DOCSLIB.ORG

A Temporal Metaphysics for Affective Attitudes

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Temporal Metaphysics for Affective Attitudes A Temporal Metaphysics for Affective Attitudes Kyle John Jamie Buckle-Hodgson Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science March 2020 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given when reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Kyle John Jamie Buckle-Hodgson to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Acknowledgements Many thanks indeed to my supervisors, Robin Le Poidevin and Helen Steward. Particular praise has to be given for the rigour and comprehensiveness of their supervisions, for which I was extremely lucky to have both present for the vast majority (a fact most envied by other students!). Further thanks too, of course, for their insights, remarks, suggestions, and boundless patience throughout the course of this thesis. Enormous gratitude is due to my wife, Keshet, for her extraordinary tolerance, kindness, warmth, and support over the last few years. She has given tremendously and with excellent humour for every second of it, an achievement that is testament to her grace and generosity. This work is dedicated to her. Thanks, too, to my children Liberty and Robin. If you decide to have a go at metaphysics, you might want to stick to defending a more orthodox theory. Finally, thanks to the rest of my family, with special mentions to my mother for the quality and volume of the food she sent to keep my spirits up, and my grandparents for instilling appetites gastronomic and intellectual. This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/ L503848/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities. Abstract This thesis endeavours to achieve two things: first, it exposits a version of presentism, the doctrine that only present concrete entities exist, that is enriched with haecceities, the non- qualitative, essential properties of entities that characterise their essences. I argue that haecceity presentism provides strong responses to problematics traditionally faced by presentism (providing ontology for singular propositions, truthmaking, and cross-temporal relations and causation) without violating any of presentism’s strictures. I also distinguish my version of haecceity presentism from other versions, and argue my version is the strongest. Second, I deploy haecceities to mount novel lines of attack on critical elements of the B- theory: eternalism, perdurance, and stage theory. These attacks say that each of these tenseless theories of time and persistence cannot adequately rationalise and vindicate the importance of emotions in our lives, and how they contribute to crucially important projects such as rehabilitation. Further, these tenseless theories generate critical problems with some of our moral practices, such as blame, as well as generating radically alienating consequences for it. Consequently, tenseless theorists should either acknowledge the importance of emotions and reject their theories, or be honest and transparent in accepting that they cannot rationalise or vindicate emotions. CONTENTS Introduction - 1 PART I – THE PROSPECTS FOR HAECCEITY PRESENTISM - 3 Summary - 3 Chapter 1 – The Theory of Haecceity Presentism - 5 " 1.1– Sketching Haecceity Presentism - 5 !1.2 – Getting Clearer on Haecceities - 5 !1.3 – Haecceities: Past, Present, but Not Future - 6 !1.4 – Existing Without Instantiation - 7 Chapter 2 – Singular Propositions - 11 2.1 - Singular Propositions and the Haecceity Presentist Solution - 11 2.2 – Asymmetry - 12 2.3 - Is Haecceity Presentism Actually Presentism? - 13 2.4 - Back to Singular Propositions: Do Haecceities Really Do the Job? - 14 Chapter 3 – Truthmaking - 18 3.1 - Truthmaking and the Haecceity Presentist Solution - 18 3.2 - Haecceities and Tensed Properties: Diverging from Ingram - 19 3.3 - ‘Aboutness’: Diverging from Ingram - 22 3.4 – Explanatory Priority - 24 3.5 – Rejecting the Disjunctive Approach - 25 Chapter 4 – Cross-Temporal Relations - 27 4.1 - Cross-Temporal Relations and the Haecceity Presentist Solution - 27 4.2 - Rival Presentist Accounts of Cross-Temporal Relations: Lucretianism - 29 4.3 - Explanatory Priority Once More - 31 Chapter 5 – Causation - 33 5.1 – Counterfactuals - 33 5.2 - Asymmetry and Transitivity - 34 5.3 - Construing Causation as Counterfactual Dependence - 35 Appendix – The Charge of Cheating - 37 A. Haecceities Are Contrived - 38 B. Haecceities Are Hypothetical - 39 PART II – AFFECTIVE ATTITUDES, MORALITY, AND TENSELESSNESS - 42 Summary - 42 Chapter 6 – Grief: Eternalism, Perdurance, and Stage Theory - 43 6.1 - Motivating the Haecceity Presentist Account of Grief - 43 6.2 - First Prong: That Eternalism Cannot Vindicate and Rationalise Grief - 