Let's get the Weil rolling - Spinozian Constrast.

[Gobbo]

@Wiki

Spinoza contended that “Deus sive Natura” (“God or Nature”) was a being of infinitely many attributes, of which extension and thought were two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as two different, parallel “subworlds” that neither overlap nor interact. This formulation is a historically significant panpsychist solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza’s system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is part of the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and has no personality.

I find Spinoza and Simone Weil quite similar in that they take different routes to arrive at, in my opinion, the same destination. Spinoza takes a logical approach while Weil tackles it from a more phenomenological stance

@Wiki

The concept of metaxu, which Weil borrowed from Plato, is that which both separates and connects. (e.g., as a wall separates two prisoners but can be used to tap messages) This idea of connecting distance was of the first importance for Weil’s understanding of the created realm. The world as a whole, along with any of its components, including our physical bodies, are to be regarded as serving the same function for us in relation to God that a blind man’s stick serves for him in relation to the world about him. They do not afford direct insight, but can be used experimentally to bring the mind into practical contact with reality. This metaphor allows any absence to be interpreted as a presence, and is a further component in Weil’s theodicy.

Both of these philosophers arrive at a type of faceless God. An important step in retaining spirituality in the face of the potential for institutional bullshit. They emphasize the the contract for truth and justice are found within, and thus so is this type of God. For instance, to Weil affliction (pain which permeates the soul) is meant to draw us away from the imperfections we are both into as humans and to the realization of God through the self actualization of self and body as separate. Likewise for Spinoza the free will we perceive ourselves to have is meant to contemplate the determined actions in a 'Yes I see…" rather than “Why??”.

It is because of this eastern spice that I enjoy these two thinkers.

[James_No_2]

Old_Gobbo,

I find Spinoza and Simone Weil quite similar in that they take different routes to arrive at, in my opinion, the same destination. Spinoza takes a logical approach while Weil tackles it from a more phenomenological stance.

I have not read any Simone Weil, but I would say that the ‘phenomenological’ approach is if anything not so much a compliment to Spinoza’s system, but a compartment therein. But even that is going to be misleading if taken too far. Weil was critical of materialism, whereas Spinoza has definite materialist elements. Weil seems to have emphasized interiority in her conception of spirituality, in such a way as would probably not have appealed to Spinoza. In any case, it does definitely not appeal to Deleuze.

In the Ethics, Deleuze would have us believe, there are actually two books laid the one over the other. First, the geometric or ‘logical’ treatise; then, in the form of the scholia, an affective element which lies ‘beneath’ it.

When you begin the Ethics, Deleuze says, it appears to be a serene system in which each element is said to follow necessarily from a set of evident axioms. But then you encounter the “scholia,” those energetic side statements that seem indispensable to the spirit of the text but are not neatly subsumable under its logic. The scholia speak to the affective dimension of being that subsists below our highest powers of ratiocination but is also indispensable to its activation and movement. - William E. Connolly

…

Both of these philosophers arrive at a type of faceless God. An important step in retaining spirituality in the face of the potential for institutional bullshit.

I suppose your reasoning here is that a faceless God has no voice, and therefore no-one can speak on his behalf. For Spinoza, I would argue, the freedom of the individual is always tied up with the freedom of the community. We do not retain spirituality merely by listening solely to the voice ‘inside our head’, and ignoring every other ‘authority’ as being ‘fascism’, or whatever. So outside of the institution there is the multitude. Christian community in the States feeds on this kind of collectivity: and it seems both very alive, and in many cases very spiritual. The development of ‘grass roots’ Christianity (“Jesus With Bare Feet”), whether or not it is in the end a co-opting of exterior forces by the institution of the Church (as Deleuze thinks) or not, seems irrelevant to the question of ‘spirituality’ as you pose it. The problem is, I would say, not so much with ‘institutional bullshit’ as with the notions of spirituality and interiority, etc. Or at least, they should be considered as complimentary.

Check this out;
amazon.com/gp/product/026274 … oding=UTF8

Regards,

James

[Gobbo]

I have not read any Simone Weil, but I would say that the ‘phenomenological’ approach is if anything not so much a compliment to Spinoza’s system, but a compartment therein.

I don’t think I can give a real reply to this. I’ll work on it.

First, the geometric or ‘logical’ treatise; then, in the form of the scholia, an affective element which lies ‘beneath’ it.

If I am to read the great Deleuze correctly here I would say the two are quite comparable. Weil sees a logical beauty in geometry. This leads to her aesthetic philosophy in which she sees a type of telic nature which is proof of that which lies beyond the self, or at least the physical body - the ‘beneath’. Now, this belief in the indicative symetric nature of geometry, art, and God/Nature is, admittidly, only a belief or faith but I find it to be the same sort when exploring Spinoza’s logical systems.

@J2

I suppose your reasoning here is that a faceless God has no voice, and therefore no-one can speak on his behalf. For Spinoza, I would argue, the freedom of the individual is always tied up with the freedom of the community. We do not retain spirituality merely by listening solely to the voice ‘inside our head’, and ignoring every other ‘authority’ as being ‘fascism’, or whatever. So outside of the institution there is the multitude.

