A Deleuzian Theory of Eternity
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Experience and the Passage of Time∗
Experience and the Passage of Time∗ Bradford Skow 1 Introduction Some philosophers believe that the passage of time is a real phenomenon. And some of them find a reason to believe this when they attend to features of their conscious experience. In fact this “argument from experience” is supposed to be one of the main arguments for passage. What exactly does this argument look like? Is it any good? There are in fact many different arguments from experience. I am not sure I understand them all. In this paper I want to talk about the three most interesting arguments that I do understand.1 I am going to argue that all three of them fail. ∗Published in Philosophical Perspectives 25: Metaphysics (2011), pp.359-387. 1I will not say anything about A. N. Prior’s “Thank Goodness That’s Over” argument (Prior 1959) because it is not an argument from experience (even though it is often said to be). Here is Prior’s argument: I can be glad that my ordeal is over without being glad that my ordeal is earlier than this thought or that my ordeal is earlier than 12 noon. But the latter two propositions are the propositions that some opponents of passage (the ones Prior knew) identified with the proposition that my ordeal is over. Prior concluded that the object of my propositional attitude is a proposition that only proponents of passage believe in. Phenomenal experience does not play an important role in this argument. True, there is some distinctive phenomenal “feel” that (sometimes? usually? always?) occurs when I am glad about something. -
Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's Ethics
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVI (2002) Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza’s Ethics STEVEN NADLER I Descartes famously prided himself on the felicitous consequences of his philoso- phy for religion. In particular, he believed that by so separating the mind from the corruptible body, his radical substance dualism offered the best possible defense of and explanation for the immortality of the soul. “Our natural knowledge tells us that the mind is distinct from the body, and that it is a substance...And this entitles us to conclude that the mind, insofar as it can be known by natural phi- losophy, is immortal.”1 Though he cannot with certainty rule out the possibility that God has miraculously endowed the soul with “such a nature that its duration will come to an end simultaneously with the end of the body,” nonetheless, because the soul (unlike the human body, which is merely a collection of material parts) is a substance in its own right, and is not subject to the kind of decomposition to which the body is subject, it is by its nature immortal. When the body dies, the soul—which was only temporarily united with it—is to enjoy a separate existence. By contrast, Spinoza’s views on the immortality of the soul—like his views on many issues—are, at least in the eyes of most readers, notoriously difficult to fathom. One prominent scholar, in what seems to be a cry of frustration after having wrestled with the relevant propositions in Part Five of Ethics,claims that this part of the work is an “unmitigated and seemingly unmotivated disaster.. -
Eternal Recurrence and the Categorical Imperative Philip J
Santa Clara University Scholar Commons Philosophy College of Arts & Sciences 3-2007 Eternal Recurrence and the Categorical Imperative Philip J. Kain Santa Clara University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.scu.edu/phi Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Kain, P. J. "Eternal Recurrence and the Categorical Imperative," The outheS rn Journal of Philosophy, 45 (2007): 105-116. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Kain, P. J. "Eternal Recurrence and the Categorical Imperative," The outheS rn Journal of Philosophy, 45 (2007): 105-116., which has been published in final form at http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2007.tb00044.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving. https://www.pdcnet.org/collection/ authorizedshow?id=southernjphil_2007_0045_0001_0105_0116&pdfname=southernjphil_2007_0045_0001_0109_0120.pdf&file_type=pdf This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Eternal Recurrence and the Categorical Imperative Philip J. Kain Santa Clara University I Nietzsche embraces the doctrine of eternal recurrence for the first time at Gay Science §341:1 The greatest weight.—What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. -
Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Vernon W
