Hi,
Could not resist (re) joining in on these issues. Just to point out a) that Deluze does talk about the truth of the relative as opposed to the relativity of all truth (The Fold pg20) b) Nietzsche, as I read him, does seem to think that seeing the world as made out of perspective truths is less of a lie that seeing a single truth or real world behind the world of appearances. One implies seeing that one doesnt see everything and then saying that one sees something different eg mendacious falsification- the other implies saying what what one does see as an aesthetic enrichment, seeing as active doing.
Obviously, just slightly contested ground, for there is no rule book on quality or on reading N. N admits defeat on quality himself though, seeing anyone who could say what a quale was would commit the worst excess in human conceit, and with a great deal of explaining to do re how, if it should be patently obvious that there is more than one perspective that can speak about 'things' does monocentric causal interpretation become congealed as a cultural dominant. I think Deleuze and Guattari had something to say about that!
Ruth.C
>>> Tariq Zaid <[log in to unmask]> 03/21 1:43 pm >>>
>From: [log in to unmask]
>as a philosophically naive [occassional] participant
>in these discussions -- interested mainly in what
they
>can tell me about understanding films -- i've been
>reading the recent thread about "truth" pretty
>carefully . . .
>i'm hesitant to join the fray
too late - you're in "it"!
>[though i did once, at a conference while i was in
>grad school, ask rorty if he thought what he was
>saying was "true"]
how brave, and clever too (not so naive...)
> but i
>do want to call attention to a passage in a recent
>obviously thoughtful memo from tariq zaid . . . i
>quote it without any comment at all except to
>highlight one phrase by putting it in CAPS . . . i'd
>be delighted if someone wanted to weigh in on the
>implied dilemma
>mike
Why put it in CAPS and not comment? what is your
point?
I may have been 'naive' enough to take the bait (my
'obviously thoughtful' memo was a response to a
question, not an unprovoked soliloquoy) and try and
distil Deleuze's lifetime of reading, teaching and
writing on philosophy and Guattari's lifetime of study
and practice of psychiatry/psychoanalysis, writing and
radical activism into a few lines, but I did address
the sense of inherent dilemma in D&G's approach to
truth (following Nietzche's radical relativism).
'On the contrary' - yes, an opposition to dominant,
vertical hierarchies and binarisms that is political,
an attitude or posture that seeks to affirm a positive
creative flowing of desire rather than its
sedimentation and blockage in established forms, of
truth, subjectivity, gender etc etc.
If this is inherently paradoxical perhaps that is a
defining feature, the always-changing 'middle' of the
rhizome - should we be surprised that it leads
language and thought to (over?) the brink of sense,
since it (this stuff I am typing and you are reading)
depends so much on identities and fixed meanings?
Truth:
It might be simply, obviously true that you are now
reading an email, but when I typed this you weren't
reading it, I predicted the future, I may have been
wrong, in fact you are not reading this as I type -
then it's not true? But you are reading it now, aren't
you, well aren't you? speak up! I can't hear you, but
then you're not reading this yet...
Truth is never simple, language and subjectivity are
never simple, our brains using material means of
passing around a coded set of symbols riven through
with our various flows and blockages of desire and
power - not simple.
I'm no authority on truth, philosophy, D&G, or film
for that matter - please criticize as you (all) see
fit.
T Z
>original message:
>Now of course we are already in the classic paradox
of
>.post-structuralism - are D&G asserting that their
>model is 'true' (in a binary distinction Vs 'false'),
>or should be imposed as yet another hierarchy? ...
not
>really - they try and write/think their way out of
the
>structures of binary/tree logic by suggesting models
>of thought like the rhizome that are radically
>anti-hierarchical, that do not impose structure but
ON
>THE CONTRARY undo structure and binary distinctions,
>that are neither one thing nor the other, always +
>everywhere middle as opposed to top or bottom, and
>their opposition while, for now, perhaps, retaining a
>trace of the binary, uses this logic to try to undo
>binarism itself
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com
!
!
!
!
|