Yes, this is one of the major knocks on Eastern religion; a sense of ‘well not everyone can sit around doing their own thing’. This line of thinking does not undermine the ability to have an community however. Even though they are slightly different things I’m not so much (of a realist and thus) against the concept of an institution itself but rather, as you said, using God to

a. Dictate a crude, standardized religion.

b. Use God for some fascist type thiing.

Or to sum it up… the bullllshit

The development of ‘grass roots’ Christianity (“Jesus With Bare Feet”), whether or not it is in the end a co-opting of exterior forces by the institution of the Church (as Deleuze thinks) or not, seems irrelevant to the question of ‘spirituality’ as you pose it. The problem is, I would say, not so much with ‘institutional bullshit’ as with the notions of spirituality and interiority, etc. Or at least, they should be considered as complimentary.

I would disagree with you here though I think most Christians (not that introduced them to this) leads positive lives in which they are in touch with themselves. Or in other words, they have the same potential to achieve it through the Christian system. I’m not arguing the theoretical aim so much as the pragmatic results. The more followers, the more power, and the more power the more corruption. Rational thought can provide a rhyme and reason for social heirarchies but I do not see the need in ‘the church’.

[James_No_2]

OG,

If I am to read the great Deleuze correctly here I would say the two are quite comparable. Weil sees a logical beauty in geometry. This leads to her aesthetic philosophy in which she sees a type of telic nature which is proof of that which lies beyond the self, or at least the physical body - the ‘beneath’. Now, this belief in the indicative symetric nature of geometry, art, and God/Nature is, admittidly, only a belief or faith but I find it to be the same sort when exploring Spinoza’s logical systems.

I agree there is some overlap, though I have not yet really got a feel for what “aesthetics” might be in Spinoza’s system, except through Deleuze, who also shared Weil’s enthusiasm for geometry (or, at least, for certain mathematical tropes and metaphors). Though I sense there is an element of mysticism in Weil which is absent from both Deleuze and Spinoza.

In any case, I think, there is no place for any notion of ‘symmetry’ in Spinoza’s parallelism, except in the most provisional of descriptions. And this is in spite of - in fact precisely because of - there always being two names, in Deleuze, for Being.

The development of ‘grass roots’ Christianity (“Jesus With Bare Feet”), whether or not it is in the end a co-opting of exterior forces by the institution of the Church (as Deleuze thinks) or not, seems irrelevant to the question of ‘spirituality’ as you pose it. The problem is, I would say, not so much with ‘institutional bullshit’ as with the notions of spirituality and interiority, etc. Or at least, they should be considered as complimentary.

I would disagree with you here though I think most Christians (not that introduced them to this) leads positive lives in which they are in touch with themselves. Or in other words, they have the same potential to achieve it through the Christian system. I’m not arguing the theoretical aim so much as the pragmatic results. The more followers, the more power, and the more power the more corruption. Rational thought can provide a rhyme and reason for social heirarchies but I do not see the need in ‘the church’.

I would not disagree that most Christians lead positive lives. For instance when I wrote;

Christian community in the States feeds on this kind of collectivity: and it seems both very alive, and in many cases very spiritual.

You may not be arguing the ‘theoretical aim’, but in a sense I am. This is why I say that ‘interiority’ and ‘spirituality’ are the problem, though not in the same sense or for exactly the same reasons. In the latter case, I feel that there are a lot of diverse and heterogeneous things grouped under this term, such that, at a certain point, it becomes misleading to speak as if different technologies of the self such as Christianity and Buddhism have the ‘same’ theoretical end. Which is why I posted the link to the Zizek book - where he wants to draw a sharp distinction between so-called ‘new age’ or ‘western’ Buddhism, and Christianity.

My own point of departure in replying to your original post was to disagree, or at least qualify, the assertion you made: to the effect that genuine or authentic spirituality was somehow impossible when it existed in institutional form. I disagree with the idea (which I suppose you do not hold, but I was just throwing it out there) that the only alternative to ‘institutionalized’ spirituality is the pseudo-solipsistic, new age variety: a thesis which Zizek specifically rejects by turning the two into the mere respective sides of the same dialectical coin.

On top of this though, I wish to qualify the idea (which perhaps you do hold), that genuine spirituality cannot, in any case, exist in institutionalized form. We often associate with the idea of the institution a sense of the impersonal and the disenchanted. The problem though in your assertion, is, as I said originally, with the notion of spirituality. In ‘western’ Buddhism, Zizek argues, we are encouraged to disengage from the modern capitalist machine, which is in any case only an ‘appearance’ - so that we might find our ‘inner self’, the unchanging essence (and etc) which makes the ‘real world’ seem comparitively meaningless in comparison. The materialism of Deleuze and, I would argue, Spinoza, lies precisely in blocking this step. The institution, if it is to be devalued and rejected, should be confronted elsewhere than from within the rhetoric of spirituality. Or at least this is my position.