Philosophy Faculty Publications Philosophy 4-2014 Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Vernon W. Cisney Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/philfac Part of the Philosophy of Mind Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Cisney, Vernon W. "Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Nature of Thought." Foucault Studies 17 Special Issue: Foucault and Deleuze (April 2014). This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/philfac/37 This open access article is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Abstract In this paper I employ the notion of the ‘thought of the outside’ as developed by Michel Foucault, in order to defend the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze against the criticisms of ‘elitism,’ ‘aristocratism,’ and ‘political indifference’—famously leveled by Alain Badiou and Peter Hallward. First, I argue that their charges of a theophanic conception of Being, which ground the broader political claims, derive from a misunderstanding of Deleuze’s notion of univocity, as well as a failure to recognize the significance of the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze’s thinking. From here, I go on to discuss Deleuze’s articulation of the ‘dogmatic image of thought,’ which, insofar as it takes ‘recognition’ as its model, can only ever think what is already solidified and sedimented as true, in light of existing structures and institutions of power. -
From Opinions to Images: Essays Towards a Sociology of Affects Ulus S
FROM OPINIONS TO IMAGES: ESSAYS TOWARDS A SOCIOLOGY OF AFFECTS ULUS S. BAKER EDITED BY ARAS ÖZGÜN AND ANDREAS TRESKE A SERIES OF READERS PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE OF NETWORK CULTURES ISSUE NO.: 37 FROM OPINIONS TO IMAGES: ESSAYS TOWARDS A SOCIOLOGY OF AFFECTS ULUS S. BAKER EDITED BY ARAS ÖZGÜN AND ANDREAS TRESKE FROM OPINIONS TO IMAGES 2 Theory on Demand #37 From Opinions to Images: Essays Towards a Sociology of Affects Ulus S. Baker Edited by Aras Özgün and Andreas Treske Cover design: Katja van Stiphout Design and EPUB development: Eleni Maragkou Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2020 ISBN print-on-demand: 978-94-92302-66-3 ISBN EPUB: 978-94-92302-67-0 Contact Institute of Network Cultures Phone: +31 (0)20 595 1865 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.networkcultures.org This publication is available through various print on demand services. EPUB and PDF edi- tions are freely downloadable from our website: http://www.networkcultures.org/publications. This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. FROM OPINIONS TO IMAGES 3 Cover illustration: Diagram of the signifier from Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1987. 4 THEORY ON DEMAND CONTENTS PASSING THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF ULUS BAKER 5 1. A SOCIOLOGY OF AFFECTS 9 2. WHAT IS OPINION? 13 3. WHAT IS AN AFFECT? 59 4. WHAT IS AN IMAGE? 86 5. TOWARDS A NEO-VERTOVIAN SENSIBILITY OF AFFECTS 160 6. ON CINEMA AND ULUS BAKER 165 BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 BIOGRAPHIES 187 FROM OPINIONS TO IMAGES 5 We have lived at least one century within the idea of opinion which determined some of the major themes in social sciences.. -
The Special Theory of Relativity and Theories of Divine Eternity
Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 11 Issue 1 Article 2 1-1-1994 The Special Theory of Relativity and Theories of Divine Eternity William Lane Craig Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Craig, William Lane (1994) "The Special Theory of Relativity and Theories of Divine Eternity," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. DOI: 10.5840/faithphil19941119 Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol11/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY AND THEORIES OF DIVINE ETERNITY William Lane Craig Recent theories of divine timeless eternity have appealed to the Special The ory of Relativity, either illustratively or substantively, in order to explicate and defend the notion of a timeless God's being really related to temporal moments and events. I argue that besides in some cases misusing STR. these theories presuppose without justification a certain interpretation of STR which. while widespread, is ill-founded and dubious. Introduction Although studies of divine eternity written during the previous generation such as Nelson Pike's standard work, God and Timelessness1-paid scant attention to the nature of time insofar as it plays a role in physical theory, contemporary analyses of divine eternity often make explicit appeal to physi cal theory, and particularly to the Special Theory of Relativity (STR), in support of the doctrine of divine timelessness. -
Time, Metaphysics Of
