Ryan Johnson
Elon University, Philosophy Department, Faculty Member
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche, and 19 moreKant, Jacques Derrida, Baruch Spinoza, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, History of Philosophy, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Hegel, Salomon Maimon, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Descartes, René, Religion, and Gemma Corradi Fiumaraedit
Biko Mandela Gray & ryan J. Johnson Biko Mandela Gray & ryan J. Johnson 'Thinking about Blackness historically-as a manifestation of the deliberate self-conscious efforts of Black people-is not only a worthwhile project but a necessary... more
Biko Mandela Gray & ryan J. Johnson Biko Mandela Gray & ryan J. Johnson 'Thinking about Blackness historically-as a manifestation of the deliberate self-conscious efforts of Black people-is not only a worthwhile project but a necessary philosophical and conceptual grounding of Black theory and thought. Phenomenology of Black Spirit is a commendable effort towards establishing a groundwork for the study of Black Spirit as a revelation of time and civilisation.' Tommy J. Curry, University of Edinburgh
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Deleuze, A Stoic shows Deleuze’s engagement with Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas, reveals a lasting influence on Gilles Deleuze by mapping his provocative reading of ancient Stoicism, unearths new... more
Deleuze, A Stoic shows Deleuze’s engagement with Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas, reveals a lasting influence on Gilles Deleuze by mapping his provocative reading of ancient Stoicism, unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary philosophy and classics by engaging a vital yet recently rising area of scholarship: continental philosophy’s relationship to ancient philosophy, and introduces the untranslated Stoic scholarship published by pre- and post-Deleuzian French philosophers of antiquity to the English-reading world. Deleuze dramatises the story of ancient philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged place because they introduced a new orientation for thinking and living that turns the whole story of philosophy inside out.
Review: “Johnson has produced a profound and erudite study of the stoic roots of Deleuze’s philosophy. This work is of vital importance for those interested in Deleuze, the continuing relevance of the stoic tradition, and, more fundamentally, the ethics of materialism.” – Dr. Henry Somers-Hall, Royal Holloway, University of London
The Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter explores how Deleuze’s thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism – a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy. More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze’s encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.
Review:” Readers will be surprised and charmed at the parallels Ryan Johnson finds between Deleuze and Lucretius. The lines he draws from Ancient atomist ideas about relations, movements, and speeds, through to Deleuzian materialism are exciting and convincing. The book is packed with interesting ideas and twists and is exacting in its scholarship. On top of that, it is beautifully written.” – Jay Lampert, Duquesne University
Review: “Johnson has produced a profound and erudite study of the stoic roots of Deleuze’s philosophy. This work is of vital importance for those interested in Deleuze, the continuing relevance of the stoic tradition, and, more fundamentally, the ethics of materialism.” – Dr. Henry Somers-Hall, Royal Holloway, University of London
The Deleuze-Lucretius Encounter explores how Deleuze’s thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism – a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy. More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze’s encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.
Review:” Readers will be surprised and charmed at the parallels Ryan Johnson finds between Deleuze and Lucretius. The lines he draws from Ancient atomist ideas about relations, movements, and speeds, through to Deleuzian materialism are exciting and convincing. The book is packed with interesting ideas and twists and is exacting in its scholarship. On top of that, it is beautifully written.” – Jay Lampert, Duquesne University
18 essays breathe new life into the classic problems of ancient metaphysics using contemporary continental materialisms and realisms In this volume, leading philosophers address the varied, volatile and novel encounters between... more
18 essays breathe new life into the classic problems of ancient metaphysics using contemporary continental materialisms and realisms
In this volume, leading philosophers address the varied, volatile and novel encounters between contemporary and antique thought. They reconceive and redeploy the problems of ancient metaphysics: one and the many, the potential and the actual, the material and immaterial, the divine and the world itself. Alongside these essays are three original and previously unpublished translations of texts by Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Aubenque and Barbara Cassin.
