The Logic of Sense
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Making Sense of The Logic Of Sense
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My initial plan is to pick through the reviews and comments already posted at GoodReads for points which to me seem to cry out for discussion.
"Considered one of the most important works of one of France's foremost philosophers, and long-awaited in English, The Logic of Sense begins with an extended exegesis of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Considering stoicism, language, games, sexuality, schizophrenia, and literature, Deleuze determines the status of meaning and meaninglessness, and seeks the 'place' where sense and nonsense collide."
(I'm not sure whose words these are. Otherwise I would give proper attribution. I intend to credit any quotes I use here.)
First off, I have always been a big fan of Lewis Carroll, and when I heard there was an extended exegesis of Alice in Wonderland in The Logic of Sense, I eagerly sought it out.
However, when I started to read this exegesis, I was repulsed and disappointed. It was like no other exegesis of Carroll I'd seen. The angle on Carroll was one I hadn't considered existed.
Next, the comment's reference to "stoicism, language, games, sexuality, schizophrenia, and literature." This is the The Logic of Sense's profuse reference mentioned in my introduction. To someone like me, with a remarkably short attention span and a deep and abiding love for going off on tangents, this also is inviting. Yet to encounter this in actual fact, was frustrating. It was more like wandering into a thorny tangle. I learned I didn't know a damned thing about stoicism, for one. I liked to think I knew something about sexuality, though, but maybe not.
Well, it is good to learn you know nothing, because, as I heard in some movie somewhere, "to know you know nothing is at least something."
It is a beginning.
The logic of sense is nonsense.
A statement has been made, " the logic of sense is nonsense."
What sense is this statement to have?
Is the statement sense, or nonsense?
What about freedom? Where does that fit in? (It is too soon to ask this question, but I can't help it.)
Plato is an important reference for Deleuze in The Logic of Sense. My opinion is Plato is the most important reference. (I would like to hear the opinions of others, though.) Plato is more important than Lewis Carroll, Antonin Artaud, stoicism, language, games, language games, sexuality, schizophrenia, sexual schizophrenia or schizophrenic sexuality, literature, sexual literature, or schizophrenic sexual literature. (Maybe.)
The first appendix of The Logic of Sense is The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy. The first of its two sections is Plato and the Simulacrum. (The second is titled Lucretius and the Simulacrum.)
NB : Without even trying, I'm wracking up even more references to track down. Add Lucretius to the list. What, by the way, is a simulacrum? What does it have to do with Plato, Lucretius, or ancient philosophy? (Interesting, too, to see the word simulacrum pop up in a discussion of ancient philosophy. Most of us probably think simulacra is among the more modern of philosophical concerns.)
In Plato and the Simulacrum, Deleuze asks the question:
"What does it mean 'to reverse Platonism?' "
Is it to say "the logic of sense is nonsense"?
The logic of sense is nonsense.
This statement appears to break the Law of Non-contradiction. (Does anyone agree or disagree?)
Get this:
"In logic, the law of non-contradiction (LNC) states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e. g. the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. Formally this is expressed as the tautology ¬(p ∧ ¬p)."
But also this,
"One reason to have this law is the principle of explosion, which states that anything follows from a contradiction. The law is employed in a reductio ad absurdum proof."
Wow!
Remember Deleuze's fascination with schizophrenia, the profusion of his references, especially to literature.....It is an explosion! (Or a controlled demolition?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_...
My master thesis and phd were on deleuze. I would happily answer your questions and doubts about this difficult book (for me it was always the most difficult of his works)
That's a generous offer and I will be taking you up on that. Thanks.
“Sense is closely related to what Deleuze calls ‘events.’ ”-- Troy
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
What do you think of this statement, Nuno?
I have attempted to work up to this statement by Troy, along with some of others, but now that you're here, maybe we can cut to the chase.
Do you agree Troy's statement cuts to the chase?
It is this relationship between sense and events which is at the heart of the matter, I believe, and I have struggled with it for a long time.
It is very interesting the way Troy parses this. On the one hand, he appears to be denying mixtures, but events are mixtures, are they not?
(I wouldn't mind it if Troy would comment further. I'm worried about him. He is in NYC. He said he had a lot of time due to the corona virus, but then I didn't hear from him again afterwards. I hope he didn't end up having the wrong kind of time due to the corona virus.)
