I would first show the post of my German jam-mate, Harald, in its original form, then offer my translation of it. I do this because I fear when doing so, I’m prone to writing myself into it. So it seems only fair to post the original so that others can “write their selves” into it and offer a translation that may be better than mine.
“Perhaps Spinoza’s derivation of “abstraction” in its genius form,“universals” and “transcendentals” are “produced” by a capacity surpassing flood of images or sound is helpful. “The old thought more in images” -where poetry and narratives steem from. But in Spinpza, ther “more geometrco” method solves the very very very severe “being true”, aqdequate ideas problem !!”
“Perhaps Spinoza’s notion of “abstraction”, in a provocative and intriguing way , suggests that “universals” and “transcendent properties” are “produced” by a flood of images or sound [experience [is helpful. For instance, our primitive ancestors [not having the technology of language [thought primarily in images, which is where our propensity towards poetry and narratives stem from. But according to Spinoza, the “more geometrical” method serves the more necessarily methodical systematic process of seeking out what can be adequately demonstrated.”
Now what I am mainly working from here is the connection I see with Keats point concerning poetry: that it is the spontaneous overflow of emotions that comes from experience. And I would also note that Keats also said that poetry is the pick axe with which we penetrate the frozen sea of knowledge. And this, to me at least, now seems Deleuzian in spirit in that it recognizes that any act we can engage in order to get beyond ourselves (art, science, and philosophy (is a matter of accumulating experience to the point of that spontaneous overflow: what we experience as revelation. This is why Deleuze, in his A to Z interview, talks about the import of engagement: that which we experience in concentrated forms of experience such as a poem, a movie, or a book on science, philosophy, fiction, social commentary, etc., etc., etc… And we can see the pragmatic overlap (yet again (between Deleuze and Rorty in that both seek to facilitate this process by accelerating discourse for the sake of the kind of momentum and inertia required to get beyond the discourse at any given point. We get beyond ourselves (difference (by repeating ourselves (repetition.
That said, I want to tie this into a couple of points made by Deleuze in the preface to the English edition of Difference and Repetition:
“Every philosophy must achieve its own manner of speaking about the arts and sciences, as though it established alliances with them.”
I bitch a lot about scientism. But this pretty much describes where I stand as concerns the role of philosophy in relation to science and literature: that which lies in that no-man’s land between it. What I am mainly reacting to is scientism’s smug dismissal of all other approaches to understanding not just out of some selfish desire to justify my own role in it, but out a desire to see us advance as a species and perhaps even save ourselves. This is because I believe such smug dismissals (as I have been encouraged to believe by both Deleuze and Rorty (only act as blockages to the flows of energy required to create the momentum needed to get beyond ourselves, to reach that “spontaneous overflow” –such smug dismissals being more about one’s role in some petty power struggle encouraged by producer/consumer Capitalism. And we can see this blockage described in Deleuze’s further point:
"Finally, in this book it seemed to me that the powers of difference and repetition could be reached only by putting into question the traditional image of thought. By this I mean not only that we think according to a given method, but also that there is a more or less implicit, tacit or presupposed image of thought which determines our goals when we try to think. For example, we suppose that thought possesses a good nature, and the thinker a good will (naturally to ‘want’ the true); we take as a model the process of recognition -in other words, a common sense or employment of all the faculties on a supposed same object; we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions -in other words, propositions capable of serving as answers. "
And given the limited window I have here, I would like to focus on one part of this and get back to the rest tomorrow:
“….we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions -in other words, propositions capable of serving as answers.”
First of all, what we are looking at is the tyranny of functional. And, hopefully, I’ve committed myself to going deeper into this tomorrow.
But what is immediate to me here is a point made by Picasso: that taste is the enemy of art. Of course, he being an artist mainly concerned with images, he wasn’t one to define his terms. What he meant (as anyone who has engaged in the creative act knows (is that the creative act must always involve a sense of play. And play is hardly play under the scrutiny of a critic. And I think this is what Deleuze was getting at: that error (or the fear of it (is the enemy of thought.