Finally, the Church is not just an institution but a small scale, living community. I can assure you, whatever might be true of Roman Catholicism in certain societies, that there is no disenchantment or sense of impersonality here. This plurality of living, embodied communities, is as much what the Church ‘is’, as the idea or reality of ‘Institution’.

Regards,

James

[Gobbo]

@James No. 2

I would disagree with you here though I think most Christians (not that introduced them to this) leads positive lives in which they are in touch with themselves. Or in other words, they have the same potential to achieve it through the Christian system. I’m not arguing the theoretical aim so much as the pragmatic results. The more followers, the more power, and the more power the more corruption. Rational thought can provide a rhyme and reason for social heirarchies but I do not see the need in ‘the church’.

I would not disagree that most Christians lead positive lives. For instance when I wrote;

Christian community in the States feeds on this kind of collectivity: and it seems both very alive, and in many cases very spiritual.

My fault, improper grammer.

You may not be arguing the ‘theoretical aim’, but in a sense I am. This is why I say that ‘interiority’ and ‘spirituality’ are the problem, though not in the same sense or for exactly the same reasons. In the latter case, I feel that there are a lot of diverse and heterogeneous things grouped under this term, such that, at a certain point, it becomes misleading to speak as if different technologies of the self such as Christianity and Buddhism have the ‘same’ theoretical end. Which is why I posted the link to the Zizek book - where he wants to draw a sharp distinction between so-called ‘new age’ or ‘western’ Buddhism, and Christianity.

My own point of departure in replying to your original post was to disagree, or at least qualify, the assertion you made: to the effect that genuine or authentic spirituality was somehow impossible when it existed in institutional form. I disagree with the idea (which I suppose you do not hold, but I was just throwing it out there) that the only alternative to ‘institutionalized’ spirituality is the pseudo-solipsistic, new age variety: a thesis which Zizek specifically rejects by turning the two into the mere respective sides of the same dialectical coin.

On top of this though, I wish to qualify the idea (which perhaps you do hold), that genuine spirituality cannot, in any case, exist in institutionalized form. We often associate with the idea of the institution a sense of the impersonal and the disenchanted. The problem though in your assertion, is, as I said originally, with the notion of spirituality. In ‘western’ Buddhism, Zizek argues, we are encouraged to disengage from the modern capitalist machine, which is in any case only an ‘appearance’ - so that we might find our ‘inner self’, the unchanging essence (and etc) which makes the ‘real world’ seem comparitively meaningless in comparison. The materialism of Deleuze and, I would argue, Spinoza, lies precisely in blocking this step. The institution, if it is to be devalued and rejected, should be confronted elsewhere than from within the rhetoric of spirituality. Or at least this is my position.

Finally, the Church is not just an institution but a small scale, living community. I can assure you, whatever might be true of Roman Catholicism in certain societies, that there is no disenchantment or sense of impersonality here. This plurality of living, embodied communities, is as much what the Church ‘is’, as the idea or reality of ‘Institution’.

Regards,

James

Firstly I just want to clear up for everyone that when I say ‘eastern’ I do not imply only buddhism and likewise, when James mentions buddhism he does not speak for all eastern religions even though they seem to dance to the same sort of tune.

That being said, fair enough, good point. This Zizek fellow seems worth a glance.

Ok, there is a common misconception that the eastern’s teach a withdrawl from the capitolistic world. This is true to a certain extent as capitolism seems to advocate a certain materialism in the illogical sense of the word. I do not disagree with Spinoza in his materialist stance when it comes to substinance and things of that nature, but I think even he would agree with turning the self’s focus inwards rather than towards the next cool gaget that comes running along.

The inner self you speak of does not and is not meant to make the real world meaningless, even in comparison. This is almost the direct opposite of its aim. This is more of a taoist stance but even Buddhism does not preach ignore the world but rather to take a step back from the story to see the hand writing it. Mediation is a process of detachment of the cluster of thoughts to clearly see the sense data causing the world. It is not so much as ego loss but an attempt at a foundational shift; is is apparent for anyone who is knowledgable with the Dali Lama’s sense of humor. The thing that is helpful to realize is that Buddhism will take you as far as you put into it, as I’m sure many Christians rightfully believe as well. For Siddartha the path led him quite deep into the spirtual trance; to achieve the level of meditation required he needed the isolation. This is the reason monks do not talk and live in seclusion - to quite their thoughts, to become more attune. There is a pragmatic science to it. A science which, if you follow closely enough, will lead you from the material world and this is what I feel Christianity aims for, even if Spinoza does not.

In this way the east does not discourage institution in the sense that they should not be used or endorsed as this seems intuitively contradictory to the way. Many will use institution as it is a byproduct of our psychology. Rather the view is that the institution simply cannot exist for the sake of spirituality as it would serve no purpose other than perhaps being a large library, and in that case we have secular institutions for that. Spirituality cannot be taught, forced or regulated and that is exactly what Christianity does. It’s not horrible… it’s the right message, but it’s not the message which is the problem - it’s the medium.

