Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuze’s” Image of Thought”
-
Upload
matiasbarrios86 -
Category
Documents
-
view
219 -
download
0
Transcript of Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuze’s” Image of Thought”
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
1/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "!
Chapter 1
The Problematic of Stupidity: Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
Cowardice, cruelty, baseness, and stupidity are not simply corporeal capacities or traits of
character or society; they are structures of thought as such.
Gilles Deleuze,Difference and Repetition
Introduction
This chapter aims at formulating the problematic of stupidity. By problematic, I
mean the locus and ways stupidity matters to our political livesespecially to political
thinking in theory and practice. As such, a problematic constitutes a constellation of
interconnected themes that does not come to the level of systematic thought. One of the
fundamental problems in my attempt to tackle stupidity is the deficiency of the studies on
this matter. Due to this deficiency, it is hard to see not only where the problematic lies,
but also even the extent to which stupidity constitutes a problematic or whether stupidity
is a problem for our politics or political thought at all. Thus it is inevitable that a vulgar
question arises: is stupidity really an important topic for political theory?1
Indeed, one of
the central purposes of the present study is to respond to this question through a
problematization of the relationship between politics, thinking, and stupidity.2For this
task of problematization, I start by articulating the following two theses, which constitute
the problematic of stupidity:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Another reason to start this study by formulating the problematic is the elusiveness of stupidity: as
Derrida suggests, stupidity lies at the field of the indeterminable and thus resists any clear
conceptualization. Indeed it is tempting to define stupidity as what debunks clear conceptualization. For
example, In his letter to Louis Bouihet on September 4, 1850, Flaubert gives a succinct articulation, though
not conceptualization, of stupidity when he states that stupidity is the desire to conclude (1926-1930, 2:239;
1980, 128). Nonetheless, instead of formulating the concept of stupidity, I believe, it would be still possible
to explore the ways and the locus in which stupidity matters as problematic.2
For the ideas of problematic and problematization, see Introduction.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
2/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #!
I. Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking; we become stupid because we think.As an internal problem, stupidity resists any attempt of demarcation. Thus it is
impossible to distinguish stupid thought from other, more sophisticated kinds of
thought by any pre-given standard.3
II. Not only a problem of thinking, stupidity is also an inherent problem of politics;stupidity reveals the political character of thinking. Against a conventional
dichotomy between thinking and politics, which holds the former as a solitary
activity and the latter as a plural one, stupidity attests to a political, i.e., plural
character of thinking.4
In arguing for the above theses, I draw upon Deleuzes remarks on stupidity in
Difference and Repetition, which I think stands as one of the most insightful accounts of
stupidity. It is true that his remarks on the matter consist only of several paragraphs in the
more than three hundred pages ofDifference and Repetition, with a few more sentences
found elsewhere. In his later works, such as two volumes ofCapitalism and
Schizophreniaworks more explicitly political and popular among
political/social/cultural theoristsDeleuze no longer writes about stupidity.5
Hence, it
may appear that stupidity occupies only a minor role in Deleuzes philosophy, or even
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!3
By thinking I mean the process of thinking while I use the word thought to signify the result of the
process of thinking. With this distinction, I freely translate la pense in Deleuzes texts into thinking
and thought according to the context. The distinction, however, is not to clearly separate the thinking
process from the articulated thought. Rather, as I emphasize later, one of my purposes in this chapter is to
attain a perspective that grasps both elements as an interconnected whole.4
By political I mean the predicate whose basic mode is plurality. This plurality is not limited to that of
already fixed, given entities, whether they are individuals or groups. Plurality exceeds those fixed identities
and works underneath them. I owe this notion of plurality to William Connollys idea of pluralism that
acknowledges the moment of pluralization exceeding fixed identities as a kernel element constitutive of
pluralism (Connolly 1995, xi-xxx). I use the word politics, on the other hand, to point to the practice held
among constituencies in and around given institutional settings.5
Deleuze touches on the topic of stupidity in two other works written beforeDifference and Repetition
(1968):Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) andProust and Signs (1964). Because those two books pose
nearly identical ideas toDifference and Repetition , I mainly focus on explicating Deleuze's words in
Difference and Repetition. Cf. Deleuze (1983, 103-110; 2000, 5).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
3/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $!
that it is discarded in his mature thought. But his remarks on stupidity in Difference and
Repetition are neither instances of poetic rhetoric nor marginal to his thought. Rather,
they are situated at the center of his philosophical project in his magnum opus, showing
the internal relationship between stupidity, philosophy and thinking.6
The phenomenon of
stupidity exposes elements Deleuze critically analyzes in the entireDifference and
Repetition: the emergence and abortion of representation and the emergence of thinking.
Moreover, as this chapter demonstrates, his insights help us to clarify the political
relevance of stupidity, even though Deleuzes primary concern in the book is
philosophical.7
In the next section, I analyze Deleuzes remarks on stupidity in Difference and
Repetition and formulate the problematic mentioned above. Then, in the rest of the
chapter, I attempt to reveal the relevance and utility of Deleuzes insights. First, I defend
my exploration against other interpretations of Deleuze and ambiguities within Deleuzes
texts. This clarification will mainly illuminate the first thesis. Next, I try to defend and
clarify the second thesis by comparing it with another candidate for the explanation of
stupidity, that is, Arendts notion of thoughtlessness. Though it is not on stupidity as
such, her observation on Eichmanns thoughtlessness shows an affinity with Deleuzes
account of stupidity; both Arendt and Deleuze respectively find the distinctive
characteristic of thoughtlessness and stupidity in the use of stock phrases, clichs. Then,
why should I not employ Arendts notion of thoughtlessness which, developing through
her theorization of one of the most disastrous political events in historytotalitalianism
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!6
For studies that focus on the importance of stupidity for Deleuze, see Derrida (2009), Derrida (2010),
Hughes (2009), and Lee (2009).7
About the political relevance ofDifference and Repetition, especially of the chapter The Image of
Thought, see Marrati (2001).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
4/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! %!
and the final solutiondeals with politics more directly? In fact, a brief comparison
between Deleuze and Arendt will reveal a certain flaw in Arendts orientation toward
thinkingthat is, her presupposition of the innate righteousness of thinking activity. This
presupposition makes it difficult to grasp the internal problematic of thinking as an
activity and thus the interrelation between thinking and politics.
I do not, however, offer solutions to the problematic of stupidity thus formulated
and clarified in this chapter. In fact, one of the most significant points to be made about
the problematic is that we cannotsolve it. As an endogeneous predicate of thinking and
politics, stupidity haunts us as a permanent problem. But this does not mean that we are
helpless to tackle the problematic or that we do not have to take it into account. Toward
the end of the chapter, I articulate three questions that the problematic poses to our
current practice and theory of politics, to which the following chapters respond without
aiming to solve them.
Stupidity as a Transcendental Problem for Thinking and the Political
InDifference and Repetition, the theme of stupidity appears in the third chapter,
The Image of Thought. While the scope of Deleuzes remarks goes beyond the
paragraphs of the third chapter, here I want to start with the context within which they
appear. !
The main theme of the Image of Thought is to criticize the conventional way of
philosophy for its inability to dissociate itself from presuppositions, that is, unexamined,
pre-philosophical doxa. Philosophy typically tries to be free from doxa by starting
without any presuppositions. In this attempt, it has been relatively successful in starting
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
5/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! &!
without what Deleuze calls objective presuppositions, those presuppositions contained
in concepts employed by philosophy. For example, Descartes inMeditations denies that
he starts with the pre-given concept of human being as rational animal because that
conceptualization would already presuppose what rationality and animal are.8
Such
presuppositions contained in concepts are called objective because they are external to
the process of thinking. However, according to Deleuze, expelling objective
presuppositions is not enough to truly begin philosophy. In fact, it still retains subjective
presuppositions. What are subjective presuppositions? Again, in the case of Descartes
Meditations, even after his denial of any pre-given concepts, his famous cogito still
expresses unexamined presuppositions about the thinking activity itself.In so doing,
cogito presupposes that we already know what thinking is before we begin to think. In
particular, Deleuze identifies two major presuppositions. The first is the assumption of
the good will in thinking, which Descartes calls good sense; since we are equipped
with the good will, we can reach the same conclusions as long as we think. Good sense
is of all things in the world most equally distributed (Descartes 1956, 1). The second
assumption, which is even more relevant to the problem of stupidity, is that we are all
endowed with the faculty of thinking; this righteous faculty for thinking leads us to the
truthful conclusion. However, what assures those two assumptions? Deleuze argues that
they actually express an unexamined common sense. As such, the Cartesian cogito
results in reproducing doxa in its image of thought, which Deleuze calls orthodoxy, or
the dogmatic image of thought.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!8
Descartes (1996, 17): What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man? Shall I say a
rational animal? No; for then I should have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
6/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! '!
