Le pli

Wat betekent het vandaag om Leibniziaan te zijn? (CGD: 1980, 1986, 1987) Deze vraag vormt het leidmotief van Deleuzes colleges over Leibniz en wordt uiteindelijk beantwoord in Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque uit 1988. Zoals bekend schrijft Deleuze niet over andere filosofen, maar met hen, en dan vooral met filosofen die deel lijken uit te maken van de geschiedenis van de filosofie, maar er tegelijkertijd in een opzicht, of helemaal, aan ontsnappen: Lucretius, Spinoza, Hume, Nietzsche, Bergson . (D: 34) Vergeleken met deze wilde denkers ligt de keuze voor de ijdele hofintellectueel, politiek opportunist en diplomatieke pragmaticus Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) niet voor de hand. Was het niet Leibniz die zei dat het weliswaar de taak van de filosofie is om nieuwe concepten te creëren, maar, anders dan zijn collega Spinoza, alleen zonder de gevestigde gevoelens te kwetsen ? (NP: 119 / 104; LS: 141 / 116) De filosoof die zelfs bij hoog en laag ontkende Spinoza ooit te hebben ontmoet, en als hij hem al ontmoet had dan toch alleen om hem onder toezicht te houden ? Leibniz is abominabel, aldus Deleuze. (CGD: 15/04/1980) Toch is hij ook door hem gefascineerd omdat wellicht geen enkele andere filosoof zoveel heeft gecreëerd en geen enkele filosoof zoveel creatieve volgelingen heeft gehad . (Pp: 211 / 154-5) Als ingenieur ontwierp Leibniz windmolens voor de Russische tsaar; voor de Britse Royal Society bouwde hij de eerste rekenmachine; als wiskundige bedacht hij het binaire getalstelsel en legde hij tegelijk met Newton de grondslagen voor de differentiaalrekening; als politiek strateeg maakte hij een plan voor de verovering van Egypte; als wetenschapper stichtte hij een academie; als diplomaat deed hij voorstellen voor religieuze verzoening; als kunstenaar ontwierp hij medailles en ceremonieën; en als filosoof is hij de bedenker van een schier eindeloze reeks principes en concepten

'Transgenous Philosophy': Post-Humanism, Anthropotechnics and the Poetics of Natal Difference

In this paper I investigate Peter Sloterdijk's relation to humanism, especially in its post- Kantian sense of an ideology of Enlightenment based on anthropology. How does an author who writes after Nietzsche's biopolitical challenge of the Übermensch, Heidegger's ontological upgrading of the humanitas, Foucault's structuralist decentering of man, Derrida's deconstruction of anthropocentric discourse, and Deleuze & Guattari's machinic constructivism, relate to the ideology of emancipation through formation (Bildung), i.e. the 'anthropotechnics' of reading and writing? What are the biopolitical insights of an 'anthropophenomenology' or an 'anthropology beyond humans'? Can a positive understanding of 'humanity' still be found in his work

A Thymotic Left? Peter Sloterdijk and the Psychopolitics of Ressentiment

Abstract: According to the criticisms of Slavoj Žižek and Alberto Toscano, Peter Sloterdijk‟s recent work contains an anti-egalitarian and anti-universalist discourse that is inherent to a Nietzschean concept of politics based on a hierarchy of affects instead of universal ideas. Although it is true that the clinical problem of ressentiment constitutes the ethical core of Sloterdijk‟s interest in „psychopolitics‟, it implies much more than an instrument of interpreting radical politics as an irrationality or pathology. In fact, picking up the arrow first shot by Nietzsche and then by Deleuze, Sloterdijk‟s work is important and original precisely because it provides us with a clinical focus on the affective infrastructure of the present that does not facilitate the moral self-gratification of the democratic Right. His entire work should rather be read as an attempt to speak and act without ressentiment and in this way to explore the practical conditions of a politics that escapes from the alternative of liberal versus communist as it prevails in contemporary critical theory. This is demonstrated through a detailed study of Sloterdijk‟s development of, and political answers to, the problem of ressentiment, beginning with the Critique of Cynical Reason and continuing until the Spheres-trilogy and his recent essays on the temporal structure of rage and zealotry