I feel Weil would walk the path glancing at mystic roadsigns with Spinoza beside her finding meaning in the precision of the road. They converse and enjoy each other’s company but they prefer to distance themselves from the noisy Christians. The point is they are all on the same road, or at least that is my point.

My advice… put down the Zizek.

[Gobbo]

Btw,

Nick I don’t know if you’ve stopped looking at the philosophy forum, or if you even come here.

But you better this time

[Nick_A]

Hi Old_Gobbo and James

I’ll try to catch up with this tomorrow but am to bleary eyed to be of much use now. But just some quick observations.

First in reference to Spinoza and Simone, I was driving myself nuts with the following several weeks ago. First from wiki about Spinoza and the idea of necessity to make it easy

Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say “no” to what happens to us but the possibility to say “yes” and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way. By forming more “adequate” ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also held that everything must necessarily happen the way that it does. Therefore, there is no free will.

Now this I can see and makes the following quotation by Meister Eckhart understandable:

“God…does not constrain the will. Rather, he sets it free, so that it may choose him, that is to say, freedom. The spirit of man may not will otherwise than what God wills, but that is no lack of freedom. It is true freedom itself.”

Simone goes deeply into this and I found this excerpt online:

simone.weil.free.fr/necessite.htm

Spinoza, as I understood him, believed God and creation as the same. Simone wrote:

“God could only create by hiding himself. Otherwise there would be nothing but himself.”

– Gravity and Grace

In what appears as a strange quip there lies an extraordinary idea which is elaborated on in Gravity and Grace. Since God was everything, he had to withdraw himself to allow for the necessity of creation. This is similar to a Gnostic idea and a cabbalistic one as well. This is like my understanding of cosmology from my path only reversed. But this is just a psychological illusion because outside of time and space they are the same. So God and creation became analogous to “I Am” where “I” is the conscious source (no-thing) and “am” is (every-thing) as an expression of “I” of various lawful qualities or attributes but as imperfect fractions of the whole.

They remain united and the evolutionary and involutionary processes of creation flow through universal laws the Buddhists call dharma or the Great Laws on my path.

So read in the nlink how she extraordirily describes what appears as chaotic as lawful. I won’t comment on it since I’m to beat to do it justice and it is better that you read something like this without my two cents.

Simone was critical of how Christianity became perverted due to this God concept and the Church degenerating into a religion of power rather than the religion of slaves initially intended. But she did believe that it was through the cross that man could become himself and change as she speaks of in the excerpt:

Man can never escape obedience to God. A creature cannot not obey. The only choice offered to man as an intelligent and free creature, is to desire obedience or not to desire it. If he does not desire it, he perpetually obeys nevertheless, as a thing subject to mechanical necessity. If he does desire obedience, he remains subject to mechanical necessity, but a new necessity is added on, a necessity constituted by the laws that are proper to supernatural things. Certain actions become impossible for him, while others happen through him, sometimes despite him

.

So Man has the possibility of evolving from a mechanical necessity into a conscious being relating to conscious influences through his own efforts and with help from above and finally acquiring cosmic purpose proper for the name “Man.”.

There apparently is necessity and necessity. A fascinating question if I could think straight now.

[James_No_2]

OG,

Firstly, check this out;

Does, then, this mean that, today, “nobody believes”? One of the postmodern ironies is the strange exchange between Europe and Asia: at the very moment when, at the level of the “economic infrastructure,” the European technology and capitalism are triumphing worldwide, at the level of “ideological superstructure,” the Judeo-Christian legacy is threatened in the European space itself by the onslaught of the New Age “Asiatic” thought, which, in its different guises, from the “Western Buddhism” (today’s counterpoint to Western Marxism, as opposed to the “Asiatic” Marxism-Leninism) to different “Taos,” is establishing itself as the hegemonic ideology of the global capitalism. Although “Western Buddhism” presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of the capitalist dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain the inner peace and Gelassenheit, it actually functions as its perfect ideological supplement.

One should mention here the well-known topic of the “future schock,” i.e. of how, today, people are no longer psychologically able to cope with the dazzling rhythm of the technological development and the social changes that accompany it - things simply move too fast, before one can accustom oneself to an invention, this invention is already supplanted by a new one, so that one more and more lacks the most elementary “cognitive mapping.” The recourse to Taoism or Buddhism offers a way out of this predicament which definitely work better than the desperate escape into old traditions: instead of trying to cope with the accelerating rhythm of the technological progress and social changes, one should rather renounce the very endeavor to retain control over what goes on, rejecting it as the expression of the modern logic of domination - one should, instead, “let oneself go,” drift along, while retaining an inner distance and indifference towards the mad dance of the accelerated process, a distance based on the insight that all this social and technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of semblances which do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being… One is almost tempted to resuscitate here the old infamous Marxist cliche of religion as the “opium of the people,” as the imaginary supplement of the terrestrial misery: the “Western Buddhist” meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity. If Max Weber were to live today, he would definitely wrote a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic, entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of the Global Capitalism.

