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February 13, 2006
Deleuze is interesting is he not?
In Difference and Repetition he is engaged in a critique of the philosophical tradtion ---Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Hegel. From Plato to Heidegger Deleuze argues, difference has not been accepted on its own, but only after being understood with reference to self-identical objects, which makes difference a difference between. He attempts to reverse this situation and to understand difference-in-itself.
Deleuze unsettles and disturbs. Now I was comfortable with the way that difference was represented in terms of a conflict of opposites. I could even accept the lack of reconciliation or overcoming. He is interpretated by some in terms of the ruin of representation;
What does that mean? :
It is held that we
"...can understand Deleuze's argument by way of reference to his analysis of Plato's three-tiered system of idea, copy and simulacrum ...... In order to define something such as courage, we can have reference in the end only to the Idea of Courage, an identical-to-itself, this idea containing nothing else (DR 127). Courageous acts and people can be thus judged by analogy with this Idea. There are also, however, those who only imitate courageous acts, people who use courage as a front for personal gain, for example. These acts are not copies of the courageous ideal, but rather fakes, distortions of the idea. They are not related to the Idea by way of analogy, but by changing the idea itself, making it slip. Plato frequently makes arguments based on this system, Deleuze tells us, from the Statesman (God-shepherd, King-shepherd, charlatan) to the Sophist (wisdom, philosopher, sophist) (DR 60-1; 126-8).
The philosophical tradition, beginning with Plato (although Deleuze detects some ambiguity here (eg. DR 59...)) and Aristotle, has sided with the model and the copy, and resolutely fought to exclude the simulacra from consideration......While difference is subordinated to the model/copy scheme, it can only be a consideration between elements, which gives to difference a wholly negative determination, as a not-this. However, Deleuze suggests, if we turn our attention to the simulacra, the reign of the identical and of analogy is destabilised. The simulacra exists in and of itself, iwithout grounding in or reference to a model: its existence is "unmediated" (DR 29), it is itself unmediated difference."
So you can see why Deleuze understands himself as an overcoming of Platonism.
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For what it's worth, I've been reading Difference and Repetition, too. Some thoughts here.