Deleuze & buddhism (& suprisingly stoics!)

[Jukka Laari <jlaari@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Elaine, I tried to send this directly to you, but your server sent it
back. Now, let's see what happens next...)

On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Elaine Jude Leyda wrote:

> India (buddhist logic)'--I am interested in these Indian/buddhist
> sources.Please tell me more, either on the list, if others seem
> interested, or privately.

Dear Elaine,

I would like to tell you more if it's only possible at the moment. But

(1) it's quite late (or early, soon) now here up in north, and I'm about
to go home now to get some sleep;

(2) my philosophy books are mostly at home, so give me some time to do
some 'research', please;

(3) it was some years ago when we (few people interested in nearly
everything between earth and heavens) read Deleuze (and some Guattari,
too, to be honest) and that's when this 'Indian connection' was discovered -
I'm not a scholar of Indian or any other philosophy, unfortunately. So
it'll take some time to find those weird places in the writings of Deleuze.

I believe I've made some clarifying marks on the pages of those books,
so it might be that there are something on that theme, too. If so, I
might be able to help you quite soon. But if not, then I have to ask you
to wait for awhile.

At the moment I can only remember that we had couple of times speculation
on whether Deleuze had really read either original or French translations
(France have been one of major European countries in Indian studies in
20th century) of some basic texts, or had he just read couple of studies
on buddhism.

[Deleuze seems to make far reaching conclusions based on quite 'minimal'
'research' on topics he sometimes mentions: stoics and the four distinct
species or modes of 'immaterials' or 'incorporeals' they established
were reduced to 'sayables' (in Greek; lekton, lekta (pl.)) only by
Deleuze. Then he made of these 'lekta' (nearly) one fundamental moment
of western philosophical thinking. And all that was based on - wait a
little... yes - based on one work by Emile Brehier from early 20th century
(I don't remember the name of that book). Not to say that there's
something wrong. I do think that stoics are much more important (in
logic, metaphysics, doctrines of knowledge and mind) than is usually
taught by philosophy departments. Usually people remember stoic ethics
only: German Max Pohlenz wrote (in early 1940's) about his French pupil,
with whom he'd been reading stoics until that student had to go to the
French army (WW1 was about to start). How that French officer wrote to
Pohlenz about how they'd been reading stoics and how he now in the army
reminds himself of his duty to Fatherland and tries to do his duty with
proper stoic attitude... That was his last letter, writes Pohlenz, since
quite soon after that he gave his life in stoic 'Pflichtgefuehl' (sense
of duty or something like that) as a real-german man for his Fatherland.
Disgusting, isn't it?  Well, that was then. My point is: thanks to
Deleuze, people might now remember something else of stoics than that
duty-babble.  (Well, people, take a look at Sophia-list, which concerns
ancient or only hellenistic philosophy; those boys and girls are chatting
same 'stoic' duty-ethics of soldier at the moment!)  But 'lekta' are not
all to be found in stoic doctrines concerning those funny
immaterials/incorporeals, nor in stoicism in general. After all, they
were another major philosophical school among sceptics in hellenistic
world. As nearly always, Deleuze was pretty one-sided here. And so it
was with his Indian remarks. Sorry this long sidestep.]

However, and back to business: one instance of these speculations was when
reading Logic of Deleuze. That as a hint. I'm pretty sure that there you
might find the most promising & interesting remarks, or 'formulations'.
Go for it.

I try to remember to look my D-books through for any correct remarks on
buddhism. And I'll ask one Buddha-specialist if he remembers anymore
those buddhist traces in Deleuze. There was something about language...
too.

Yes, Philip Goodchild, "Speech and silence in the Mumonkan: an
examination of use of language in light of the philosophy of GD", in
Philosophy East & West, vol 43, no 1 (1993) - that was perhaps last time
we'd been discussing about "Deleuze and East". That article was pretty
good (by our standards of that time). In general, it gave a good
conception of D as well as of Mumonkan texts, which were some Japanese
zen texts, if I'm correct. (Don't trust me, I might remember wrong.)

Oh, that fellow Goodchild has written a book on Deleuze, and it comes out
about now, this autumn. I guess, and I hope, it'll be second good book on
Deleuze in English (the first is by Michael Hardt, whose supposed to be
somewhere here in marxism-list - that is, if he haven't fed up all that
anarchy...)

Well, Elaine, sorry about that long and muddy story. At least it showed
that there isn't much reason to trust my memory anymore: after all these
efforts to remember anything specific or exact about Deleuze and India it
turned up that there were stoics in front and Japan and zen behind it...
(Perhaps that was my initial point? Well, I don't believe so that easily.)

I'll look at my D-books. If you don't hear from me soon - remind me of
what I've promised. Let's hope I find something concrete.

Yours, Jukka Laari


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