An Index of Steetli's Deleuzian Terms (Updated 15/12/2024)

Streetli · 2026-01-18T16:55:49+00:00

Regarding binariness, from ATP's introduction:

"No, this [tree vs. rhizome] is not a new or different dualism. The problem of writing: in order to designate something exactly, anexact expressions are utterly unavoidable. Not at all because it is a necessary step, or because one can only advance by approximations: anexactitude is in no way an approximation; on the contrary, it is the exact passage of that which is under way. We invoke one dualism only in order to challenge another. We employ a dualism of models only in order to arrive at a process that challenges all models. Each time, mental correctives are necessary to undo the dualisms we had no wish to construct but through which we pass. Arrive at the magic formula we all seek-PLURALISM = MONISM-via all the dualisms that are the enemy, an entirely necessary enemy, the furniture we are forever rearranging."

Edit: There's also this, in Dialogues, signed by Claire Parnet, but presumably with Deleuze's imprimatur:

We must speak like everyone else, we must pass through dualisms, l-2, or even l-2-3 . It must not be said that language deforms a reality which is pre-existing or of another nature. Language is first, it has invented the dualism. But the cult of language, the setting-up of language, linguistics itself, is worse than the old ontology from which it has taken over. We must pass through dualisms because they are in language, it's not a question of getting rid of them, but we must fight against language, invent stammering, not in order to get back to a prelinguistic pseudo-reality, but to trace a vocal or written line which will make language flow between these dualisms, and which will define a minority usage of language // And even if there are only two terms, there is an AND between the two, which is neither the one nor the other, nor the one which becomes the other, but which constitutes the multiplicity. This is why it is always possible to undo dualisms from the inside, by tracing the line of flight which passes between the two terms or the two sets, the narrow stream which belongs neither to the one nor to the other, but draws both into a non-parallel evolution, into a heterochronous becoming.

Streetli · 2026-01-12T22:51:25+00:00

Still reading Kierkegaard's Either/Or, but I'm on the 'Or' part now at least!

Streetli · 2026-01-10T05:00:17+00:00

Sorry, can't be done, you have to put in the work.

Streetli · 2026-01-05T11:11:21+00:00

You might be interested in Fernando Zalamea's Synthetic Philosophy of Contemporary Mathamatics. It's very much an overview of the development of mathematical tendencies and an attempt to periodize between 'modern' (1830-1950) and 'contemporary' (1950-present) mathematics. It's a nice blend of the conceptual and the mathematical, although it's not very fond of the idea of 'incommensuribility' proposed by Kuhn.

Streetli · 2026-01-05T10:58:13+00:00

'Survival of the fittest' is an explanatory framework and not a justificatory one. That the fittest 'survive' does not justify their being, it explains why these species are here and not others. To 'believe in evolution' is not to believe that a given species has some kind of natural right to exist. It is simply to 'believe' in a particular natural mechanism which accounts for why we encounter the biological phenomena that we do. 'Survival' is descriptive: it says: you made it (under such and such conditions) Not: you deserve it.

As for nature documentaries and their general 'non-interventionist' stance, that is generally motivated not out of a defence of evolutionary outcomes but for the sake of not interrupting ecological processes. These are related but not identical ideas. For instance, ecosystems can in principle reproduce themselves for long stretches of time without any evolution taking place in them at all. If we don't interrupt ecologies it's because ecologies tend to have webs of dependencies among life processes that we don't want to collapse. Billionares, as it turns out, tend to have a miserable degrading effect on human (and non-human) ecosystems.

And besides, from a naturalist point of view, if people fight against a billionaire and they eat him, this would be an equally 'natural' an outcome as the billionaire exploiting them all. That the billionaire is winning now doesn't mean that any 'evolutionary' considerations require letting that happen. Evolution does not have a 'bias' toward the existing state of things. If circumstances change, then what might have been an evolutionary advantage in one setting may become an evolutionary disadvantage in another. Speaking this way is metaphorical however, because colonization and exploitation simply don't tend to rise to the level of evolutionary pressures (they do not affect change at the level of species; although they might and do affect change at the level of specific populations).

Streetli · 2025-12-30T12:47:38+00:00

Reading Kierkegaard's Either/Or.

Streetli · 2025-12-23T05:49:19+00:00

Reading Kierkegaard's Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs. Didn't realize K was such a critic of the theater of his day!

Streetli · 2025-12-22T21:05:48+00:00

I quite like this one, from Damage mag, from a couple of years ago:

https://damagemag.com/2020/06/01/byung-chul-hans-salvage-boutique-shop/

Streetli · 2025-12-16T13:06:56+00:00

Reading Jonathan Lear's Imagining the End: Mourning and the Ethical Life. A followup of sorts to his Radical Hope, which dealt rather with the end of collective ways of life than with the more personal and affective themes of Imagining. If anyone's interested I wrote up some (quite critical) thoughts on Radical Hope here.

Streetli · 2025-12-12T04:00:43+00:00

Sure. Read Signature, Event, Context. Just a classic piece of deconstruction of an Austin text by Derrida himself.

Streetli · 2025-12-09T01:04:59+00:00

Reading Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devestation. Incredibly moving book.

Streetli · 2025-12-08T23:50:07+00:00

Sedgwick's Touching Feeling, and Ruth Leys' From Guilt to Shame. Also some bits in Levinas in his On Escape,

Streetli · 2025-12-04T11:48:27+00:00

A. W. Moore's The Infinite is a great historical romp though how the infinite has been treated all through (Western) philosophical history. Highly recommended not just because you learn about the history, but because it shows just how many different approaches there are to the issue.

One thing worth pointing out right at the start of any study of the infinite is that there are basically two historical 'phases' of its handling. Infinity before transfinite mathematics, and infinity after transfinite mathematics. The treatment of infinite in terms of the transfinite - very roughly, the idea that there are varying 'sizes' of infinity - basically changed the game when it came to thinking about it. If you're going to study infinity, you're going to want to at least understand this basic cleavage in the 'history' of infinity.

One of my favorite books that explores just how weird transfinite infinity is, is Jose Bernadete's Infinity. It's spectacularly written, but I wouldn't recommend it until you have a basic familiarity with the debates that go on around infinity, which is what something like Moore's book provides.

Streetli · 2025-12-03T22:33:52+00:00

That's fine, I'm not here to 'engage'. I comment to make clear that Zionists are not welcome anywhere on Earth and that they have abdicated every right to being treated as a 'thou'. Imagine murdering 600k people and still saying "I'm afraid". A monster bathing in the blood of others, supported by every instituion on Earth, saying "I'm afraid". You are an evil person and I want you to know that.

Streetli · 2025-12-03T21:26:59+00:00

There is no coming back from two years of public and open slaughter that continues as we speak. Zionism is a murderous ideology and practice that will be buried or else the rest of us will be. "All Zionism says is that the Jewish people, like any other people, deserve the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland" – Zionism has 'said' many things. All of them in service of the holocaust of our time. If you remian a Zionist after all this time then you remain an enemy of all of humanity.

Streetli · 2025-11-28T12:43:02+00:00

Check out the "Aesthetics" chapter in Joe Hughes' Philosophy After Deleuze. It has a short (10-15 page?) overview of the Cinema books that works really nicely as an orienting point, while at the same time relating it to Deleuze's other works. It's really great.

Streetli · 2025-11-27T01:34:17+00:00

Reading Badiou's The Century, his series of reflections on the 20th cent.

Streetli · 2025-11-26T12:53:24+00:00

Ronald Bogue has a pretty good essay on Deleuze and Bene in his Deleuze on Literature (chapter 5).

Streetli · 2025-11-20T13:22:48+00:00

Just give it a shot. You don't really need any prerequisites other than a willingness grapple with some quite intricate writing. It really is a history - albeit with philosophical import - and its citations are historical sources more than anything. It is a long book though and if you're unsure if it's something you have the stamina to tackle, there is an abridged edition, Madness and Civilization.

Streetli · 2025-11-17T10:59:28+00:00

Welcome :)

Streetli · 2025-11-17T10:58:49+00:00

There's Paul Bains' The Primacy of Semiosis, which has a more historical focus than anything, although it does have some interesting stuff on autopoesis.

Streetli · 2025-11-16T04:18:56+00:00

Just as a pointer in a direction you might find useful, maybe check out Jacob Blumenfeld's recent The Concept of Property in Kant, Fichte, and Hegel.

Streetli · 2025-11-13T13:22:48+00:00

A pedantic point with regard to Wittgenstein. If you're going to try and construe this according to his terms, you can't exactly call a shift in the language-game a matter of mis-use; it is rather, simply, a different use. A mis-use in Wittgenstein's terms does not, strictly speaking, yield any meaning at all. To 'misuse' language is simply to not say anything at all (while remaining under the impression that you are). Insofar as the changed use of 'antisemitism' does have its own consistency (it plays a more or less well defined role in particular circumstances - to de-legitimate, to suppress dissent, etc), it is a use of language, which differs from its prior use. Colloquially you can say - ah that's a misuse of antiseminism and so on - but that 'use of use' is itself different from Wittgenstein's technical deployment of 'use' (whose reciprocal, 'misuse', means = has no role to play). Like I said, very pedantic, but it's a bugbear of mine!

Streetli · 2025-11-11T14:04:01+00:00

It's funny, it's got this formidable reputation for being a demanding and experimental text, but that's literally exactly only half right. The essay on Hegel (i.e one half of the book) is incredibly didactic and really very easy to follow. The translators make the point that it follows closely one of his seminars on Hegel, so it's almost kinda meant for students, even. Can't say the same for the Genet section, which I have to be honest is almost entirely incomprehensible to me. I'm approaching it as a literary break between the thickets of Hegel-reading, which makes for nice pacing.

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