2

In the introduction of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze seems to contrast repetition with memory. How does this really cash out? Does this mean Deleuze is making the claim that memory is a kind of generality? I'm saying this because Deleuze's first move in the book is to contrast repetition with generality.

Thanks.

Akin667
  • 21
  • 1
  • Deleuze's philosophy is highly Heraclitean thus any generality aimed to capture the general, essential characteristics of objects, ideas, or events could limit our understanding by reducing the world to fixed categories with their corresponding internal logics. Memory as traditionally thought simply to recall or reproduce something in succession from the past misses the point of creating something new in the act of repetition, not unlike Merleau-Ponty's gaze is to touch or Heidegger's Dasein instead of mere present-at-handness. There's always difference in every repetition for Deleuze.... – Double Knot Oct 10 '23 at 22:08
  • @DoubleKnot M-P's gaze i think includes memory as a "style of existence" rather than, as you say, explicit memory. i read something like that years ago wrt him and psychoanalysis, that our past (our complexes?) structures how we actually perceive the world. i've read a little deleuze, but can't recall how he uses 'memory –  Oct 11 '23 at 02:46
  • 1
    @prof_post Deleuze's philosophy is not popular and easy to forget after reading as you say. His usage of memory is concerned with the 'virtual' and the 'singular' where past experiences and affects as potentials and possibilities continue to 'become' and shape our perceptions and actions. It's not so much about explicit chronological memory though which robot could also store, but it's about the similar yet unique singular ones to have the transformative potential. Metaphorically in his view every psycho question requires singular endless expandable answer, any general theory is not enough... – Double Knot Oct 11 '23 at 05:00
  • so "singular" memories are still transforming us? what's the 'virtual' got to do with that @DoubleKnot ? –  Oct 11 '23 at 05:48
  • @prof_post the 'virtual' we all cannot see or self-locate is in contrast with 'actual' and is a source of the 'becoming' where the actual emerges through a dynamic process of differentiation and transformation. It's also like if now you go to read same chapter of Deleuze again recalling some of your old memory, yet this recall from the virtual could create something new for you this time around or even transform you remotely possibly. You may also refer and crack Whitehead's process ontology philosophy which is perhaps also not easy to remember and penetrate... – Double Knot Oct 11 '23 at 06:06
  • do you mean that "singular" memories are "virtual" @DoubleKnot –  Oct 11 '23 at 06:10
  • @prof_post Not at all, virtual is the source while singular is the ontic true characteristic of any actual repetition in contrast with generality discussed in this OP... – Double Knot Oct 11 '23 at 06:15
  • so singular memories were virtual @DoubleKnot ? i think you've lost me. you seemed to be saying that the singular is "transformational" and that the "virtual" is how we "become" something different. how are those related? –  Oct 11 '23 at 06:26
  • if i am "transformed" into a goblin by a wizard and the "source" of that is his hatred of professors, the wizard *is* hateful in how he acts. rather than characterising both terms, it would probably be useful to relate them, as e.g. "singular things are virtual" –  Oct 11 '23 at 06:34
  • Indeed 'process' to recall a memory are really just a nice name tag for the actual 'maze' hidden behind, that's incidentally one of the reasons they're easy to forget after reading as you say. Your last sentence seemed on track though except 'process' is how we 'become' something different and 'virtual' is the source of the said process... – Double Knot Oct 11 '23 at 06:35
  • i think you are just wiriting poetic definitions rather than answering my questions ha. dwai @DoubleKnot you say that singular memories have transformative potentials and the virtual is the source of how we are transformed, which is a process. if that's right, then how does that potential feature in the process of transformation? evidently not as its origin –  Oct 11 '23 at 06:37
  • 1
    @prof_post Not necessarily under said Deleuze's view if you don't treat 'poetic' as the usual fixed generality or category, but treat it as singular, maybe transformation would befall on you once you re-read those Deleuze chapters in your vague memory... – Double Knot Oct 11 '23 at 06:40

0 Answers0