The Conditions of the Question: What Is Philosophy? Gilles Deleuze
18/09/20 3:40 PM start time
Deleuze, Gilles The Conditions of the Question: What Is Philosophy? In Critical Inquiry; Spring 1991; 17, 3; pg. 471-478
PRE-READ (SCAN)
When does a person ask about philosophy? Question requires trust, vulnerability, between friends. Like us, concepts need friends, and for evolution of philosophy, their friend must be diverse. A philosopher must be a friend to his creations (concepts). “The question of philosophy is […] the single point where the concept and creation are linked together.” The concept is not a representation, or knowledge, but a reality. It is self-positing. Encyclopedia, pedagogy, commercialization, the third age is a disaster of thought regardless of social benefits. (83 words, paraphase).
QUESTIONS
Aiming for a quick(er) read using reading strategies. Check end notes, first+last para, topic sentences, getting gist of it. On second read I want to take notes on the things I am interested in and have questions about, with only the quotes that grip me, the details that jump for me (paraphase), and jots of my own thoughts/questions. (30 mins).
After scan, I am interested in concepts being described as friends and the relationship of community supports impacts this thinking. I am also interested the way philosophy posits itself in relation to other disciplines, especially as a very old discipline in comparison to very new (and insecure) ones like creative research. The ideas I am reading about today are exciting and tap into things I feel like I understand on an intuitive level, I am interested in how these ideas are made accessible, how they are taken out of academia and used in “low-brow” creations.
READING NOTES
- (Published 1991) Deleuze – prof of philosophy, University of Paris, Capitalism and Schizophrenia / Anti-Oedipus 1983 + A Thousand Plateaus 1987, Cinema / The Movement-Image 1986 + The Time-Image 1989, The Logic of Sense 1990, Expressionism in Spinoza 1990.
- transitions from friend to enemy, trust to mistrust
- friend = intimacy, or = potentiality?
- “infinite sharing and patience” (Blanchot, L’Amitie 1971)
- “art brings spiritual entities into existance”
- “….must begin by fabricating and creating [concepts], positing them and making them convincing to those who have recourse to them.” (nietzche).
- “[philosophy] is neither contemplation, nor reflection, nor communication,” these are tools that are universal in all disciplines.
- philosophy has a desire to dominate disciplines
- Aristotle’s substance, Descartes’ cogito, Leibniz’s monad, Kant’s condition, Schelling’s potency, Bergon’s duree
- philosophy is enduring—sociology, epistemology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, logical analysis, computer science, advertising, marketing—try to use “concept” but faith and trust philosophy endures in creating concepts
- hegel – concept – figures of creation, moments of self-positing, not related to general or abstract, stretch philosophy into other disciplines because it took on common tools.
- post kant- encyclopedia, subjectivity – pedagogy, analyse conditions
INTERESTING CITATIONS AND DEFINITIONS
Maurice Blanchot
POST-READ
Talking about a philosopher’s relationship with concepts as friends (either in intimacy or honouring potentialisty) didn’t really include a kind of jovial friendship type relationship but more of a responsibility. When talking about friends on a greater scale, involving others, I don’t know if I got friends of friends as much as rivals, a combating of ownership rather than appreciation of concept from different angles. I guess that there are concepts that go round the world and interact with everybody and are free to, and the philosopher does not feel jealously in this because the philosopher has trust and faith that the relationship that is had (friend/creator) is unshaken although not untested. I guess it’s such a difficult thing to look deeply at ones self (as a discipline) that it comes off as cagey. Compare this to a younger creative research discipline actively bringing in ideas from other disciplines (musemology in artefacts) to give shape to itself. Although I guess much of this writing about disciplines is a defense.