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Again, Deleuze would be offended if you thought any of his work has "profound and true ideas", for him (and Guattari), philosophy is simply not about "profound

Again, Deleuze would be offended if you thought any of his work has "profound and true ideas", for him (and Guattari), philosophy is simply not about "profound and true", he mocks endlessly all these people sick with "sign-ificance", every sign must mean some-thing. Also, accusing Deleuze of obscurantism is absolutely unfair and ignorant: Deleuze was truly one of the great teachers, those who can be pedagogical while keeping and increasing your interest in the topic, much akin to Feynman, in his works which disentangle the works of previous philosophers: Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), Kant's Critical Philosophy (1963), Proust and Signs (1964), Bergsonism (1966), Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (1981), Foucault (1986), The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1988). The aforementioned What Is Philosophy? is also extremely clearly written, and it is one of the best books ever to tackle in such a direct manner such a question. Also, accusing Deleuze of "complicated words for trivial points" is just ridiculously funny: it's like accusing Bach of composing too much music: couldn't he just sum up all the toccatas, fugues, partitas, and so on in one single massive beat drop.

fasterik 4y ago
Bach is a perfect example of the kind of thing that I'm talking about, and he's as far from postmodernism as I can imagine. His music is simple and pure. It isn't trying to impress anyone with technical virtuosity or sentimentality.
encomiast 4y ago
I disagree that Bach is simple (I'm not sure what pure means in this context). Bach wrote contrapuntal music. This means you can have two, three, four, or five independent voices that sum up to a whole while maintaining their individual lines. He also included techniques like inversions and retrogrades where the same lines occur backwards or upside down. And he included a great deal of symbolism and numerology in the music. The music is also, at times, very harmonically modern for his time. His music is often wildly virtuosic too — try playing the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue — it is a showpiece. "Simple" is just the wrong word.
- fasterik 4y ago
  "Pure" in this context means "without any extraneous and unnecessary elements". Google has a few different definitions for the word "simple". I don't mean it in the following ways: - easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty - composed of a single element; not compound I do mean it in the following ways: - used to emphasize the fundamental and straightforward nature of something - plain, basic, or uncomplicated in form, nature, or design; without much decoration or ornamentation - humble and unpretentious Keep in mind my comment was in the context of a discussion about postmodernism. I think that when compared with some of the more complex postmodern music, even the most virtuosic Bach pieces are simple. A couple examples: Finnissy - English Country Tunes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8VSRTl9tfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8VSRTl9tfw Ligeti - Etudes for Piano - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHhZ2TzHlow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHhZ2TzHlow

fasterik 4y ago

Bach is a perfect example of the kind of thing that I'm talking about, and he's as far from postmodernism as I can imagine. His music is simple and pure. It isn't trying to impress anyone with technical virtuosity or sentimentality.

encomiast 4y ago

I disagree that Bach is simple (I'm not sure what pure means in this context). Bach wrote contrapuntal music. This means you can have two, three, four, or five independent voices that sum up to a whole while maintaining their individual lines. He also included techniques like inversions and retrogrades where the same lines occur backwards or upside down. And he included a great deal of symbolism and numerology in the music. The music is also, at times, very harmonically modern for his time. His music is often wildly virtuosic too — try playing the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue — it is a showpiece. "Simple" is just the wrong word.

fasterik 4y ago
"Pure" in this context means "without any extraneous and unnecessary elements". Google has a few different definitions for the word "simple". I don't mean it in the following ways: - easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty - composed of a single element; not compound I do mean it in the following ways: - used to emphasize the fundamental and straightforward nature of something - plain, basic, or uncomplicated in form, nature, or design; without much decoration or ornamentation - humble and unpretentious Keep in mind my comment was in the context of a discussion about postmodernism. I think that when compared with some of the more complex postmodern music, even the most virtuosic Bach pieces are simple. A couple examples: Finnissy - English Country Tunes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8VSRTl9tfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8VSRTl9tfw Ligeti - Etudes for Piano - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHhZ2TzHlow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHhZ2TzHlow