46 6.3 - Second Prong: That Perdurance and Stage Theory Cannot Vindicate and Rationalise Grief – Rejecting Non-Presentist Endurance - 52 6.4 - Second Prong: That Perdurance and Stage Theory Cannot Vindicate and Rationalise Grief – Rationalising Grief for Perdurantists and Stage Theorists - 54 Chapter 7 – The Moral Dimension of Perdurance and Stage Theory - 59 7.1 - Perdurance and Stage Theory: No Candidates for Responsibility - 59 7.2 - Perdurance and Stage Theory: Actions Take Time - 65 7.3 What If Temporal Parts and Person Stages Could Perform and Be Responsible for Actions? - 66 Chapter 8 – Chronal Horror - 68 8.1 - From Modal Realism to Chronal Horrors - 68 8.2 - Chronal Horrors, Mere Counterparts, and Occurrence - 69 8.3 - Should We Care Less? - 72 Chapter 9 – Hope - 76 9.1 - Hope: Does It Require an Open Future? - 76 9.2 - Becoming: The Relationship Between Hope, Change, and Tense - 79 9.3 - Satisfaction Conditions – 82 Conclusion – 88 Bibliography - 90 1 INTRODUCTION My thesis consists of two thematic halves. The first half is devoted to the exposition, defence and demonstration of the philosophical utility of a particular version of presentism. Presentism is the thesis that only present concrete entities exist. Unless we qualify or modify this basic thesis, however, familiar problems creep in: for example, how can singular reference to past concrete entities occur if there are no such entities? I argue that by enriching the classic presentist ontology of present concrete objects with haecceities, such problems can be answered. This is because haecceities can function as surrogates for past entities without violating presentism’s strict ontological constraints. A haecceity, within the context of this version of presentism, is a non-qualitative, uniquely instantiated property of an entity that characterises its essence: the being Bertrand Russell unique to Bertrand Russell. My haecceity presentism shares its foundation and motivation with the thisness presentism of David Ingram, though it differs in certain fundamental respects. Why defend haecceity presentism? In short, and recalling the title of this thesis, I think it provides a compelling temporal metaphysics of affective attitudes: in other words, I think haecceity presentism allows us to justify and vindicate, in a very deep sense, various critical strands of our emotional experiences – such as grief, regret, and hope – by connecting them to something metaphysically robust rather than ‘merely’ psychological. The first half begins with a chapter concerning technical matters about the nature of a haecceity, and includes arguments for two aspects of a haecceity’s nature that may seem controversial: that there are haecceities of past and present but not future entities, and that they can exist uninstantiated. I go on to deploy haecceity presentism to see how it fares against traditional presentist problematics: singular reference, truthmaking, and cross-temporal relations. I also argue that haecceity presentists should understand causation as counterfactual dependence, as this understanding sits very well with their ontology. Throughout, I consider and argue against objections about the suitability of haecceities for such work, and offer significant differences between my haecceity presentism and David Ingram’s in the section on truthmaking. I also argue that my version of haecceity presentism avoids some problems that Ingram’s faces, so it is stronger. The second half is concerned with our emotions, our relationship to ourselves and our prior immoral or imprudent actions, and some ethical dilemmas generated by believing in past concrete entities, or those parts of ourselves which have temporal extent in the past. I argue that for our emotions to enjoy the deep vindication we take them to have, for them to be rational and intelligible, we must deny the existence of the past and invoke haecceities which survive the demise of the past entities that they characterise. The emotional attitudes I am mainly concerned with are: grief, repentance and rehabilitation, horror, and hope. First, I argue against the intelligibility of grieving a deceased entity when the entity itself is still real with respect to all times. I consider, next, what a metaphysic of temporal parts or person stages might mean for our conception of action and responsibility, certain elements of our moral practice and attributions (such as blame), and how repentance and rehabilitation could occur when our prior immoral
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Training's Ability to Improve Other Race Individuation