In the chapter on the Image of Thought Deleuze examines such subjective
presuppositions under eight postulates, one of which is the negligence of stupidity as the
negative of thought, or the exemplary failure of what thinking is supposed to do.9 In
terms of our present purpose of articulating the problematic of stupidity, we do not have
to delve into each of the eight postulates. But a couple of implications for stupidity are
observable in the overall framework of the chapter. First, subjective presuppositions
concern the internal character of thinking. More precisely, those presuppositions blanket
the process of thinking with the assumption that to think constantly brings about right and
unobjectionable conclusions for everybody. In fact, such an assumption is not without
question, and as I argue in what follows, this presupposition makes philosophy ignore or
defer the internal problem of thinking, which appears as stupidity.
Second, Deleuzes description of those presuppositions as constituting the
dogmatic image of thought suggests why stupidity appears as clichs. The dogmatic
image of thought takes the form of everybody knows: we allknow what we mean by
thinking. By implicitly assuming it, the dogmatic image of thought reproduces what is
already known to usthat is, opinions of peopleeven when it thinks it sets thinking
free from those opinions. This is nothing but a mechanism of clichs that, as seen in the
introduction, a few pioneering writers always attribute to stupidity. As the dogmatic
image of thought lies in its initial reproduction of peoples opinions without knowing it,
stupidity appears as clichs that we make when we speak the words of others without
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!9
The eight postulates are: the principle ofCogitatio natura universalis; the ideal of common sense;
the model of recognition; the element of representation; error as the negative of thought'; the
privileged status of designation; the postulate of responses and solutions according to which truth and
falsehood only begin with solutions or only qualify responses; the postulate of knowledge (Deleuze
1994, 167; 1968, 216-17).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
7/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! (!
knowing it. Both depend on the intrusion of the voices of others in a seemingly
independent and spontaneous act.
Third, building from the last point, we now get a glimpse of the political character
of thinking and stupidity. Deleuzes criticism reveals that our activity of thinking is not
solitary but indeed immersed in opinions of people. If we define the political as a
plurality of people, can we not see a political character in such intrusion of peoples doxa
into cogito? Indeed, Deleuze writes we need the new power of politics in overturning
the image of thought (Deleuze 1994, 137; 1968, 179). What does this new power of
politics look like? I will turn to it later in this chapter and explore its potential more in
later chapters. But for now, I want to focus on Deleuzes words on stupidity, moving to
the analysis of the postulate of stupidity.
Among the eight postulates of the image of thought, stupidity concerns the fifth,
the postulate of taking error to be the sole negative of thought. As I have shown in the
previous section, the orthodox and dogmatic image of thought keeps the upright character
of thinking intact by presupposing that thought leads us to the right conclusion insofar as
we start to think. But it does not necessarily mean that the image of thought
acknowledges no negative or failure in thinking. Indeed, the failure of thought is a
constant concern for philosophy. Platos Theaetetus already takes up the problem of error,
which leads to an aporetic conclusion. Kant, in his transcendental dialectic in the Critique
of Pure Reason, deals with the internal illusion of reason and the antinomies as the cul-
de-sac of reason. Or rather, we can see the extent to which his acknowledgment of our
finite ability to think moved his entire project of critical philosophy when we read the
very first sentence ofCritique of Pure Reason: Human reason has the peculiar fate in
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
8/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! )!
one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss,
since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also
cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason (1998a, Avii). In a
sense, Kant speaks of a problematic here: speculative reason is fine within its limit but it
compulsively tends to go beyond the limit. Nevertheless, according to Deleuze, these
cases of the negative of thought, including Kants internal illusion, become endorsements
for the image of thought by being reduced to error: error, therefore, pays homage to the
'truth' to the extent that, lacking the form of its own, it gives the form of the true to the
false (Deleuze 1994, 148; 1968, 193). In errors, we miscalculate (e.g. answering three
to the question of what one plus one equals) and misrecognize (e.g. saying two oclock to
be three). But taking miscalculation and misrecognition to be exemplary cases of the
negative of thought, the dogmatic image of thought caricatures the negative of thought
and expels the problematic actuality it has. Who actually makes such simple errors?
Certainly we may. But is it a paradigmatic case where we lapse into the negative of
thought? In fact, error acquires a sense only once the play of thought ceases to be
speculative and becomes a kind of radio quiz (Deleuze 1994, 150; 1968, 195). Errors
turn thought into a radio quiz where thought is reduced to the matter of making right
reasoning or right cognition.
Another, but more serious problem is that those errors are taken from empirical
facts of the most banal kind. In so doing, they fail to raise the transcendental question
about thinking, the question quid juris whether thought is truly possible. It is true that
Kant, for example, comes closest to posing the transcendental question in the beginning
of hisFirst Critique which I quoted above. Kant even goes further to analyze the
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
9/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! *!
internal illusion of reason appearing in antinomies of pure reason. Notwithstanding this,
Kants transcendental dialectic of pure reason brings the question back to a matter of
error. For he attributes internal illusion to the wrong use of a faculty. Internal illusion, for
Kant, appears when, for example, reason as the faculty of ideas, and not understanding as
the faculty of categories, misconceives that it can directly grasp the world. As such,
internal illusion falls under the control through the correct use of faculties, whose
harmonious collaboration Kant grounds in the de facto model of common sense,sensus
communis.10 His retreat from the transcendental question is observable as early as the
second sentence of theFirst Critique: reason falls into this perplexity [that it can neither
avoid nor solve certain kinds of questions] through no fault of its own (Kant 1998a, A
vii). Even if reason often prompts such misuse of itself, the problem of thinking is not
reasons own fault. It is due to its improper use. To become dissociated from the
dogmatic image of thought, we need to look for a different negative of thought that is
also transcendental and hence internal to thinking as such.
It is because of this need for the internal negative that Deleuze introduces
stupidity:
One is neither superior nor external to that from which one benefits; a tyrant
institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first
to be installed within it Cowardice, cruelty, baseness and stupidity are not
simply corporeal capacities or traits of character or society; they are structures of
thought as such. (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 196)!
!
Unlike error, stupidity stands out as a transcendental problem for thinking. Being not
merely facts that can be dealt with simply as failures that can be corrected,stupidity lies
inside thinking as a condition for the latter: stupidity is a structure of thought as such.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!10
I will take up Kants notion ofsensus communis and his abortion of transcendental project in detail in the
third chapter.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
10/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "+!
Stupidity is a thinking.11 Moreover, it is possible to say that there is no a priori principle
to distinguish upright, correct thought from stupid thought. Deleuze suggests this, as well
as implies the political relevance of stupidity when he writes: one is neither superior nor
external to that from which one benefits: a tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the
first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it (1994, 151; 1968,
196).12
To use Deleuzes own word, stupidity haunts thinking (151; 196).
