Yves,
Thanks for the questions -- hard ones at that. I'll do my best to answer.
>===== Original Message From Yves Winter <winter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>Nathan,
>
>This sounds like interesting work, but I wonder if you could perhaps explain
>a couple of points regarding the abstract you sent to the list:
>
>1. You say that you are outlining an ontology of difference. What exactly do
>you mean by that and how would you situate yourself with respect to the
>major ontologies of difference of the 19th/20th century (I am thinking of
>Nietzsche, of Heidegger, of Deleuze and of Derrida just to mention the major
>names).
I suppose to start with the second part -- and keeping in mind that, certainly
in the Anglo-American world, there are those who would argue that Nietzsche,
Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida aren't doing ontology at all (I don't think I've
ever heard anyone make such an argument about Heidegger) -- I'm particularly
inspired by the Deleuzean variant of an ontology of difference, and Nietzsche
as well, though a Deleuzean-kind of Nietzsche. What I do, which I think is a
bit different, is situate this initially in relation to a reading of Hegel
(what I think is a good and serious reading of Hegel rather than a simply
dismissive reading, which is what makes it different from a lot of what
appears in Deleuze circles). There is a precedent for this in Deleuze
himself, in his review of Hippolyte's Logic and Existence, although I don't
mention this in the book: Hegel shows that philosophy must be ontology but
ontology must be an ontology of sense rather than essence. I start from
Hegel's attempt (in particular the first three chapters of the Phenomenology
(though the entire Phenomenlogy is concerned with this) to provide a
dialectical derivation of the transcendental conditions of meaning that goes
beyond the antinomies that remain in Kant and try to show on several fronts
that this dialectical solution remains abstract on Hegel's own terms, and that
what is abstracted away in the dialectical solution is difference --
difference that is different from identity and difference.
I don't know if this indicates what I mean by ontology, though hopefully it
says something about what I mean by ontology of difference. I don't know that
I could give an adequate dictionary-style definition of the first term, but
what I try to argue in the book is that ontology needs to be separated from
metaphysics, that "getting rid of metaphysics" doesn't mean "getting rid of
ontology." At least on the Anglo-American side of things, the dominant trends
in political theory and philosophy try to become "post-metaphysical" -- to get
rid of the standard crutches of metaphysical thought -- through a minimalist
approach -- i.e., they try to rest their political and ethical thought as
lightly as possible on a minimalist conception of the self (as, for example, a
rational agent) or on the contingent developments of our history, or on a kind
of ironism (i.e., Rorty) that wants to say we can accept that our values have
no foundation and still hold onto these values as though everything were
basically the same. In these circles, the attempt to think comprehensively
about philosophical issues such as difference is seen to inevitably turn
thinkers back into metaphysicians (again Rorty, when he argues that Derrida,
Heidegger and Foucault all in various ways fall back into metaphysics when
they abandon the purely private realm of personal self-creation). Against
this, I argue that being post-metaphysical means precisely developing an
ontology that moves us away from still unconsious remnants of metaphysics --
remnants that remain bound up in our values insofar as we fail to do what
Nietzsche demands us to do: to revalue these values. These remnants are
interwoven with our unconsious reliance on categories of identity and
traditional alignments among these categories (i.e., as Nietzsche pointed out,
and Foucault after him, that we still think of what is true as what is good,
real, beautiful and pure).
>
>2. How do you conceptualise the relationship between ontology and genealogy?
>These are both big terms which are being thrown around all the time today
>and I wonder to what extent they are compatible.
>
An ontology of difference has to be genealogical (though, as one of the
presses reviewers said, he saw most of my readings as being deconstructionist,
but whatever). The reason for this is that an ontology of difference invokes,
among other things, a rethinking of time or temporality, introducing an
element of untimeliness. This means that genealogy has to be something more
than history -- at least history as Foucault criticizes standard analyses in
the introduction to the Archaeology and elsewhere, the history that would
forsake transcendental and teleological explanations for events but still
domesticate events by serializing them. Foucault says in the introduction to
one of the later History of Sexuality books that while his work has generally
resided in the field of history the work he was doing was something other than
historical. I take that to mean, at least in part, that he was doing work on
materials that might be considered historical, but the work was informed by an
ontology of the event that made it [the work ]something different.
>3. Aristotle, Augustine, Gnosticism, Duns Scotus, Epicureanism, Foucault,
>Deleuze. That's a big project. Have you written a history of philosophy?