What is the sense of the word logic in the title and text of The Logic of Sense?This seems like a relatively straightforward question, and maybe it is. I, however, do not have a straightforward answer to it.
In order to be consistent, I believe I am forced to say the sense of logic in The Logic of Sense is illogical, or maybe non-logical. (Dys-logical? A-logical?)
Is this a promising way to proceed towards understanding The Logic of Sense?
Here are definitions of logic I pull from the internet using a simple Google search:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
Definition of logic
1a(1): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning
a professor of logic
(2): a branch or variety of logic
modal logic
Boolean logic
(3): a branch of semiotics
especially : SYNTACTICS
(4): the formal principles of a branch of knowledge
the logic of grammar
b(1): a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty
She spent a long time explaining the situation, but he failed to see her logic.
(2): RELEVANCE, PROPRIETY
could not understand the logic of such an action
c: interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable
By the logic of events, anarchy leads to dictatorship.
d: the arrangement of circuit elements (as in a computer) needed for computation
also : the circuits themselves
2: something that forces a decision apart from or in opposition to reason
the logic of war
Here is a similar definition for the word sensehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
Definition of sense (Entry 1 of 2)
1: a meaning conveyed or intended : IMPORT, SIGNIFICATION
especially : one of a set of meanings a word or phrase may bear especially as segregated in a dictionary entry
2a: the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs
b: a specialized function or mechanism (such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch) by which an animal receives and responds to external or internal stimuli
c: the sensory mechanisms constituting a unit distinct from other functions (such as movement or thought)
3: conscious awareness or rationality —usually used in plural
finally came to his senses
4a: a particular sensation or kind or quality of sensation
a good sense of balance
b: a definite but often vague awareness or impression
felt a sense of insecurity
a sense of danger
c: a motivating awareness
a sense of shame
d: a discerning awareness and appreciation
her sense of humor
5: CONSENSUS
the sense of the meeting
6a: capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind as a basis for action or response : INTELLIGENCE
b: sound mental capacity and understanding typically marked by shrewdness and practicality
also : agreement with or satisfaction of such power
this decision makes sense
7: one of two opposite directions especially of motion (as of a point, line, or surface)
My decided opinion on the importance of defining Deleuze's terms and tracking down his many references is these are not particularly helpful in understanding The Logic of Sense.It can't hurt, either.
The only way to understand the book, I think, is to sit with it a long time and hope it hatches for you.
So even though I am going to make some attempt to define Deleuze's terms and track down his many references, this is partly or even mainly because I am biding my time waiting for The Logic of Sense to hatch for me.
hi, Logic means only the way sense works, it´s not logic as analytical philosophers understand it. For instance, in 1981 Deleuze will write on Francis Bacon a Logic of Sensation and Logic means there only the way Sensation works, its regime.The Logic of Sense is a book that starts very easily and then complexifies itself to some really deep shit, namely on psychanalisis. Sense is the "exprimable" of a proposition, and it is related with the Event. But the Event doesn´t have a stabilized meaning: for instance, French Revolution already happened and we have a certain idea of wht it means. But there is a part of that Event that it will always be virtual because in the future our precpetion of does it mean the French Revolution will always change,, in 2080 it will have a different meaning perhaps, that it was encapsulated in the first Event but will only reveal itself to those who see it form 2080. Do you have doubts on the article on the simulacrum? I know very well that article
Ps: the Logic of Sens was always for me one or perhaps the most difficult book of Deleuze (and I worked on Deleuze 10 years). I understand much better Difference and Repetition. The Logic of Sense demands a knowledge of psycoanalysis that I dont have and dont want to have, namely Melanie Klein. What I prefer in the book is the part on the Stoics and the Event and the way Deleuze turns to surface instead of the profound that DR evoked.
I also recommend as a reading the introduction to the Logic of Sense that James Williams wrote, It is a good book and the PDF can be found online
Charles Stivale also recommended Introduction to the Logic of Sense by James Williams."I would direct you to James Williams's book on reading Lpgic of Sense for guidance. I am currently devoting all my home reasearch time to the Deleuze Seminars site where, with Dan Smith and a large team of translators, we are creating an accessible site for accessing the seminars that Deleuze taught. While we have not "officially" launched it, the site is there and ready, at deleuze.cla.purdue.edu "
People may be interested to use the link to the recent work of Charles Stivale and Dan Smith.