And, instead of playing the old game of the aggressive Islamic monotheism against the “gentle” Buddhism, one should rather use the bombing of the Bamiyan status to reflect on a more fundamental deadlock. It is not only that Western Buddhism, this pop-cultural phenomenon preaching inner distance and indifference towards the frantic pace of the market competition, is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity - in short, the paradigmatic ideology of late capitalism. One should add that it is no longer possible to oppose this Western Buddhism to its “authentic” Oriental version; the case of Japan delivers here the conclusive evidence. Not only do we have today, among the Japanese top managers, the wide-spread “corporate Zen” phenomenon; in the whole of the last 150 years, Japan’s rapid industrialization and militarization, with its ethics of discipline and sacrifice, was sustained by the large majority of Zen thinkers - who, today, knows that D.T.Suzuki himself, the high guru of Zen in the America of the 60s, supported in his youth, in Japan of the 30s, the spirit of utter discipline and militaristic expansion. There is no contradiction here, no manipulative perversion of the authentic compassionate insight: the attitude of total immersion into the self-less “now” of the instant Enlightenment, in which all reflexive distance is lost and “I am what I do,” as C.S.Lewis put it, in short: in which absolute discipline coincides with total spontaneity, perfectly legitimizes one subordination to the militaristic social machine. Or, to put it in somewhat simplified terms (which, however, just repeat the central ethical lesson of Bhagavadgita): if the external reality is ultimately just an ephemeral appearance, even the most horrifying crimes eventually DO NOT MATTER.

“Western Buddhism” thus perfectly fits the fetishist mode of ideology in our allegedly “post-ideological” era, as opposed to its traditional symptomal mode, in which the ideological lie which structures our perception of reality is threatened by symptoms qua “returns of the repressed,” cracks in the fabric of the ideological lie. Fetish is effectively a kind of envers of the symptom. That is to say, symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface of the false appearance, the point at which the repressed truth erupts, while fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables us to sustain the unbearable truth. Let us take the case of the death of a beloved person: when I “repress” this death, I try not to think about it, but the repressed trauma persists and returns in the symptoms. Say, after my beloved wife dies of the breast cancer, I try to repress this fact by throwing myself into hard work or vivacious social life, but then there is always something which reminds me of her, I cannot escape her ghost haunting me. In the case of a fetish, on the contrary, I “rationally” fully accept this death, I am able to talk about her most painful moments in a cold and clear way, because I cling to the fetish, to some feature that embodies for me the disavowal of this death. In this sense, a fetish can play a very constructive role of allowing us to cope with the harsh reality: fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds, they are thoroughly “realists,” able to accept the way things effectively are - since they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the full impact of reality.

So, when we are bombarded by claims that in our post-ideological cynical era nobody believes in the proclaimed ideals, when we encounter a person who claims he is cured of any beliefs, accepting social reality the way it really is, one should always counter such claims with the question: OK, but where is the fetish which enables you to (pretend to) accept reality “the way it is”? “Western Buddhism” is such a fetish: it enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game, while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well aware how worthless this spectacle is - what really matters to you is the peace of the inner Self to which you know you can always withdraw. - Zizek

Now for your response.

I do not disagree with Spinoza in his materialist stance when it comes to substinance and things of that nature, but I think even he would agree with turning the self’s focus inwards rather than towards the next cool gaget that comes running along.

For me the question is not “whether he would agree” - I do not think that the landscape of this ‘debate’ is quite as transparent as that. There is I think an extent to which he would agree, but personally I am more interested in what lies beyond this point: when he starts to reorganize his vocabulary in such a way that concepts like ‘inwardness’ get broken up and reconstructed within different relations, redescribed in “more powerful” ways, so to speak - more powerful in relation to the goal of creating a purely immanent system with no transcendental illusions, no “asylums of ignorance” and etc.

As such, I don’t think that there is a simple inside/outside dichotomy, such that the “turn away from gadgets” is synonymous with the “inward turn”. Perhaps my reading of Spinoza is overly Deleuzian: in any case we (Deleuze and I) are in agreement on this point - that each dichotomy is either false in the sense of being a dialectical abstraction, or false in the sense of being incomplete. I said before that for Deleuze there are always two names for Being, but that Being is always in any case univocal. This means that for each couplet, one of the terms (roughly speaking) “subsumes” the other. So for instance, there is no ‘inside’ as such, but rather only ‘folds’ in the outside.

My advice… put down the Zizek.

You shouldn’t confuse me with Zizek - but do have a look at him as he is interesting and thought-provoking, whether you agree with him or not. In the end he is much more Hegelian and Lacanian than Spinozist and Deleuzian - but, up to a certain extent, this does not matter.

Regards,

James

[Gobbo]

I said before that for Deleuze there are always two names for Being, but that Being is always in any case univocal. This means that for each couplet, one of the terms (roughly speaking) “subsumes” the other. So for instance, there is no ‘inside’ as such, but rather only ‘folds’ in the outside.

K… Keep going.