My exploration so far has shown the first thesis of the problematic I mentioned at
the beginning of this chapter: the internal relationship of stupidity to thinking. Also,
Deleuzes passing reference to the relationship between tyranny and the servant suggests
a political character of thinking, which would constitute the second thesis. There remain,
however, several questions. If error does not suffice as the model of the negative of
thinking, how can we say stupidity serves the role better? In the first place, what is
stupidity? It is true that we cannot distinguish stupidity from thought with pre-given
standards, but there must be some characteristic phenomenon of stupidity, which we
observe when we say it is stupid. Deleuze mentions a couple of authorsReon Bloy,
Charles Baudelaire, and the most important of all, Gustave Flaubertclaiming that the
best [literature] was haunted by the problem of stupidity. By giving this problem all its
cosmic, encyclopaedic and gnosological dimensions, such literature was able to carry it
as far as the entrance to philosophy itself (!994, 151; 1968, 196). But how can we
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
For this interpretation, see Derrida (2008, 49; 2010, 152).12
Focusing on Deleuzes reference to the tyrant, Derrida develops his investigation into btise, an
interpretation that is similar to mine in explicating the political relevance of stupidity (btise) but different
by emphasizing the problematic of sovereignty. While my investigation does not preclude the problematic
of sovereignty, here I do not pursue the theme as such for two reasons: (1) Derridas exploration is deeply
tied with the term btise, which suggests animality as well as stupidity, whereas I focus on a broader family
of notions including stupidity, btise, dummheit, and orokasa () ; (2) while the problematic of
sovereignty is not proper to stupidity and can be approached by way of other notions, we can tackle the
problematic of politics and thinking, which I pursue in the greatest detail in this study by focusing on
stupidity. Cf. Derrida (2010, especially sessions 5 and 6).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
11/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! ""!
theorize or philosophize the problem Flaubert (as well as the other two authors) takes up
in his literature?13 To answer the above questions, we need to go beyond following
Deleuzes words on stupidity and move to account for them, a task that requires
analyzing his passing remarks in light of the broader philosophical framework of
Difference and Repetition. With this analysis, we can not only discern the mechanism of
stupidity in play but also make the political character of stupidity clearer.
Claiming stupidity as a transcendental problem for thought, Deleuze poses a
transcendental, that is, Kantian question: how is stupidity possible? His answer is: It
[stupidity] is possible by virtue of the link between thought and individuation.
It [the ground] is there, staring at us, but without eyes. The individual
distinguishes itself from it, but it does not distinguish itself, continuing rather to
cohabit with that which divorces itself from it. It is the indeterminate, but the
indeterminate in so far as it continues to embrace determination, as the ground
does the shoe. Stupidity is neither the ground nor the individual, but rather this
relation in which individuation brings the ground to the surface without being able
to give it from (this ground rises by means of the I, penetrating deeply into the
possibility of thought and constituting the unrecognized in every recognition).
(Deleuze 1994, 152; 1968, 197)!
!
This individuality is not the Cartesian cogito and is prior to it (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968,
331). While cogito (and its variant the thinking I in Kants philosophy) is posed as an
insular actor of thinking, individuality is never free from the ground (Being), and this
relation forms the locus of stupidity. Such a relational character suggests the political
character of stupidity. But Deleuzes explanation above is still too obscure. What is
individuality? How does it differ from cogito? Why the relationship among thinking,
individuation, and the ground? We need to decipher those notions.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!13
As a work that explores Deleuzes insights into literature and especially into Flaubert, see Colebrooke
(2007).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
12/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "#!
The key to interpreting these notions is to be found in Deleuzes critique ofcogito.
As I just explained, the notion of individuation was introduced as an alternative to what
Deleuze believes to be the flawed assumption of the Cartesian cogito. As is well known,
Descartes introduced the insular substance ofcogito as the ground of Being, as the
foundation of all knowledge and the existence of the world. Isolated from the outside,
cogito, the thinking I, serves as the ground, free from all doxa imposedfrom outside upon
thinking, which itself is supposed as always right and certain. Although Descartes once
introduced the idea of a deceiving God, which could betray the assumption of the innate
righteousness of thinking, he quickly overcomes this possibility. Of course, his notion of
cogito had been subject to a long line of criticisms before Deleuze. Kant in Critique of
Pure Reason already made one of the most well-known criticisms against it, pointing out
that Descartes confused the activity of thinking with the substance ofcogito. According
to Kant, the activity of thinking as afunction is not sufficient to ground the actual
existence of the subject,the thinking I (Kant 1998a, B405). Nonetheless, Kant repeated a
similar reasoning to Descartess when he grounded the possibility of experience by
introducing the concept of pure apperception, which takes the form of I think: The I
thinkmust be able to accompany all my representations... I call it the pure
apperception... I also call its unity the transcendental unity of self-consciousness in
order to designate the possibility ofa priori cognition from it (Kant 1998a, B131-2, bold
and italics in original). One might suggest that Kant betrayed his own criticism by
making the thinking I into a unity, thereby returning to the insular substance in
grounding the thinking I and Being.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
13/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "$!
However, interestingly enough, Deleuze finds another possibility in Kants
criticism and re-introduction ofcogito. By displacing or, in a sense, deconstructing
Kants exploration ofcogito, Deleuze re-interprets it as an account of the emergence of
thinking, individuation, and cogito from within their mutual relationship, the emergence
of what he calls the passive synthesis.
In his interpretation of Kant, Deleuze focuses on Kants reformulation of the
Cartesian cogito, through which Kant not only criticizes the Cartesian proposition but
also deepens it, explicating its condition. Kant is in a sense Cartesian when he says of
pure apperception that the I thinkmust be able to accompany all my representations
(Kant 1998a, B131, bold in original) and grounds all representationcognition with the
thinking I. The thinking I always brings all given intuition into a represented unity, and
thus serves as an anchor of all possible cognition. However, Kant also argues that the
Cartesian proposition, I think, therefore I exist is insufficient for this purpose of
grounding.For the I think to determine the existence of myself, first, something needsto be given to construct the representation of my existencethat is, given intuitions that
will be united under the thinking I. While the thinking I serves its unifying function and
can determine my existence, my existence requires the object of this act of
determination, an object that is not necessarily unified as such but can be the object of
determination. Simply put, the thinking I [ego], as the spontaneous function for
thinking, needs the material for self [moi], the passive and empirical material upon
which the activity of thinking is anchored.
With the need of the passive self (or at least its material), Kant introduces a split
into the Cartesian cogito, the split between a thinking I and the empirical self. Whereas it
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
14/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "%!
is the I that thinks, this thinking activity is sensed only in the passive, empirical self. I as
intelligence and thinking subject cognize my self as an object that is thought, insofar as
I am also given to myself in intuition, only, like other phenomena, not as I am for the
understanding but rather as I appear to myself (Kant 1998a, B155, bold in original). But
this split cogito does not endanger the stability of singularcogito as long as the
unification is smooth. For example, if the passive self is given as a lived experience with
which the thinking I fits smoothly, the split will be covered up as soon as it is introduced,
with this re-coupling constituting the organic, lived unity. However, this is not the case
with Kant, who deals with the transcendental question that purports to articulate the
possible conditions of experience (in this context, the existence of the given manifold of
intuitions) and not specific experiences. For him, the existence of a self is not the matter
of fact, but the object of the question: under what condition is the manifold of intuition
given? Kants answer to this question is time as the form of inner sense: since our
intuition is always sensible, no object can ever be given to our senses (Kant 1998a, B52).
As the formal condition of internal intuition, time serves as a condition of our existence,
and therefore, the central element of grounding. This is what Kant explains in the
following:
Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me I also need an intuition in
addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I
determine that general concept, so for the cognition of myself I also need in
addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, anintuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I
exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious of its faculty for combination but
which, in regard to the manifold that it is to combine, is subject to a limiting
condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable
only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts
of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it
appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
15/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "&!
of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if
its intuition were intellectual. (1998a, B158-9, bold in original)
It is this introduction of time that debunks the unity ofcogito, the coupling of
thinking I and the self, for it deprives the thinking I of its independent spontaneity,
transmitting it to the passive self that is subject to the condition of time. Deleuze writes:
The consequences of this [answer by Kant that the form of time is necessary forthe I think to determine my existence] are extreme: my undetermined existence
can be determined only within time as the existence of a phenomenon, of a
passive, receptive phenomenal subject appearing within time. As a result, the
spontaneity of which I am conscious in the I think cannot be understood as the
attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being, but only as the affection of a
passive self which experiences its own thought its own intelligence, that byvirtue of which it can sayIbeing exercised in it and upon it but not by it.