>What is the connection between these very different strands of thought?
>
Yeah, pretty big, I think, which is why it's taken me seemingly forever to
write it. But again, it's a genealogy rather than a history. I'm not trying
to trace the development of the idea of difference from Aristotle to Deleuze,
to outline it's different manifestations or the positions taken on it (I know
that a history can be a lot different from that, but it's only meant to
illustrate what I'm not doing). I try to take strategic forays into
philosophies of the past, and part of the reason for this is that I think an
ontology of difference, precisely because it has something to do with time,
demands a reengagement with and reassessment of philosophies of the past. One
of the remaining narratives of today that I think needs to be dismantled is
that our past was metaphysical, and now we're not (or at least we aspire not
to be) -- the sort of relations established between a past that was
metaphysical and so needs to be dismissed, or that had something that we have
lost in our contemporary attempts to escape metaphysics and so must return to
-- need to be replaced by a more complex assessment of our relation to the
past. One of the things I think this means is that we need to think a bit
differently about the ways in which we can and might want to approach the
philosophies of the past, and the way we might wish to engage in them -- ways
that maybe aren't so hung up on whether what we are drawing from them is what
past philosophers "intended" or "expressed as part of their culture," but
which are no less rigorous because of that.
Put in Deleuzean terms, I try to explore a series of "minor philosophies"
(i.e., Epicureanism, Gnosticism) along with the "becoming-minor" of "major
philosophies" (i.e., Aristotle). Deleuze and Guattari hold that the minor is
not simply the quantitative opposite of the majority, nor is it the margin as
opposed to the centre, but rather that difference that puts the oppositions of
majority/minority or centre/margin into question. Hence they argue that
becoming-minor is the source of genuine creativity. The more genealogical
portions of the book try to show how this becoming-minor appears in those
philosophers that might have been allergic to it, as well as how others have
sought to develop it.
Hope some of this makes sense. Thanks again for the questions.
Nathan
>Yves.
>
Dr. Nathan Widder
Lecturer in Political Theory
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4RJ
United Kingdom
Web page: http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/politics/staff/widder/
MA in Critical Global Studies: http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/school/ma/global.php
Thanks for the questions -- hard ones at that. I'll do my best to answer.
>===== Original Message From Yves Winter <winter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>Nathan,
>
>This sounds like interesting work, but I wonder if you could perhaps explain
>a couple of points regarding the abstract you sent to the list:
>
>1. You say that you are outlining an ontology of difference. What exactly do
>you mean by that and how would you situate yourself with respect to the
>major ontologies of difference of the 19th/20th century (I am thinking of
>Nietzsche, of Heidegger, of Deleuze and of Derrida just to mention the major
>names).
I suppose to start with the second part -- and keeping in mind that, certainly
in the Anglo-American world, there are those who would argue that Nietzsche,
Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida aren't doing ontology at all (I don't think I've
ever heard anyone make such an argument about Heidegger) -- I'm particularly
inspired by the Deleuzean variant of an ontology of difference, and Nietzsche
as well, though a Deleuzean-kind of Nietzsche. What I do, which I think is a
bit different, is situate this initially in relation to a reading of Hegel
(what I think is a good and serious reading of Hegel rather than a simply
dismissive reading, which is what makes it different from a lot of what
appears in Deleuze circles). There is a precedent for this in Deleuze
himself, in his review of Hippolyte's Logic and Existence, although I don't
mention this in the book: Hegel shows that philosophy must be ontology but
ontology must be an ontology of sense rather than essence. I start from
Hegel's attempt (in particular the first three chapters of the Phenomenology
(though the entire Phenomenlogy is concerned with this) to provide a
dialectical derivation of the transcendental conditions of meaning that goes
beyond the antinomies that remain in Kant and try to show on several fronts
that this dialectical solution remains abstract on Hegel's own terms, and that
what is abstracted away in the dialectical solution is difference --
difference that is different from identity and difference.