I want to hear the rest if you’ll entertain me as I haven’t read Deleuze, but in any case I’ll continue in whatever simplistic nature I can. To be honest I started this thread more to learn but it seems no one is interested in the subject

The main problem I have with this subsumation is that it exists within the confines of the certain psychological process that some would say is…stagnant. In other words there doesn’t seem to be as much of a pragmatic benefit to be gained from (insofar as I saw in Spinoza) pure logic.

Nick,

I liked this passage in particular…

We are warned of the share matter deserves of our love by the beauty of the world. In the beauty of the world, brute necessity becomes the object of love. Nothing is as beautiful as the fugitive folds of the waves on the sea, or the almost eternal folds of mountain scapes.

But now i have a headache… I’ll have to dwell on this for a while.

[James_No_2]

OG,

K… Keep going.

I want to hear the rest if you’ll entertain me as I haven’t read Deleuze, but in any case I’ll continue in whatever simplistic nature I can. To be honest I started this thread more to learn but it seems no one is interested in the subject.

I am as interested in this thread as I can be - not having read any Simone Weil.

As for ‘the rest’ - well Deleuze develops his conception of subjectivity in his monograph on Leibniz. But at the same time he speaks about the same relative few themes in different ways at different times: so you might be interested in his development of the notion of ‘conceptual personae’: which links the ‘fold’ from Leibniz to both Spinoza and also Nietzsche. For instance in the understanding of force in Spinoza, and transmutation in Nietzsche.

As for the univocity of Being - this is not the same as its ‘identity’: think of, for instance, the couplets difference/repetition and virtuality/actuality. Or better still, you should read Deleuze’s monograph on Bergson - it is the so-called ‘Bergsonian intuitive method’ which much be understood in order to understand the relation between duality and univocity both in Deleuze and, perhaps, Spinoza.

Regards,

James

[Nick_A]

Simone Weil is completely unique which is why it is so difficult to compare her with someone like Spinoza. There are some similarities but her value isn’t as much related to expressions of intellectual ideas though her intellect was known but as the results of the intentional personal experience of the depths of philosophy.

She unified psychology and philosophy through the ancient effort to “know thyself” without any need to clean it up and make it appear acceptable. She had a fierce respect for truth and didn’t accept lies in herself or from others.

So for example, Spinoza writes:

“We may be able quite to comprehend that God can communicate immediately with man, for without the intervention of bodily means He communicates to our minds His essence; still, a man who can by pure intuition comprehend ideas which are neither contained in nor deducible from the foundations of our natural knowledge, must necessarily possess a mind far superior to those of his fellow men, nor do I believe that any have been so endowed save Christ. To Him the ordinances of God leading men to salvation were revealed directly without words or visions, … Christ communed with God mind to mind.”

Spinoza, (The Theological Political Treatise)

Simone in contrast introduces the psychology of this relationship and its potential. One can also sense Nietzsche’s overman in regards this potential:

“Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves.”
“In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances… imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified.”

“That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.”
– Gravity and Grace

Mankind as a whole cannot learn by experience since we block the experience by imagination. Simone’s life was dedicated to the psychology of becoming open to the truths suggested by philosophy.

So from her perspective, the direct experience of higher truth doesn’t come as much from thinking or doing this or that but instead by freeing oneself from the reliance on imagination to fill the void of meaning. But this imagination has become our life. The conscious experience of this imagination for what it is leads to its death and since it is the majority of our lives, this is very frightening often to the extent of making it impossible.

“Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.” Simone Weil

From "Morality and Literature,”
an essay published in Cahiers du Sud, January 1944

This makes logical sense and the fact that it appears so illogical is proof of the strength of our imagination and our inability to live as human beings in the way suggested by Socrates: “May the outward and inward man be at one.” For this to become a reality, imagination must be sacrificed.

It is hard to understand these people that com along so rarely but I believe it is useful to just stop classifying and just try to understand what these individuals are say.

She made the transition from being scorned by educational institutions to now highly regarded. Watch the flow:

“We shall send the Red Virgin as far away as possible so that we shall never hear of her again.”
РC. Bougl̩, Director of Career Placement
Ecole normale supérieure

Her elder brother André Weil the famous mathematician in a 1932 letter (1241) This was said lovingly and in admiration:

It will now be I think 23 years that you made your entry into the phenomenal world to create the greatest pain in the ass for rectors and school directors.

When discovered marching with the workers she was fired.

When she was fired she thanked her superiors and declared that she had always regarded dismissal as the normal culmination of her career. Weil taught again at a school in Roanne where she continued to help organize unemployed and exploited workers. At Roanne one of her students, Anne Reynaud-Guérithault, preserved the notes she had taken in Simone Weil’s turbulent second year as a school teacher. Those student notes were published decades later, and are now used as textbooks in college-level courses in philosophy.

Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus in a letter to Weil’s mother in 1951

Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.

For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure.

“A woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints” T.S.Eliot

Quite a change of perspective. I hope this gives hope toall of us considered a “pain in the ass” by authorities.

In this day and age where Christianity is so misunderstood and attempts are made to secularize it into an aspect of Judaism, she is one of the few bright minds that understood the fallacy of it.

cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm

The picture is Simone at thirteen. She didn’t die that way at 34.