Time, metaphysics of Keywords: Time, Presentism, Eternalism, Moving Spotlight View, A-theory, B-theory, Growing Block View, Temporal Experience, J. M. E. McTaggart Article Summary Metaphysics is the part of philosophy that asks questions about the nature of reality – about what there is, and what it is like. The metaphysics of time is the part of the philosophy of time that asks questions about the nature of temporal reality. One central such question is that of whether time passes or flows, or whether it has a dynamic aspect. By this metaphysicians mean something very specific: is one time metaphysically privileged in some way, and does this metaphysical privilege move on from time to time? A-theorists answer in the affirmative, and different A-theorists offer different ways of thinking about the metaphysical privilege involved. Some say the privilege consists in being the only time that exists (presentism). On presentism, only the present exists, but which time that is changes as time passes. Other A-theorists, known as growing block theorists, say the metaphysical privilege consists in being the latest time that exists. On the growing block view, the past and the present exist, but the future does not. As time passes, new times comes into existence. Yet another version of the A-theory says that all times exist, but that one time is metaphysically privileged because it is present in an absolute sense. This version of the A-theory is known as the moving spotlight theory. Different times gain the privilege in turn by becoming the one time that is present in an absolute sense. -
Kleinherenbrink's Externality Thesis and Deleuze's Machine Ontology
Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 1, 2020 REVIEW ARTICLE AGAINST THE VIRTUAL: KLEINHERENBRINK’S EXTERNALITY THESIS AND DELEUZE’S MACHINE ONTOLOGY Ekin Erkan ABSTRACT: Reviewing Arjen Kleinherenbrink’s recent book, Against Continuity: Gilles Deleuze's Speculative Realism (2019), this paper undertakes a detailed review of Kleinherenbrink’s fourfold “externality thesis” vis-à-vis Deleuze’s machine ontology. Reading Deleuze as a philosopher of the actual, this paper renders Deleuzean syntheses as passive contemplations, pulling other (passive) entities into an (active) experience and designating relations as expressed through contraction. In addition to reviewing Kleinherenbrink’s book (which argues that the machine ontology is a guiding current that emerges in Deleuze’s work after Difference and Repetition) alongside much of Deleuze’s oeuvre, we relate and juxtapose Deleuze’s machine ontology to positions concerning externality held by a host of speculative realists. Arguing that the machine ontology has its own account of interaction, change, and novelty, we ultimately set to prove that positing an ontological “cut” on behalf of the virtual realm is unwarranted because, unlike the realm of actualities, it is extraneous to the structure of becoming—that is, because it cannot be homogenous, any theory of change vis-à-vis the virtual makes it impossible to explain how and why qualitatively different actualities are produced. KEYWORDS: Ontology; Speculative Philosophy; Deleuze; Object-Oriented Ontology; Speculative Realism; Machine Ontology www.cosmosandhistory.org 492 EKIN ERKAN 493 § INTRODUCTION Following Arjen Kleinherenbrink’s Against Continuity: Gilles Deleuze’s Speculative Realism (2019)—arguably one of the closest and most rigorous secondary readings of Deleuze’s oeuvre—this paper seeks to demonstrate how any relation between machines immediately engenders a new machine, accounting for machinic circuits of activity where becoming, or processes of generation, are always necessarily irreducible to their generators. -
Parts of Persons Identity and Persistence in a Perdurantist World
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Doctoral School in Philosophy and Human Sciences (XXXI Cycle) Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” Parts of Persons Identity and persistence in a perdurantist world Ph.D. Candidate Valerio BUONOMO Tutors Prof. Giuliano TORRENGO Prof. Paolo VALORE Coordinator of the Doctoral School Prof. Marcello D’AGOSTINO Academic year 2017-2018 1 Content CONTENT ........................................................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL IDENTITY AND PERSISTENCE...................................................................... 8 1.1. The persistence of persons and the criteria of identity over time .................................. 8 1.2. The accounts of personal persistence: a standard classification ................................... 14 1.2.1. Mentalist accounts of personal persistence ............................................................................ 15 1.2.2. Somatic accounts of personal persistence .............................................................................. 15 1.2.3. Anti-criterialist accounts of personal persistence ................................................................... 16 1.3. The metaphysics of persistence: the mereological account ......................................... -