Key Features
15 original essays and three previously untranslated articles on topics of ancient physics and metaphysics by some of the leading contemporary philosophers and scholars
Provides a space for the burgeoning continental materialist, realist and metaphysical readings of ancient philosophical problems and texts
In this volume, leading philosophers address the varied, volatile and novel encounters between contemporary and antique thought. They reconceive and redeploy the problems of ancient metaphysics: one and the many, the potential and the actual, the material and immaterial, the divine and the world itself. Alongside these essays are three original and previously unpublished translations of texts by Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Aubenque and Barbara Cassin.
Key Features
15 original essays and three previously untranslated articles on topics of ancient physics and metaphysics by some of the leading contemporary philosophers and scholars
Provides a space for the burgeoning continental materialist, realist and metaphysical readings of ancient philosophical problems and texts
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Explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism – a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of... more
Explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism – a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy
More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze’s encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.
More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze’s encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.
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This collection explores the recent turn to theology in the Continental Tradition resulting from the critique of presence, and the corresponding need to engage with nothingness. The world emerges from out of nothing, from out of that... more
This collection explores the recent turn to theology in the Continental Tradition resulting from the critique of presence, and the corresponding need to engage with nothingness. The world emerges from out of nothing, from out of that which is not (at least, is not yet). Nothingness, in other words, is transformative. Eleven scholars here examine the ways that the emptiness of experience can claim our trust. From thoughtful engagement with the principle texts of diverse theological, philosophical and literary traditions to deeply skeptical accounts of the manipulation of our anxieties, these authors chronicle a new understanding of the movement of nothingness. By insisting on the ultimate framelessness of the question, while moving across numerous fields to stake the argument, the work shows why that tradition of thinking remains relevant for our increasingly technological world. The collection includes never before published work and one never before translated piece.
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This chapter turns to the thorny issues of thought, consciousness, and human subjectivity. As naturalists, Lucretius and Deleuze do not assume the existence of a subject, but instead attempt to account for the ways in which the subject... more
This chapter turns to the thorny issues of thought, consciousness, and human subjectivity. As naturalists, Lucretius and Deleuze do not assume the existence of a subject, but instead attempt to account for the ways in which the subject itself emerges out of the natural world. The task of this chapter is to show how Lucretian atomism and Deleuze account for the production of a thinking and conscious being (a subject) through the violent encounter with simulacra and what Deleuze calls ‘the being of the sensible’. The production of thought and knowledge is hence another instance of actualisation, like all things — albeit this time the result is thinking.
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Part I is about Stoic physics and metaphysics, especially insofar as it is considered a perverse materialism. Perversion is a technical term, which concerns the way in which Stoicism turns inside out their predecessors distribution of... more
Part I is about Stoic physics and metaphysics, especially insofar as it is considered a perverse materialism. Perversion is a technical term, which concerns the way in which Stoicism turns inside out their predecessors distribution of concepts. “The Yolk A” situates this perversion by explaining how “something,” τι, as the broadest metaphysical category for the Stoics. As we will see, “something” divides into two basic types: corporeals and incorporeals. This distinction is a perverse response to a distinction from Plato’s Sophist that is intended to distinguish the two sides of the Stoic incorporeal surface. We then consider the nuanced meaning of the incorporeals’ metaphysical modality – subsistence – before situating all of Stoic metaphysics as the first self-consciously articulated system,σύστημα. Deleuze’s main contribution here is to articulate the difference between the two sides of the strange Stoic surface as composed of an extensive face and an intensive face, with integra...
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Research Interests: Ancient History and Art
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This chapter shows how both of the ontological accounts discussed previously produce a physics of emergence and individuation. It argues that the processes of individuation that emerge from them are ways of solving such problems. What... more
This chapter shows how both of the ontological accounts discussed previously produce a physics of emergence and individuation. It argues that the processes of individuation that emerge from them are ways of solving such problems. What emerges is not simply more atoms but the unlimited varieties of colours, sights, sounds, and so on characterising our world. Filling in a lacuna in Lucretius' text with Deleuze's formulation of the process of genetic conditioning, the chapter reveals that the problematic status of the atomic and Deleuzean idea is simultaneously transcendent and immanent: the solution never completely resolves the problem, such that the problem is transcendent to the solution; and yet the very insolvability of the problem holds because the problem insists in the given solution.