Nuno, did you study The Logic of Sense in English, French, or some other language?
In French. I´m portuguese but in Europe doing a Phd on Deleuze means to read the originals, Not sure if that is also the case in USA
I don't believe it is. However, I don't have direct knowledge of the requirements. I am pretty sure some of the Americans I know who have PhD's on Deleuze speak worse French than even me. (I'm better at reading it though.) We do not value, nor do we have the sensitivity to, nuances lost. It has interested me quite a bit to see some of the most interesting commentary on Deleuze in America coming from some of his translators here. I've also read some interesting commentary from someone from Australia who moved to France, learned French, and now teaches English in France for a living.
levy briant book is very good, i dont think he has read it in frenchjames williams and jo hughes are also good comentators
the australian you are speaking of is the on that blogs in Agent Swarm? i also like to read him
Yes, Terrence Blake. I believe he attended Deleuze's lectures. I was thinking of Levi Bryant when I made the comment about PhD's not reading Deleuze in the French.
I may as well add a standard definition for the word nonsense.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
Definition of nonsense (Entry 1 of 2)
1a: words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas
"And the mome raths outgrabe" is pure nonsense.
b(1): language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense
To regard the struggle for existence as tragic, however, is logical nonsense.
— O. B. Hardison Jr.
(2): an instance of absurd action
Today's teenagers are … sharp observers of the nonsenses of adult life and society …
— Bernard Trafford
2a: things of no importance or value : TRIFLES
the raincoats are classic, without any nonsense
— New Yorker
b: affected or impudent conduct
took no nonsense from subordinates
The teacher tolerated no nonsense in her classroom.
3: genetic information consisting of one or more codons that do not code for any amino acid and usually cause termination of the molecular chain in protein synthesis (see SYNTHESIS sense 1)
nonsense adjective
Definition of nonsense (Entry 2 of 2)
1: consisting of an arbitrary grouping of speech sounds or symbols
\ˈshrȯg-ˌthī-əmpth\ is a nonsense word
a nonsense syllable
2: consisting of one or more codons that are genetic nonsense
— compare ANTISENSE, MISSENSE
My purpose here is not idle or irrelevant to the discussion. It is may way of bridging over to Nuna's question/comment:
"Do you have doubts on the article on the simulacrum?"
I do have doubts and I want to pose them in terms of my own way of using the word nonsense.
My way isn't really the way the word is defined above by the Merriam Webster online dictionary. Am I therefore guilty of being Humpty Dumpty and thinking along these lines,
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all.”
In a discussion of The Logic of Sense, though, Lewis Carroll takes on a special significance. Much of Lewis Carroll is put to a particular use there, though if memory serves we do not meet Humpty Dumpty or his point of view in the book.
I think you shouldn´t concentrate in a word like nonsense but keep reading and rereading. I can´t translate many concepts of Deleuze, "sense" is l´exprimable of the proposition and it is contiguous to the event. This logique of sense is always closer to nonsense and paradoxes like those we can find in Carroll.
When you mentioned the article on simulacra I assumed you meant the article in Appendix 1, The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy. Was that correct? The first reference to simulacra comes on page 2. I have decided to type out the relevant paragraph,
"We recognize this Platonic dualism. [ limited,measured things, fixed qualities versus pure becoming without measure or limit "a veritable becoming-mad"] It is not at all the dualism of the intelligible and the sensible, of Idea and matter, or of Ideas and bodies. It is a more profound and secret dualism hidden in sensible and material bodies themselves. It is a subterranean dualism between that which receives the action of the Idea and that which eludes this action. It is not the distinction between the Model and the copy, but rather between copies and simulacra. Pure becoming, the unlimited, is the matter of the simulacrum insofar as it eludes is the matter of the simulacrum insofar as it eludes the action of the Idea and insofar as it contests both model and copy at once. Limited things lie beneath the Ideas; but even beneath things, is there not still this mad element which subsists and occurs on the other side of the order that ideas impose and things receive? Sometimes Plato wonders whether this pure becoming might not have a peculiar relation to language. This seems to be one of the principal meanings of the Cratylus. Could this relation be, perhaps, essential to language, as in the case of a "flow" of speech, or a wild discourse which would incessantly slide over its referent, without ever stopping? Or might there not be two languages and two sorts of "names," one designating the pauses and rests which receive the action of the Idea, the other expressing the movements or rebel becomings? Or further still, is it not possible that there are two distinct dimensions, internal to language in general-- one always concealed by the other, yet continuously coming to the aid of, or subsisting under, the other?"
