it against the pull of entropy.
Death then becomes a step in a process driven by the universal singular that is the second law of thermodynamics, which states that any closed physical system will tend toward a higher state of entropy. When the energy, in the form of food, either ceases to be taken in, or ceases to be metabolized because of some organ failure, the system becomes effectively closed and death occurs. As Deleuze does not allow for the introduction of categories into his ontology, however, it would seem that he would not allow in anything that might be called ‘biological organisms.’ Thus, this particular consequence of the second law of thermodynamics that is unique to living creatures may very well not be allowed into the ontology. Instead, there is only the tendency toward equilibrium in systems not infused with intensive differences from outside energy sources. The “death” of a human is no different ontologically from the stabilization of temperature in a pot of water once the burner is turned off.
What does this thermodynamical understanding of death imply philosophically? It certainly seems to take away all of the special value generally given to life under most systems of ethics. It might also effect the same Stoic/Epicurean belief that death is not something to be loathed or feared, as it essentially is either not allowed any true existence or, at the very least, it is stripped of all moral consequence.
Can a Deleuzian ontology provide the foundation for the conception of philosophy as a way of life practiced by these ancient schools such as Stoicism and Epicureanism? As it does not seem to hold any ethical implications - rather, it seems to exclude ethics altogether - it does not seem to be able to prescribe any course of action such as those prescribed by these schools. On the other hand, taken purely as a system of metaphysics, it could prove useful. For an example of how it could be, we should look to the Pythagorean school. Pythagoras and his followers based their beliefs upon a metaphysics that reified mathematical abstractions, specifically those of geometry. As DeLanda states, he is doing essentially the same thing, only replacing geometry and its static ‘essences’ with topology and its dynamically shifting structures. Stripped to its core, the Deleuzian ontology seems to deny the existence of material objects such as protons, neutrons, and electrons, instead asserting the existence only of the mathematical expressions that describe either their organization or their behavior. By reifying the abstract description over the material substance, DeLanda and Deleuze commit themselves to a metaphysics that is far more complicated and dynamics than that of Pythagoras, but nonetheless similar in spirit.
In fact, what DeLanda seems to be advocated is a paradigm shift in the way one views the world in which we live. Instead of looking at and talking/writing about things as if they are particulars in a category, we look at them and write/talk about them in terms of thermodynamical equations. It is not difficult to imagine a Deleuzian practicioner meditating upon the topological nature shared by a coffee mug and a hula-hoop, or a light bulb and a dinner table (identical topologies are simply those that have the same number of holes, in which case these two sets of object become two objects), until he learns to view the world in this manner by second nature. In fact, a committment to the Deleuzian ontology may very well require one to live a life devoted to such mathematical contemplation. Similar to the way Neo from The Matrix learns to see the source code underlying the world of computer-generated objects in his world, a Deleuzian could learn to see the topological structures and correlative tensor equations underlying the familiar, everyday objects of our world.
However, without any ethics either derivable from this metaphysics or at least an ethics that compels one to practice this understanding of metaphysics, is there any reason to practice the Deleuzian ontology as a way of life? Although DeLanda never explicitly states this, he does seem to imply an ethical imperative to view the world through his lens. Though the imperative does not seem to carry any moral weight, it is nonetheless ethical in that it prescribed a course for human action. In this case, however, the weight is epistemological in nature. Much as one should practice the scientific method because it produces good experimental results, DeLanda seem to demand that we practice viewing the world as consisting of the Deleuzian ontology because of the epistemic implications: simply because this is the way the world really is and viewing it as such will increase our understanding of it. Whether or not DeLanda makes a strong case that the Deleuzian ontology is a good description of the way the world really is I will leave the reader to determine for himself.
And here is the article itself:
http://www2.uiuc.edu/unit/STIM/ontologies/delanda2b.pdf
You can do a quick google search on "deleuzian ontology" and come up with some pretty diverse links. If anyone would like to discuss either what I've written or any other take on this ontology that can be found online, I'd be more than willing to oblige.
In particular, if anyone is familiar with either Deleuze or DeLanda and thinks that I am flat-out wrong (this is my first exposure to either), I would love to see your argument.
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