(Deleuze 1994, 86; 1968, 116, italics in original, underlining mine)!
!
In the split cogito, the self feels the spontaneous thinking of the I. But the materials for
the determining self are passively given only through the form of time. Now the passive
self can have the representation of the spontaneous I think only as an indirect effect
that stems from the thinking Is affecting upon time, through which the self is given
(Kant 1998a, B155). According to Deleuze, this leads to the conclusion that the passive
self represents the activity of I think but only as an experience external to the passive
self. Using a phrase of Rimbaud, Deleuze articulates, I is an Other (Deleuze 1997, 29-
31). Furthermore, the possibility of the peaceful unification of the passive self and
thinking I is no longer available with the introduction of time. Subject to the condition of
time (as a formal condition), each of the two turn into a fractured I and a dissolved
self (Deleuze 1994, 259; 1968, 333).14
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!14
As Widder (2008, 92) points out, Kantians would argue against Deleuzes interpretation of the pure
apperception, pointing out that it belongs to the noumenal and has nothing to do with actual conditions in
the phenomenal. My point here, however, is to see how Deleuze productively develops the Kantian insight
to account for his own idea of the passive synthesis.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
16/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "'!
Simply put, the proposition ofcogito, which is said to have grounded Being with
the insular, autonomous, and spontaneous activity of thinking, is immersed in Otherness.
As Deleuze succinctly puts it toward the end ofDifference and Repetition, in the
psychic system of the I-Self, the Other thus functions as a centre of enwinding,
envelopment or implication. It is the representative of the individuating factors (1994,
261; 1968, 335). By finding the intrusion of the Other in cogito prior to the emergence of
the latter, we can say the thinking I (that is, determination by cogito) is not able to ground
(determine) the existence of Being (the undetermined), but actually the spontaneity of the
former is subject to the latter. In this play between the thinking I whose assumed
spontaneity is endangered and Being that actually affects on the former in its passivity,
Deleuze finds the source of stupidity: Thought is the highest determination, confronting
stupidity as though face to face with the indeterminate which is adequate to it (Deleuze
1994, 275; 1968, 353). It is not yet clear enough how this play of spontaneity and
passivity, or its reversal, appears as stupidity. The key to finding the connection is the
character of the Other that the form of time introduces to cogito, whose exploration
reveals the mechanism of stupidity and helps to clarify stupidity's political character.
Deleuzes exploration of the Other appears mainly at the end of the final chapter
ofDifference and Repetition, the part where he deals both with the emergence of
representation andits abortion. As I have shown above, the intrusion of the Other in the
formation ofcogito means that the representation of the thinking I, contrary to the
presupposition of its spontaneity and independence, contains a passive element inspired
by the Other. Deleuze distinguishes this Other from an empirical other, who is not
different from myself but still can be seen as another person: Theories tend to oscillate
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
17/65
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
18/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! ")!
Kantian formal time that achieves (and fails) this synthesis ofcogito as the third synthesis
of time, the synthesis of future, which achieves (and again, fails) the entire syntheses of
temporality with the other two temporalities, the present and the past, that is the passive
synthesis.15
Here I cannot delve into Deleuzes account of the three syntheses, but it
would suffice for my present purpose of exploring the characteristic of Deleuzean
otherness to point out the two characteristics of the third synthesis. First, this time
concerns the future because, as Kant writes in Critique of Pure Reason, time as the
formal condition of the passive self, of inner sense,is what enables time to pass. Second,this time is devoid of any content and thus of experience. Because this time serves as a
transcendental condition, it has nothing to do with content, free from any empirical, lived
time (1998a, A30-36/B46-53). With those two characteristics, the Kantian notion of the
future deprives cogito of its attachment to the empirical, lived world. Kantian time
achieves the synthesis of temporality, but in a way that prohibits the seamless unification
between the thinking I and the empirical self. It returns the divided cogito into unity, but
as an impossible unity: the order of time has broken the circle of the Same and arranged
time in a series only in order to re-form a circle of the Other at the end of the series
(Deleuze 1994, 91; 1968, 122). Deleuze overlaps this aborted synthesis of temporality
(and cogito) with his interpretation of the Nietzschean eternal return. But this eternal
return neither repeats the identical unity nor presents the pure alterity of otherness (for if
it did, any synthesis would be impossible) but repeats nameless others: As Klossowski
says, it is the secret coherence which establishes itself only by excluding my own
coherence, my own identity, the identity of the self, the world and God. It allows only the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!15
For a detailed account of the structure of the three moments of passive synthesis in the chapter
Repetition for Itself ofDifference and Repetition, see Hughes (2001, 86-126); Widder (2008, ch. 8).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
19/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! "*!
plebian to return, the man without a name (Deleuze 1994, 90-1; 1968, 122, italics mine).
This other is beyond representation, but it is beyond representation not in the way in
which, say, God is. Rather, we cannot represent the other because it is the nameless
plebian: the other is everybody. As I have repeatedly emphasized, in the representation of
I think, thinking of the I is indeed the thinking of others. Moreover, now it becomes
clear that such thinking of others is the thinking of everybody.
Such de-possession of thought into the nameless other, into everybody, is the
mechanism Flaubert observed in his writings on stupidity. Deleuze counts Flauberts
writing as the best literature haunted by the problem of stupidity. For Flaubert,
stupidity appears in the arena of communication as clichs. For example, in his Bouvard
and Pcuchet, two figures keep accumulating stock phrases they absorb from books. This
accumulation culminates in FlaubertsDictionary of Received Ideas, which he planned to
insert inBouvard and Pcuchetas their writing. This dictionary, which the author called
the historical glorification of everything generally approved, is composed entirely of
clichs. However, those words in the dictionary are clichs not simply by being generally
accepted. They are clichs because people as individuals, as independent thinking Is,
utter them as if they are the expressions of their own independent opinions or thoughts.
Flaubert in his letter to Louise Colet on December 17 of 1852 explains the purpose of the
Dictionary to be the following: I think that the whole thing would be a formidable lead
shot[plomb]. There would not be a single word invented by me in the book. If properly
done, anyone who read it would never dare open his mouth again, for fear of
spontaneously uttering one of its pronouncements (1926-30, 3:67; 1980, 176, italics in
original). Put in other words, the words of the dictionary function as the illumination of
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
20/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #+!
stupidity because those words show that we become prey to stupidity at the very moment
when we regard ourselves as spontaneous and independent thinkers.
So far, I have tried to show stupiditys internal relation with thinking by following
the reformulations of the Cartesian cogito by Kant and Deleuze. Deleuze sees Flauberts
Bouvard and Pcuchetas the outcome of theDiscourse on Method (1994, 276; 1968,
353). Cartesian cogito, unable to grasp the individual, the realactor of thinking, comes to
represent the thought of others while it presupposes that representation as its own
spontaneous projection. But since cogito represents its (assumed) thinking on the
empirical ground, the Otherness within it also needs to appear in its empirical
representation, at the cost of losing its status as pure alterity, which is otherwise beyond
representation. This fundamental failure ofcogitos spontaneous grounding and the
inevitable intrusion of otherness leads to our seemingly spontaneous and independent
thought through a series ofclichs.