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This chapter turns to atomic metaphysics as it appears in Lucretius' De rerum natura, using Deleuze's ontology as a way to construe Lucretian atomism as a formulation of the atomic idea. The central focus of this chapter is how... more
This chapter turns to atomic metaphysics as it appears in Lucretius' De rerum natura, using Deleuze's ontology as a way to construe Lucretian atomism as a formulation of the atomic idea. The central focus of this chapter is how the thinking of atoms and void influences Deleuze's thinking of ontological genesis. Rather than differential elements, differential relations and singularities composing the Deleuzean idea, this chapter shows that the three parts of atomic idea are atomic elements, atomic relations, and the clinamen. To make the atomic idea as vivid as possible, the chapter concludes by turning to the famous analogy between atoms and letters in order to develop an extended atomic grammar.
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This chapter develops an Epicurean-Deleuzean ethics as the articulation of the practice of an immanent naturalism that links ancient atomism to Deleuze by means of a ‘great tradition’ in ethics, following ‘a secret link between Lucretius,... more
This chapter develops an Epicurean-Deleuzean ethics as the articulation of the practice of an immanent naturalism that links ancient atomism to Deleuze by means of a ‘great tradition’ in ethics, following ‘a secret link between Lucretius, Hume, Spinoza, and Nietzsche’. Using Deleuze's formulation of the Nietzschean method of symptomatology, the chapter returns to the concept of the atomic idea. Lucretian atomism, for Deleuze, takes nature to be the object shared by both a speculative and a practical philosophy, and so is a fully affirmative naturalism in both thought and act. Deleuzean-atomic ethics is then an immanent theory that links up directly with the problems or ideas that have been seen, in previous chapters, to operate in metaphysics, physics, and epistemology or sensation. In this way, Deleuze's atomism is a thoroughgoing and affirmative naturalism.
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We then use the results from the previous chapters in order to construct a Handbook of Paradoxes. Logical handbooks have a long tradition in Stoicism, and we consider this history in the “The Shell C” in order to add to that tradition.... more
We then use the results from the previous chapters in order to construct a Handbook of Paradoxes. Logical handbooks have a long tradition in Stoicism, and we consider this history in the “The Shell C” in order to add to that tradition. The goal of these handbooks is not simply to improve skills in formal reasoning but to train students to create cosmological concepts for living. Following this aim of this tradition, this chapter offers a Handbook of Paradoxes, which consists of instructions for practicing four acts: Infinite Act, Singular Act, Disjunctive Act, and Problematic Act. These four acts correspond to the four paradoxes from the four classes from the Transcendental Logic of Incorporeals from “The Yellow B”: (1) infinite, (2) singular, (3) disjunctive, and (4) problematic. We finish with Deleuze noticing a profound link between Stoic logic and ethics. Constructing our Handbook of Paradoxes expresses this profound link, thus preparing us for Part III.
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We consider the importance of paradoxes in Stoic logic insofar as they pervert good and common sense through forms of absurdity. To proceed, we recall how the Stoics developed a new logic, one most scholars did not consider viable logic... more
We consider the importance of paradoxes in Stoic logic insofar as they pervert good and common sense through forms of absurdity. To proceed, we recall how the Stoics developed a new logic, one most scholars did not consider viable logic until the nineteenth-century: propositional logic. Their propositional logic contrasts with Aristotle’s categorical logic. For Deleuze, the Stoics are most original in their art of paradoxes. Paradoxes are absurd, and there are three dimensions of absurdity, corresponding to the three dimensions of the circle of the proposition: denotated, manifest, and signifying absurdity. Paradoxes are important for materialists because they account for the genesis of language and logic. We then consider four Stoic paradoxes: Heap, Liar, Master, and Nobody. Each expresses ambiguity, a double-sided surface that turns on what Deleuze’s “the aleatory point.” Corresponding to the distinction from “The Yolk B,” between the formal (now propositional) logic of bodies on ...