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Spring 2013 Recognizing the Other: Training's Ability to Improve Other Race Individuation W. Grady Rose Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Part of the Psychology Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Rose, W. Grady, "Recognizing the Other: Training's Ability to Improve Other Race Individuation" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 47. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/47 This thesis (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: RECOGNIZING THE OTHER 1 RECOGNIZING THE OTHER: TRAINING’S ABILITY TO IMPROVE OTHER RACE INDIVIDUATION by W. GRADY ROSE (Under the Direction of Amy Hackney, Ph. D.) ABSTRACT Members of one race or ethnicity are less able to individuate members of another race compared to their own race peers. This phenomenon is known as the other race effect (ORE) or the cross race effect (CRE). Not only are individuals less able to identify members of the other race but they are also more likely to pick those individuals out of a crowd. The categorization- individuation model predicts that this deficit arises from a lack of motivated individuation; in which members of the other race are remembered at the category level as a prototype while own race members are remembered by name with individual characteristics.
    [Show full text]
  • Affect, Trust, and Dignity: Ontological Possibilities and Material Consequences for a Philosophy of Educational Resonance Walter Gershon Kent State University
    Walter Gershon 461 Affect, Trust, and Dignity: Ontological Possibilities and Material Consequences for a Philosophy of Educational Resonance Walter Gershon Kent State University INTRODUCTION This essay articulates a philosophy of resonance in education, from some of its theoretical possibilities through their material consequences. Contemporary under- standings in educational philosophy have a tendency to utilize ocular metaphors, epistemological constructions that provide frames for seeing the world. There are at least the following three difficulties with such a reliance on the ocular. First, they are easily interrupted by nonocular metaphors. While this may seem to be a rather surface concern, it points to a deep philosophical set of problems. For example, what happens when the augenblick, a construct around which much philosophizing has been accomplished, is pressed slightly to become a “blink of an ear”?1 This move not only questions the veracity of ocular-centric constructions from blinks to texts — for what does it say about an idea if it falls apart by shifting senses — but it also presses at the feasibility of framing, its inherently bounded nature as well as the large number of possibilities excluded by its gaze. Second, the sonic provides another avenue for wonder. Sound is omnipresent and questions of hearing or listening are as much about physical anatomy as they concern sociocultural constructs about what sounds can mean. Unlike sight that is necessarily directional and constantly interrupted (for example, by blinking), sound is omnidirectional, creating a context in which focus requires a particular kind of attentive filtering rather than a reframing or panning directionality. Finally, sound is and always has been.
    [Show full text]
  • Affect Theory As a Methodology for Design
    Affect Theory as a Methodology for Design Author Nandita Baxi Sheth & Kristopher Holland University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning In Ordinary Affects (2010), Katherine Stewart, writes, Affect is the commonplace, labor-intensive process of sensing modes of living as they come into being. It hums with the background noise of obstinacies and promises, ruts and disorientations, intensities and resting points. It stretches across real and imaginary social fields and sediments, linking some kind of everything (p. 340). ‘Linking some kind of everything’, affects are intensities, resonances, force fields that exist and travel in in between bodies and spaces. Affect shines a light on what happens in that unknowable space that is the gap between an event and its cognitive signification. These embodied intensities occur through the automatic functions of our bodies--the membrane of the skin, the beating of the heart, and the rhythm of the breath (Massumi, 2002, p. 26). Imaginative Interlude: Imagine if you will an experience of awe or wonder—such as the much clichéd sunset on the beach. The salty smell in the air. The changing temperature of the skin as the sun’s warmth dissipates The ever so gradual color changes in the sky The liquid melding of sky and sea at the horizon line The rhythmic sounds of moving water There is gap, fractions of second, between the body’s experience of this event and the application of language to label that experience. Thinking about this gap- between experience itself and representation of that experience is the space of inquiry that is explored by Affect Theory.