Now, let me turn to the second thesis that I mentioned in the introduction, the
problematic about the political character of stupidity. The key to this problematic is the
Deleuzean notion of the Other. As I explained above, Deleuzean otherness is unique in
seeing otherness in its nobody-ness as everybody-ness, while his contemporaries tend to
take otherness as pure alterity. For example, for Levinas, the paradigmatic case of our
relationship to the Other is theBook of Job, where otherness is evinced as the gods
fundamental unintelligibility. The Levinasian notion of otherness, regardless of its
asymmetrical character, offers great resources for ourethicalorientation, but less for our
politicalorientation. For such pure alterity of the Other cannot be multiplied. By taking
otherness as everybody-ness, however anonymous it is, Deleuze offers a different way to
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
21/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #"!
account for the multiplicity of otherness. Now the relationship between myself and the
Other is that between myself and multiplicity, which is better seen as a political
relationship than as an ethicalone. Therefore, stupidity, by revealing the intrusion of the
Other as everybody, is a problem not only for thinking but also for politics.16
This point
will be explored later by comparison with Arendt.
Beyond the Image of Thought?
So far, I have tried to account for Deleuzes short paragraphs on stupidity in the
Image of Thought chapter. My interpretation of them has exposed the two theses on
stupidity that I anticipated in the beginning: (1) stupidity is an internal problem of
thinking; and (2) stupidity is a problem not only for thinking, but also for politics.
Moreover, intrusion of otherness in the thinking I reveals the fundamentally political
element in thinking activity. Thus the two modes of human activitythinking and
politicsare connected by stupidity as their hinge. For stupidity, appearing as clichs, is
possible by virtue of thinking and the intrusion of the Other in the very incipience of the
former.
However, my interpretation so far still leaves several uncertainties concerning
those theses as well as Deleuzes texts. First, if stupidity constitutes an internal problem
for politics, is it possible to solve the problem? Simply put, can we do away with
stupidity? In the previous sections, I repeatedly emphasized the ineluctable character of
stupidity, showing stupidity to be an enduring problem. Yet my account so far does not
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!16
For example, Deleuze writes about the world ofon (people, they) as the following: The world of one
or they is a world ofimpersonal individuations andpre-individual singularities; a world which cannot be
assimilated to everyday banality but one in which resonates the true nature of that profound and that
groundlessness which surrounds representation, and from which simulacra emerge (1994, 277; 1968, 355,
italics in original).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
22/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! ##!
eradicate such a question or attempt to solve the problem of dissociating thinking from
stupidity. This question also comes out of ambiguities contained in Deleuzes texts
themselves, both inside and outsideDifference and Repetition. In fact, my reading of
Deleuze, in emphasizing the ineluctable quality of stupidity and the role (however
negative it is) ofcogito in thinking, seems to deviate from prevalent, not so say
hegemonic, readings, which more or less articulate Deleuzes purpose in the Image of
Thought chapter andDifference and Repetition to be the pursuit of thinking without
imagerepresentation. If we could attain thinking without the image, we would do away
with stupidity as its component. Also, as the second uncertainty, another but similar kind
of reading may try to underestimate the importance of stupidity for Deleuzes philosophy,
pointing out that the theme disappears in his later writings, and that it appears only in
passing inDifference and Repetition. This line of reading emphasizes, instead of stupidity,
the importance of the notion of idiocy, which, already appearing inDifference and
Repetition, becomes a key notion in his later book co-authored with Guattari, What is
Philosophy? Does this shift in focus suggest a certain flaw in Deleuzes orientation
toward stupidity that would be fixed by replacing it with a notion of idiocy, which hovers
outside the dogmatic image of thought while stupidity is embedded within it? This
question about the difference between stupidity and idiocy leads to a third question, a
question about the meaning of stupidity, or to be more precise, about the meaning of
posing the question of stupidity. My focus on the ineluctable and enduring character of
stupidity anticipates a pessimistic vision of human thinking: thinking, incessantly haunted
by stupidity, seems unlikely to reveal anything, much less certainty or truth. If such is the
destiny of human thinking, should we accept skepticism with resignation? Are there any
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
23/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #$!
positive moments in thinking? Or, put in other words: what is the point of taking stupidity
seriously? In this section, I respond to those three questions by clarifying the
corresponding ambiguities in Deleuzes texts.
The first question concerns the extent to which stupidity and the image of thought
haunt our thinking. If stupidity (and the image of thought) is an internal problem for
political theory, is there any possibility that we can do away with the problem? In other
words, is there any new mode of thinking that is free from stupidity? That question draws
its plausibility from two ambiguities in the chapter on the Image of Thought: one
concerns the status of the image of thought in general; and the other concerns the
relationship between stupidity and thinking. Let me start with the status of the image of
thought.
InDifference and Repetition, Deleuze articulates the main object of his criticism.
The image of thought, with its unexamined presuppositions, makes philosophy unable to
truly initiate thinking. As such, does his criticism rather imply that we cannot think as
long as we are under the tutelage of the image of thought? Does the philosophical system
Deleuze conceives inDifference and Repetition evince an entirely new thinking, thinking
without the image? In fact, Deleuzes orientation may look toward this direction, when he
pursues an encounter with radical novelty in thought, calling for the new power of
politics that will overturn the image of thought (1994, 137; 1968, 179, italics mine).
Moreover, using the metaphor of painting, Deleuze even concludes: The theory of
thought is like painting: it needs that revolution which took art from representation to
abstraction. This is the aim of a theory ofthought without image (1994, 276; 1968, 354,
italics mine). Given this blunt manifestation, it would be reasonable that many current
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
24/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #%!
interpretations of Deleuze follow this direction when they claim that his philosophy is the
search for new thinking without image, thinking without representation.
Now, if our thinking can be truly free from the image of thought, thinking would
be also be free from stupidity. For, as I have shown in the previous section, stupidity
appears under the mode of thinking that takes the formulation ofcogito or the thinking I.
It is true that Deleuze writes that stupidity is possible by virtue of the link between
thought and individuation (1994, 151; 1968, 197). And individuation is different from
cogito, because individuation is what proceeds to cogito (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968, 331).
Nonetheless, it is through cogito, or rather, fissures within it (fractured I and dissolved
self) that stupidity appears. Thus, if Deleuze offers an alternative to the image of thought
of which the subject of representation is cogito, such thinking would necessarily do away
with stupidity altogether. If so, however, this direction would contradict the first thesis,
the problematic that finds stupidity to be an internalproblem for thinking.
In fact, some of Deleuzesremarks on stupidity seem to resonate with the above
direction, to suggest that stupidity lies outsidethe true thinking, external to the thought
without image. For example, Deleuze speaks of the negligence of stupidity in the image
of thought, in conventional philosophy, as an obstacle to thinking: The subject of
Cartesian Cogito does not think: it only has the possibility of thinking, and remains stupid
at the heart of that possibility (1994, 276; 1968, 353-54, italics mine). Does he not
suggest here that stupidity does not think? He seems to suggest so when he writes
stupidity is evidence of an inability to constitute, comprehend, or determine a problem
as such (1994, 159; 1968, 207). Is stupidity for Deleuze the zero degree of thinking? If
so, does it mean stupidity is a problem ofothers, for those who are entrapped in the cave
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
25/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #&!
of the image of thought, and not for ourselves, for the real philosophers who attain
thought without image?
