Title - Horror Vacui. Constructing the Void from Pascal to Freud.

Keywords – Intense obsessions & true obsessions. Pascal’s obsession. Phobia. Agoraphobia. The silence of infinite spaces. Infinite space. Neurasthenics.

Thoughts –Intense obsessions – are little more than simple memories of unaltered images of important events.

True obsessions – combine a forceful idea and an associated emotional state. They are distinguished from phobias where the emotional state is one of anxiety.

Pascal’s obsession :he always thought he saw an abyss on his left hand side after he had nearly been thrown into the Siene. Pascal, scientist of the vacuum, practical inventor, and celebrated recluse falls prey to his own fantasies. Voltaire accused Pascal of madness on the basis of the ‘relation of cause and effect’ established from the accident, Pascal ceased any outings and lived in complete solitude.

Pascal’s disease – Agoraphobia. Psychologic phobia of spaces.
In later years he could neither talk, read, walk and suffered convulsions, headaches and died at the age of 39.

Descartes and Barres recounts Pascal..”rigor and intensity of his thought, sublime unhappiness, anguish of the philosopher….a scientific spirit, who searches for the truth of phenomena with a sense of the powerlessness of science to discover the essential secret of the universe…the fear of the eternal silence of these infinite spaces”.

Infinite space – Descartes: “the ship endlessly disappearing toward the horizon, the horizon point endlessly rising,the ship infinitely close to, and infinitely far from infinity”.

Neurasthenics – Pascals diagnosis after death.
“Discovered" by the neurologist George M. Beard in 1880, neurasthenia was a nervous disorder characterized by a "lack of nerve force" and comprised of a host of neuroses clustered around an overall paralysis of the will.
defines it as an "immobilizing, self-punishing depression" stemming from "endless self-analysis" and "morbid introspection"
Beard saw a significant correlation between modern social organization and nervous illness. A deficiency in nervous energy was the price exacted by industrialized urban societies, competitive business and social environments, and the luxuries, vices, and excesses of modern life.
In the United States, neurasthenia was seen as an acceptable and even an impressive illness for men, ideally suited to a capitalistic society and to the identification of masculinity with money and property. Many American nerve specialists, including Beard himself, had experienced crises of nervous exhaustion in their own careers, and they were highly sympathetic to other middle-class male intellectuals and professionals tormented by vocational indecision, sexual frustration, internalized cultural pressure to succeed, and severely repressed emotional needs.

Title – Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari. Chapter 9. And,
Transgressing the Boundaries Appendix A. In “Fashionable Nonsense”.

Keywords – Superficial. Nonsense. Judgement. “I don't understand the context”. Poetic license. The role of metaphors

Thoughts -

Two objectives of Fashionable Nonsense is cited as being a critique of prominent intellectuals (principally French literary philosophers) and the other a critique of trends within the American academic humanities, sometimes referred to as the Academic Left. The following two paragraphs summarize the objectives:
More, in-depth notes about the authors Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont and motives for the publication.

... We show that famous intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Irigary, Baudrillard, and Deleuze have repeatedly abused scientific concepts and terminology: either using scientific ideas totally out of context, without giving the slightest justification - note that we are not against extrapolating concepts made from one field to another, but only against extrapolations made without argument - or throwing around scientific jargon in front of their non-scientist readers without any regard for its relevance of even its meaning. We make no claim that this invalidates the rest of their work, on which we suspend judgement.
...
A second target of our book is epistemic relativism, namely the idea - which, at least when expressed explicitly, is much more widespread in the English-speaking world than in France - that modern science is nothing more than a "myth", a "narration" or a "social construction" among many others.