Mctaggart's Proof of the Unreality of Time
McTaggart's proof of the unreality of time Jeff Speaks phil 20229 January 24, 2008 1 The A series and the B series . 1 2 Problems with the A-series . 2 2.1 Does the present move? . 3 2.2 McTaggart's argument that the A series is contradictory . 3 3 McTaggart's view that time is unreal . 5 4 Time without the A-series . 6 John (McTaggart Ellis) McTaggart was one of the most prominent British exponents of idealism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His most prominent work is The Nature of Existence (in two volumes) from which we read an excerpt. McTaggart's idealism consisted largely in the denial that what we usually take to be cen- tral features of reality are, in fact, real. Accordingly, much of his work was devoted to exposing contradictions, or difficulties, inherent in our ordinary picture of the world. Per- haps his most famous, ambitious, and influential such argument is his argument that our ordinary view that things exist in time is false. This was first systematically presented in his 1908 paper, `The Unreality of Time.' We will be looking at his later (1927) exposition of the argument. 1 The A series and the B series McTaggart's first central claim is that, as he puts it \Positions in time . are distinguished in two ways. Each position is Earlier than some and Later than some of the other positions. To constitute such a series there is required a transitive asymmetrical relation, and a collection of terms such that, of any two of them, either the first is in this relation to the second, or the second is in this relation to the first. -
François Duchesneau, Leibniz, Le Vivant Et L'organisme, Paris: J. Vrin
François Duchesneau, Leibniz, le vivant et l’organisme, Paris: J. Vrin, 2010. 348 p. Reviewed by Justin E. H. Smith, Concordia University or some time, this reviewer has been championing the translation into English of François Duchesneau’s many books on the natural philosophy of Leibniz. GreaterF availability of his work in the English-speaking world, along with that of Michel Fichant and, more recently, the contributions of Anne-Lise Rey, Raphaële Andrault, and Arnaud Pelletier, would in combination play a powerful role in helping scholars to form a richer picture of Leibniz’s natural-philosophical model of the corporeal world, and of this model’s centrality to his deepest and most mature philosophical project. With the publication of his most recent book, Duchesneau has reconfirmed the urgency of learning about this side of Leibniz. The principal purpose of this review will be simply to summarize the recent book and to impart in a synoptic way the picture of Leibniz it draws for readers who may not have the time or capacity to work through the French text. If I am successful, this synopsis might then serve as an argument for the eventual publication of a translation. Following this, I will conclude by raising a few questions that I see as arising from this rich study, questions that might in turn serve as the germs of future research along the path Duchesneau has carved. Duchesneau’s book has six principal theses. First, he argues that Leibniz is committed to the need for a distinct philosophical account of the living being within the order of nature, as well as of the integrated and functional character of the micromachines that compose it. -
Presentism/Eternalism and Endurantism/Perdurantism: Why the Unsubstantiality of the First Debate Implies That of the Second1
1 Presentism/Eternalism and Endurantism/Perdurantism: why the 1 unsubstantiality of the first debate implies that of the second Forthcoming in Philosophia Naturalis Mauro Dorato (Ph.D) Department of Philosophy University of Rome Three [email protected] tel. +393396070133 http://host.uniroma3.it/dipartimenti/filosofia/personale/doratoweb.htm Abstract The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By “logical equivalence” I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about “what there is”. In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as in the case of the presentism/eternalism debate, one can be both a perdurantist and an endurantist, depending on which linguistic framework is preferred. The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By “logical equivalence” I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about “what there is”.