I was going to write on something else, what I have to say about Gabriel Tarde and Guy Debord, and to get the recaps on the ADDA 2 conference done, sooner than later, but then I got some bad news. Well, not really bad news. I didn\u2019t mind, really. Happens. It actually led me to read something that I wanted to comment on, so I\u2019ll do that here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, as a backstory (a very long one, so feel free to skip ahead, to the marker I\u2019ve set up later on \u2026 search for MARKER), I sent a manuscript to a journal, something like over a year ago. It went through four revisions, three months apart on average. Late last year, the reviewers were happy with it, giving me feedback on minor things, to make just a bit tighter. Woohoo! That was all fine, well and good, and I agreed with them. Job well done, eh? Not so fast! Hold on, sonny boy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For reasons unknown, I can only guess, the editors weren\u2019t happy with my work. They wanted major changes, despite the reviewers being fine with the text, you know, pending certain changes, brushing up things, here and there, the usual. Now, of course, I had the luxury to choose between making major changes or making major changes, whatever they wanted, so I made major changes, the best I could, juggling with the content, taking out some content, to make room for the further additions. It took about five months to get more feedback, which revolved around being concerned about the complexity of the theory. Despite, probably, doing disservice to the text, I made it slightly lighter, swapping certain tougher concepts with lighter ones, just so that it would hopefully be more accessible to the reader. Some days ago I got this unnecessarily apologetic email about how, despite all the efforts that went into this, the editors decided to reject it. Apparently the theory was still too heavy for the reader. I took that to be the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There also this other issue. Well, supposedly anyway. I mean this wasn\u2019t an issue when the reviewers were just fine with the manuscript months ago, so it\u2019s super cool that you, the editors, bring this up for a reason for rejection in the end. That only makes sense. Anyway, the issue was that they thought that my findings didn\u2019t match the concern about arts and crafts in the Finnish education system. Right. I mean, this manuscript has to do with visual multimodality<\/em>, about the modes <\/em>of writing <\/em>and image<\/em>, with emphasis on students and teachers. It\u2019s pretty obvious that the findings pertain to arts and crafts. I mean I even specifically contrast the use of the two modes in arts track classrooms and non-arts track classrooms. The actual \u2026 now? I also reflect on this in relation to \u2018Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design\u2019 by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen where the use of writing and images is explicitly addressed, on page 16 (2006 second edition), the page I explicitly refer to, against the common sloppy academic practice of just referring to an article or, better yet, a whole book, because, you know, unlike others, I like to be as transparent as possible about these things. I also included information from prior research, which is, unfortunately, very hard to find, because there\u2019s hardly any arts and crafts related educational research that deals with the Finnish educational system. That\u2019s what the studies that I found actually point out. I pointed that out in response to the reviewer who wanted me to look into prior research on this. Anyway, that should also make it obvious how this is about arts and crafts in the Finnish educational system. I mean what else could it be about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, this a matter of focus, what it is that I want to accomplish, what questions do I ask. There\u2019s no right questions nor wrong questions to ask. Henri Bergson (58) explains the matter of questions and answers, how positing the questions more or less gives you the answer, in \u2018The Creative Mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[I]t is a question of finding the problem and consequently of positing it, even more than of solving it. For a speculative problem is solved as soon as it is properly stated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, the answer to your question is conditioned by that question, the solution to your problem is conditioned by that problem. So, once you properly posit a problem or come up with a question, you can only find what you seek, inasmuch as you do of course, not something else. So, when I ask the question of what educational discourses <\/em>are manifested <\/em>a landscape<\/em>, I can only answer x, y and\/or z educational discourses are manifested in the landscape, or none, if none are manifested. See, the answer is built into the question! If I were to answer that question by stating that x, y and\/or z health and safety discourses are manifested in the landscape, then I\u2019d answering the wrong question, an interesting question in its own right but the wrong question nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I just explained is what I tell my students when they struggle with research, when they wonder what it is they should look into and how they should state that in the form of research questions. I just tell them what Bergson states in \u2018The Creative Mind\u2019, to make note of how you invent <\/em>the question or the problem<\/em>, which you then seek to address. The addressing part does require effort, sure, but as long as you put in the effort, you can\u2019t \u2026 it up, because it\u2019s your invention, your question you answer, your problem that you solve, and the answer or the solution <\/em>is always, always conditioned by the question or the problem. As Bergson (58) points out, this is not like when you were at school, when you had a book with questions that you answered by filling in the missing bits and then you checked if your answer was correct and corrected it if it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, this other issue was just a non-issue. The actual issue had to do with theory. As it was pointed out to me in a conversation after I read the rejection message, either the theory doesn\u2019t work, which I doubt, considering how I\u2019ve applied the same framework twice already and got good feedback on it, or the readers just don\u2019t understand the theory, or, well, can\u2019t be bothered to do any