5. In Simone Weil’s life, religion played a dominant role in the years following the mystical epiphanies she experienced in 1938. Long before, however, her wish to partake in the suffering of the distressed led her to a life-style of extreme austerity. It was under these circumstances that, in 1937, Simone Weil became increasingly attracted to Christianity, a religion she considered to be in its true essence a religion of slaves, and therefore in utter contradiction to the actual form it had taken in history. On this assumption, Simone Weil objected against Catholicism – the denomination she knew best and respected the most that it had ended by perverting itself for the sake of power. The historical “double stain” on the Church that Simone Weil denounces originates in the fact that Israel imposed on Christian believers the acceptance of the Old Testament and its almighty God, and that Rome chose Christianity as the religion of the Empire. Despite its universal redemptive mission, the Church became from its very beginnings heir of Jewish nationalism and of the totalitarianism inherent in Imperial Rome. As the spiritual locus in which both traditions of power displaced the religion of powerless slaves, Christianity became the actual negation of its own foundational leitmotiv: the self-annulment of divine omnipotence by the godly act of kenosis or self-abasement.

She stresses the necessity of the true lover of wisdom to grab the bull by the horns and not be afraid to return to the beginning.

12. In unyielding opposition to the authoritarian pretensions of a Church that demands intellectual surrender to its dogmas and regards itself as the “patrie terrestre”[65] [earthly fatherland] of its members, Simone Weil’s kenotic thought leads up to an a-theology of exile that copes with the paradox of becoming rooted in God’s absence.[66] Refusing to acquiesce in the spiritual comforts that the traditions of Judaism and Christianity claim to offer, Simone Weil stresses the need for a form of saintliness without precedent in history. The “sainteté nouvelle”[67] [new saintliness] she envisaged assumes that the search for redemptive truth can only take place on the basis of complete freedom of thought, and dismisses the ideal of a sacrificium intellectus on the altars of organized religion as perhaps the most fundamental perversion in the long history of the Church. If one bears in mind the scope and import of Simone Weil’s contentions, it is hardly surprising that, in her view, the needed new saintliness presupposes a greater geniality than that of Archimedes.[68] Tellingly, her a-theological demarche toward the redemptive universality of kenosis could be paralleled at most with Franz Kafka’s strategy of overcoming power by taking refuge in what he called “das Kleine” [the small].[69] In a brief passage that Elias Canetti[70] considers akin to a Taoist text, Franz Kafka explains what “small” meant to him:

“Zwei Möglichkeiten: sich unendlich klein machen oder es sein. Das zweite ist Vollendung, also Untätigkeit, das erste Beginn, also Tat.” [71]

[Two possibilities: to make oneself infinitely small or to be (such). The second one is perfection, therefore non-activity; the first (is) beginning, therefore action.]

For her part, Simone Weil, in one of her last essays, wrote:

“Toujours le même infiniment petit, qui est infiniment plus que tout.” [72]

[Always the same infinitely small, which is infinitely more than all.]

When the idea of the overman or Christian re-birth is considered as a desirable natural evolutionary change of being itself as opposed to just temporary changes of life’s reactions the whole idea of “Force” takes on new meaning. I won’t comment on it now but just post this article here for further consideration. Got to leave for work now.

spiritualitytoday.org/spir2d … grote.html

[Nick_A]

Simone Weil is completely unique which is why it is so difficult to compare her with someone like Spinoza. There are some similarities but her value isn’t as much related to expressions of intellectual ideas though her intellect was known but as the results of the intentional personal experience of the depths of philosophy.

She unified psychology and philosophy through the ancient effort to “know thyself” without any need to clean it up and make it appear acceptable. She had a fierce respect for truth and didn’t accept lies in herself or from others.

So for example, Spinoza writes:

“We may be able quite to comprehend that God can communicate immediately with man, for without the intervention of bodily means He communicates to our minds His essence; still, a man who can by pure intuition comprehend ideas which are neither contained in nor deducible from the foundations of our natural knowledge, must necessarily possess a mind far superior to those of his fellow men, nor do I believe that any have been so endowed save Christ. To Him the ordinances of God leading men to salvation were revealed directly without words or visions, … Christ communed with God mind to mind.”

Spinoza, (The Theological Political Treatise)

Simone in contrast introduces the psychology of this relationship and its potential. One can also sense Nietzsche’s overman in regards this potential:

“Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves.”
“In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances… imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified.”

“That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.”
– Gravity and Grace

Mankind as a whole cannot learn by experience since we block the experience by imagination. Simone’s life was dedicated to the psychology of becoming open to the truths suggested by philosophy.

So from her perspective, the direct experience of higher truth doesn’t come as much from thinking or doing this or that but instead by freeing oneself from the reliance on imagination to fill the void of meaning. But this imagination has become our life. The conscious experience of this imagination for what it is leads to its death and since it is the majority of our lives, this is very frightening often to the extent of making it impossible.

“Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.” Simone Weil

From "Morality and Literature,”
an essay published in Cahiers du Sud, January 1944

This makes logical sense and the fact that it appears so illogical is proof of the strength of our imagination and our inability to live as human beings in the way suggested by Socrates: “May the outward and inward man be at one.” For this to become a reality, imagination must be sacrificed.

It is hard to understand these people that com along so rarely but I believe it is useful to just stop classifying and just try to understand what these individuals are say.

She made the transition from being scorned by educational institutions to now highly regarded. Watch the flow:

“We shall send the Red Virgin as far away as possible so that we shall never hear of her again.”
РC. Bougl̩, Director of Career Placement
Ecole normale supérieure

Her elder brother André Weil the famous mathematician in a 1932 letter (1241) This was said lovingly and in admiration:

It will now be I think 23 years that you made your entry into the phenomenal world to create the greatest pain in the ass for rectors and school directors.

When discovered marching with the workers she was fired.

When she was fired she thanked her superiors and declared that she had always regarded dismissal as the normal culmination of her career. Weil taught again at a school in Roanne where she continued to help organize unemployed and exploited workers. At Roanne one of her students, Anne Reynaud-Guérithault, preserved the notes she had taken in Simone Weil’s turbulent second year as a school teacher. Those student notes were published decades later, and are now used as textbooks in college-level courses in philosophy.

Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus in a letter to Weil’s mother in 1951

Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.

For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure.

“A woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints” T.S.Eliot

Quite a change of perspective. I hope this gives hope toall of us considered a “pain in the ass” by authorities.

In this day and age where Christianity is so misunderstood and attempts are made to secularize it into an aspect of Judaism, she is one of the few bright minds that understood the fallacy of it.

cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm

The picture is Simone at thirteen. She didn’t die that way at 34.

5. In Simone Weil’s life, religion played a dominant role in the years following the mystical epiphanies she experienced in 1938. Long before, however, her wish to partake in the suffering of the distressed led her to a life-style of extreme austerity. It was under these circumstances that, in 1937, Simone Weil became increasingly attracted to Christianity, a religion she considered to be in its true essence a religion of slaves, and therefore in utter contradiction to the actual form it had taken in history. On this assumption, Simone Weil objected against Catholicism – the denomination she knew best and respected the most that it had ended by perverting itself for the sake of power. The historical “double stain” on the Church that Simone Weil denounces originates in the fact that Israel imposed on Christian believers the acceptance of the Old Testament and its almighty God, and that Rome chose Christianity as the religion of the Empire. Despite its universal redemptive mission, the Church became from its very beginnings heir of Jewish nationalism and of the totalitarianism inherent in Imperial Rome. As the spiritual locus in which both traditions of power displaced the religion of powerless slaves, Christianity became the actual negation of its own foundational leitmotiv: the self-annulment of divine omnipotence by the godly act of kenosis or self-abasement.

She stresses the necessity of the true lover of wisdom to grab the bull by the horns and not be afraid to return to the beginning.

12. In unyielding opposition to the authoritarian pretensions of a Church that demands intellectual surrender to its dogmas and regards itself as the “patrie terrestre”[65] [earthly fatherland] of its members, Simone Weil’s kenotic thought leads up to an a-theology of exile that copes with the paradox of becoming rooted in God’s absence.[66] Refusing to acquiesce in the spiritual comforts that the traditions of Judaism and Christianity claim to offer, Simone Weil stresses the need for a form of saintliness without precedent in history. The “sainteté nouvelle”[67] [new saintliness] she envisaged assumes that the search for redemptive truth can only take place on the basis of complete freedom of thought, and dismisses the ideal of a sacrificium intellectus on the altars of organized religion as perhaps the most fundamental perversion in the long history of the Church. If one bears in mind the scope and import of Simone Weil’s contentions, it is hardly surprising that, in her view, the needed new saintliness presupposes a greater geniality than that of Archimedes.[68] Tellingly, her a-theological demarche toward the redemptive universality of kenosis could be paralleled at most with Franz Kafka’s strategy of overcoming power by taking refuge in what he called “das Kleine” [the small].[69] In a brief passage that Elias Canetti[70] considers akin to a Taoist text, Franz Kafka explains what “small” meant to him:

“Zwei Möglichkeiten: sich unendlich klein machen oder es sein. Das zweite ist Vollendung, also Untätigkeit, das erste Beginn, also Tat.” [71]

[Two possibilities: to make oneself infinitely small or to be (such). The second one is perfection, therefore non-activity; the first (is) beginning, therefore action.]

For her part, Simone Weil, in one of her last essays, wrote:

“Toujours le même infiniment petit, qui est infiniment plus que tout.” [72]

[Always the same infinitely small, which is infinitely more than all.]

When the idea of the overman or Christian re-birth is considered as a desirable natural evolutionary change of being itself as opposed to just temporary changes of life’s reactions the whole idea of “Force” takes on new meaning. I won’t comment on it now but just post this article here for further consideration. Got to leave for work now.

spiritualitytoday.org/spir2d … grote.html