Summary

The website content presents a comparative analysis of Deleuze's and Hegel's philosophical perspectives, focusing on their differing views on unity, the concept of the universe, and the role of reason and difference.

Abstract

The text delves into the philosophical contrasts between G.W.F. Hegel's absolute idealism and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference. It outlines Hegel's ontological monism, where the universe is conceptualized as a rational structure culminating in the realization of Geist (Spirit), and how this structure is knowable through reason. Hegel's dialectic process, involving thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, is contingent on identities and is seen as a historical progression towards an ultimate state of freedom and unity. In contrast, Deleuze's work is characterized as a response to Hegel's dialectic, emphasizing pure difference as the driving force of becoming, rather than the derivative differences produced by Hegel's system. Deleuze criticizes Hegel's representational thought and the subsumption of difference under the umbrella of reason, advocating instead for a philosophy that dramatizes Ideas without resorting to a transcendent subject or a predetermined end of history. The text also touches on the implications of Hegel's philosophy for society and politics, suggesting that his emphasis on unity and the elimination of difference can lead to conformism and authoritarianism, while Deleuze's approach celebrates multiplicity and the affirmation of life.

Opinions

The author suggests that Hegel's monism and the concept of Geist prioritize a rational, conceptual understanding of the universe, which Deleuze challenges by advocating for a primacy of difference.
Hegel's dialectic is critiqued for being limited to identities and for not recognizing difference as a positive, generative force in itself.
The text posits that Hegel's philosophy culminates in a form of transcendence where the subject and object unite under the terms of human reason, leading to a state of objective freedom rather than personal freedom.
Deleuze's response to Hegel is seen as an attempt to free thought from the constraints of representational dialectics and to introduce a process-oriented philosophy that does not rely on a predetermined telos.
The author implies that Hegel's system, with its focus on unity and the whole, inherently devalues diversity and individuality, potentially fostering an ethic of individual subordination to the state.
The text echoes Heidegger's critique of onto-theology, where Hegel's philosophy is seen as the culmination of metaphysics, with reason (Geist) taking the place of a traditional theological deity, thus negating life and affirming orthodoxy.
The political ramifications of Hegel's philosophy are highlighted, with the suggestion that the pursuit of a totalitarian state is a logical extension of his emphasis on unity and the primacy of the conceptual over the individual and diverse.

Deleuze and Hegel 2

Perspectives on Deleuze: Unity

The Concept of the Universe

Hegel does not deny diversity in the universe. His ontological monism is directed at what he sees as real in the universe, or the truth or essence of the universe, ie., Geist or spirit.

Geist resolves the dichotomy of thinking and being once and for all. Objects in the universe are essentially concepts.

Objects are realized concepts.

The Masterplan of the Universe

The concept is a structure plan for an object and an object is the realization of this structure plan. Further, the concept is not a representation in the mind of a subject, it is an objectified thought.

The Absolute concept is the masterplan of the universe, and it is knowable through reason. The universe is conceptual and its primacy, or Geist, is reason itself.

Reality is in fact reason; reason is the structure of reality.

The similarities with Plato’s Forms should be recognizable. Hegel effectively takes the idealism of Plato’s Forms and adds to it a process or historical dimension.

For Hegel, the absolute, the divine, is human reason and we can know it in ourselves:

Man is divine, man is God.

Deleuze’s Response

From one perspective, all of Deleuze’s writings are a response to Hegel.

Hegel’s dialectic is process oriented, but the process is contingent on identities. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis are only capable of being understood in terms of identity.

Reason remains truth oriented, based on a representational image of thought.

Hegel substitutes the abstract relation of the particular to the concept in general for the true relation of the singular and the universal in the Idea. He thus remains in the reflected element of “representation”, within simple generality. He represents concepts instead of dramatizing Ideas: he creates a false theatre, a false drama, a false movement. We must see how Hegel betrays and distorts the immediate in order to ground his dialectic in that incomprehension, and to introduce mediation in a movement which is no more than that of his own thought and its generalities. (Difference and Repetition)

Hegel acknowledges difference via the production of opposites, but the difference underlying dualities is posited only as derivative, and not a force in itself.

Identities conflict and produce a new reality; they are not the product of difference itself.

Dualities are the limit of differences between things, the negation of the positive, and not pure differential.

History moves forward as a process of negation, ending only in reason itself.

Hegel’s Transcendence

In Hegel’s absolute idealism, the subject and object are ultimately united, but they are united on terms dictated by human reason. This is transcendence taken to its logical limit and conclusion.

The transcendent subject that has realized the omniscience and omnipotence of the reason it is endowed with stands apart from the universe and reflexively comes to understand the universe itself as its own endowment.

Man is again at the center of the universe, armed with all knowledge and power to create it and rule over it.

Objective Freedom

Hegel described this state, the goal of history, as freedom.

But this freedom is not of a subject; it is purely objective, the freedom of the whole.

In a philosophy in which the transcendence of the subject is taken to its limit, the subject no longer is endowed with personal freedom, but instead has the freedom of understanding the primacy of the whole.

The conformity and authoritarianism embedded in this ontology should be coming in to view.

The Hegelian ethic, if you will, is that of the individual dissolving into the organic state.

Unity

Society is free once the distinction between it and the individual are resolved in favor of unity and the corresponding elimination of the individual; the inferiority of the diverse ends in the complete elimination of difference itself.

Identity becomes one in the absolute. The transcendent subject ultimately shows its true face: it dissolves into nothingness.

This is the poisoned gift of Platonism all over again: the desire to introduce judgement into thought, to establish a mystical and transcendent entity that governs over humanity.

Difference and multiplicity are seen as a threat to thought, morality and politics. Chaos, democracy and anarchy are stilled by the weapon of reason.

Humanity, life, the universe has been reduced to a mere appearance inferior to the all-encompassing idea. Geist is all that there is.

Onto-Theology

Martin Heidegger named this “onto-theology”: theology disguising itself as philosophy; and in his opinion it spelt the end for metaphysics. The first cause and telos, the object of all things, is reason, Geist, aka, God, the omniscient, omnipotent.

Life is negated, orthodoxy and conformism are affirmed.

Unity, totality, wholeness are closed matters at the inevitable end of history.

Abstraction taken to the nth degree leads to nothingness; nothing that is really there, just the idea of something.

The political solution to replicate the foregone conclusion of the ascendency of Geist is the organic, totalitarian state.

Deleuze and Schopenhauer 1

Perspectives on Deleuze: Unity

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Tomas

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