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Greenstine and Johnson, the contributing editors of the volume, set the scene for the collection with the ancient tales of Thales, Heraclitus, Pyrrho, and Lucretius. These four tales convey the force of metaphysical thinking, a force that... more
Greenstine and Johnson, the contributing editors of the volume, set the scene for the collection with the ancient tales of Thales, Heraclitus, Pyrrho, and Lucretius. These four tales convey the force of metaphysical thinking, a force that overwhelms everyday life. The raw thought, pensée brute, of pure metaphysics is the shared site of the volume’s eighteen contemporary encounters with ancient metaphysics. After framing the work within continental philosophy, the essay concludes with a survey of the contents of each essay.
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Part II turns to Stoic logic and philosophy of language. “The Shell A” begins with the history and etymology λεκτα, roughly corresponding to Deleuze’s “sense [sens].” With λεκτα, the Stoics create a theory of immanent attributes that... more
Part II turns to Stoic logic and philosophy of language. “The Shell A” begins with the history and etymology λεκτα, roughly corresponding to Deleuze’s “sense [sens].” With λεκτα, the Stoics create a theory of immanent attributes that contrasts with Platonic transcendent predicates. The theory of λεκτα allows the Stoics to consider the genesis of linguistic meaning out of meaningless matter, which Deleuze calls “a final task” of all materialist philosophies. Since the Stoic account is incomplete, Deleuze completes this final task. We offer a system of confusing Deleuzian concepts from his philosophy of language: primary order, secondary organization, and tertiary ordinance, as well as the three dimensions of the circle of the proposition of the (denotation, manifestation, and signification). Linguistic meaning, we show, is generated out of meaningless matter through two geneses: dynamic and static. After comparing elements of Epicurean and Stoic philosophies of language, we conclude ...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Etymology
In the last chapter we take up Deleuze’s enticing suggestion that there are actually two eternal returns, which correspond to two methods of interpretation, two moral attitudes, and two ethical tasks we detailed in “Albumen B.” Though... more
In the last chapter we take up Deleuze’s enticing suggestion that there are actually two eternal returns, which correspond to two methods of interpretation, two moral attitudes, and two ethical tasks we detailed in “Albumen B.” Though Deleuze makes this suggestion, he does not explain how it works. So, we offer just such an explanation. This is yet another example of the underlying systematicity that is only uncovered through the Deleuze-Stoic encounter. After giving a short history of the Stoic doctrine of the cosmic conflagration, we address Nietzsche’s seemingly disingenuous claims of being the originator of eternal recurrence through two short stories by Jorge Luis Borges “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” and “Death and the Compass.” These stories articulate the difference between the two eternal returns: the cyclical return of chronos and the return as the straight line of aion. These two forms of the eternal return express the paradox of action that combines the ethical i...
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Give time’s double-sided structure, we then consider implications of this theory on the status of an ethical act. To do this, we consider the “event of death,” specifically the suicides of Seneca and Deleuze. We then take up Deleuze’s... more
Give time’s double-sided structure, we then consider implications of this theory on the status of an ethical act. To do this, we consider the “event of death,” specifically the suicides of Seneca and Deleuze. We then take up Deleuze’s seemingly mysterious suggestion that chronos and aion correspond to two methods of interpretation (divination and usage of representations), two moral attitudes (cosmic and singular perspectives) and two ethical tasks (actualization and counter-actualization). All these pairs align. We concretize everything through the figure of the Stoic sage, and Deleuze’s favorite example of the Stoic sage is the wounded surrealist poet Joe Bousquet. Through the “Bousquet proposition,” which concerns the fated nature of the poet’s wartime wound, we find that the act and the event form the same paradoxical object, viewed either from one side (the act), or the other (the event), and counter-actualization is the evental task that corresponds to the act. We end by twist...