additional reading that might help them understand it. This is apparent (note how I keep using this word, how something is apparent<\/em>, how something appears to be) in the feedback where the reviewers and editors fail to grasp what apparition <\/em>is. I realize that it is uncommon to approach things via apparition, you don\u2019t even need to read what I\u2019ve read because you only need to look the word in a dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, let me educate you, for a moment. This has to do with appearance <\/em>and apparition<\/em>. The former has to do with the description<\/em>, what something looks <\/em>like (to put this in ocularcentrist terms), whereas the latter has to do with how <\/em>something came to being<\/em>, what are its conditions <\/em>and possibilities to exist<\/em>, as experienced <\/em>by us<\/em>. That\u2019s a massive difference and changes the game completely. You might not believe me, so let\u2019s look it up in a dictionary, in this case the Oxford English Dictionary (OED, s.v. \u201capparition\u201d, n.):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe action of appearing or becoming visible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Whereas appearance is (OED, s.v. \u201cappearance\u201d, n.):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe action or state of appearing or seeming to be (to eyes or mind); semblance; looking like. to all appearance: so far as appears to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe state or form in which a person or thing appears; apparent form, look, aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe general aspect of circumstances or events; the \u2018look\u2019 of things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, as I just summarized, apparition <\/em>has to do with becoming<\/em>, how something comes to appear<\/em>, the way it does, inasmuch as it does. Appearance<\/em>, in turn, has to do with how whatever has come to being looks <\/em>(to put this in ocularcentrist terms). For many, the problem is that this nuance between the two is generally not grasped well and the words tend to be used interchangeably, as the dictionary definitions do point out. I\u2019m not a member of the language police, so I won\u2019t go saying that it\u2019s wrong use them interchangeably. What I am saying is that I\u2019m using them in senses that are distinct from one another. Why? Well, this can be explained in multiple ways but let\u2019s look up the definition of discourse <\/em>that I tend to rely on (for this very reason, mind you). Right, Michel Foucault (49) defines discourse in \u2018The Archaeology of Knowledge\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[P]ractices that systematically form the objects of which they speak.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Pay attention to how he isn\u2019t saying that discourses <\/em>are practices <\/em>that refer to the objects <\/em>of which we speak. What he is saying is that the objects of which we speak are formed <\/em>by practices. Note also how these practices are systematic<\/em>. Perhaps that\u2019s a pleonasm, to call practices systematic, considering how, at least for me, a practice is always something that is established, shared, communal, done multiple times, habitually, if you will, you know, systematically. Then again, explicitly indicating that it\u2019s systematic puts emphasis on it, as opposed to being just whimsical (which it is not).<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make more sense of this, as I attempted in one of the manuscript versions, we can explain this the way Immanuel Kant (A249-A250) explains it in \u2018Critique of Pure Reason\u2019, when he distinguishes between phenomena<\/em> and noumena<\/em>. The former has to do with apparition<\/em>, how things come to appear<\/em> to us as sensible <\/em>(as seen if we continue to explain this in ocularcentrist terms), inasmuch as they do, of course, whereas the latter has to do with the things in themselves<\/em>, the way they actually are<\/em>. Now, this does not mean that the things we are sensing (or looking at) do not have appearance<\/em>. They do. However, the point with Kant is that we can\u2019t get to the bottom of things. What we have instead are representations<\/em> of the things. This means that we cannot access reality directly. This also means that when we examine something, whatever it might be, we can never really know if it is the way it is, maybe it is, maybe it isn\u2019t, hence the problem. Note how for Kant it can be intuited that there are these real things, things in themselves, but we just can\u2019t get to them, so we are left to dabble with the world through representations, through appearances, the way the things look to us (to explain this in ocularcentrist terms again).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve explained this before, but I\u2019ll do it again here, where it is relevant again. Gilles Deleuze elaborates this particularly lucidly in a transcript of his lecture on Kant titled \u2018Synthesis and Time\u2019, dated March 14, 1978. He first explains how things were before Kant:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPreviously philosophers spoke of phenomenon to distinguish what? Very broadly we can say that phenomenon was something like appearance. An appearance. The sensible, the a posteriori, what was given in experience had the status of phenomenon or appearance, and the sensible appearance was opposed to the intelligible essence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, before Kant, what we had was phenomena <\/em>and noumena<\/em>, but they were understood as appearance <\/em>and essence<\/em>. Deleuze continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe intelligible essence was also the thing such as it is in itself, it was the thing in itself, the thing itself or the thing as thought; the thing as thought, as phenomenon, is a Greek word which precisely designates the appearance or something we don\u2019t know yet, the thing as thought in Greek was the noumenon, which means the \u2018thought\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I could not explain this better. So, again, back in the day, phenomena<\/em> had to do with the sensible appearance<\/em>, whereas the noumena<\/em> had to do with the thing in itself<\/em>, the thought, the idea<\/em>. This is basic Platonism, as Deleuze goes on to point out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can thus say that the whole of classical philosophy from Plato onwards seemed to develop itself within the