What is not considered when reading these often intense pieces that require often numerous re-readings is the possibility that the authors might simply have been wrong, either because they have completely missed the point or because they have confused jargon from another discipline with particular usage in science.
There are a number of fields of Science which are badly popularized and are quite fashionable or are made fashionable by the mere mention by these reputable philosophers- they include Godel's theorems, relativity, quantum mechanics (particularly the uncertainty principle), chaos theory, and catastrophe theory. These fields, often bastardised, are part of the intellectual culture.
The most plausible explanation for such convoluted writing that often looses the reader totally is that Deleuze and Guttari possess a vast but very superficial understanding, which is displayed in their writings. The depth of their writings lies in a philosophic tradition, with large bodies of writing, complete with jargon, forms of expression, and indirect references to issues considered at depth by prior authors.
Passages from Deleuze (pg.155-158) which, at first sight to anyone with a scientific background is nothing but meaningless gibberish. Yet, the problem is that Deleuze is using words and concepts that are clear to him and to someone familiar with the tradition that he is writing from but which are quite obscure to anyone not familiar with that tradition.
Some of the quoted material is hilarious - at least it is if one has a snippet of scientific literacy. Readers often get left with the impression that the authors are a bit too arrogant, a bit too ready to insist on the literal use of their preferred jargon, and a bit too literal in their reading of the passages that they quote. I get the impression that the relationship of French Literary Theorists and Science is much like the attempts of Westerners to assimilate Eastern religion. The ideas are partially absorbed and woefully misunderstood; the result is something strange and wonderful.

You don't understand the context - Defenders of Deleuze, Guttari, et al. might argue that their scientific concepts are valid and even profound, and that our criticisms miss the point because we fail to understand the context. After all, Im the first to admit that I do not always understand the rest of these authors'.

Poetic licence - If a poet uses words like "black hole" or "degree of freedom" out of context and without really under standing their scientific meaning, it doesn't bother us. Likewise if a science-fiction writer uses secret passageways in space-time in order to send characters back to other eras, it is purely a question of taste whether one likes or dislikes the use. These works are subject to analyses. Their intention is to produce theory, and its on this ground that i criticize them. Moreover, their style is usually heavy and pompous, not principally literary or poetic.

The role of metaphors - Some people will no doubt think that these authors are interpreted too literally and that the passages quoted should be read as metaphors rather than as precise logical arguments. Indeed, in certain cases the "science" is undoubtedly intended metaphorically; but what is the purpose of these metaphors? After all, a metaphor is usually employed to clarify an unfamiliar concept by relating it to a more familiar one, not the reverse.


Food for thought – “…..the intellectual value of an intervention is determined by its content, not by the identity of the speaker, much less by his or her diplomas.”
Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

Title - Smooth and the Striated

Keywords – Haptic. Smooth space. Striated. Orientation. Location. Linkage. The abstract line. Contours. Horizontals. Verticals.

Thoughts -
Haptic doesn’t establish an opposition between two sense organs but assumes that the eye may fulfill a non-optical function.

“one can back away from a thing, but it is a bad painter who backs away from the painting he or she is working on”

Smooth – is both the object of a close vision and the element of a haptic space which may be as much visual or auditory as tactile. The first aspect of the haptic, smooth space of close vision is that its orientations, landmarks, and linkages are in continuous variation. Examples are the desert, ice, seam local spaces of pure connection.

Striated – relates to a more distant vision, and a more optical space.

Orientations – change according to temporary vegetation, occupation, precipitation. There is no visual model for points of reference that would make them interchangeable and unite them in an inertial class assignable to an immobile observer.

Orientation, location, linkage are present in the most famous works of nomad art : twisted animals have no land beneath them; the ground constantly changes direction.

Striated versus Smooth – where there is close vision, space is not visual, or rather the eye itself has a haptic, non-optical function: no lines separate earth from sky, which are of the same substance; there is neither horizon nor background nor limit nor outline or form or centre; there is no intermediary distance.
The desert, sky, or sea, the unlimited first plays the role of an encompassing element, and tends to become a horizon: the earth is thus surrounded, globalised, ‘grounded’ by this element, which holds it in immobile equilibrium and makes form possible.

The effect, the line is abstract when writing is absent, either because it has yet to develop or only exists outside or alongside. When writing takes charge or abstraction, the line downgrades and tends to become concrete even figurative. The abstrct line is the affect of smoth space. It cannot be defined as geometrical or rectilineasr. What should be termed abstract in modern art? A line of variable direction that describes no contour and delimits no form.

Take a system in which transversals are subordinated to diagonal, diagonals to horizontals and verticals, and horizontals and verticals to points (even when there virtual). A system of this kind, which is recitiliear or unilinear regardless of the number of lines, expresses the formal conditions under which a space is striated and the line describes a contour…….On the other hand, a line that delimits nothing, that describes no contour, that no longer goes from one point to another,…is constantly changing direction, a mutant line without inside or outside, form or background, beginning or end and that is alive in continuous variation – such a line is truly an abstract line, and describes smooth space.