We conclude Part I by returning to our heterodoxical claim: there are three, not four, incorporeals. In Stoic physics, this argument collapses the canonical incorporeals – place and void – into one – space. We offer three reasons and... more
We conclude Part I by returning to our heterodoxical claim: there are three, not four, incorporeals. In Stoic physics, this argument collapses the canonical incorporeals – place and void – into one – space. We offer three reasons and three advantages for this. To articulate space, we consider the meanings of interrelated terms (whole, all, infinite divisibility) before considering Stoic definitions of place and void, in contrast to Aristotelian account. Contrary to most ancient thought, the Stoics isolated a single notion of space. This is why space is the single incorporeal surface composed of two sides: place and void. Place and void are different ways of considering space: place is the extensive side facing bodies (the cosmos or organized bodies) and void the intensive side facing away from bodies (the chaosmos or disorganized matter). We finish by showing that the same double-sided structure of the incorporeal surface, which appears as space (with an extensive side and an intens...
Imagine we are students in a school of philosophy in late antiquity. We are learning about ancient Stoic philosophy and it is the beginning of the course. The first thing that the master would teach us is a now-forgotten genre of... more
Imagine we are students in a school of philosophy in late antiquity. We are learning about ancient Stoic philosophy and it is the beginning of the course. The first thing that the master would teach us is a now-forgotten genre of philosophical writing called ‘What Comes before the Study of …’ (...
Part III closes our book with an account of Stoic ethics. “Albumen A” considers the third and final incorporeal: time. First we contrast Stoic time with time in Plato in Aristotle, delving into the fine grain details among them. We find... more
Part III closes our book with an account of Stoic ethics. “Albumen A” considers the third and final incorporeal: time. First we contrast Stoic time with time in Plato in Aristotle, delving into the fine grain details among them. We find that the Stoics see time as a single double-sided incorporeal surface. Following Victor Goldschmidt’s terminology, we identify what Deleuze calls aion and chronos as the two sides of one surface. While some scholars are confused by what seems like two theories of time in Stoic writings, the Deleuze-Stoic encounter shows that aion and chronos are the sides of a single incorporeal: time. We distinguish chronos and aion through their different senses of the present – the chronological “now” and the aionic “instant” – before considering the twisted genealogies of chronos and aion, and then articulating how time also has that same strange double-sided structured: chronos is the extensive side of facing limited and determinate bodies, and aion is the exten...
As we began our book with the Four Ancient Philosophical Orientations, we now conclude with Five Forms of Ancient Philosophical Comedy. We add a fifth form because we speak of comedy, and we cannot speak of ancient comedy without... more
As we began our book with the Four Ancient Philosophical Orientations, we now conclude with Five Forms of Ancient Philosophical Comedy. We add a fifth form because we speak of comedy, and we cannot speak of ancient comedy without including Diogenes the Cynic. Echoing the end of ‘Albumen C’, this marks a different kind of crack-up, the cracking up of laughter. Comedy reveals a unique dimension of Stoicism....
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Having explained the basics of Stoic physics, we then focus directly on their concept of incorporeality, with a special emphasis on distinguishing corporeals as bodily causes from incorporeals as both effects and quasi-causes. Since the... more
Having explained the basics of Stoic physics, we then focus directly on their concept of incorporeality, with a special emphasis on distinguishing corporeals as bodily causes from incorporeals as both effects and quasi-causes. Since the concept of a “quasi-cause” is so confusing and elusive to Deleuze scholars, we trace it back further than anyone ever has, to its first appearance it the writings of Clement of Alexandria and even further still through a conceptually surprising etymological reverie. We then consider how this quasi-cause operates as what Deleuze calls “static genesis,” which contrasts with corporeal dynamic genesis, and thus reveals a kind of double causality. To understand this double causality we uncover in Logic of Sense a unsaid twist on Immanuel Kant’s “Table of Judgments,” a twist that allows us to develop two metaphysical logics: a formal logic of bodies that corresponds to one side of the incorporeal surface, and a transcendental logic of incorporeals that cor...