frame of a duality between sensible appearances and intelligible essences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Deleuze adds that what we get from this is a duality <\/em>in which the phenomena<\/em> are thus whatever me might call subjective <\/em>whereas the noumena<\/em> are whatever we might call objective<\/em>. Simply put, you are living a lie and reality is only reachable in thought, or so to speak. Again, basic Platonism. In his words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA fundamental defect, namely: appearance is in the end the thing such as it appears to me by virtue of my subjective constitution which deforms it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This is not, however, the way Kant explains the duality of phenomena<\/em> and noumena<\/em>. I\u2019ll let Deleuze explain this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he phenomenon will no longer at all be appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he phenomenon is no longer defined as appearance but as apparition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The consequences are massive, which may be why my dear readers probably struggle with apparition <\/em>whenever I use it. In Deleuze\u2019s words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe difference is enormous because when I say the word apparition I am no longer saying appearance at all, I am no longer at all opposing it to essence. The apparition is what appears in so far as it appears. Full stop. I don\u2019t ask myself if there is something behind, I don\u2019t ask myself if it is false or not false.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Why do I not ask myself if it is true <\/em>or false<\/em>? Well, because, for Kant, you can\u2019t get to the noumena<\/em>, to the things-in-themselve<\/em>s, the ideas<\/em>, because you can only think of them. What do we do instead? Do we opt to wail in agony over the futility of dealing with reality? No. Deleuze states that we need to redefine what is that we can do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[W]hat can we say about the fact of appearing?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In contrast to dealing with appearance <\/em>(which is pointless, mind you, because what you want to do instead is to engage in thought, according to Plato anyway), we do something completely different. Deleuze puts it concisely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe apparition is very different, it\u2019s something that refers to the conditions of what appears.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To get to the point, Deleuze states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will seek the conditions of [the] apparition [of the phenomenon].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To better explain this, before Kant, the Platonist deals with a disjunction of appearance<\/em>\/essence<\/em>. Following Kant, we deal with a conjunction of apparition<\/em>\/conditions of apparition<\/em>. So, in short, when we engage with phenomena<\/em>, things, objects, whatever they might be, we do not attempt to get to the bottom of things, to explain how things really are as noumena<\/em>. Instead, we simply focus on the phenomena, the things, the objects, whatever they might be. We ask what are the conditions of the apparition of these phenomena, these things, these objects, whatever it is that we are dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve been reading a bit this and that lately, it appeared to me that the way Deleuze explains Kant actually makes me think of what Sextus Empiricus has to say about the Pyrrhonian Skeptic way of dealing with phenomena<\/em> and noumena<\/em>, understood as appearances <\/em>and what is thought or judged (7), in book I of his \u2018Outlines of Pyrrhonism\u2019. He (15) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[W]hen we question whether the underlying object is such as it appears, we grant the fact that it appears, and our doubt does not concern the appearance itself but the account given of that appearance, \u2013 and that is a different thing from questioning the appearance itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And (17):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[N]o one, I suppose, disputes that the underlying object has this or that appearance; the point in dispute is whether the object is in reality such as it appears to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n He (15) provides an example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[H]oney appears to us to be sweet (and this we grant, for we perceive sweetness through the senses), but whether it is also sweet in its essence is for us a matter of doubt, since this is not an appearance but a judgement regarding the appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Okay, I wouldn\u2019t say that the way Sextus Empiricus puts this is exactly the same as the way Kant puts it, but they do seem to agree that things <\/em>are to be addressed on the basis of what appears<\/em> to be. To be honest, I reckon I have a tendency of expressing things this way, that something appears to be the case, that it is apparent that \u2026 or that it is evident that \u2026 or that it seems \u2026 because I don\u2019t claim to know how things really are. Of course, it could well be that the way things appear is the way they are, but can we know for sure? I don\u2019t think so. Maybe they are, maybe they aren\u2019t. I don\u2019t know and I\u2019m not particularly troubled by that either, so it would appear to be the case that I find myself in agreement with Kant and Sextus Empiricus on this matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, what I like about both of the formulations is that even though they change the game, what\u2019s what, what it is that one is trying to achieve, there is no doubt involved that things <\/em>don\u2019t have this or that appearance<\/em>, that, for example, honey doesn\u2019t taste sweet or that the walls of the room I\u2019m writing this don\u2019t look white. I reckon honey does taste sweet and these walls look white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get back to Kant, I reckon his formulation is very handy in this regard but I don\u2019t really follow Kant, nor Sextus Empiricus. The problem with the Kantian reformulation, as great as it is, is that it retains the dualism <\/em>between things <\/em>and things in themselves<\/em>. So, a phenomenon<\/em>, a thing, an object, let\u2019s say a beer bottle, appears to me as it does, but there is this real