Introduction to Deleuze: Difference and Repetition

[Music] Jil dollars as Todd may put set is a philosopher of new possibilities of how we might think of things in ways that would open up new regions for living most simply he's a philosopher of difference of how things change over time for this reason he's usually referred to as a postmodern or post structural philosopher lumped him with other French theorists like Michel Foucault and Jacque Derrida there are both big similarities and big differences though for me and this applies to other post-structuralist s-- thinking and de leurs in terms is to conceptualize a radical freedom that as humans we are free to change the world in ways that don't always seem possible his work has been used in many disciplines from education reform politics history and even hard sciences this is the key difference between him and other post modernists his work is filled with references to science biology geology evolution where someone like Derrida emphasizes how we understand the world primarily through language and text Delors is a materialist and monist in other words everything in the universe both physical and thinking is connected I'll introduce Talos is thought through his 1968 book different and repetition the laws of thinking could be set to articulate the ontological foundations that's the question of what there is at the most basic level of phenomena of other thinkers referred to as post structuralist and post modernists and by the way while those two terms are sometimes used interchangeably I use post structuralist as referring to theory and theorists that mostly emphasize language and postmodernist as a more catch-all term that loosely refers to thinkers a period and the culture that critiques modernity anyway Michel Foucault for example points to high meaning and frames of social truth change over time constituting new subjectivity is condition both through power and knowledge the idea of discipline for example or how we think about mental illness has changed over time while Jacque Derrida argues that language is unstable and meaning is always deferred so we can never really pin anything down both point to a world or a human subjectivity that is in flux moving changing dollars it might be said provides the ontological or even the pre ontological foundations for these sorts of peace thinkers like Foucault Derrida and originally Nietzsche there is no stable ontology of human nature as I talked about in a previous video Nietzsche shows how concepts like good and evil have changed over time again as Todd may has phrased it ontological matters are in reality historical matters parading in ontological gob while much of Western philosophy has focused on an ontology of what there is Delors wants to account for how things change in other words to account for difference over time for movement he's largely responding to philosophers like Aristotle and Kant who both conceptualized stable categories of thought and of substance for Kant for example we have the natural ability to rationally judge things by quantity quality relation modality for Aristotle there is substance doing having we're thinking of the very basics of the world okay bear with me this isn't that important to start to understand what Toulouse is saying what he's really doing is criticizing thinkers which turns out to be the vast majority of Western philosophy who emphasize that which is stable or eternal over that which is in movement and in flux think about how we judge things how we think about what things are we can quantify and qualify say leaves here are four they all have a similar shape color smell they all grow in a similar place in similar dirt they look the same they are then of the same species we can judge that this is an oak leaf we could make a list of the qualities anything has literally anything television has a screen can pick up broadcasts has a power supply we can try and think of the things that are essential to that thing and here's the problem if we just do that then we cannot account for change of how certain things develop into new things we need a way to understand how loosely television evolved into say Netflix or YouTube the evolution didn't come from anything inside the category of television it comes from the Telegraph the military development of the internet the phone line coding microchips all of these things converged into something new in exactly the same way that new species have evolved they evolved in relation to their environment and other species for Delors it's the spaces between things the differences between all of these things that create the possibilities for newness in fact all things are defined by the differences between them this is as with most post-structuralism influenced by socios belief that meaning is a product of the differences between words and signifiers we understand what blue is because of its relationship to red yellow green not because of any real tangible relationship between this and the word blue Delors is philosophy builds upon Spinoza's monism that everything is connected in fact the world is so complicated so connected so mysterious that there are potentially an infinite number of possibilities in the world not right now but potentially in theory may cites the example of origami an infinite number of shapes on an infinite number of pieces of paper folding moving changing dollars writes that no two grains of dust are absolutely identical no two hands have the same distinctive points no two typewriters have the same strike no two revolvers score their bullets in the same manner difference is everywhere indifference and repetition Delors his goal is to theorize a definition of difference in itself opposed to repetition when we think we repeat when I think of the leaf I repeat something of the actual leaf in my mind when I engage in that judgment between the four leaves I have to repeat four times to come to that conclusion when we do this we are generalizing we are looking for resemblances we know what greenness is even if the shades are different we know what that shape is even though it's slightly different generalizing is the most basic action of thought and to generalize we must repeat repetition contributes to generality but in every repetition something distinct occurs no leaf is actually a repetition a precise exact copy they are all different in color in shape even in position and in time and the thought of the leaf is again different and the next time I think of the leaf it's different and the next time newness is inscribed in every moment each repetition is something new in space and time it has no equal or equivalent while carrying something from the first every act of nature repeats with novelty and every repetition of every thought creates something new in the mind which contemplates it but here is the main point it's the very difference in every repetition that accounts for change for newness for evolution for creativity if we only conceptualize the repetition the representation we fail to understand how different changes concepts and things take the movement between television and YouTube hypothetically the person who invents YouTube looks at the television than his computer then uses the Internet in his mind he repeats all these things but he reorganizes them he repeats them differently he repeats the idea of television while reorganizing it with the idea of what is different about a television and the computer but it's not just the television and the computer differences that bear on the process are many language tools education code the innate biological aptitude of the inventor all of these things repeat themselves in some way in every act towards the new similarly when a baby is born it is both the repetition of genes DNA blood and a response to differences like the size of the womb or the environment it's born into a plant repeats itself through seeds but differences like the intensity of the wind rain and Sun animal interactions all have a bearing when thinking a person repeats things in some way we rationalize and we judge we identify things see analogies between things see things opposed to each other and judge things that are the same we organize and reorganize a plane of possibility we do something new but we also repeat something old it's not enough like Kant to say that rationality thinks as de leur says something in the world forces us to think we might organize questions in our mind or create goals or have plans but they arise from somewhere real they are presented to us by the world and we reorganize the variables to try and create solutions there is a kind of map of things to repeat and things we could make different this map the innate potentiality of newness is what de leurs calls the virtual virtuality similarities to potentiality the universe moves bodies move concepts move all in relation to each other they repeat but in every repetition different combinations of differences potentialize de leurs writes that the more that living matter complexify z-- the more it transforms this virtual into spontaneous action and unforeseen movements the virtual is a product of the intensities between differences the lines of flight between them the virtual is determined by the differential relations between what de leurs terms ideas which are made up of multiplicities again you have television microchipped the internet hands eyes a keyboard the differences in relations between them point towards new lines of flight there are many potentialities in any moment though lots of configurations the results is also random contingent YouTube could have easily been a different new configuration of all these possibilities a different person a different name a different set up ideas are made up of multiplicities combinations of representations and differences assemblages like bone structure or geology are part of the multiplicity but the multiplicity precedes the actual idea it defines and creates its possibilities let's shift from YouTube to World War 2 something you can do with YouTube multiplicities are presented to us in pre organized forms a group of techs on World War 2 the University studying it a conference on world war ii diaries the bodies of the dead the photographs all of the differences between them point to disparate lines of flight for new potentialities upon which the historian might write a new history the virtual is like a coil it's not possibility though it precedes possibility it creates the conditions for possibility each possibility in any given moment is conditioned by lines of imminence that give it its shape if we acknowledge that possible he's due spring from somewhere somewhere rue then the virtual is that play the virtual is the surplus of the present moment of any fixed identity and it's grounded in the spaces between things in their differences de leurs rights everywhere couples and polarities presuppose bundles and networks organized opposition's presuppose radiations in all directions stereoscopic images form no more than an even and flat opposition but they depend on something quite different an arrangement of coexistent tiered mobile planes and disparate nurse within an original debt everywhere the depth of difference is primary this perspective strips post-modernism of its vulgar reputation of claiming that anything goes that leads to a radical relativism the virtual is very real very much conditioned it only presents itself through a finite number of possibilities at any given time but it does guarantee the opening of new possibilities guarantees the possibility of continual change and freedom fillers is a notoriously complicated thinker and he's responding to a lot of other complicated thinkers and complex ideas and admittedly I'm no expert I've read all of difference and repetition and a lot of other delivers over the past few months and it all fits together as a system that's heavily influenced by people like Spinoza and Kant who it's a good idea to understand before you start reading delivers these though are the concepts to understand to appreciate the rest of Delors work I'll expand on this further at some point maybe next week although I might take a break but on the schedule at some point will be videos on the resume and the Oedipus and hopefully a more in-depth look at his relationship with can't I'd also like to make a lighter video on the philosopher of the 68 movements I'll leave you though with a quote I like about two metaphorical figures of difference and repetition that of the poet who speaks in the name of a creative power capable of overturning all orders and representations in order to affirm difference in the state of a permanent revolution which characterizes eternal return and that of the politician who is above all concern to deny that which differs so as to conserve or prolong an established historical order or to establish a historical order which already calls forth in the world the forms of its representation so recently YouTube demonetised this entire channel something that I hope isn't permanent but for now you patreon is the only way these videos get made so here's my request if you think you get the same value from four of these videos as you do from just one cup of coffee then please consider pledging $1 per video that's $4 per month to help keep this channel going you can even limit your pledge to one dollar per month and I'm trying to make being a patreon supporter worth it with the scripts audio sources your name in the credits and in the future I hope to create extra content just for patrons to those that already support them and I thank you so much this channel wouldn't exist without you see you next week

Channel: Then & Now

Views: 168,598

Rating: 4.9456758 out of 5

Keywords: Then & Now, Then and Now, History, Philosophy, Politics, deleuze, introduction, introduction to deleuze, gilles deleuze, difference and repetition, difference and repetition introduction, understanding deleuze, deleuze explained, poststructuralism, the virtual, the rhizome, multiplicities, difference in itself, introduction to difference and repetition, lines of flight, foucault, derrida, intro to deleuze

Id: AUQTYlCTfek

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 05 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/lewlewwaller]

I introduce the thought of Gilles Deleuze through his 1968 book, Difference and Repetition. I look at Deleuze's basic concepts - especially difference, repetition and the virtual; his relationship to philosophers like Spinoza and Kant; and how he provides some of the ontological foundations for other 'poststructural' or postmodern theorists like Foucault and Derrida.

I also look at the relationship between the virtual, the Idea and the multiplicity - all important concepts for understanding the rest of Deleuze's work. This introduction should serve to give a fuller understanding of ideas like the Rhizome, the haecceity and 'lines of flight' that are a large part of his later work with Félix Guattari - a Thousand Plateaus. Most importantly, I try to make understanding Deleuze as simple as possible!

[u/guyau]

I'm usually really skeptical of youtube philosophy videos, but this one stands out. Really well done: clear, instructive and accurate.

[u/vityd]

Very Beautiful, and illustrative. I like it.

I just cant get this point of view of Devir's Nature that it's completely esponteneous and randomic when associed with a monada form of world ontology. Something can be pretty well be described and explained by this concept of Devir, when associated with a monada influenced view of the world discoursed by human being turns to be a vision of Devir that is always incomplete, turning the ontology created for that phenomenon a thing outside of the monadas logic.

I really cant see devir like a form of seeing things that discarts repetition, because we as thinkers usually need the relation between actuality and virtuality, as we usually peform a contrast between change and stability by using memory and actualization of the memory as a relation of measuring things and courses of actions.