I like this phrase "rebel becomings" partly because I am now rereading Albert Camus' The Rebel, but also because it highlights, I think, the actuality of the way becomings (the second element of the Platonic dualism) affect fixed qualities a.k.a. the establishment or the state (the first element of the Platonic dualism.)
The simulacrum doesn´t play an important role in the Logique of Sense, the article is a old one, in the Logic of Sense simulacrum is named becoming. I say that for you not to focus on a concept that appears only on page 2 and never more
I think we have a miscommunication, Nuno. I was attempting to build to a place where I could ask reasonably coherent questions for you as directed by you when you said, "Do you have doubts on the article on the simulacrum? I know very well that article."My copy of The Logic of Sense has an index and I can write out the entry for the word simulacrum. They are rather numerous. In addition, my copy has an Appendix 1, The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy. I won't be surprised if this is a problem of English versus French or something. I don't own a French edition of the book so I can't say.
I like the idea of simulacrum as becoming, as I liked your idea of logic as a working. I want to say a few more things about simulacrum before I try to go further. I want to draw on your expertise, but in a way I had made a little venture here thinking it was very likely no one would enter in, as if I was talking to myself. (I had two views for a long, long time.) I'm trying to make a crossover of some kind.
ask me concrete questions then. And accept my opinion about them
Accept your opinion? What do you mean by that.... I am willing to carefully read anything you write, weigh and evaluate it to the best of my ability, learn from it where possible, and then reply. I might, in the response, disagree with you, but if so, I would wait for your rebuttal or clarification. Beyond that, though, all bets are off. Are you another PhD drunk with the power of jerking poor students around?As to asking concrete questions, I am stuck on your comment the concept of simulacra is not important in the work under discussion. A simple and concrete question is how you support, with reasons, such a claim.
Sense works through nonsense.
I eliminate many of the misleading meanings of the word logic thereby.
It may be I add a few new ones, and it seems to me I do not advance very much or not at all, this way.
Sense works via all the things excluded from sense via sense understood through the notion of sense as a dualism, or binarism, of sense/nonsense.
I don't think this is fine.
I think it is much better to simply ask,
How does sense work?
The answer to this question is the subject of The Logic of Sense. It is what the book is about. The answer can only be genuinely understood by studying and discussing the whole book.
Yusef wrote: "Accept your opinion? What do you mean by that.... I am willing to carefully read anything you write, weigh and evaluate it to the best of my ability, learn from it where possible, and then reply. I..."It was Deleuze himself that said that the simulacrum wasn´t a good concept. On Difference and Repetition it plays na importante role but in LS it disappears or it is used to talk abou other thing (no conceptual usage). The appendice ond the simulacrum is an old article and shares the view of DR: the role of the simulacrum is to overturn platonismo.