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Deleuze dramatises the story of ancient philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged... more
Deleuze dramatises the story of ancient philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged place because they introduced a new orientation for thinking and living that turns the whole story of philosophy inside out. This book reveals Deleuze’s provocative reading of ancient Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas. For Deleuze, the Stoics were innovators of an entire system of philosophy which they structured like an egg. Johnson structures his book in this way: Part I looks at physics (the yolk), Part II is logic (the shell) and Part III covers ethics (the albumen). Including previously untranslated French Stoic scholarship, Johnson unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary and ancient philosophy.
Abstract: Kant’s Critique of Judgment is a storehouse full of provocative concepts and structures, which is why, since at least the 1970’s, many contemporary Kant scholars and philosophers of other sorts have attempted to mine and... more
Abstract: Kant’s Critique of Judgment is a storehouse full of provocative concepts and structures, which is why, since at least the 1970’s, many contemporary Kant scholars and philosophers of other sorts have attempted to mine and explicate this text to varying degrees of success. Among these concepts and structures, there are a few that continue to evade complete elucidation. One of the most well tread, albeit still contested, grounds that appears in the third Critique is “purposiveness without purpose. ” Picking up from some recent interpretations of Kantian aesthetics, I contend that it is possible to discover at least three forms of purposiveness without purpose in aesthetic judgments. A second concept, the sensus communis, I will contend, is as important as the three sites of purposiveness without purpose. In fact, I will show how the sensus communis, in its ternary form, can be mapped onto the three sites of purposiveness without purpose; the two concepts cannot be separated. ...
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Ryan J. Johnson’s “On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter” investigates Deleuze’s reworking of Stoic ontology and the theory of incorporeals. Contrary to the traditional interpretation, Johnson argues that there are three, not... more
Ryan J. Johnson’s “On the Surface: The Deleuze-Stoicism Encounter” investigates Deleuze’s reworking of Stoic ontology and the theory of incorporeals. Contrary to the traditional interpretation, Johnson argues that there are three, not four, primary incorporeals: space, λεκτόν, and time. Deploying Deleuze’s thinking of the intensive-extensive ontological distinction, Johnson shows that each of the three incorporeals are paradoxically structured by the slight Stoic surface-without-thickness separating and connecting their respective extensive and intensive dimensions (place/void, verb/noun, Aion/Chronos). It is through this strange ontology of the incorporeals that the Stoics become the initiators of a new image of philosophy that generates a lineage of thought leading, eventually, to Deleuze himself.
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This paper transforms elements of Hegel’s thought into antiracism through the work of James Baldwin in three Acts. Act One offers a Hegelian Account of Honesty that is structurally inspired by “conscience” from his Phenomenology of... more
This paper transforms elements of Hegel’s thought into antiracism through the work of James Baldwin in three Acts. Act One offers a Hegelian Account of Honesty that is structurally inspired by “conscience” from his Phenomenology of Spirit. Honesty has two, seemingly paradoxical, dimensions. To address the unacknowledged whiteness in Hegel, we turn to Baldwin in Act Two. Baldwin deepens and problematizes Hegelian Honesty through a conceptual diagnosis of “double misrecognition”: the first is the misrecognition of Blackness as inferior, the second is the misrecognition of whiteness as superior. Act Three articulates how the structure of whiteness forecloses Schuld and shame by connecting this dual foreclosure to the two dimensions of Hegelian honesty and Baldwin’s diagnosis of double misrecognition. We conclude by formulating a sketch of “antiracist idealism” as version of what the Germans call Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, that is, doing the hard, uncomfortable labor of comprehending h...
