Re: D and phenomenology

Two Places one might look for Deleuze (and Guattari's) 'beef' with
phenomenology are 1) Ch.3 of Difference and Repetition with its extended
critique of Husserl and 2) What is Philosophy? where pheneomenology is
labelled as the philosophy of communication, or as Iain Mackenzie puts it
in his recent essay in 'Radical Philosophy', "intersubjective idealism". In
fact this paper is a good critical source which positions Deleuze and
Guattari as very clearly anti-idealist which they achieve by means of their
particular brand of constructivism.

Also, as John reminds us, D & G's persistent contentions that questions
primarily concerned with meaning are misdirected and non-productive, must
be anti-hermeneutics, or at least proposes a reconceptualization of
hermeneutics which asks different kinds of questions, such as those which
prioritize function or use.

Connected to this issue I think is the problem of standards of judgement.
Idealists, phenomenologists, might criticize D & G for failing to provide a
mechanism of judgement once all transcendental principles have been
disallowed. I think that the answer that Deleuze gives to this criticism in
the essay on the 'dispositif' is a pretty weak one. But this is, perhaps,
another matter...


Steve Arnott	
PhD Candidate
Department of Philosophy
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
AUSTRALIA
sarnott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx