Vitalism and the Meaning of Life in the Philosophy and Criticism of Gilles Deleuze

吉尔·德勒兹哲学与批评中的活力论与生命意义

• 批准号: AH/E003206/1
• 负责人: Claire Colebrook
• 金额: $ 4万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE003206%2F1
• 关键词: Vitalism; Meaning; Life; Philosophy; Criticism

Gilles Deleuze was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, but because his work was concerned with life and life processes (rather than the more fashionable language) his work has had less impact in Anglo-American critical theory than his contemporaries, such as Michel Foucault or Jacques Derrida. One of the most significant concepts that Deleuze's work has brought to the fore is vitalism: the idea that matter is not governed by universal external laws, but that matter bears its own instrinsic force. Once a rather mystical or unscientific idea, vitalism now has some purchase. Cognitive scientists, for example, are looking at the ways in which the brain's biology affects thought processes; the brain is no longer compared to a computer that is nothing more than a processing network, but is now considered to be made up of material tendencies which can act in their own right. To use Daniel Dennett's phrase we can say that thinking (and life) are not 'substrata neutral'). We can, for example, look at the way certain brain chemicals produce perceptual disorders and the ways in which works of art can intensify and manipulate the brain's reactions. Such work is currently being undertaken in the neurosciences (in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and in the work of V.S. Ramachandran). This 'turn' to the vital has a history which can be traced back to the seventeenth-century's criticisms of Descartes, but that can be located more specifically in Gilles Deleuze's debt to Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson. Deleuze was deeply concerned with the ways in which supposedly 'cerebral' activities, such as art and philosophy, emerged from life. However his own form of vitalism can be distinguished from the more widespread turn to 'life' which dominates contemporary brain science, and is coming to dominate philosophy and literary theory. Instead of looking at life as a way of explaining how organisms emerge and then maintain themselves -- this would be a vitalism that is not some mystical force but is just the survival process of acting beings -- Deleuze argued for a passive vitalism. Here, life does not act or strive to maintain itself. Instead, certain connections can emerge (such as art works or philosophical concepts) which can take on a form of being or life that is thoroughly at odds with the organisms which were their point of inception. Deleuze therefore created a specific method for reading works of art and philosophy that combined history with formalism. A work needs to be understood historically in two senses: it must have material conditions, and these would include a history of the body (the capacity of the eye to edit and compose a visual field, the power of the hand to command a canvas, the development of the brain to handle ever more complex processes); but the artwork also has formal historical conditions (the history of materials and their institutions). When an artist begins to paint or write she approaches the canvas or page with the entire history of art existing virtually in all the perceptual responses she bears towards the world: we see London in a certain way because of all the films, poems, novels and paintings that have already perceived the city for us. Our bodily life is therefore materially located within this world; at the same time bodily processes also constite an ideal and formal world of art and sense. Deleuze's vitalism was concerned not only with the ways in which art and its history helped maintain and order bodily life, but with art objects and the materials as having their own 'vital' tendencies. This means that vitalism does not only return works of art to their emergent conditions but also looks at the ways in which art objects alter our processes of perception and cognition.

吉尔·德勒兹是20世纪最重要的哲学家之一，但由于他的作品关注的是生活和生活过程（而不是更时髦的语言），他的作品在英美批评理论中的影响力不如他的同时代人，如米歇尔·福柯或雅克·德里达。德勒兹的工作所带来的最重要的概念之一是活力论：物质不受普遍的外部法则支配，但物质具有自己的内在力量。活力论曾经是一个相当神秘或不科学的想法，现在有了一些购买力。例如，认知科学家正在研究大脑的生物学影响思维过程的方式;大脑不再被比作一台只不过是一个处理网络的计算机，但现在被认为是由可以自己行动的物质倾向组成的。用丹尼尔·丹尼特的话来说，我们可以说思维（和生活）不是“底层中立”的。例如，我们可以观察某些大脑化学物质产生知觉障碍的方式，以及艺术作品可以强化和操纵大脑反应的方式。这种工作目前正在神经科学中进行（在《意识研究杂志》和V.S. Ramachandran）。这种对生命的“转向”有着悠久的历史，可以追溯到17世纪对笛卡尔的批评，但更具体地说，这可以追溯到吉尔·德勒兹对埃德蒙·胡塞尔和亨利·柏格森的借鉴。德勒兹深深关注所谓的“大脑”活动，如艺术和哲学，从生活中出现的方式。然而，他自己的活力论的形式可以从更广泛的转向“生活”，占主导地位的当代脑科学，并即将主导哲学和文学理论。德勒兹没有把生命看作是解释有机体如何出现并维持自身的一种方式--这将是一种活力论，它不是某种神秘的力量，而只是行动生物的生存过程--德勒兹主张被动的活力论。在此，生命并不行动或努力维持自己。相反，某些联系可能会出现（如艺术作品或哲学概念），这些联系可能会呈现出一种与作为其起点的有机体完全不一致的存在或生命形式。因此，德勒兹创造了一种将历史与形式主义相结合的阅读艺术和哲学作品的特定方法。一件作品需要从两个意义上被历史地理解：它必须有物质条件，这包括身体的历史（眼睛编辑和构成视野的能力，手控制画布的力量，大脑处理更复杂过程的发展）;但艺术品也有形式的历史条件（材料及其制度的历史）。当一个艺术家开始绘画或写作时，她接近画布或页面，整个艺术史实际上存在于她对世界的所有感知反应中：我们以某种方式看到伦敦，因为所有的电影，诗歌，小说和绘画已经为我们感知了这个城市。因此，我们的身体生命在物质上是位于这个世界之内的;同时，身体过程也构成了一个艺术和感觉的理想的和形式的世界。德勒兹的活力论不仅关注艺术及其历史帮助维持和安排身体生命的方式，而且关注艺术对象和材料具有自己的“生命”倾向。这意味着活力主义不仅使艺术作品回到它们的自然状态，而且还着眼于艺术对象改变我们感知和认知过程的方式。