Wednesday 25 November 2009

Death

In the Anti-Oedpius [p.363, in fact] D&G insist in what I take to be a deliberately anti-Heideggerian manner that 'death ... does actually happen.' Which is to say, it is more than just a being-towards; it's an actual intensity. But I don't know if this is a purely anti-Oedipean perspective. Do they still think death 'really happens' in 1000 Plateaus? I'd hesitantly suggest not (not because 1000 Plateaus is Heideggerian, of course; but because the 'assemblages' trope is less actual in its antifreudian stress). But what do I know?

Interesting quotation from Blanchot, though:
Maurice Blanchot distinguishes this twofold nature clearly, these two irreducible aspects of death; the one, according to which the apparent subject never ceases to live and travel as a One -- "one never stops and never has done with dying"; and the other, according to which this same subject, fixed as I, actually dies -- which is to say it finally ceases to die since it end up dying, in the reality of a last instant that fixes it in this way as an I, all the while undoing the intensity, carrying it back to the zero that envelops it.'
Heidegger would want to say the former is determined by the latter. But isn't Freud also saying this? We don't confuse his 'death drive' with actual death, after all.

2 comments:

Pokagon Member said...

I enjoyed reading your blog, a lot of depth you have to be a philosopher.

Adam Roberts Project said...

I have to? Oh very well, if I must.