SIMULACRUMJonathan Roffe In his 1990 ‘Preface’ to Clet- Martin’s book on his work, Deleuze states that the concept of ‘simulacrum’ was never an essential part of his philosophy. However, it does offer one of the strongest forms of his critique of identity, and the affi rmation of a world populated by differences- in- themselves which are not copies of any prior model. Simply put, ‘simulacrum’ means ‘copy’. It is in Deleuze’s discussion of Plato in The Logic of Sense that simulacra are most closely discussed. Plato offers a three-l evel hierarchy of the model, the copy, and the copy of the copy which is the simulacrum. The real concern for Plato is that, being a step removed from the model, the simulacrum is inaccurate and betrays the model. He uses this hierarchy in a number of places, and in each case it is a matter of distinguishing the ‘false pretender’ or simulacrum. For example, in the Sophist, Socrates discusses the means with which we might distinguish between the philosopher (the good copy), who is in search of the Good (the model), and the sophist (the simulacrum of the philosopher – the bad copy), who uses the same skills as the philosopher in search of profi t or fame. Deleuze notes that while the distinction between the model and the copy seems the most important one for Plato, it is rather the distinction between the true and the false copies which is at the heart of Platonism. The copy of the copy, cut off from reference to a model, puts into question the modelcopy system as a whole, and confronts it with a world of pure simulacrum. This reveals, for Deleuze, the moral nature of Plato’s system, which fundamentally values identity, order, and the stable reference to a model over the groundless movements of simulacra. This does not mean that Deleuze considers the world to be made up of appearances, ‘simulations’ of a real world that has now vanished. It is the sense of the word
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‘appearances’ itself that is in question. Simulacra do not refer to anything behind or beyond the world – they make up the world. So what is being undermined by Deleuze here is a representational understanding of existence, and the moral interpretation of existence that goes along with it. Furthermore, this understanding embodies a certain negativity that is also problematic. For a copy to be a copy of any kind it must have reference to something it is not – a copy stands in for something that is not present. It requires this other thing (what linguistics would call the ‘referent’) to give it sense and importance. The simulacrum, on the other hand, breaking with this picture, does not rely upon something beyond it for its force, but is itself force or power; able to do things and not merely represent. It is as a result of this positive power that simulacra can produce identities from within the world, and without reference to a model, by entering into concrete relations – in this case, the philosopher is not the one searching for the Good, but the one who is able to create new concepts from the material available in the world; concepts which will do something. We can see here a hint of the understanding of the world as a productive- machine that will emerge in Anti- Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze also connects the thought of the simulacrum to that of the eternal return. As Deleuze frequently argues, we must understand the eternal return in terms of the return and affi rmation of the different, and not of the Same. Rather than distinguishing between good and bad copies, the eternal return rejects the whole model/copy picture – which is grounded on the value of the Same and infuses negativity into the world – in favour of the productive power of the simulacra themselves.
Connectives Difference Eternal return Plato Representation
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Tom Conley In the histories of cartography and of the cognition of terrestrial space, ‘
1. "The appendice on the simulacrum is an old article and shares the view of DR: the role of the simulacrum is to overturn platonismo."-- Nuno, message 28, June 8, 2020If we are going to argue the concept of simulacrum is unimportant, are we going to argue the overturn of platonismo is unimportant?
2. "We recognize this Platonic dualism. [ limited,measured things, fixed qualities versus pure becoming without measure or limit "a veritable becoming-mad"] It is not at all the dualism of the intelligible and the sensible, of Idea and matter, or of Ideas and bodies. from page 2, The Logic of Sense, the first two sentences of a long and important paragraph.
I love the simple, elegant list of Platonic dualism Deleuze provides:
1) intelligible and sensible;
2) idea and matter;
3) ideas and bodies.
Perhaps there are many other aspects, but we have so much to work with already, I don't care to consider a more complete list.
I name the aspects of Platonic dualism by the word binarism. The word binarism is the one the Structuralists used to elaborate and specify Platonic dualism as it appears, so they think, in other cultures. This is an essence of Structuralist methodology.
It better not be the case, if the Structuralist project has significant value, Platonic dualism doesn't have any business being projected onto non-Western cultures except in the cause of Western cultural imperialism.
Why otherwise would the Structuralists believe projecting Platonic dualism was what they should do? Does every culture have its own Plato and Socrates? Our own didn't even have Plato and Socrates until Plato and Socrates lived their remarkable lives.
Yet this is a fiendishly tricky manner. (The Structuralists, at first, didn't know what they were doing.) Deleuze is great because he provides some of the first notions this fiendishly tricky matter even exists; even more so as Deleuze provides us a few steps in the right direction towards overcoming it.
Note also how ping ponging back and forth from intelligible to the sensible provides so much sport and amusement to this day for the "really, really, really smart guys> with the terrible halitosis, in academia. (American academia.) Throw in a little cognitive neuroscience and they've really got it hopping. As if that would, or could, change a damned thing conceptually.
3. " What does it mean 'to reverse Platonism'? This is how Nietzsche defined the task of his philosophy or, more generally, the task of the philosophy of the future. The formula seems to mean the abolition of the world of essences and of the world of appearances. Such a project, however, would not be peculiar to Nietzsche. The dual denunciation of essences and appearances dates back to Hegel or, better yet, to Kant. It is doubtful that Nietzsche meant the same thing. Moreover, this formula of reversal has the disadvantage of being abstract; it leaves the motivation of Platonism in the shadows. On the contrary, "to reverse Platonism" must mean to bring this motivation out into the light of the day, to "track it down" --the way Plato tracks down the Sophist.
