To discuss The Future of Difference, Jeffrey Bell (Southeastern Louisiana UNiversity), Todd May (Clemson University) and John Protevi (Louisiana State University) kindly accepted to present a number of difference-related issues so as to map possible directions for study of difference in the years to come. The Panel was chaired by Douglas Donkel (University of Portland).
Jeffrey A. Bell
“Charting the Road of Inquiry:Experimental Philosophy and Difference in Hume, Peirce, and Deleuze”
If Alain Badiou is correct, Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference never was, nor could it or should it have been, a successful philosophy of difference, a philosophy that thinks difference in itself without subordinating it to the identity of the One or the Multiple. If Badiou’s star is on the rise, as some are claiming today, then the future of philosophies of difference may be dim. This essay responds to Badiou’s criticisms by tracing Deleuze’s development of an experimental philosophy. Through an examination of Deleuze’s work on Hume, we shall argue, first, that Deleuze was already creating in this early work the methodological tools that would become, in his much later writings with Guattari, the conceptual apparatus that supports the methodologies that go by various names, including nomadology, schizoanalysis, and pragmatics. To clarify what we see as Deleuze and Guattari’s transcendental project, we will compare and contrast this project with that of Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce also created concepts that were integral to what he saw as the methodological needs of an experimental philosophy; moreover, some of these concepts would later play an important role in Deleuze’s writings on cinema, writings that were a major focus of Badiou’s critique. This comparison with Peirce, in conjunction with our earlier analyses, should enable us to set forth our second main point, that Deleuze’s philosophy of difference, precisely as an experimental philosophy, is both abstract enough and yet not too abstract to address concrete issues and concerns that are of contemporary relevance. If Deleuze’s philosophy of difference has a future then it will be because Deleuze was successful in providing the conceptual tools that enables one to think, contrary to Badiou’s reading, difference in itself.
Todd May
“Jacques Ranciere on Equality and Difference”
We often think of equality and difference as lying at opposite poles of the conceptual spectrum. Equality is a matter of sameness or identity, which seems to put it at odds with difference. In the political realm, equality becomes a matter of receiving equal shares of whatever social goods are being distributed, while difference is either a matter of promoting inequality or allowing for disparate forms of expression. Jacques Ranciere has offered another way to think about equality, however, one that aligns it more with difference than with sameness or identity. Rather than thinking of equality as lying at the end of a political process—a matter of what one receives—he puts it at the beginning. Politics begins with the presupposition of equality, in order to see where that may lead. There is an identity to the equality he presupposes, but it leads in the direction of difference. His presupposition is the equality of intelligence, meaning that each of us is capable of speaking to and understanding one another as well as putting together a meaningful life. This may sound like traditional liberalism; however, it is far from it. First, as a presupposition, it does not infer from equality to what each deserves to receive. Equality is not a call for recognition; it is a ground for action.Second, this ground for action creates a dissensus in the body politic. Whereas the given status quo (what Ranciere calls the “police” order) seeks to form a consensus in which people are allotted particular roles, politics subverts this consensus in the name of equality. In any police order, there are hierarchies. Politics destroys these hierarchies, introducing an irrecuperable difference into the smooth function of the police order. This difference, based on a presupposition of equality, is precisely what is needed in an increasingly globalized world. Rather than asking for equal treatment from corporate or government entities, the future of politics lies in the creation of dissensus through the assertion of equality.
John Protevi
"Katrina"
Hurricane Katrina was an elemental and a social event. To understand it, you first have to understand the land, the air, the sun, the river and the sea; you have to understand earth, wind, fire and water. You have to understand how they have come together in the past to form, with the peoples of America, Europe and Africa, the historical patterns of life of Louisiana and New Orleans. You have to understand what those social relations could do and what they could withstand, and how they intersected the event of the storm.
