Gilles Deleuze – What is Philosophy? [audio]

One may not like Deleuze's system, but I don't think it's fair to call him a charlatan. His work on other philosophers (e.g. Leibniz) is highly regarded, he provided valuable counterpoints to Freud, and Badiou accused him of being a secret platonist, which I think most hn-posters would appreciate. His one-off observations alone should be enough to grant him the benefit of the doubt. If you don't recognize sparks of brilliance in his lectures and conversations, well! See the abecediary, or his lecture on cinema as the creative act, or any of his readings of past philosophers.

Deleuze is my favorite philosopher.<p>Eleven years ago I wrote a few blog posts trying to apply his concepts to programming. Haven&#x27;t read them in a very long time, dunno if they hold up, but if anyone is interested: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveklabnik.com&#x2F;writing&#x2F;deleuze-for-developers-assemblages" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveklabnik.com&#x2F;writing&#x2F;deleuze-for-developers-asse...</a>

I like what Bertrand Russell had to say to that very question, in one of <i>Unpopular essays</i> (quoting approximately from memory):<p>Philosophy is science in the circumstances of insufficient knowledge. That is, given insufficient data it may still be beneficial to ponder possible future directions of research, contemplate lines of attack on long-standing questions, or even determine beforehand how these big questions should be posed. All of these circumscientific activities and thinking together constitute philosophy.

There&#x27;s a quite influential electronic music label called <i>Mille Plateaux</i> [0], named after Deleuze&#x27;s work. Label founder Achim Szepanski often quoted Deleuze in interviews and liner notes. I found that somewhat pretentious b&#x2F;c I could hardly grasp any of that. Still, Mille Plateaux released quite a few absolutely timeless classics.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mille_Plateaux_(record_label)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mille_Plateaux_(record_label)</a>

&quot;Deleuze&#x27;s work is characterized by his emphasis on difference and multiplicity, which he saw as fundamental to understanding the world. He developed a philosophy of becoming, which emphasizes the importance of change and transformation.&quot;<p>Vacuous.<p>Reminds me of David Stove&#x27;s &quot;What is wrong with our thoughts&quot; [1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.maths.unsw.edu.au&#x2F;~jim&#x2F;wrongthoughts.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.maths.unsw.edu.au&#x2F;~jim&#x2F;wrongthoughts.html</a>

Philosophize This is a very beginner friendly podcast. I&#x27;d gladly recommend it to anyone with even cursory interest. Then you go to History of Philosophy without Any Gaps. ;)

Deleuze is one of the best thinkers of the last century, but he requires a lot of reading before what he&#x27;s saying can make any sense.

As a teenager, I was enjoying Sciences classes, but not Philisophy at all at that time, I was really lagging behind in maturity, of course now 20 years later it&#x27;s different. I don&#x27;t think Philisophy is something you can only learn, I think you need enough life experience, maturity, wisdom so distance and time

Perhaps a small point, maybe irrelevant, but the Stephen West&#x27;s pronunciation of Gilles Deleuze and (Jacques) Derrida in the first 2 minutes are not in step with how philosophers pronounce these names.<p>Such idiosyncratic pronunciations suggest West may not understand the target discourse community, let alone be acknowledged informative by the same.

If you want to have an idea of what Deleuze&#x27;s philosophy is all about:<p>(Differential Ontology)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iep.utm.edu&#x2F;differential-ontology&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iep.utm.edu&#x2F;differential-ontology&#x2F;</a>

I have been introduced to Deleuze, but oh my, he is really hard work, even secondhand. If interested in assemblage theory, start with DeLanda.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Philosophy Talk on NPR.<p>Hosted by two Stanford professors.<p>“Known as ‘the program that questions everything—except your intelligence’ Philosophy Talk challenges listeners to question their assumptions and to think about things in new ways.“<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.philosophytalk.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.philosophytalk.org&#x2F;</a>

Philosophy is accurately describing an antagonism instead of asking questions which just further mystify the antagonism allowing it to continue, unabated. This is the time for philosophers.

One of the greatest charlatans of postmodernism

To me, philosophy is the art of finding the most low-stakes, ungrounded problems on Earth, so you can argue about the solution ad nauseam until eventually someone who doesn&#x27;t care about philosophy stumbles across the solution by mistake.

Most of this seems neither true nor false, but meaningless in the Carnapian sense.

I loved a book he wrote. Oeduous and capitalists or something.<p>Anyway, it was wordy and I think he was struggling to find words but it was a great read and helped me construct some useful models for myself when speaking to people across varying domains of science. Just gotta jump to their ribosome or whatever the hell and use their language to transfer data fast.<p>I could see an analyst mind reading this and having a mental break down though and then coming on hacker news to try and offer some quick wit to gain reputation about “wow, how wordy. Must be a charlatan”. Could be. Could be good stuff here.<p>No need to lecture me btw. I literally won’t care.

nice