Given this statement about stupidity as non-thinking, it would look reasonable
that a widespread image of Deleuze holds him to be a thinker of anti-representation,
seeking direct experience without mediation, or of vitalism that liberates the life force
from the obstacle of philosophical representation, both of which deny any subject of
representation, whether it might be cogito or the thinking I.17
Moreover, Deleuze himself looks to support this widespread image when he
draws upon the notion of idiocy as a positive alternative to a negative non-thinking of
stupidity. Idiocy may look similar to stupidity in that both are opposed to upright thinking
and good will. However, the ways in which they are respectively opposed to upright
thinking and good will are different. Whereas stupidity appears as a reproduction of
shared opinions, that is, of clichs, idiocy refers to the lack of such sharing. The
philosopher takes the side of the idiot as though of a man without presuppositions
(Deleuze 1994, 130; 1968, 170). The representative figures of stupidity are Bouvard and
Pcuchet; for idiocy they are Prince Myshkin and the nameless narrator from
underground in Dostoyevskys work. Or, while Deleuze does not mention him in relation
to idiocy, we can add Bartleby to the list of idiots. Idiots cannot agree on what is shared
in society, thus unable to even utter clichs.18 With this inability, the idiot possesses the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!17
This characterization of Deleuzes thought is rather an image, which is not pursued by many Deleuze
studies but still shared by many readers beyond the narrow scholarship on Deleuze. For a study pursuing
this way, see Manuel de Landas characteriziation of Deleuzes project as philosophical realism (de
Landa 2002). See also Tuscano (2010).18
Deleuze explores idiocy and clichs (formulae) of Bartleby in his essay Bartleby; or, the Formula. It is
true that Bartleby speaks one clich:I would prefer not to But his clich is radically different from
those in Bouvard and Pcuchet. While the latter two repeat words of others, Bartleby, as Deleuze observes,
makes clichs (Deleuze 1997, 68-90). This difference between Bartleby and Bouvard and Pcuchet,
between idiocy and stupidity helps to clarify my exploration from another approach that is prevalent in the
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
26/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #'!
potentiality to truly initiate thinking without image. Free from shared assumptions and
thus from representation, idiocy rather shows a potentiality of thinking, the power of
initiating new thinking beyond the image of thought. While stupidity remains stupid
within the image of thought, idiocy, hovering above the dogmatic image, seems to show
the true power of overturning that image.
If it is true that stupidity appears as mere non-thinking and the idiot as a true
thinker, such an interpretation would contradict the second thesis concerning the political
character of stupidity and thinking, as well as the first thesis about the co-existence of
stupidity and thinking. For such a reading poses true thinking of idiocy beyond the realm
of shared plurality: the idiot is a solitary thinkerthe classical figure of philosopher.
Then the purpose of Deleuzes remarks on stupidity, of The Image of Thought chapter,
and probably the entire book ofDifference and Repetition would preclude the realm of
plurality and politics as that of non-thinking, repeating the orientation frequently
observed in philosophy since Socrates death.
It would not be without reason, then, that most of the readings that seek the
political dimension of Deleuzes philosophy turn to his later works with Guattari,
especially the two volumes ofCapitalism and Schizophrenia, which introduce explicitly
political notions such as the rhizome, nomadism, the state apparatus and the war machine.
More crucial to our current concern is that the theme of stupidity fades away in these two
volumes. Deleuzes departure from the theme, in fact, may appear related with his turn to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
current scholarship in continental political theory, that is, Agambens exploration which is organized
around the problem of sovereignty. Referring to Deleuzes essay on Bartleby, Agamben pushes Deleuzes
insights further, toward his own idea of potentiality. According to Agamben, Bartleby attests to the
absolute potentiality of thought, which is the supreme object of philosophy. Such positive evaluation of
absolute potentiality seems to be resonant with Agambens emphasis onzo!as the pre-sovereign life. In
contrast, what Bouvard and Pcuchet attest to, and thus problematize, is not such potentiality vis--vis
sovereignty, but a certain dissonance in representedthought. I will return to this point in the conclusion.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
27/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #(!
more explicit political themes. As we have observed, stupidity makes its appearance due
to necessary fissures in cogito. Thus stupidity is possible as far as we inevitably draw
upon the assumption ofcogito as the subject of presentation, the assumption of the
dogmatic image of thought; if we can do away with the image of thought and
representation, we will be free from stupidity altogether. And such total disavowal of
representation seems to take place under his assumed political turn. While, as I argue,
Difference and Repetition remains, in a sense, reserved in its attempt to think difference
in itself independently of the forms of representation (1994, xix; 1968, 1-2) since it
maintains that representationhowever flawedemerges, his work with Guattari looks
less ambiguous in its attempt to grasp difference in itself, which is now called
multiplicity. This shift in philosophical orientation, with an apparently political tone in
Capitalism and Schizophrenia, leads a reader interested in Deleuzes political aspects
such as Brian Massumi to juxtapose representation (in his word, representational
thinking) with the state philosophy, the mode of thinking that subjugates people (or
the multitude) under state, with the purpose of breaking the two altogether with nomad
thought which takes us beyond the narrow sphere of philosophy (Massumi 1987). Thus
it may look as if the theme of stupidity fades away once Deleuze leaves the narrow, even
state-centered realm of philosophy and becomes a true political thinker.
In fact, the connection between philosophy and politics for Deleuze is not so
simple.A Thousand Plateaus, for example, does not simply call for pure de-
territorialization and a direct grasp of multiplicity. The authors are keen to pay attention
to moments countering de-territorialization, such as re-territorialization, codification, and
so on. Moreover, even afterCapitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze returns to the central
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
28/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #)!
importance of philosophy in What is Philosophy? The book, seen to have been written
more by Deleuze than Guattari (Dosse 2007), explores the same theme of The Image of
Thought written about more than twenty years before: what thinking should be like.
Moreover, What is Philosophy? repeats several motifs originally appearing in The
Image of Thought, exploring presuppositions in philosophy, stupidity, and idiocy. But it
now deals with them in a slightly different tone. Now stupidity occupies a smaller role
and gives way to more positive characteristics attributed to idiocy. Whereas stupidity
finds its expression in clichs, idiocy, now clearly stated as the predicate of philosopher,
exercises its positive role in breaking from accepted clichs: the idiot, the one who
wants to think for himself and is a persona who can change and take on another meaning
(Deleuze and Guattari 1994,70). Also, the dogmatic image of thought inDifference and
Repetition gives way to more affirmative images of thought, or planes of immanence
which refer to each philosophical system. Thus it is a privilege of philosophy that,
standing above the realm ofdoxa, repudiating clichs, brings about a new image of
thought. In the end, does not every great philosopher lay out a new plane of immanence,
introduce a new substance of being and draw up a new image of thought, so that there
could not be two great philosophers on the same plane? (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 51).
Because of such a prominent role given to the philosopher-idiot, authors like
Alain Badiou see in Deleuze the figure of a classical, or even Platonic philosopher, an
image entirely opposed to that of Massumis. According to Badiou, Deleuzes project is
far from anti-foundational or anti-philosophical, but essentially a return to classical
ontology of the One, of which the paradigmatic case remains Plato. Not only is
Deleuzes philosophy to be understood as a thinking of ground, but it is, of all the
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
29/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! #*!
contemporary configurations, the one that most obstinately reaffirms that the thought of
the multiple demands that Being be rigorously determined as One (Badiou 1999, 45).
Badiou further argues that despite Deleuzes disavowal of the conventional dichotomy
between one and many inA Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 4) and his
recurrent criticism against Plato, his call for the virtual and multiplicity is not so different
from Platos call for the Idea. Moreover, this classical character in Deleuzes
philosophy goes beyond the narrow character of ontology to its ethical dimension and to
political-social functions. In requiring thinking to think oneness, the univocity of Being,
thinking for Deleuze is aristocratic, because the highest purpose of thinking lies in
thinking the supreme oneness of Being (whatever its name is) that is distributed
hierarchically among beings. Thus Deleuzes project, being purely philosophical, does
not have a necessary connection with any political positions according to Badiou: It is
one of the signs of Deleuzes greatness that, in spite of his success, he was unable to be
incorporated into the major blocks of opinion that organize the petty parliamentary life of
the profession (Badiou 1999, 96). While Deleuze's readers try to connect his philosophy
with democratic political movements, it has nothing to do with Deleuzes philosophical
system. Rather, Badiou claims, Deleuze remains purely philosophical in his work and
stays aloof from any attempt to find political implications in his philosophy with his keen
awareness of the classical danger faced by philosophersthe corruption of the youth
(Badiou 1999, 97).