    [Show full text]
  • The Philosophy of Movement: Using Affect Theory and Existentialism to Negotiate Difference Online
    The Philosophy of Movement: Using Affect Theory and Existentialism to Negotiate Difference Online by Kara Wai-Fong Au A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Digital Humanities University of Alberta c Kara Wai-Fong Au, 2018 Abstract The design of comment systems on social media and news websites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are not made to promote critical discussions or find the source of political conflict. The integration of digital tools like social media to enact politics online and the shift to identity-based politics further complicates the political space. The speed at which digital communication occurs and the rate at which online news is released places stress on the ability to pause and think about critical and sensitive issues like death. This paper introduces a new theory called the philosophy of movement. It will explain how adopting this philosophy will help the user be a more effective and affective communicator of political issues. The philosophy of movement incorporates affect theory, existentialism, and conflict resolution to produce an actionable and theoretical model to understand and respond to political difference in the digital space. In the philosophy of movement through existential authenticity the individual is faced with the ambiguity of reality and the multitude of contending truths. They are able to negotiate through this conflict by accepting ambiguity, but empowered to act in spite of not knowing through their affective potential, the ability to affect and be affected in the public space and make an impact in the field of relation.
    [Show full text]
  • L'abecedaire De Gilles Deleuze, Avec Claire Parnet
    1 L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, avec Claire Parnet Directed by Pierre-André Boutang (1996) Translation & Notes: Charles J. Stivale Credits (shown at the end of each tape): Conversation: Claire Parnet Direction: Pierre-André Boutang, Michel Pamart Image: Alain Thiollet Sound: Jean Maini Editing: Nedjma Scialom Sound Mix: Vianney Aubé, Rémi Stengel Images from Vincennes: Marielle Burkhalter --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translated and edited by Charles J. Stivale --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prelude \1 A short description of the trailer and then of the interview "set" is quite useful: the black and white trailer over which the title, then the director’s credit are shown, depicts Deleuze lecturing to a crowded, smoky seminar, his voice barely audible over the musical accompaniment. The subtitle, “Université de Vincennes, 1980,” appears briefly at the lower right, and Deleuze’s desk is packed with tape recorders. A second shot is a close-up of Deleuze chatting with the students seated closest to him. Then another shot shows students in the seminar listening intently, most of them (including a young Claire Parnet in profile) smoking cigarettes. The final shot again shows Deleuze lecturing from his desk at the front of the seminar room, gesticulating as he speaks. The final gesture shows him placing his hand over his chin in a freeze-frame, punctuating the point he has just made. As for the setting in Deleuze’s apartment during the interview, the viewer sees Deleuze seated in front of a sideboard over which hangs a mirror, and opposite him sits Parnet, smoking constantly throughout. On the dresser to the right of the mirror is his trademark hat perched on a hook.