beer bottle (or whatever it actually is noumenally<\/em>), this idea <\/em>of it. As Deleuze goes on to explain, the subject <\/em>does not constitute whatever it is that appears <\/em>to the subject, only the conditions of apparition<\/em>. So, to give you the full version of the previous quoted bit from Deleuze:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will seek the conditions of [the] apparition [of the phenomenon], and in fact the conditions of its apparition are, the categories on one hand and on the other space and time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Without going into details, in Kant\u2019s (A369, B129) formulation, the categories<\/em>, as well as space <\/em>and time<\/em>, are tied to the subject<\/em>. In other words, to investigate the conditions of apparition<\/em>, we turn inward to the subject. This is sort of fine, in terms of the conditions, but what bothers me is that the duality <\/em>between things <\/em>and things in themselves<\/em> is retained in the background. This bothers me because it\u2019s still like saying that things or objects are the way the are, in some ideal world<\/em>, with the improvement in the thought process that indicates that we can\u2019t really know the things or the objects the way they really are because we can\u2019t access that ideal world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This part that still bothers me is explained in Plato\u2019s \u2018Parmenides\u2019, where (the characters of) Socrates and Parmenides ponder whether something mundane like hair, mud and filth (dirt) have their own ideas or are ideas limited to something grand like abstract ideas of justice, beauty, goodness and humanity, or elements like fire and water. Parmenides ask these questions, to which Socrates hesitantly answers (9):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2018No, Parmenides; visible things like these are, as I believe, only what they appear to be: though I am sometimes disposed to imagine that there is nothing without an idea; but I repress any such notion, from a fear of falling into an abyss of nonsense.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To paraphrase this, (the character of) Socrates is torn between thinking that everything has an idea<\/em>, even the mundane things, which then sounds ludicrous to him after giving it a bit of thought, and that only some abstracts have ideas, that is to say that only certain ideas count as ideas, not all sensible entities that one may encounter. Now, if you ask me, it does sound hilarious to assert that hair, mud and dirt have their own ideas, in the sense that they are essences<\/em>, things in themselves<\/em>, distinct from one another, in some otherworldly realm that is the true reality<\/em> because that means that the true reality has this finite yet crazy long list of things. What bothers me about this is that this makes creativity <\/em>impossible. If that beer bottle is just a mere manifestation of an idea<\/em>, as is this table, this keyboard, this screen, this floor, this room, then everything is preconfigured. We never invent <\/em>anything. Now there are, of course, many takes on this, what Plato really thinks as counting as having its own idea, and perhaps he doesn\u2019t think that way, but, then again, for example in \u2018Republic\u2019 he does seem to think that mundane things like beds and tables have their own ideas. If they have their own ideas, surely everything else has as well and that\u2019s a nightmare, if you ask me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get out of this nightmare, we land on Kant, who, sort of, fixes the issue, but not really. It\u2019s sort of more like sidestepping the issue, bracketing it, eliminating it from consideration, at least for the time being, rather than actually fixing it. Now, to be fair, I\u2019m not saying that Plato is <\/em>wrong. I think he is, but I have to leave it open that he might be right. I just don\u2019t buy it that he is. The same goes with Kant. I mean damn, I think that\u2019s already quite an improvement in the formulation. I don\u2019t mind it that he leaves it open like that, to be possibly reconsidered later on whenever he manages to do that (which he didn\u2019t, of course, as there is this finiteness to human life). I think you should approach others in good faith, acknowledging that there may have been limitations to what they could achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are confused with all this, it\u2019s probably because it can be quite confusing, at least initially. Also, to be fair, we are actually dealing with, pardon the expression, some heavy shit, stuff that has bothered our brightest minds even well before Plato, so if you\u2019ve never really had to challenge your own ways of thinking about things, this can be quite the headache and so your brain will probably tell you not to keep doing it. That is to be expected, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, for Kant the subject <\/em>is central, albeit not all there is. In short, Kant\u2019s approach is known as transcendental idealism<\/em> which involves a transcendental subject<\/em> to which the conditions of apparition<\/em> are tied to, including space <\/em>and time<\/em>, as already noted. We are also still dealing with distinct things<\/em>, first and foremost. When we compare these things, these identities<\/em>, the difference <\/em>is between these things. In other words, the key issue here is that difference is subsidiary to identity. As already explained, the problem here is that everything is just given<\/em>, to begin with, even mud, hair and dirt, and we just try to make sense of them as they appear to us the way they do, inasmuch as they do, because while we can\u2019t know them for sure, we can intuit that that\u2019s the case, that there are these things in themselves<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, what if, what if we do something wild like flip Plato on his head? What if we start from difference<\/em>, give it primacy, and think it gives rise to identity<\/em>, as just what happens to be, at any given moment? What we get from that is transcendental empiricism<\/em>, which you can read more of in Deleuze\u2019s \u2018Difference and Repetition\u2019. What\u2019s the difference between the two, between transcendental idealism<\/em> and transcendental empiricism? Well, if it isn\u2019t something you figured out already, on your own, the key difference, relevant to the discussion at hand, is that the conditions of apparition <\/em>are no longer simply tied to the subject<\/em>. What\u2019s