I don't know if this indicates what I mean by ontology, though hopefully it
says something about what I mean by ontology of difference. I don't know that
I could give an adequate dictionary-style definition of the first term, but
what I try to argue in the book is that ontology needs to be separated from
metaphysics, that "getting rid of metaphysics" doesn't mean "getting rid of
ontology." At least on the Anglo-American side of things, the dominant trends
in political theory and philosophy try to become "post-metaphysical" -- to get
rid of the standard crutches of metaphysical thought -- through a minimalist
approach -- i.e., they try to rest their political and ethical thought as
lightly as possible on a minimalist conception of the self (as, for example, a
rational agent) or on the contingent developments of our history, or on a kind
of ironism (i.e., Rorty) that wants to say we can accept that our values have
no foundation and still hold onto these values as though everything were
basically the same. In these circles, the attempt to think comprehensively
about philosophical issues such as difference is seen to inevitably turn
thinkers back into metaphysicians (again Rorty, when he argues that Derrida,
Heidegger and Foucault all in various ways fall back into metaphysics when
they abandon the purely private realm of personal self-creation). Against
this, I argue that being post-metaphysical means precisely developing an
ontology that moves us away from still unconsious remnants of metaphysics --
remnants that remain bound up in our values insofar as we fail to do what
Nietzsche demands us to do: to revalue these values. These remnants are
interwoven with our unconsious reliance on categories of identity and
traditional alignments among these categories (i.e., as Nietzsche pointed out,
and Foucault after him, that we still think of what is true as what is good,
real, beautiful and pure).
>
>2. How do you conceptualise the relationship between ontology and genealogy?
>These are both big terms which are being thrown around all the time today
>and I wonder to what extent they are compatible.
>
An ontology of difference has to be genealogical (though, as one of the
presses reviewers said, he saw most of my readings as being deconstructionist,
but whatever). The reason for this is that an ontology of difference invokes,
among other things, a rethinking of time or temporality, introducing an
element of untimeliness. This means that genealogy has to be something more
than history -- at least history as Foucault criticizes standard analyses in
the introduction to the Archaeology and elsewhere, the history that would
forsake transcendental and teleological explanations for events but still
domesticate events by serializing them. Foucault says in the introduction to
one of the later History of Sexuality books that while his work has generally
resided in the field of history the work he was doing was something other than
historical. I take that to mean, at least in part, that he was doing work on
materials that might be considered historical, but the work was informed by an
ontology of the event that made it [the work ]something different.
>3. Aristotle, Augustine, Gnosticism, Duns Scotus, Epicureanism, Foucault,
>Deleuze. That's a big project. Have you written a history of philosophy?
>What is the connection between these very different strands of thought?
>
Yeah, pretty big, I think, which is why it's taken me seemingly forever to
write it. But again, it's a genealogy rather than a history. I'm not trying
to trace the development of the idea of difference from Aristotle to Deleuze,
to outline it's different manifestations or the positions taken on it (I know
that a history can be a lot different from that, but it's only meant to
illustrate what I'm not doing). I try to take strategic forays into
philosophies of the past, and part of the reason for this is that I think an
ontology of difference, precisely because it has something to do with time,
demands a reengagement with and reassessment of philosophies of the past. One
of the remaining narratives of today that I think needs to be dismantled is
that our past was metaphysical, and now we're not (or at least we aspire not
to be) -- the sort of relations established between a past that was
metaphysical and so needs to be dismissed, or that had something that we have
lost in our contemporary attempts to escape metaphysics and so must return to
-- need to be replaced by a more complex assessment of our relation to the
past. One of the things I think this means is that we need to think a bit
differently about the ways in which we can and might want to approach the
philosophies of the past, and the way we might wish to engage in them -- ways
that maybe aren't so hung up on whether what we are drawing from them is what
past philosophers "intended" or "expressed as part of their culture," but
which are no less rigorous because of that.
Put in Deleuzean terms, I try to explore a series of "minor philosophies"
(i.e., Epicureanism, Gnosticism) along with the "becoming-minor" of "major
philosophies" (i.e., Aristotle). Deleuze and Guattari hold that the minor is
not simply the quantitative opposite of the majority, nor is it the margin as
opposed to the centre, but rather that difference that puts the oppositions of
majority/minority or centre/margin into question. Hence they argue that
becoming-minor is the source of genuine creativity. The more genealogical
portions of the book try to show how this becoming-minor appears in those
philosophers that might have been allergic to it, as well as how others have
sought to develop it.
Hope some of this makes sense. Thanks again for the questions.
Nathan
>Yves.
>
Dr. Nathan Widder
Lecturer in Political Theory
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4RJ
United Kingdom
Web page: http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/politics/staff/widder/
MA in Critical Global Studies: http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/school/ma/global.php