[D-G] Fwd: Re: --

hwenk hwenk at web.de
Sun Jul 16 10:57:53 PDT 2006


Hello,
I think what you have in mind is that the catholic church
is regarded as very conserative, especially concerning morals and ethics,
where Deleutze and Guattariare
anarchistc, recukitionary of very free in respect of ethics.

NIn metaphysical and ontologaical question things look like Whitehead had
allready put it,
The rise of empirism and the natural science has led to
abolish such questions, with the efffect taht hthter are often still there
where they have been taken in the 17th centuary.
And still at great deal at the stand of the scholastics, still hold by
theologicans, especially catholic ones. The doctrins of Thomas from Aquin
and Duns Scotus
and a lot more are still teached at universities and there is
academic life around it, books , journals and congresses.

to make things short, you are perfectly right with your
cites. But let me explain why the theologicans where in so much trouble with
Spinoza.

The question of "good" and "bad" or "good" and "evil"
is tzhat in religion and infor the church god has made man as the crown
pof creation and thus in a way all to his welfare and development.
This line of reason culminates in Hegel who talks about the
"strategem of reason".
That meant tha a lot of events whpo look very bad for the mankind in the
last instance turn out to be very good, what nobody had expected.
In religion this is "the ways of the lord are unomprehensible, it is
impossible to understand it.

And indeed, in the 18ten century there was an erathquake in Lissabon and a
lot of
pweople didn't understand what should be the benefit for the developmment or
welfare for mankind.

Now the way out of Leibniz in  his "Theodizee" was to say "this is best of
all possible ways to create the world.
This argument has charm until to?day, often one argues: This is not so good,
but
it was impossible under to make it better.

So the real conflict that for Spinoza man has no special place in nature, it
is
a being as all others, but with more skills, especially his mind.
"Man has no state in the state in nature".

There is a second sever conflict, which has to do with sensual pleasures ans
as such with the
conserative - liberate standpoiunts in morals mention at the beginning.
That is that for the theologicans only the mind or the spirit is from god, a
point
which is often rooted back to platoniic idealism - transported by Aristotle
and still hold by Hegel.
But God or Nature for Spinoza incorporates also the physical world,
so the material things or the bodies are directly god.
This is the idea of "immanence".
The transendence is that there is an idea, not yet material completed and
that explains why
the earth is not the paradise now.
The idea being from god it has absolute power and there  is no other way
that at last it will suceed.
This is what made Hegel so sure that history will materaliize the absoltue
spirit.
Man having a godlike soul, but he is a also a material or corporal  being to
bring about the heaven on earth.
But as he has a body, which for the theologicans is not godlike,
this bounds him to the sphere of the not-godlike-soul having animals,
this is a hinderance to overcome - the sphere of sensual pleasures and pains
and needs.
And this is the evil.
Instead Deleuze and Guattari speak of a "becoming animal" (ATP)("devenir
animal").

His mind is what made him raise above all animals.
This is also waht the theologicans think,
the ability is what makes man superior of animals and all other beings.
But for the theologicans this goes back as man is godlike,
create godlike by some higher being.
For Spionoza is a product of nature and there may or maybe not higer or more
intelligent  beings.
The last one need not to be in any genelago rrelation to man.
Short, man is rhe best animal.
As nature produces also all animals, there is no special creation of man,
especiallyly no more godlikeness tham others.
But he has more "being or power to think and act" than other animals.
But he retains god as a creator.  But there is a plane of creation on the
level of essences and
laws of nature "naturing nature" and a level of creation of existence
"natured natured".
This distinction is also scholastic.

Now the "abstract machine" or "plan of immanece" of Deleuze and Guattari
have taken the heritage of the "naturing narture".

There we have the tendency of Deleuze and Guattari to get somne kind
of quality in the process of genetic evolution.

A little bit things are quite cuiculary: "What has more being is more
involved is what has more power of acting and Being is what is in power in
existence - at least after
some time."
So the "more being" has to be expressed and is ti be found in something in
being more in existence.

This is the idea of eminence, descibed by Spinoza that the best things build
up theideal or measur of things of that kind.

SSo, if we look a bit closer, there is really a lot of common ground
of the theology and Spinoza which go back to Aristotle ans Plato.
These where no religious people and without a church bit the founder of
philosophyy, especuially
natural philosophy.



YOGA

Now Yoga is really god.
The distinction of tamas, rajas and sattwa wgich comes from being)
is also a bot present in the Antique at Plato wher the
human soul ha sthree parts:
A angry one: rajas

-----Original Message-----
From: deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org
[mailto:deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org]On Behalf Of Jussi
Karsikas
Sent: Freitag, 2. Juni 2006 10:44
To: deleuze-guattari at lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [D-G] Fwd: Re: --


Views from a long-time silent reader...