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This chapter begins with Deleuze's theory of immanent problems or ideas. Examining the ways in which the two main theorists of ideas — Plato and Kant — shape Deleuze's own theory, this chapter shows that ideas are the problems of... more
This chapter begins with Deleuze's theory of immanent problems or ideas. Examining the ways in which the two main theorists of ideas — Plato and Kant — shape Deleuze's own theory, this chapter shows that ideas are the problems of the world, and the various actualised individuals we experience are the divergent solutions to these problems. The Deleuzean idea, as for Plato and Kant, is characterised by three dimensions, which are called the ‘three-part problem-structure of ideas’: firstly, the undetermined elements are, secondly, reciprocally determinable through differential relations, which are organised by, thirdly, the determination of singularities. Unlike the idea in Plato or Kant, though, an idea for Deleuze is not a transcendent unified identity but is instead a truly generative and immanent ontological structure.
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This concluding chapter returns to the St Jerome story of the love potion before addressing some lingering issues on the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter thus presented. It considers what is meant with the claim that Lucretian atomism produced... more
This concluding chapter returns to the St Jerome story of the love potion before addressing some lingering issues on the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter thus presented. It considers what is meant with the claim that Lucretian atomism produced portions of Deleuzeanism, returning once again to the term used to characterise this relationship — ‘encounter’. From here, the chapter considers yet another question: what is an encounter for Deleuze and why is it so important to this story of his philosophical relationship with Lucretius? After exploring this issue further, the chapter concludes the story of the encounter with a final observation on why Deleuze's theory of immanent ideas was selected for discussion in this volume.
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This book explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism — a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy. More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Gilles Deleuze considers himself an apprentice... more
This book explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism — a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy. More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Gilles Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze's encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a significant gap in Deleuze Studies, this book tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism.
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Research Interests: Metaphysics, Ontology, Hellenistic Philosophy, Aristotle, Continental Philosophy, and 15 moreGilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, Giorgio Agamben, Materialism, Catherine Malabou, Alain Badiou, Ancient Philosophy, Hellenism, Graham Harman, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, New Materialism, Berhard Steigler, Antique, Barbara Cassin, and Edinburgh University
"We will attempt to address a single question: how does Anti-Climacus, Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonym in Practice in Christianity, use indirect communication? Nominally, indirect communication is opposed to direct communication, the... more
"We will attempt to address a single question: how does Anti-Climacus, Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonym in Practice in Christianity, use indirect communication? Nominally, indirect communication is opposed to direct communication, the negation of direction communication, and Kierkegaard himself says this in the text. It is thus useful to first address direct communication and then, by via negativa, to return to Anti-Climacus’ particular use of indirect communication. The vehicle for this examination will be another famous Dane: Hamlet, Prince of Darkness. In particular, we will focus on the role that double reflection plays in the complicated trajectory of the errant ship in that famous Shakespearian drama."
Research Interests:
This paper argues that Dante’s conception of Lucifer helps illuminate Kierkegaard’s understanding of the dialectic of despair. In Sickness Unto Death , Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus sets out what could be called a scalar gradation... more
This paper argues that Dante’s conception of Lucifer helps illuminate Kierkegaard’s understanding of the dialectic of despair. In Sickness Unto Death , Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus sets out what could be called a scalar gradation of forms of despair. In order to scale this gradation, it is necessary to start at the bottom rung, and quickly climb up to the demonic. We then examine one possible meaning of demonic despair and raise a question: why does Anti-Climacus consider demonic despair one of the highest forms of despair? This question is difficult to answer, and it requires some assistance from literature. In order to make some sense of his use of the demonic, we will turn to Dante’s depiction of the fallen angel Lucifer in his Inferno . Working up from the bottom rung, we find ourselves, perhaps paradoxically, in the lowest ring of hell, the ninth ring.