outside, or so to speak, is now the key thing here. The starting place is no longer you<\/em>, the thinking subject. That also means that you are a product <\/em>of this world, the product of differentiation<\/em>, just like everyone and everything else. You are still you<\/em>, don\u2019t get me wrong. You still have your identity. It\u2019s just that your identity is not who you think you are, it\u2019s just immanently who you are, what you\u2019ve become<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This applies to everything, for example the headphones on my table or the tomatoes that I\u2019m eating, right now. They are the way they are, until they are no more, like the tomato that I just digested. The headphones are still headphones but not the same headphones that I bought years ago as they\u2019ve endured a lot of wear and tear. We can, of course, speak of them as the same headphones, but, strictly speaking, they are not, or, rather, they are always in the process of becoming<\/em>, thus being exactly what they are, as they are, ever so slightly different at all times, until, one day, they are no longer recognized as headphones. This already hints where I\u2019m going with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With something like the tomatoes or, better yet, apples, this change is much easier to recognize. Apples are a great example because when you bite a chunk out of an apple, it appears to be an apple that is just missing a piece. It\u2019s like 78 percent of the apple that it used to be, but still an apple. However, give it a rest, leave it on your table for about an hour and you\u2019ll notice that this is not as simple as first having an apple and then having an apple minus a part of the apple. You should be able to notice how the apple has started cave in on itself, as if self-destructing, because oxygen is now penetrating the insides of the apple and causing it to go brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now imagine attempting to explain the same thing with the apple to me, that the apple has either one idea<\/em>, coupled with the idea of a part of an apple, or a part of thing, or that there\u2019s like 22 percent idea of an apple, coupled with 78 percent idea of an apple (or the like, feel free to change the terms and\/or percentages). Now think of the same thing with my worn headphones. Are there ideas that correspond to the minutely different versions of my headphones? The point here is that you end up having to argue that everything has a corresponding transcendent idea<\/em>, no matter how minute or inconsequential, to the point that it seems like nonsense, which is what troubles Socrates in Plato\u2019s \u2018Parmenides\u2019 (9). How about them apples, eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this really changes things <\/em>physically, that happens on its own, with or without you, but it radically changes the way you think about things or objects. The obvious major upside here is that we longer deal with some transcendent<\/em>, otherworldly list of ideas <\/em>to which everything that exists conforms to. What does this have to do with apparition<\/em>? Well, for Deleuze and\/or F\u00e9lix Guattari, the things that we deal with are always assembled <\/em>or machinic<\/em>, in the sense that things are drawn together, inasmuch as they are, of course, and operate as machines, having their cogs and wheels, within other machines that operate within other machines and in relation to other machines. The human body <\/em>works this way. Your body is not just this one homogeneous entity, like molded foam or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of this is also linguistic or semiotic. Comedian Sean Lock made an astute observation about the inner workings of language when he wondered out loud \u201cAt what point does a leaflet become a pamphlet?\u201d We could carry on with that, to wonder when it turns into a booklet? Or, to wonder when that turns into a book? What separates a bottle from a vase? The glass? There\u2019s little trouble involved in identifying them by appearance<\/em>, just by the way they look. Again, no one is doubting their appearance. But what is interesting, at least to me, is not that a bottle appears to look like, you know, a bottle, and vase appears to look like, you know, a vase, even though nothing prevents you from using them interchangeably, if that\u2019s what you are into, but the conditions <\/em>that make us <\/em>treat them the way we do, as bottles or as vases, as leaflets, as pamphlets, as booklets or as books. We can, of course, fall back on Plato on this and state that all these things are the way they are and we recognize them as such as they are representations <\/em>of certain ideas<\/em>, but, for some reason I\u2019m not buying into that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, this leads us back to Foucault\u2019s definition of discourse <\/em>(skip back quite a bit), how it has to do with not how we just sense things <\/em>or objects <\/em>as this or that and then call them this or that, but how we come to form <\/em>them through practice<\/em>. It\u2019s worth emphasizing that while it\u2019s thus certainly creative <\/em>(as there\u2019s no pre-existing otherwordly list of items for us to refer) it\u2019s also systematic<\/em>. In other words, the way we form objects or things is not whimsical. There has to be some tacit agreement. I can call a bottle a vase but it doesn\u2019t make it a vase, even though I can certainly make use of a bottle as a vase. In borderline cases that might actually be fine, but that leads us to the question of what are the conditions <\/em>of the bottle appearing <\/em>to me and\/or you as a vase? See! See! This is what I\u2019m after with apparition<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I would argue that it\u2019s not just the glass, but yes, it has to do with the glass (or plastic, but who uses plastic vases?). There\u2019s something about the form of the glass, the way it is shaped and how we\u2019ve come to agree on what to call a vase and not a bottle. Of course, it\u2019s not actually we, me and you (the reader), who\u2019ve come to an agreement on this. That has happened way before and something tells me that people didn\u2019t actually have some formal meeting about it, nor keep a record about it. As a side note, this is the point Deleuze and Guattari make about being in the middle of things. Anyway, at times some language police bureau attempts to provide us with words that we should use for this and\/or that, only to fail miserably as people just ignore