I think Deleuze specifically says that Spinoza's "doctrine" has
nothing to
do with the Plato/Leibniz..... (and yes, I for example don't agree with
the viewpoing that Spinoza is bound to the doctrines of the church!)

This is from Deleuze's book "Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza"
(translated by Martin Joughin, Zone Books, New York 1990), page
253-254:

"One may call "rationalist moralism" (optimism) a tradition that has
its sources in Plato, and its fullest development in the philosophy
of Leibniz; Evil is nothing because only Being is, or rather because
Being, superior to existence, determines all that is. The Good, or
the Better, *make things be*. Spinoza's position has nothing to do
with this tradition: it amounts to rationalist "amoralism". For
according
to Spinoza, Good has no more sense than Evil: in Nature there is
neither Good nor Evil. Spinoza constantly reminds us of this: "If men
were born free, they would form no concept of good and evil so long
as they remained free". The question of Spinoza's atheism is
singularly lacking in interest insofar as it depends on arbitrary
definitions
of theism and atheism. The question can only be posed in relation to
what most people call "God" from a religious viewpoint: a God, that
is to say, inseparable from *ratio boni*, proceeding by the moral law,
acting as a judge. Spinoza is clearly an atheist in this sense: the
moral
pseudo-law is simply the measure of our misunderstanding of natural
laws; the idea of rewards and punishments reflects only our ignorance
of the true relation between an act and its consequences; Good and
Evil are inadequate ideas, and we form conceptions of them only to
the extent that our ideas are inadequate. But because there is no
Good or Evil, this does not mean that all distinctions vanish. There is
no Good or Evil in Nature, but there are good and bad things for each
existing mode. The moral opposition of Good and Evil disappears, but
this disappearance does not make all things, or all beings, equal. As
Nietzsche puts it, " 'Beyond Good and Evil'... at least this does *not*
mean 'Beyond Good and Bad' ". There are increases in our power of
action, reductions in our power of action. The distinction between good
things and bad provides the basis for real ethical difference, which we
must substitute for a false moral opposition."


And as for the use-Fullness of Yoga I&I must say that there is a very
concrete pragmatical quality in it in the Sense of "calming down" the
body - a coming out of your mind Back To Your Senses.... blowing
out the mind to open OneSelf up to the sensoric-spacious awareness
of Existence and "it's" infinite modes.... and by this I mean that Yogic
exercises can have very concrete application WITHOUT "moral" or
"religious" baggage. For me this has meant of calming down the more
rajasic (as understood by Ayurveda for example) aspects of my
constantly running mind. Balancing the three Gunas (sattvic/rajasic/
tamasic)
if you Will.... *8)

This is from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guna):

"In Samkhya philosophy a Guna is one of three "tendencies" or "mental
states": tamas, sattva, and rajas. These categories have become a
common means of categorizing behavior and natural phenomena in Hindu
philosophy, and also in Ayurvedic medicine, as a system to assess
conditions and diets.

     * Sattva (originally "being, existence, entity") has been
translated to mean balance, order, or purity. This typically implies
that a person with this quality has a positive or even orderly state
of mind. Such a person is psychologically kind, calm, alert and
thoughtful. Compare also the bodhisattvas in Buddhism. Indologist
Georg Feuerstein translates sattva as "lucidity".

     * Rajas (originally "atmosphere, air, firmament") has been
translated to mean overactivity or turmoil: "too active". A person
with this mental state has a mind that is ever active, in turmoil, or
in a chaotic state. That person is constantly seeking diversions and
essentially has difficulty focusing their attention for long
durations of time. (Rajas is etymologically unrelated to the word
raja.) Feuerstein translates rajas as "dynamism".

     * Tamas (originally "darkness", "obscurity") has been translated
to mean "too inactive", negative, lethargic, dull, or slow. Usually
it is associated with darkness, delusion, or ignorance. A tamas
quality also can imply that a person has a self-destructive or
entropic state of mind. That person is constantly pursuing
destructive activities. Feuerstein translates tamas as "inertia".


On Jun 1, 2006, at 8:01 PM, hwenk wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> to be a little philosophic historical, the main difference between
> Spinoza and Leibniz is, that for Spinoza, the whole
> nature, the whole universe is ONE where for Leibniz the monads,
> the are also the individual souls as I's, don't have any contacr with
> one another "the monads are without windows".
> The contact betwee rthe monads is only made throgh god himself.
>
> Both Leibniz and Spinoza are bound tpo the doctrines
> of the curch or the mediaval methaphysics or theology.
> As you may have experienced for yourself very often, people with hifh
> interst in
> one issu, maybe religion or philosophy<, hat almost more another if
> they are relatively near than they hate people not interested at in
> the
> issue.
>
> There different philosophies or different religions fight very hard
> against
> one another.
>
> Being a little bit superficial, both, the catholic doctrine of
> (Duns Scotus
> for example) and Spinoza and Leibniz
> are refinements of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle and as such
> have a
> lot
> of common ground.

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