In very general terms, the motive of the theory of Ideas must be sought in a will to select and to choose. It is a question of "making a difference," of distinguishing the "thing" itself from its images, the original from the copy, the model from the simulacrum. But are these expressions equivalent? The Platonic project comes to light only when we turn back to the method of division....." from The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy, appendix one of The Logic of Sense, page 253 of my edition. Emphasis mine.
There is a remarkable typographical error in my edition of the book. In the above-quoted comment, the crucial word in the sentence "On the contrary, 'to REVERSE Platonism" must mean to bring this motivation out in the light of the day...." , the word REVERSE, is given as RESERVE. Check it out. Almost hard to believe, as this error effectively neutralizes the overall meaning of the passage and the entire article. Such is the terrible, and delightful, perversity of our world.
I wish to keep an eye on "the method of division" and what it does and doesn't do. I want to keep an eye on it because of the role it plays on our "image of thought." (Keeping an eye images is generally a good idea.)
"Intelligible and sensible"
We see above two philosophically-important concepts: 1) the intelligible; 2) the sensible.
I would say the intelligible and the sensible are of foundational importance, not only for philosophy, but for the entirety of western intellectual culture. One seemingly could not think or create, artistically, scientifically, or otherwise, without standing on and pushing off the foundation of the intelligible and the sensible. That is, until the advent of modernity, when thinking and what it is to think began to become open to renewed questioning.
What I think is significant to The Logic of Sense and to what Deleuze presents to view generally in most of his work, is the coupling of intelligibility and sensibility. In this coupling, intelligibility and sensibility are conjoined, thought together, but also distinguished. The word and becomes just as important as either the intelligible or the sensible. We ask what the word and is doing here, and we require a detailed answer. (This is not the word and's grammatical definition or function, as, say, a conjunction.) How does the and work?
It is already very odd for me to say the word and conjoins and distinguishes. It is not at all clear this even makes any sense. I wouldn't mind getting a little feedback on this matter, but will make do with what I have for the time being, which is myself and what I have come up with more or less independently.
Deleuze has mentioned the intelligible and the sensible in reference to the dualisms of Plato. Dualisms are not monisms. (They are also not pluralisms.) Plato has either mashed together pre-existing pluralism into two distinct categories, or he has split asunder a pre-existing unity. Most likely Plato has done both, but in whichever case, the intelligible and the sensible have been divided. They have been divided in a certain way. Also, for specific reasons and to accomplish a specific function or purpose. Perhaps I could rephrase " to accomplish a specific function or purpose" as to do a specific kind of work and to work in a certain way.
Sense is an event.
What does The Logic of Sense have to say about this proposition?
It is true we are warming to Deleuze's concept of "sense" in the opening pages of The Logic of Sense when suddenly we are plunged, roller-coaster style, into a discussion of the Stoics, and their remarkable, and lost, concept of "event".
We are able to conclude: AHA! "Sense" and "event" have something to do with each other!
Yes, but what?
What's an event?
We have a distinctive and historically unique idea of the event: it is something heavily advertised we instinctively (for to respond to advertisements is instinctively instilled) know we must attend.
Attend to by buying a ticket, and having bought the ticket, we pay attention. We can buy the ticket and not pay attention. We can pay attention without buying any ticket, but the fact remains we are "out of it". Our focus is out of focus.
Sense is an event.
I would certainly hope so.
We CAN end the whole mind-body problem this way, with a snap.
Do we want to?
Representation works well enough.
Representation is an adequate way to live.
Puppets are poets.
Politicians are heroes, saviors.
Academic careers are nourished by vexed problems, such as the mind-body one.
If you speak a word, you are making sense.
If you speak a syllable, you are not.
If you mumble, or talk to yourself, narrating to yourself in your own jargon, you aren't making sense.
If you are a baby, babbling, as baby babbling, this makes sense. Not only that, for a baby, the logic is perfect. For us adults, too.
We won't betray this.
I am poised between logic and sense.
I am not the only one.
Simulacra is not the bridge between the two, nor the stepping stone between deserts, an island or an oasis.
Simulacra are not clearings in the forest. (When the forest is cleared, and scarred, is it not a desert? And then the remnant of the forest, which was not cleared, an oasis-- a simulacra?)