them and use some supposedly god-awful word instead. It\u2019s like how I think of all rice pasties as Karelian pasties regardless of what it says on the labeling. We could say the same thing about how some authority, piece of legislation or government decree attempts to define the shape of something, how something should look or the like, only to have people complete ignore it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, to further complicate this, to assess the conditions <\/em>that make something appear <\/em>as it does, inasmuch as it does, we may have to assess those conditions, what makes them appear to us the way they do, inasmuch as they do. So, what makes something made out of glass to appear to us a vase and not a bottle thus also requires us to assess what it is that makes glass appear to us the way it does so that we recognize it as such. Do I still need to explain what apparition <\/em>is about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be fair to the editors, I reckon I could have done a better job at explaining things. Granted. I think things could always be better, at least in retrospect. That said, explaining complex things isn\u2019t simple and simplifying something complex tends to be rather counterproductive. A typical article is something like, what, 7000 to 8000 words, give or take, all inclusive. Now, to address something complex like apparition <\/em>may involve quite a bit of elaboration, unless I can take it for granted that people know what I\u2019m on about, which I tend to doubt, considering the feedback I tend to get on theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this essay, so far, I\u2019ve explained that one concept for about six pages (single spaced), which is some 4000 words. Of course there\u2019s a bit of froth in that, considering that my essays aren\u2019t exactly the tightest pieces of writing. Nonetheless, I don\u2019t think I manage to do justice to the complexity of the issue in six pages, no matter how tight I make it. Now, let\u2019s assume that I manage to do that in 4000 words. Okay, that means that I\u2019m left with 3000 to 4000 words to explain everything else, including the introduction and conclusion which typically just repeat bits discussed elsewhere in an article. In addition, because articles are typically all inclusive, the list of references is considered part of the word count. Well guess what! Guess whose first article has a list of references that is nine pages long (single spaced) or roughly 3000 words! So, looking at this from that angle, if the typical article is 7000 to 8000 words, I\u2019m left with 4000 to 5000 words to explain everything. What was it that I was supposed to do again, research, have some actual analysis and findings? I\u2019m all for that, 100 percent, otherwise I\u2019m just recycling what others have written in the past, at best synthesizing some ideas. Then again, that should not come at the expense of the conceptual framework, otherwise I\u2019m just spewing out some random findings about something random or taking it for granted that everyone knows what the deal is, which I doubt. On top of this, as I attempt to balance these things, to express everything as concisely as possible while being as elaborate and lucid as possible, I get feedback that requires me to further explain things, to unpack some of the concepts more or the like. The thing is that that\u2019s not helpful, at all, considering that I\u2019m left to make the choice as to what to take out to make room for the necessary changes. That means that later on I might run into being told that I must further elaborate on what I took out in the last round of edits, once again not being told what should go instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also worth pointing out, reminding you, that this correspondence usually takes months. Simply put, that means that when you take something out and add something else in its place, you must wait for months for some anonymous person to tell you that they\u2019d actually like you to better explain what you took out months ago. I\u2019m actually quite amused when I get a rejection where it\u2019s stated that it\u2019s regrettable that despite the months of efforts that went into the manuscript, it has not resulted in publication. I\u2019m always like, what months of effort? Yours or mine? I most certainly don\u2019t work for months on one manuscript. I mean it\u2019s more like a week, at best. The edits take like a day or two, certainly less than a week, regardless of how major changes are required. Of course it depends how you define a month, a week or a day, what goes into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I write, I\u2019m like a whirlwind. I\u2019m just super productive. I get things done. I just do. I could say something like I take pride in that, but I don\u2019t. Pride is just something that gets in the way of things. It makes you complacent. When I write, I guess it just comes to me. It\u2019s probably because, one way or another, I\u2019m always in the zone, making observations, thinking, kind of like writing, but to myself, so when I actually write, it\u2019s more like I\u2019m just pouring on to a page what I\u2019ve already formulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To keep this anecdotal, I just went for a run. It took me like an hour. Good pace, good workout. Uphill, downhill, no hill. Anyway, at the same time I listened to a philosophy podcast, which introduced me to certain ideas, not necessarily something that I\u2019ll use, but it broadened my horizons. Sometimes I learn about a new concept or my mind wanders into make some connection that I hadn\u2019t made before. My point is that I stay ahead because I never stop moving. I don\u2019t work by having set hours. My days make no sense to most people. I\u2019m always up to something, always in the middle of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess it\u2019s a bit like playing pool or snooker. I constantly think ahead so when I\u2019m about to make a move, I\u2019m already prepared for what comes after that move and when it comes time to make the following move, I\u2019ve already occupied myself with what comes after that. So yeah, I never stop moving. I\u2019m more like just changing the course, the direction, swerving, which means that it\u2019s only likely that I\u2019m way ahead of those who wish to rein me in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So yeah, I\u2019m always puzzled by the time the process takes. Sure you could say that reading and giving feedback is different, that it takes