tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31783628.post8651682323357409609..comments2024-02-21T06:57:22.256-05:00Comments on Unemployed Negativity: Now is the time to inventunemployed negativityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01251742512967070290noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31783628.post-62416664306186052142008-01-09T11:34:00.000-05:002008-01-09T11:34:00.000-05:00Steven,Thanks for the heads up about Tarde. I have...Steven,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the heads up about Tarde. I have taken your advice and started Mondalogie et sociologie.<BR/><BR/>With respect to what I said about subjectivity, I should stress that I consider the intersection of "determined/determining" to be something of a theoretical dead end. Although dead end is a bit harsh, since I think that one can make progress in this area. For example I find affective/corporeal ways of theorizing this in Spinoza, Deleuze, Simondon, Virno, etc. to be more promising than linguistic models. (I confess that I am not sufficiently informed about Whitehead to make an assessment). Moreover, I think that the turn to transindividuality or collectivity is something of advance. But with respect to subjectivity itself, I think that the only way past it might involve a practical dimension.unemployed negativityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251742512967070290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31783628.post-72369679843496106622008-01-08T10:14:00.000-05:002008-01-08T10:14:00.000-05:00I have read some Tarde - he is quite interesting b...I have read some Tarde - he is quite interesting but goes on at excessive length about everything. The argument isn't elaborated, just repeated over and over again for hundreds of pages. The best book to start with is Monadologie et sociologie, which gives the metaphysics behind his method, and which (unlike most of his books) is quite short.<BR/><BR/>I haven't read Lazzarato's book on Tarde yet (I have it on order); but in Les Revolutions du capitalisme I was quite annoyed by the violence of his polemics against Marx and "Marxism" -- which always come up when he is making an argument that in fact fits entirely within a generally Marxist framework or tradition. <BR/><BR/>What you say about the aporia around subjectivity I think is entirely right for theoretical discussions these days in general. I am inclined to think that this problematic is elucidated best by Whitehead (which is who I am writing about at the moment), but it might well be that his theorizations, like those of others, just represent as you say, another dead end.Steven Shavirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11863392248649173118noreply@blogger.com