Fifteenth Series of Singularities

 In this series Deleuze sets forth his transcendental field of impersonal, pre-individual singularities, the basis of how things come into existence. Singularities, events and sense appear synonymous terms. Singularities correspond to the heterogenous series which form systems. Potential energy is the energy of the pure event whereas forms of actualization correspond to the realization of the event. Sense haunts the surface. Compares his transcendental field to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Fourth Person Singular which comes from his poem To the Oracle at Delphi thus alluding to the magical nature of this field.

Deleuze also compares his transcendental field to Nietzsche's Dionysian will to power, power in the sense of the ability to act/create, not political power. Nietzsche made the groundless speak.

Uses the battle as an example of an Event comprised of many smaller events, it's impassability or neutrality. The example of a soldier on the edge of death losing all identity and becoming part of the pure Event. The two moments of sense, impassibility and genesis, or neutrality and productivity.

Ferlinghetti reading To the Oracle at Delphi

Ninth Series of the Problematic

 What is the ideal event? Different kinds of singularities. Singularities as inflection or turning points as demonstrated in the structure of The Logic of Sense. Events as singularities. "Events are ideal." Reversing Platonism by substituting events for essences. The problematic is the mode of the event. Requires a new relationship between mathematics and humans. Lewis Carroll's recreational mathematics.

A Tangled Tale downloadable .pdf

The Dynamics of a Parti-cle . Lewis Carroll LSD quote. Events relate with each other in series in The Event. The paradoxical element as the locus of a question. Difference of problem and question and how they relate to each other. Example of James Joyce grounding the Problematic with the Inquisitory. "The question is developed in problems, and the problems are enveloped in a fundamental question."

Eight Series of Structure

Describes the structure of how sense gets produced as well as providing a clue to the structure of the book. Defines structuralism according to Claude Levi-Strauss: the dual series of signifier and signified and the paradoxical element - the empty place - that circulates between the two series allowing them to communicate. Looks at the dual series of language/knowledge, society/primitivism, political & economic totalities/technical progress, totalitarianism/reformism. Defines the terms of a series as singularities. Defines experiential structure as that which enables you to get from where you are to where you want to be.

The wikipedia article on Claude Levi-Strauss gives some background and context to Deleuze's remarks and quotes from him.

Seventh Series of Esoteric Words

This chapter from Logic of Sense by Gilles Deleuze categorizes different dualities of series using examples from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll. Looks at esoteric words that make connections or runs through between series. The word snark from Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark represents the blank word that circulates between the series of consumptions (bodies) and the series of propositions, or the series of denotations and expressions. Examines portmanteau words and their relationship with the disjunctive synthesis. References Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

Sixth Series of Serialization

In this series Deleuze begins to look at the serial form which is necessarily realized in the simultaneity of at least two series often called signifier and signified. These two kinds of series stay in disequilibrium in regard to each other. The signifier has a value of excess, Delueze calls an extremely mobile empty place, the signified one of lack he calls a rapidly moving occupant without a place. A paradoxical or strange object ensures the relative displacement of the two series. Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter" provides an illustration of two series within the story. The letter itself serves as the paradoxical element in both series.

   

The constant movement and motion described in these definitions and the relation/communication between signifier and signified can be visually exemplified by watching an action painter in action. Here is a video showing Ed Harris playing Jackson Pollock, the most well-known action painter. The painter's actions = the signifier series; the art on the canvas = the signified; the paint = the paradoxical element that allows the two to communicate. The action painting occurs from 1:20 - 5:15  in the video. The narration, particularly towards the end of this clip, also helps illustrate the signifier/signified comparison.

James Joyce gets his first real look in this chapter. A description of the methods in Ulysses and my comparison of it with Qabalah. Deleuze mentions a letter in Finnegans Wake that serves as a paradoxical element going between the chaos/cosmos series without clarifying where or how. I connect it with a passage on page 66 of Finnegans Wake. This blog by Peter Quadrino linked here explains further.

Fifth Series of Sense

The Fifth Series of Sense discusses the paradoxes within sense: 1. the paradox of regress; 2. the paradox of sterile division or dry reiteration; 3. the paradox of neutrality , or of essences 3rd estate; 4. the paradox of the absurd, or of impossible objects. The examples Deleuze uses suggest a subtextual alternative narrative.

The guide book mentioned is Logic of Sense - A Critical Introduction and Guide by James Williams. It is available here.

 

Fourth Series of Dualities

 This series begins with the duality between cause and effect. It shifts to the duality between things and language before moving inside the proposition to look at the duality of two dimensions of the proposition, denotation and sense. Humpty Dumpty makes a cameo appearance as master of language.