The Logic of Sense - Two
The second chapter in The Logic of Sense discusses the Stoic ontology (and also mentions briefly the Epicurian).
In the first chapter Platonic ontology had the concept of change completely held in the surface/material world, while the "real" world of being hung out behind it as Ideas (Perfect Forms).
The Stoic ontology moves change back into the "real" backworld behind everyday things. Things, as we perceive them, are on the surface. The "real" thing is behind the scenes, but not like changeless eternal Platonic Ideas. The Stoic behind the scenes entity includes all its possibilities. It is a thing and all its changes (transformations).
The world we experience is that "real" non-determinate thing becoming part of this surface world we deal with day in and day out.
The word the Stoics used for this other world, where Plato placed Ideas, is Logos. Logos is generally translated as Universal Reason or the Processes of Nature. Both are meant at different times.
The result of the Stoic notion is that the real thing, the thing we are talking about, does not go changing properties everytime we see it change in the world. That is, i pick up a knife and i slice into an apple, slicing it in two but placing both halves back together.
Platonic (and moreso, Aristoteleon) ontology has to create classifications of essential and accidental properties to talk about the identity of this apple as the same before and after the slicing.
Stoic ontology need do no such thing as the identity of the apple is in that backworld and includes the possiblity that it may be split. The identity "subsists" behind the world in which we live and only comes into existence when it becomes manifest in this world, that is, when we slice the apple.
Note - These arguments exist well into the world of the 20th century. Russell has a whole world of "unactualized possibles" he describes as "subsisting" (until actuallized), and Quine argues later, mostly unrelatedly, that Russell's system can't work in the world of modal logic without sneaking in some version of Aristoteleon Essentialism which then makes it circular as that form of essentialism assumes you already know what composes the identitiy of a thing ... but identity was exactly the question at hand in the debate so the move is visciously circular.
Aside - Saul Kripke (from Omaha Central) was a primary late 20th century thinker to get us out of these analytic traps, by the way. His theory of naming and reference gets around the need for Aristoteleon Essentialism.
Anyway ... back to Deleuze ...
The Paradox of the second chapter is the Paradox of Surface Effects. For those of us who live in this surface world, that is, all of us, the change and transmutations of things are of the highest importance. If the real world is Platonic changeless ideas, these most important aspects of our living world are merely accidents and unimportant in the real world. But if the knife is descending on my hand rather than on the apple, what could be more important to me. The Stoic ontology keeps the importance of change where we need it to be, in the world of the surface, not in the "now" moment, but across time. That is ... in the world of becomming as opposed to a world of static being (as described in the first chapter).
I find Deleuzes mentioning of the Epicureans to be odd. They too attacked Platonic ontology, but eventually they would become moreso an opposition school to the Stoics. Following on the Democratus' atomistic theory the Epicureans would create what we would today call a macro- / micro- split rather than a surface-world / back-world split. Everything is moved to the surface world in Epicureanism.
Aside - The Epicurean notion of free-will is logically very similar to the one proposed by Penrose in the 90s in "The Emperor's New Mind", or at least i find it so. And, in Dan Dennett's terminology, i find neither to be "the kind of free will worth wanting".
That the important elements are in the surface, even if one has to move side to side (i.e. through time, forward or backward) to learn these things. This is opposed to the notion that one can sit in the present and learn about the world by penetrating into things ... to see the real world behind this one.
I am uncertain, and am unable to state in a concluding sentence, what Deleuze believes is the paradox here. Perhaps it is along the lines of ... if you follow the Platonic ontology (which Deleuze equates in many ways to the Kantian and to our modern ontology) the most important aspects of our identity (our change and transformations) are but mere accidents and unimportant to the way things really are, and that is unsatisfying.
If any Deleuze experts have clarification here, please feel free to add-on.
In the first chapter Platonic ontology had the concept of change completely held in the surface/material world, while the "real" world of being hung out behind it as Ideas (Perfect Forms).
The Stoic ontology moves change back into the "real" backworld behind everyday things. Things, as we perceive them, are on the surface. The "real" thing is behind the scenes, but not like changeless eternal Platonic Ideas. The Stoic behind the scenes entity includes all its possibilities. It is a thing and all its changes (transformations).
The world we experience is that "real" non-determinate thing becoming part of this surface world we deal with day in and day out.
The word the Stoics used for this other world, where Plato placed Ideas, is Logos. Logos is generally translated as Universal Reason or the Processes of Nature. Both are meant at different times.
The result of the Stoic notion is that the real thing, the thing we are talking about, does not go changing properties everytime we see it change in the world. That is, i pick up a knife and i slice into an apple, slicing it in two but placing both halves back together.
Platonic (and moreso, Aristoteleon) ontology has to create classifications of essential and accidental properties to talk about the identity of this apple as the same before and after the slicing.
Stoic ontology need do no such thing as the identity of the apple is in that backworld and includes the possiblity that it may be split. The identity "subsists" behind the world in which we live and only comes into existence when it becomes manifest in this world, that is, when we slice the apple.
Note - These arguments exist well into the world of the 20th century. Russell has a whole world of "unactualized possibles" he describes as "subsisting" (until actuallized), and Quine argues later, mostly unrelatedly, that Russell's system can't work in the world of modal logic without sneaking in some version of Aristoteleon Essentialism which then makes it circular as that form of essentialism assumes you already know what composes the identitiy of a thing ... but identity was exactly the question at hand in the debate so the move is visciously circular.
Aside - Saul Kripke (from Omaha Central) was a primary late 20th century thinker to get us out of these analytic traps, by the way. His theory of naming and reference gets around the need for Aristoteleon Essentialism.
Anyway ... back to Deleuze ...
The Paradox of the second chapter is the Paradox of Surface Effects. For those of us who live in this surface world, that is, all of us, the change and transmutations of things are of the highest importance. If the real world is Platonic changeless ideas, these most important aspects of our living world are merely accidents and unimportant in the real world. But if the knife is descending on my hand rather than on the apple, what could be more important to me. The Stoic ontology keeps the importance of change where we need it to be, in the world of the surface, not in the "now" moment, but across time. That is ... in the world of becomming as opposed to a world of static being (as described in the first chapter).
I find Deleuzes mentioning of the Epicureans to be odd. They too attacked Platonic ontology, but eventually they would become moreso an opposition school to the Stoics. Following on the Democratus' atomistic theory the Epicureans would create what we would today call a macro- / micro- split rather than a surface-world / back-world split. Everything is moved to the surface world in Epicureanism.
Aside - The Epicurean notion of free-will is logically very similar to the one proposed by Penrose in the 90s in "The Emperor's New Mind", or at least i find it so. And, in Dan Dennett's terminology, i find neither to be "the kind of free will worth wanting".
That the important elements are in the surface, even if one has to move side to side (i.e. through time, forward or backward) to learn these things. This is opposed to the notion that one can sit in the present and learn about the world by penetrating into things ... to see the real world behind this one.
I am uncertain, and am unable to state in a concluding sentence, what Deleuze believes is the paradox here. Perhaps it is along the lines of ... if you follow the Platonic ontology (which Deleuze equates in many ways to the Kantian and to our modern ontology) the most important aspects of our identity (our change and transformations) are but mere accidents and unimportant to the way things really are, and that is unsatisfying.
If any Deleuze experts have clarification here, please feel free to add-on.
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 10:45 PM
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