Simulacra are not the best way to be poised between logic and sense.
I admit that.
I'm a bit at loggerheads here. I wanted to have a discussion where everyone who wanted got to throw their two cents into the pot and everyone who wanted got to benefit from it.
Only one person came in to throw two cents into the pot, and I ended up clashing and destroying it, even though I valued that two cents at €10,000.
I have only the choice of quitting or going on, trying to tease out the significance of dividing practice, what's left out in that practice, or between, what is divided, using simulacra as a starting point of what's in there, though I don't hope to retain it.
I still hope for a meaningful discussion, and this won't be measured in "views" or stars or anything else.
I'm going on.
The issue of simulacra seems to be a sore spot.
Does simulacra have anything to do with The Logic of Sense.
This is a complex question. We will treat it as such.
I might, wishing to give my side of the issue-- that it is-- point to the index, and count, as indeed it can be counted, these items:
Simulacr(a)um, 2, 7-8, 94, 216,219, 221, 273-276, 284-285, 289, 315; and ancient philosophy, 253-279; becoming phantasms, 165; being of, 256; copy and model, 256; demonic arbiter of, 258; divergent series in, 262-63, in Epicurean theory of time, 274-276, 277; and eternal return, 264-65; Friday and, 316; in the hierarchy of participation, 255-56; invention and, 266-79; and modernity, 265-266; perception of, 277; phantasmatic power of, 261; 261: Plato, 253-266; as reactionary, 263; sexual drives, 198; varieties of, 275-76,277, world of, 187-88, 261-62.
We love love.
How we to interpret love of love?
It is metaphysical, for love can never divorce itself from earth, wind, fire, and water.
Wait a minute,now you say, earth wind fire water, not only defunct, don't provide no love.
Okay, i okay, we of the balking black bastards will never let our matadors defy us.
We who love love-- and tigers and bulls.
I can't stand we got all these books-- every damn one of them lovely, a treasure, and each and every one of us a Jesus, and we can't get together in justice.
We could found sense if we had a scripture, a "new God" as Heidegger scandalously said, at the end of his life. The old God doesn't found truth, and after the twentieth century, this is a certainty. So don't we found a new God, a new sense? We can do this while letting God do His thing, separately. We're only human here, born to make mistakes. We erect a new God, we do it hoping to get through the present mess we've gotten ourselves into. We don't do it to desecrate God.
Isn't one of the problems The Logic of Sense, or as Nuno would authoritatively call it, The Logique of Sense, that it will refuse, and resolutely, any claim to scripture?
It will ask us to find our own sense-- autonomy.
If you get it, you know there's no such thing as a guidebook to autonomy.
I'm the king of nonsense. Is that because I wish to get an inkling of the logic of sense? Logic was just that-- an attempt to conquer human mind and body.
Divide and conquer.
Human mind and body are separate and that's that. Take it or leave it.
(The animals have it a little better-- and a lot, lot worse. Their minds and bodies aren't separate, but their minds are pathetically weak-- so what?)
I think what you are saying is sense makes sense.
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The difficulties are not due to any failure of the author. If anything, I would say they are due to the greatness of the author.
What makes the effort required for reading the book rewarding, in my experience, is the change it has introduced to my ways of thinking. The change is positive in that what is discovered from the change is how imprisoned and narrow my thinking had been, unbeknownst to me. In other words, my mind has been freed up a bit.
There's freedom here.
I've rattled off some of my favorite cliches. I have to do that-- especially the freedom stuff. The way I see it is, if we don't see difficulty as potentially freeing us, sooner or later our freedom will cage us, every bit as much as our pleasure does, now.
Anyway, back to the difficulties of the book. They are manifold, and I am quite sure I cannot quickly or easily list them. (I am not going to try. It will be nice if these come out during discussion.) One difficulty I can mention-- is the profuse reference to authors, philosophers, artists, scientists, mathematicians, and others. Promiscuity entering philosophy! (By the back door of linguistics, but nevertheless. The lingual isn't a half bad way to approach a backdoor, philosophical or "other"wise.) These are so many and so diverse it might be not any one person, even a well-read, tenured professor, has mastered them all.
Working together, however, we may be able to accomplish something. I hope we will. Judging by the great reviews of the book here at GoodReads, I certainly think we have the potential.