Badious reading, however, has the same implication as that of Massumi for our
current attempt to find the political character of stupidity. If Deleuzes project is to think
the virtual in its oneness, stupidity would remain a pure negative of thinking, that is, non-
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
30/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $+!
thinking. Moreoverand this is the second possible rejoinder to my argument developed
in the previous sectionthis pure negativity would mean that stupidity has nothing to do
with a positive (or actual) event of thinking. Unlike idiocy, which can initiate
(philosophical) thinking, stupidity remains inside the realm of daily life, ofdoxa.
Therefore, what results from such a classical manner of philosophy of oneness seems to
be a thorough devaluation of our daily thinking.19
Here in this chapter, I neither try to solve all of these ambiguities in Deleuzes
texts nor squarely respond to these interpretations. Instead of giving an interpretation to
the entire uvre of Deleuze, giving a definite statement as to the extent to which
Deleuzes later works are political, or assessing the validity of each of its interpretations,
I want to focus onDifference and Reptitionnamely on the notion of stupidity. I deal
with ambiguities and interpretations insofar as they concern that focus.
Let me summarize what is at stake in the ambiguities of Deleuzes texts and
interpretations. First, about the internal relation between thinking and stupidity,
Deleuzes text sometimes locates stupidity outside the realm of thinking, as non-thinking.
This possibility renders readings by Massumi and Badiou more plausible. For while
presenting different interpretations concerning the political implications of Deleuze's
texts, both concur that Deleuzes philosophy aims at going beyond representation and the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!19
A similar line of criticism is posed concerning Deleuzes attack on the assumption that the capacity for
thinking is equally distributed to everyone, the assumption exemplified in Descartess statement in
Discourse on Methodthat Good sense is of all things in the world most equally distributed. For example,
Tuscano (2010) regards this attack to be an anti-democratic attitude for, he argues, this denial leads to
privileging philosophers thinking. But such criticism seems hasty to me. It is one thing to attack the pre-
philosophical assumption about the capacity for thinking, but denying the capacity of people for thinking is
another. The point of Deleuzes denial is to show how philosophy has been leaving one of the most
problematical elements in thinking untouched, not to claim that philosophy has the capacity for thinking.
Moreover, I regard Deleuzes criticism as implying a certain egalitarianism. Contrary to the Cartesian
equality in our capacity for thought, Deleuzes egalitarianism is based on the impossibility of giving
hierarchy in our thinking capacity: stupidity equally troubles philosophers and the people, the sophisticated
and the vulgar.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
31/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $"!
world of beings, toward, for Massumi, non-representation and, for Badiou, toward the
oneness of Being. Such an orientation is not compatible with my interpretation of
stupidity. Mine sees representation as a flawed but inevitable condition. Second,
concerning the political character of stupidity, whereas Badiou and Massumi starkly
differ on the political implications of Deleuzes philosophy, they share a certain
presumption about what the political implications of philosophy mean. Both mean by
political implication only a specific normative political orientation: while Massumi
finds an anarchic political project in Deleuzes criticism against state philosophy,
Badiou identifies a hierarchical character of thinking in Deleuze and denies its political
implications for the lack of any necessary linkage between Deleuzes philosophy and any
political position. Third, as a consequence of the previous two, such interpretations taken
by Massumi and Badiou would not find any importance in stupidity. Different from
nomadic thought or philosophy of oneness, stupidity would, for Massumi and Badiou,
lack a relation to a positive mode of thinking, staying as the degree-zero of thinking at
best. How can I counteract those readings that marginalize the role of stupidity?
I have already attempted to show the internal relationship between thinking and
stupidity in the previous sectionthe relation whose crucial moment resides in the
argument that thinking cannot but appear as representation, however flawed it is, through
cogito.20 Thus in the following, I want to defend the problematic through a different path:
by exploring differences between Deleuze and Heidegger, whose orientation toward
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!20
My reading, as we saw in the review of current Deleuze scholarship, might sound an unorthodox one.
However, textual evidence supports it. For example, Deleuze writes that selves must be presupposed as a
condition of passive organic syntheses, already playing the role of mute witness (1994, 258; 1968, 333).
Surely his emphasis is on the need to go beyond or below the form ofcogito. But we should be equally
attentive to his realization that we still need cogito, or a certain form of subjectivity. Bryant (2008) and, in a
more nuanced manner, Hughes (2010) emphasize that Deleuzes philosophy is not simply a philosophy of
anti-representation.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
32/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $#!
thinking and the lack of thinking in What is Called Thinking? has an influence on
Deleuzes Image of Thought chapter and thus makes Deleuzes philosophy susceptible
to the criticisms posed by Badiou.
Heideggers influence over Deleuze is apparent throughoutDifference and
Repetition. Deleuze himself is unequivocal about his indebtedness when he mentions
Heideggers philosophy of difference as one of the contemporary accounts that helped to
prepare his book. Moreover, as I will point out later, the Image of Thought chapter can
be seen as Deleuzes version ofWhat is Called Thinking?. At the same time, Heideggers
influence contributes to makingDifference and Repetition appear as if it is privileging
one kind of thinkingthe thinking of Beingover others, moving beyond representation,
and having nothing to do with the political. Badiou, for example, refers to Heideggers
influence, which he rightly claims is greater than generally accepted, as evidence of the
quintessential philosophical character of Deleuze. Insolely focusing on the oneness of
Being as the object of thinking, not on multiple beings in society, Deleuzes philosophy,
Badiou claims, is a loyal successor to Heidegger: The question posed by Deleuze is the
question of Being. From beginning to end, and under the constraint of innumerable and
fortuitous cases, his work is concerned with thinking thought (its act, its movement) on
the basis of an ontological precomprehension of Being as One (Badiou 1999, 20).
According to Badiou, Deleuze is indeed more thoroughgoing than Heidegger on this
point when Deleuze criticizes the residual phenomenological element in Heidegger.
While for Heidegger thinking needs to start with pre-ontological understandings
revolving around beings, Deleuze seeks to sever the internal linkage between beings and
Being (Badiou, 1999, 21-26). For Deleuze, the thinking of Being is disconnected from
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
33/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $$!
those about beings. Whether or not Badiou is right in maintaining a more Heideggerian
Deleuze than Heidegger himself, it is no doubt that such a figure of the philosopher who
concerns himself solely with Being stems from the image of Heidegger. Heidegger, in
What is Called Thinking?, states that thinking involves listening to the call of Being.
Such a listening seems to reduce the assertive mode of thinking to a mere passive
reception. According to Heidegger, our modern image of thought that centers on logic,
aiming at the grasp of logical relations among represented beings (that is, concepts),
remains far from true thinking. In fact, for Heidegger, under this confusion between
thinking and representation, we do not yet think. Heidegger opposes this image of
thinking as a responsive activity, as a thankfulness to the call of Being.
Thinking in its authentic form appears as a pure activity vis--vis Being under this
Heideggerian formula. It is true that Heidegger does not simply oppose the true thinking
of Being against representational thinking or non-thinking. In fact he cautiously
maintains that Being is always guarded by beings that we represent; Heidegger does not
simply argue for our direct grasp of Being. Rather, to the philosopher of oblivion,
Being never becomes transparent. Thinking always arrives in a certain passivity (e.g. as
thanks, gift, recollection), that is, as a response to the call of Being made available at that
time. More importantly, our non-thinkingthe fact that we do not yet thinkis not
simply a negative state for Heidegger. On the contrary, the fact that we do not yet think
is the food for thought that needs to be thought and that drives out assertive thinking.
Here we see Heideggers thesis concerning the ambiguity of truth: the truth appears, on
the one hand, as the unconcealment of Being while, on the other hand, Being needs to be
preserved in the concealment of beings. Nevertheless, thinking for Heidegger is still
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
34/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $%!
directed toward the unconcealment of Being insofar as the negative fact of our non-
thinking makes us realize that we are still not thinking. In fact, according to Heidegger,
modern thought, in its self-understanding centered on the spontaneity of reason and
representation, shutters our way toward the true thinking and thus toward Being
(Heidegger 2004, 210-11). Thus it seems that we have two kinds of non-thinking: one as
a preservation of Being in its unconcealment; the other as a pure non-thinking as the
degree-zero of thinking, appearing as our modern poverty of thinking. Not only is
Heidegger's thinking detached from representation, it is also anti-political in that the
unconcealment of Being arrives outside the realm of our ordinary human intercourse.21
The realm of people, of das Man, has a positive impact on our thinking only insofar as
it calls for the need to transcend itself. What Heideggers thinking calls for is the
receptive quiet thinking of the solitary philosopher, which is based on a lingering
dichotomy between authentic and inauthentic thinking.
