Summary

The provided text delves into Gilles Deleuze's philosophy, exploring how his naturalist, constructivist, and perspectival approach shapes our understanding of reality, thought, and values.

Abstract

The article examines Deleuze's philosophical stance, emphasizing his commitment to naturalism, which affirms life and nature, and constructivism, which posits that we create concepts and values within an immanent field. Deleuze's realism asserts the subject as a real aspect of the universe, not a transcendent idea, and thought is seen as more than knowledge, with truth as an elusive transcendent. Concepts and values are contingent and relevant in specific contexts, rather than being universally objective. The text also discusses Deleuze's view of thought as a process, where concepts are fluid and evolve through problems and differences, rather than having fixed identities. This philosophy rejects the notion of objective truth, instead embracing creation and the transformation of thought over time. The article concludes by inviting readers to consider the practical implications of Deleuze's thought in social and political contexts, questioning whether constructivism leads to relativism or offers a meaningful framework for decision-making.

Opinions

Deleuze's naturalism is seen as an affirmation of life and nature, constructing a vision of the genesis of real experience.
The article posits that Deleuze's realism is grounded in the belief that the subject is a real, created aspect of the universe, not a mystical or transcendent idea.
Concepts are viewed as contingent and normative, serving practical ends and reflecting the affirmation of nature without appealing to objective truth.
The text suggests that Deleuze's conception of thought is dynamic, with concepts being multiplicities that transform temporally and lack defined borders.
Deleuze's philosophy is presented as a challenge to the idea of objective truth, instead valuing the creation of concepts and values as an artistic process.
The author questions whether Deleuze's

Deleuze and Pragmatism 1

Perspectives on Deleuze: A Practical Dialectic

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

What does it mean that reality, thought, values can only be viewed from limited perspectives? That there is no objective and universal truth that we can know about reality, thought or values?

In my articles on Gilles Deleuze, we have come across a few “isms”: naturalism, constructivism, perspectivism.

How are we to understand these terms as a coherent view?

How are practical decisions amongst human beings to be made if we assert an ontological, epistemological and ethical vision that is naturalist, constructivist and perspectival?

Naturalist Concepts

Naturalism, for Deleuze, is based in the positive, the affirmation of life and nature. And from this standpoint he constructs a vision of the genesis of real experience.

He is a realist in the sense that the subject is a real aspect of the universe, created in the field, and not a mystical transcendent idea. The thinking subject is real, but thought is always more than knowledge, and truth as objective reality is a transcendent that defies naturalism.

We create concepts that draw into perspective our experience of reality. We create values that affirm life.

We construct reality, ideas about reality and values from within an immanent field.

Clearly this is a normative view in the sense that nature itself is affirmed, but there is no appeal to objective truth.

Concepts themselves are a becoming, only relevant insofar as they provide insight, at a certain time, place, and occasion, as befits them.

Concepts are contingent, just as are the values we create in differing circumstances. They are not based on a reason or reasoning that would ground its objectivity in something outside the immanent field.

Practical Thought

But thought can serve practical ends peculiar to a specific time, place and circumstance, and there can be a dialectic in which concepts and values are elaborated and reflected upon, amongst subjects.

What vision does Deleuze have for the practical thinking we must inevitably do in a social and political setting in which we find ourselves dependent on one another for our survival, and indeed, for the affirmation of the species and planet as a whole?

Is there any “calculus” for applying concepts practically, or does constructivism condemn us to a meaningless relativism in which any vision qualifies as a “meaningful” perspective?

Thought as Process

Deleuze asserts that concepts are based in difference and temporality. They are multiplicities that transform temporally.

Concepts have a consistency and a variability without having an identity.

Concepts have no defined borders, but instead are in a continual state of becoming, linking up with and releasing from other concepts externally; as well as having an interiority, the transformation of which is driven by a process of pure difference.

Concepts are a function of problems, as they arise and fall, but have no essence or universality.

For Deleuze, there is no truth that is not contingent over time. Transcendent truth is for him the false appearance it condemns; it is illusion. Objective truth is judgement and nothing more, created out of the false.

Truth floats in delirium of the false. From this perspective we can see that there is only creation, and not discovery.

The will to power is not the will to judge, it is the will to create.

The creation of concepts or values is the art of cutting, organizing and connecting flows of thought in time. Any knowledge obtained is an outcome and necessarily contingent.

Real thinking is the process of creation itself. Over time, thoughts become normalized and regularized into knowledge. Thought is captured, and temporarily imprisoned in knowledge, when the remarkable becomes the conventional and banal.

The art of real thought is to empty the canvas, destroy the cliché, and clear the way for the new.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Thanks for reading!

Tomas

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