    [Show full text]
  • Playing on the Plane of Immanence (DIGAREC Series
    Serjoscha Wiemer Playing on the Plane of Immanence Notes on the Resonance between Body and Image in Music Video Games In recent years computer games have been discussed by a vari- ety of disciplines from various perspectives. A fundamental dif- ference with other media, which is a point of continuous consid- eration, is the specific relationship between the viewer and the image, the player and the game apparatus, which is a character- istic of video games as a dispositive. Terms such as immersion, participation, interactivity, or ergodic are an indication of the deep interest in this constellation. This paper explores the reso- nance between body and image in video games like REZ, SOUL CALIBUR and DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION from the perspec- tive of a temporal ontology of the image, taking particular ac- count of the structuring power of the interface and its subject positioning aspects. The constitutive relationship between human players and non-hu- man elements of the gaming situation has been described in the past in different ways, as a logical relation, for example, or as a spatial structure or configurational practice. But too little attention has been given to the temporal nature of this relationship. We are all familiar with the concept of real-time, which points heavily to the relevance of this topic. It is an important but, in my view, still insufficient tem- poral category for describing the broad range and fundamental func- tion of temporal structures that define the player-image relations in video games. This question of the temporality of video games is a key aspect that I will address with reference to the temporal constitution of the video image itself.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Philosophy
    An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so.
    [Show full text]
  • Schizo)Analysis of Value in the ‘Age of Innovation’
    7 The (schizo)analysis of value in the ‘Age of Innovation’ Maria Hynes At a time when a well-branded concept is celebrated as an innovation, it is tempt- ing to consider this the ‘Age of Innovation’. We daily hear talk of innovation nations and innovation economies, and everywhere the value of innovative ideas, technologies, and practices are extolled. Amidst the hyperbolic claims made in the name of innovation, what is evident is that contemporary economies are mining ideas with the same fervour that they had previously mined the earth. New institu- tions are born – innovation hubs, networks, and virtual ecosystems – with an eye to cultivating the kind of problem-based research that universities are still learn- ing to produce. The conventional bounds set by disciplinary thinking are deemed a hindrance to the innovation paradigm. Such a paradigm recognises experimen- tation in the production of both ideas and things as value-adding at the level of process, as well as outcome. The interdisciplinary hybrid now familiarly known as ‘Art-Science’ is a case in point, with the meeting of art and science increas- ingly acclaimed as precisely the kind of cross-perspectival thinking necessary for solving complex problems ( Wilson et al., 2014 ). It is the disparate nature of art and science that is celebrated in popular formulations of such interdisciplinarity, since heterogenous knowledges are identifi ed as the source of the ‘creative leaps’ so crucial to innovation (Hacklin and Wallin, 2013). Of course, we know how readily such interdisciplinarity can be reterritorialised in line with those uncompromisable social axioms that make the opportunistic mutations of capitalism work.
    [Show full text]
  • Nick Land -- Machinic Desire
    This article was downloaded by: [Ohio State University Libraries] On: 29 May 2012, At: 06:03 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Textual Practice Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtpr20 Machinic desire Nick Land a a University of Warwick Available online: 30 Jun 2008 To cite this article: Nick Land (1993): Machinic desire, Textual Practice, 7:3, 471-482 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502369308582177 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/ terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. NICK LAND Macbinic desire The opening of Bladerunner. They are trying to screen out replicants at the Tyrell Corporation. Seated amongst a battery of medico-military surveillance equipment, a doctor scans the eye of a suspected 'skin job' located at the other side of the room, searching for the index of inhu- manity, for the absence of pupil dilation response to affect: 'Tell me about your mother.' 'I'll tell you about my mother...' a volley of shots kicks 70 kilos of securicrat shit through the wall.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruddick-The-Politics-Of-Affect.Pdf