When we turn our eyes to Deleuzes Image of Thought chapter, Heideggers
influence is obvious. As Heidegger insists that we do not yet think, Deleuze counters
that the dogmatic image of thought has been preventing our thinking from truly initiating
itself. The two also concur when regarding representation as the main source of
misunderstandings about and obstacles for thinking. Moreover, Deleuze makes his debt
to Heidegger evident when he refers to the phrase the fact we do not yet think in
discussing stupidity (Deleuze 1994, 153; 1968, 198). Thus it might seem reasonable to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!21
Here I do not discuss Heideggers own political thought, his commitment to National Socialism, or the
possibility of Heideggerian political theory. However, one characteristic I want to note is that Heideggers
politics, if there is such a thing, would belong to the classical Platonic tradition in privileging philosophical
nous and a certain form of community, regardless of the great distance between Plato and Heidegger. In
seeing in Heidegger the classic philosophicaland thus not politico-theoreticalattitude, I concur with
Arendts view in her essay, Heidegger the Fox (Arendt 1994, 361-2).
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
35/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $&!
assume that Deleuze shares with Heidegger not only the orientation to the question of
thinking but also its flawthe flaw of privileging the philosophical mode of thinking
above others marked as non-thinking. Badiou diagnoses this problem in Deleuze when he
criticizes Deleuzes idea of a disjunctive synthesis, the distinction between Being and
beings (Badiou 1999, 22). If we accept this distinction, Badious line of argument will
claim, thinking quaphilosophy has nothing to do with beings in the world of
thoughtlessness.22 Therefore, Badiou would argue not only against the first thesis on the
internal relationship between thinking and stupidity, but also against the second thesis
concerning the political character of thinking.
However, we need to be attentive to the differences between Deleuze and
Heidegger as well as the similarities. In fact, Deleuzes displacement of the fact that we
do not yet think with stupidity, I argue, reflects his displacement of Heideggers
dichotomy between authentic, philosophical thinking and inauthentic non-thinking.
Deleuzes reference to Heideggers What is Called Thinking? appears at the very
end of the paragraphs dealing with the problem of stupidity: the transcendent element
which can only be thought (the fact that we do not yet think or What is stupidity?)
(1994, 153; 1968, 198). A straightforward reading of this quote seems to make stupidity
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!22
To put it more precisely, Deleuze for Badiou prioritizes Being and thus disconnects the realms of Being
and beings further than Heidegger: The real reason for the disparity between Deleuze and Heidegger,
within their shared conviction that philosophy rests solely on the question of Being, is the following: for
Deleuze, Heidegger does not uphold the fundamental thesis of Being as One up to its very end. He does not
uphold this because he does not assume the consequences of the univocity of Being. Heidegger
continuously evokes the maxim of Aristotle: 'Being is said in various senses,' in various categories. It is
impossible for Deleuze to consent to this 'various'(Badiou 1999, 23, italics in original). While Heidegger
sees the authentic connection between Being and beings in certain mitsein, Deleuze, Badiou claims,
repudiates any such connection and puts solely the virtualBeing for Deleuzeas the object of
philosophy. As I argue throughout this chapter, however, it is misleading to take Deluzes philosophical
project inDifference and Repetition solely as the search for the virtual. It is true that Deleuze offers a kind
of monism, but Badiou has overlooked the protean character of Deleuzes monism, its capacity to morph its
many modes of capacities. Equally important is Deleuzes account of how thinking needs to appear as
representation, however much flawed the representation is.
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
36/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $'!
appear as just another name for the fact that we do not yet think. Yet there is another
possibility: the conjunction or replaces Heideggerian non-thinking, the fact that we do
not yet think with what is stupidity? If, as I have argued, stupidity is internal to
thinking (and if Deleuze avoids the above-mentioned pitfall of the Heideggerian
orientation), this latter interpretation appears more plausible. Deleuzes assessment of the
contributions and risks of Heideggers philosophy in one of the longest notes in
Difference and Repetition supports this latter reading. In the note, while acknowledging
Heideggers significant contribution to the philosophy of difference, Deleuze expresses
his concern about the slippery use of the negative in Heidegger: It can nevertheless be
asked whether Heidegger did not himself encourage the misunderstandings, by his
conception of Nothing as well as by his manner of striking through. Being instead of
parenthesising the (non) of non-Being (1994, 66; 1968, 91). If Heidegger posits the
negative of Being by the word non, a hierarchical dichotomy between the world of
Being and that of nothingness results. Such externalization of the negative is of the same
kind that I pointed out in Heideggers orientation toward non-thinking, the annihilation of
the realm ofdas Man. A productive path to avoid this danger is, according to Deleuze, to
interpret Heideggers non as difference, especially as the ontological difference
between Being and beings. His proposal shows that Deleuze, while proposing to think
difference in itself independent of the form of representation, neither leaves the world of
beings nor completely does away with the world of representation. Thinking needs to
become other than representation, but it does so by way of represented thinking and the
fissured cogito. Deleuze makes this point clear in the quote above when he states this
unthought has become the necessary empirical form, in which, in the fractured I
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
37/65
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
38/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $)!
Stupidity and Thoughtlessness: Deleuze and Arendt on Political Relevance of
Thinking
In the last section, I attempted to clear up ambiguities in and around Deleuzes
texts by repudiating some interpretations and criticisms against him, especially those
concerning the first thesis about the endogenous relation between thinking and stupidity.
The central issues at stake among those ambiguities and criticisms involve the internal
relationship between stupidity and thinkingthat is, the degree to which stupidity haunts
our thinking. By refuting such readings that interpret Deleuzes purpose to be solely
concerned with Being or the overcoming of representation, I have shown the
characteristics and thus importance of the notion of stupidity that traverses the realms
both of Being and beings, or sub-representation and representation. Stupidity is not the
problem of others (of beings, of das Man, of representation, and so on), nor is it external
to thinking and philosophy. It is ourproblem.
This endogeneity of stupidity helps to clarify another problematic that the
previous sections touched on but did not fully address: the political character of stupidity.
In the course of examining interpretations of Deleuze, we have seen opposing views
concerning the political relevance of his philosophy. On the one hand, readers concerned
with its political utility, such as Massumi, see Deleuzes so-called anti-representational
philosophical project itself as a political project against the state while, on the other hand,
readers like Badiou posit the exclusively philosophical concern of Deleuze and regard its
connection with radical political movements to be merely arbitrary. I have already shown
that those two views are philosophically misleading in ignoring the accountDifference
-
7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought
39/65
Otobe dissertation chapter 1
! $*!
and Repetition gives to the emergence of (flawed) representation. What is also
noteworthy is that in politics, too, Massumi and Badiou share one assumption: the
assumption that the political relevance of philosophy is to be tested solely according to
the extent to which philosophy offers the ground for specific political agendas or
attitudes. In holding such a reductionist view that judges political relevance for its
applicability, their seemingly opposing positions converge. I do not deny that Deleuzes
philosophy can serve to deepen our political sensibility. Indeed, my study is devoted to
explicate the positive political contributions of the problematic of stupidity, part of which
I briefly suggested at the end of the previous section.But such positive elements appear
not simply through the explication of a certain political agenda from philosophy and by
virtue of its applicability.23 Moreover, the political relevance of one philosophical system
can be of great value when it helps us to clarify the very relationship between politics and
philosophy, and/or between politics and thinking. It is regarding such relationships that
Deleuzes exploration of stupidity is illuminative. If, as I have shown,