more time than writing. Nah, no it doesn\u2019t. For example, when I give feedback to my students on their theses, or grade them, I have to read something like 40 to 60 pages, give or take (it used to be between 60 to 80 pages). That takes me a day, something like six hours to be precise, depending on how familiar I am with what the text deals with (I might have to check a couple of extra things). Boom, done, easy! Next! It\u2019s also very productive for me because I get exposed to their work. It allows me to gain more insight on this and\/or that, which may come handy later on in some unforeseen context. I don\u2019t look down upon them, thinking that they are mere student works, like that one \u2026er who, on another occasion, went there when commenting my work. I\u2019ll have none of that I\u2019m better than thou crap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it was up to me (which it certainly isn\u2019t), I\u2019d take a (figuratively) massive hammer to the inner workings of the academic world. This model where equals acts as judges <\/em>to others just has to go. It also makes no sense that the correspondence takes forever. I\u2019ve had people respond to my letters abroad, with letters from abroad, much quicker than how people manage this, on a computer, accessible basically anywhere, anytime, these days. Connecting the two, equals acting as judges and the lack of correspondence, there needs to be actual dialogue<\/em>. It\u2019s not dialogue when you get feedback like change this, this and this, no matter how it is presented, because what\u2019s implied is that if you don\u2019t make the changes, you won\u2019t get published. In other words, the feedback is just one way. Sure, you could attempt to challenge the reviewers and\/or the editors, but in practice that\u2019s not an option. I guess you could be bold and brave about it, challenge them, duel them, but the problem is that it\u2019s not a fair fight. It might appear that the odds are in your favor. However, regardless of the outcome, regardless of how convincing you are with your arguments, the other side doesn\u2019t have to concede defeat because they are in a position of authority. You could also point out that it\u2019s all based on supposed authority, not actual authority. They could not point to anyone who could back that claim. God? Yeah, what was it that Deleuze and Guattari say about priests<\/em>? Anyway, the point is that they could accept the challenge, to see who\u2019s who, but of course they won\u2019t. To be fair, when you have that position of authority which allows you to deny a challenge without looking bad, of course you are going to make use of that. I mean, duh! It only makes sense. It is well within their best interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, my take is that, in the end (albeit, as I\u2019ve pointed out, nothing ever ends \u2026 because we are always in the middle; where is the beginning, where is the end anyway?) the editors just couldn\u2019t understand what I went on about, inasmuch as I did, of course (as I am limited by the word count constraints which means that something that I\u2019d like to include is always missing, no matter what). My work is based on certain presuppositions<\/em>, certain prephilosophical intuitions <\/em>that form an image of though<\/em>t or a plane of immanence<\/em> which is radically different from the dominant image of thought<\/em> that the vast majority <\/em>of people subscribe to. Actually most people don\u2019t even think that they subscribe to any image of thought. For most people everything just is<\/em>, the way it is. There is no construction for them. I challenge this notion and I\u2019m very open about being opposed to the dominant image of thought, which is also known as Platonism. I damn sure pointed this out in the manuscript, you could not miss it, assuming you read it and understood the point, of course. Anyway, long story short, I\u2019m as anti-Platonist as it gets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what\u2019s the problem then? Well, I\u2019ve explained this in the past, a number of times probably, but I\u2019ll do it again because, apparently, people aren\u2019t getting it. Deleuze and Guattari address this issue in ‘What Is Philosophy?’. As this is a broader issue, not only pertaining to philosophy, I\u2019ll do changes to their text. These will be [marked] accordingly. They (28) elaborate the issue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery [academic] runs away when he or she hears someone say, \u2018Let\u2019s discuss this.\u2019 Discussions are fine for roundtable talks[.] \u2026 The best one can say about discussions is that they take things no farther[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Exactly! The issue is not that there is no discussion but that there is no actual discussion, no genuine dialogue<\/em>. No one ever wants to discuss these issues with <\/em>me. As I pointed out, it\u2019s not actual dialogue to get comments from reviewers because it\u2019s never a level playing field. It\u2019s not an actual discussion because it only works one way. Deleuze and Guattari (28) actually continue, adding this is because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026 since the participants never talk about the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I agree and I\u2019m well aware of this issue. That\u2019s why I try to be explicit about my position and explain what comes with it. However, it\u2019s nearly pointless if the others don\u2019t get it or, more problematically, won\u2019t get it. So, what I\u2019m after is that when you read what I write, here, or in an actual publication, try to step into my shoes, to see the world the way I do, to see whether what I\u2019ve expressed makes sense in its own light. For example, I don\u2019t see eye to eye with people who do phenomenology, but I assess their work and what they\u2019ve accomplished with it in terms of phenomenology. Simply put, I try to understand the work on its own terms. If I were to point to some flaws in it, I wouldn\u2019t just state that this and\/or that doesn\u2019t work, unless it fails to function within its own logic. What I\u2019d do instead is to point out that phenomenology has this and\/or that shortcomings and hence I don\u2019t subscribe to it as an image of thought<\/em>. See, that doesn\u2019t mean that the work is bad<\/em>, unworthy of publishing or the like. I\u2019m also willing to acknowledge that I might be in the wrong when I subscribe to a certain image thought and others may well be in the right when they subscribe to something else. I don\u2019t think their image of thought holds that well but I grant it that it might be just me who is wrong. Anyway, Deleuze and Guattari (27) make note of this very issue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs there one plane that is better than all the others, or problems that dominate all others?