    The Politics of Affect Spinoza in the Work of Negri and Deleuze Susan Ruddick Abstract How do we fashion a new political imaginary from fragmentary, diffuse and often antagonistic subjects, who may be united in principle against the exi- gencies of capitalism but diverge in practice, in terms of the sites, strategies and specific natures of their own oppression? To address this question I trace the dissonance between the approaches of Antonio Negri and Gilles Deleuze back to their divergent mobilizations of Spinoza’s affect and the role it plays in the ungrounding and reconstitution of the social body. This dissonance reveals a divergence in their projects, the way these political projects emerge as counter-actualizations, the means by which they are expressed, and the necessity (or not) of a particular kind of historical subject to their realization. Most significantly, it speaks to how we might engage difference and alterity within our own political projects, our collective creations. I conclude with a focus on the productive possibilities provided by Deleuze’s writings on the scream, as a vehicle to uncover new terrains of struggle and new possibilities for collectivity. Key words affect j Deleuze j Negri j politics j Spinoza Theemotionsofhatred,anger,envy,etc.,consideredinthemselves,followfrom the same necessity and virtue of Nature as all other particular things. Consequently, they recognize certain causes by which they are understood and they have certain properties which are, equally deserving of our investigation asthepropertiesofanyotherthing,whosemerecontemplationa¡orduspleasure. (Spinoza, Ethics III, Preface) What forces does this new bring to bear on thought, from what central bad nature and ill will does it spring ...? Something in the world forces us j Theory, Culture & Society 2010 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore), Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • From Geophilosophy to Geoaesthetics: the Virtual and the Plane of Immanence Vs
    From Geophilosophy to Geoaesthetics: The Virtual and The Plane of Immanence vs. Mirror Travel and The Spiral Jetty Simon O’Sullivan In this article I to switch the ontological categories for thinking art away from a certain representational register.1 In particular, I want to explore other ways of thinking the ethical and political effectivity of art, and specifically its ‘other worldliness’ (its resistance to the present milieu) away from a horizon of transcendence and a logic of the possible. I propose to do this by adopting a double pronged and somewhat experimental approach. The article then involves two philosophical discussions - or two philosophical encounters - with Deleuze and at the same time a kind of non-philosophical encounter with an art practice which mirrors the philosophy (and in some senses ‘grounds’ it). To a certain extent I might be accused of deliberately misreading Deleuze here insofar as I utilise his ideas on philosophy, rather than on sensation and affect, to think these practices. The article is then an experiment in taking Deleuze’s philosophical concepts into other realms, other milieus (and in allowing the latter to feed back back on Deleuze). It is in this sense that the artistic ‘case studies’ are meant not as illustrations but as parallels to, and in some senses deviations from, the conceptual work. They also serve to demonstrate that art is a form of thought in and of itself. The first philosophical discussion, which begins with a brief contrasting of Deleuze with Theodor Adorno, is on the notion of the virtual.2 It is here that I track through Deleuze’s Bergsonism, and 1 This article is part of a larger book project entitled Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation (forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan).
    [Show full text]
  • Affect and the Moving Body
    AFFECT AND THE MOVING BODY by Eva Perez de Vega AFFECT AND THE MOVING BODY ABSTRACT p.2 INTRODUCTION p.3‐8 1.1 Spinoza's Mind‐Body Problem 1.2 Spinoza on the Body 1.3 Spinoza on Affect AFFECT AND THE MOVING BODY p.9‐16 2.1 Movement and Affect 2.2 Movement, Affect and Freedom 2.3 Movement and Utility MIGRATING MODELS OF THOUGHT p.17‐18 3.1. Appropriation of Spinoza's Concepts 3.2 Affected Movement NOTES p.19 BIBLIOGRAPHY p.20 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS p.21 ABSTRACT This paper aims at exploring the interconnectedness of Spinoza's concepts of the body, movement and affect as they relate to his ontology of freedom. By extracting his structure of thought through the reading of his seminal work Ethics, we will attempt to answer the question: what causes the body to undergo different states of motion and rest? Spinoza rejects the dualist view of the mind being the motor of the body's actions, so what is the motor of this action known as movement? A body's impulse to move can be either internal or external to itself. In this paper we will attempt to show that what causes the body to move is a desire to express an internalized affect and by doing this reaching towards a state of true freedom. Therefore the physical ‐motion and rest‐ and the affective ‐affect‐ are two aspects of a single entity which is the moving body. Eva Perez de Vega 2 INTRODUCTION It was with the reading of Spinoza's Ethics that the first ideas on the body which inform this paper began to emerge.
    [Show full text]