Research Interests: Philosophy and Dialectic
In reaction to a particularly scathing review of his Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard postulated what he called a ‘preacher-machine.’ As we will see, the preacher-machine is only one type of character-machine, for, in Practice in... more
In reaction to a particularly scathing review of his Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard postulated what he called a ‘preacher-machine.’ As we will see, the preacher-machine is only one type of character-machine, for, in Practice in Christianity, there are five other such machines. Starting up these character-machines will allow for an analysis of the repulsion of the God-man, Christ himself. This repulsion is important because Kierkegaard claims that it is the condition for the emergence of faith. After discussing repulsion, Kierkegaard will locate a singular mistake of Christendom, which will allow him to offer his remedy to this problem. In doing so, I will claim, Kierkegaard makes a particularly forceful claim about the true status of Christianity. We begin by attempting an articulation of a definition of monstrosity before setting the scene of these six machines.
Research Interests: Religion, Philosophy, Depression, Suicide, Kierkegaard, and 5 moreMonstrosity, Loneliness, Ostracism, Despair, and Demoralization
While many of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have employed the concept of the simulacrum in one way or another, a detailed study of this usage has yet to be written. In this essay, I will attempt to tell the story... more
While many of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have employed the concept of the simulacrum in one way or another, a detailed study of this usage has yet to be written. In this essay, I will attempt to tell the story of a sequence in that history of that usage, by focusing on one of Deleuze's case studies of the concept of the simulacrum. To do so, I will focus primarily on one the appendices to The Logic of Sense: ‘Lucretius and the Simulacrum’. In order to understand what I will call the Deleuze–Lucretius encounter, I will proceed as follows. After a few initial guiding remarks regarding the general project of the ‘inversion of Platonism’, we will outline some of the most fundamental features of atomistic physics. This will allow us to discuss Lucretius’ thoughts on the clinamen, the swerve. This, in turn, leads directly to the concept of the simulacrum. With such a picture of Lucretian physics in hand, I will pivot to a discussion of Lucretius’ ethics. T...
Research Interests: Philosophy, Ethics, Plato, Gilles Deleuze, Lucretius, and 4 moreEpicureanism, Atomism, Deleuze Studies, and Simulacrum
This collection explores the recent turn to theology in the Continental Tradition resulting from the critique of presence, and the corresponding need to engage with nothingness. The world emerges from out of nothing, from out of that... more
This collection explores the recent turn to theology in the Continental Tradition resulting from the critique of presence, and the corresponding need to engage with nothingness. The world emerges from out of nothing, from out of that which is not (at least, is not yet). Nothingness, in other words, is transformative. Eleven scholars here examine the ways that the emptiness of experience can claim our trust. From thoughtful engagement with the principle texts of diverse theological, philosophical and literary traditions to deeply skeptical accounts of the manipulation of our anxieties, these authors chronicle a new understanding of the movement of nothingness. By insisting on the ultimate framelessness of the question, while moving across numerous fields to stake the argument, the work shows why that tradition of thinking remains relevant for our increasingly technological world. The collection includes never before published work and one never before translated piece.
Research Interests:
While many of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have employed the concept of the simulacrum in one way or another, a detailed study of this usage has yet to be written. In this essay, I will attempt to tell the story... more
While many of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have employed the concept of the simulacrum in one way or another, a detailed study of this usage has yet to be written. In this essay, I will attempt to tell the story of a sequence in that history of that usage, by focusing on one of Deleuze's case studies of the concept of the simulacrum. To do so, I will focus primarily on one the appendices to The Logic of Sense: ‘Lucretius and the Simulacrum’. In order to understand what I will call the Deleuze–Lucretius encounter, I will proceed as follows. After a few initial guiding remarks regarding the general project of the ‘inversion of Platonism’, we will outline some of the most fundamental features of atomistic physics. This will allow us to discuss Lucretius’ thoughts on the clinamen, the swerve. This, in turn, leads directly to the concept of the simulacrum. With such a picture of Lucretian physics in hand, I will pivot to a discussion of Lucretius’ ethics. ...