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, how do we know which plane <\/em>or image of thought<\/em> is correct one then? Well, simply put, we don\u2019t, at least not for sure. That\u2019s actually beside the point, to wonder whether someone like \u201cDescartes was right or wrong\u201d as \u201cCartesian concepts can only be assessed as a function of their problems and their plane\u201d, as they (27) point out and exemplify. If you think that there is something familiar about this, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve already sort of covered this issue in this essay. Feel free to go back to the points made by Bergson and you should notice that posing them problem is at the heart of the issue, not whether something is true <\/em>or false<\/em>, right or wrong. In their words (27):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlanes must be constructed and problems posed, just as concepts must be created.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As a side note, before I continue with this, they (27) add that people who engage with this type of stuff, in their case philosophers, just \u201chave too much to do to know whether [their plane] is the best, or even to bother with this question.\u201d So, to get back on track here, if we can\u2019t know what is correct, nor should we even bother to ask such a pointless question according to Bergson and Deleuze and Guattari, what should we do? For Deleuze and Guattari (27) issue is timely, quite literally so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is the philosophical form of the problems of a particular time? If one concept is \u2018better\u2019 than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it brings forth an Even that surveys [survole<\/em>] us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To paraphrase this, as the matter is about intuitions <\/em>and posing a problem<\/em>, one is always attempting to trace or come up with a problem and to solve <\/em>it, to make sense <\/em>of it. In short, different times, different problems, different solutions. That\u2019s why they (27) state that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[I]f earlier concepts were able to prepare a concept but not constitute it, it is because their problem was still trapped within other problems, and their plane did not yet possess its indispensable curvature or movements. And concepts can only be replaced by others if there are new problems and another plane relative to which [something] loses all meaning, the beginning loses all necessity, and the presuppositions lose all difference \u2013 or take on others.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, to use their (28) examples, if I find Plato, Descartes or Kant out of touch with the times, it is because they are, at least for me (wait a moment, I\u2019ll get to this). Were they out of touch with the times back in the day when they were around? Probably not. But can you still be Platonist, Cartesian or Kantian, or Husserlian (feel free to think of just about anyone) for that matter? According to Deleuze and Guattari (28) you sure can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf one can still be a Platonist, Cartesian, or Kantian today, it is because one is justified in thinking that their concepts can be reactivated in our problems and inspire those concepts that need to be created.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, you sure still can, inasmuch as you can justify it to yourself that their problematics still make sense and help us to grapple with contemporary problems, the problems we face today. As they point out, they might not be of direct use, as such, because, well, they dealt with the problems that bothered them in their time, but they might still be of use if they function as sources of inspiration, if what they did back in the day can be extended or worked into something that is relevant to our current problems. In other words, they can certainly function as points of departure for something new, something wildly different, yet applicable to the problems that are relevant, here and now. Of course, each of these, and others, come with their own baggage, their starting points and the concepts that they created to address certain problems that they encountered during their time, so they might not work that well as points of departure, considering how times have changed and keep changing. That\u2019s, of course, not to say that they can\u2019t function as points of departure. It all depends and it\u2019s up to you to figure if they do or if they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get back to the issue of how we deal with the views of others, Deleuze and Guattari (28) are rather pessimistic about the issue, as I already pointed out. It should be evident that they are just fine with just about whatever, inasmuch as it can help us with posing contemporary problems <\/em>and solving <\/em>them. In some cases that means going against some of the notable figures, not because one takes issue with them, but because the way they pose certain problems and fix them lead to the problems we face today. Anyway, I\u2019d say they are the exception in this regard. I reckon it\u2019s hard to find people who assess the works of others in good faith, on their own terms, as based on how they pose a problem and how they work to solve it. I think reading others in bad faith<\/em> is very common, not because people don\u2019t have the time to change planes <\/em>(they do), but they just don\u2019t want to do otherwise (as they just don\u2019t want to spend their time on something that might undermine them and their achievements because it\u2019s sort of counterproductive for them, undesirable if you will). In their (28) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[W]hen [academics] criticize each other it is on the basis of problems and on a plane that is different from theirs and that melt down the old concepts in the way a cannon can be melted down to make new weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As I pointed out already, many people act in bad faith<\/em>. Okay, fair enough, they might not be aware that there are different planes <\/em>or \n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n