Leibniz und die Psychophysik des Gehirns

1. Das Gehirn als Medium allen Denkens Die Probleme der Philosophie sind laut Deleuze niemals von sich aus philosophisch. Bereits eine Antwort auf die Frage Was ist Philosophie? setzt ein nicht-philosophisches 'Bild des Denkens' voraus, eine Art absoluten Hintergrund, in den die Philosophie eintauchen kann und aus dem sie hervorgeht. Gerade durch diesen nicht-philosophischen Hintergrund ist die Philosophie verbunden mit der Wissenschaft und der Kunst, die ebenso Nicht-Wissenschaftliches und Nicht-Künstlerisches benötigen so als teilten sie sich denselben Schatten, der sich über ihre unterschiedliche Natur ausbreitet und sie auf immer begleitet. (Deleuze/Guattari 1996: 260) In Was ist Philosophie? nennt Deleuze diesen Schatten oder auch dieses 'Nicht', zu dem jede Disziplin einen wesentlichen Bezug hat, das 'Gehirn'. Dabei handelt es sich um ein Konzept, das von dem griechischen nous, wie es z. B. bei Anaxagoras vorkommt, abgeleitet ist, der es für die ordnende Kraft hielt, die die eine Welt aus dem ursprünglichen Chaos (apeiron) hervortreten lässt. Das Gehirn ist somit der Bereich interdisziplinärer Resonanzen, geteilter Probleme und interner Allianzen. Eine Untersuchung des Deleuzeschen Begriffs der Nicht-Philosophie ist daher gut beraten, sich auf seinen Begriff vom Gehirn zu konzentrieren....

Die beste aller möglichen welten?

This paper addresses Peter Sloterdijk's optimistic 'attitude'. I show that it is a philosophical posture based on pragmatic speculation and spiritual exercise. By situating it in a tradition that passes from Leibniz's meliorism to Whitehead's ecology of propositions, I argue that optimism is an essential component of a public use of reason of which the finality is no longer the good sense of critique but of the care for common sense. At stake is the cosmological and cosmopolitical care for the possibility of rationalization processes in a 'monstruous world' of ever denser feedback mechanisms

Whole genome resequencing reveals signatures of selection and timing of duck domestication

Background The genetic basis of animal domestication remains poorly understood, and systems with substantial phenotypic differences between wild and domestic populations are useful for elucidating the genetic basis of adaptation to new environments as well as the genetic basis of rapid phenotypic change. Here, we sequenced the whole genome of 78 individual ducks, from two wild and seven domesticated populations, with an average sequencing depth of 6.42X per individual. Results Our population and demographic analyses indicate a complex history of domestication, with early selection for separate meat and egg lineages. Genomic comparison of wild to domesticated populations suggest that genes affecting brain and neuronal development have undergone strong positive selection during domestication. Our FST analysis also indicates that the duck white plumage is the result of selection at the melanogenesis associated transcription factor locus. Conclusions Our results advance the understanding of animal domestication and selection for complex phenotypic traits

Local and systemic mycorrhiza-induced protection against the ectoparasitic nematode Xiphinema index involves priming of defence gene responses in grapevine

The ectoparasitic dagger nematode (Xiphinema index), vector of Grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV), provokes gall formation and can cause severe damage to the root system of grapevines. Mycorrhiza formation by Glomus (syn. Rhizophagus) intraradices BEG141 reduced both gall formation on roots of the grapevine rootstock SO4 (Vitis berlandieri×V. riparia) and nematode number in the surrounding soil. Suppressive effects increased with time and were greater when the nematode was post-inoculated rather than co-inoculated with the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus. Using a split-root system, decreased X. index development was shown in mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal parts of mycorrhizal root systems, indicating that both local and systemic induced bioprotection mechanisms were active against the ectoparasitic nematode. Expression analyses of ESTs (expressed sequence tags) generated in an SSH (subtractive suppressive hybridization) library, representing plant genes up-regulated during mycorrhiza-induced control of X. index, and of described grapevine defence genes showed activation of chitinase 1b, pathogenesis-related 10, glutathione S-transferase, stilbene synthase 1, 5-enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate synthase, and a heat shock proein 70-interacting protein in association with the observed local and/or systemic induced bioprotection against the nematode. Overall, the data suggest priming of grapevine defence responses by the AM fungus and transmission of a plant-mediated signal to non-mycorrhizal tissues. Grapevine gene responses during AM-induced local and systemic bioprotection against X. index point to biological processes that are related either to direct effects on the nematode or to protection against nematode-imposed stress to maintain root tissue integrity

Patterns of Genetic Variation Within and Between Gibbon Species

Gibbons are small, arboreal, highly endangered apes that are understudied compared with other hominoids. At present, there are four recognized genera and approximately 17 species, all likely to have diverged from each other within the last 5–6 My. Although the gibbon phylogeny has been investigated using various approaches (i.e., vocalization, morphology, mitochondrial DNA, karyotype, etc.), the precise taxonomic relationships are still highly debated. Here, we present the first survey of nuclear sequence variation within and between gibbon species with the goal of estimating basic population genetic parameters. We gathered ∼60 kb of sequence data from a panel of 19 gibbons representing nine species and all four genera. We observe high levels of nucleotide diversity within species, indicative of large historical population sizes. In addition, we find low levels of genetic differentiation between species within a genus comparable to what has been estimated for human populations. This is likely due to ongoing or episodic gene flow between species, and we estimate a migration rate between Nomascus leucogenys and N. gabriellae of roughly one migrant every two generations. Together, our findings suggest that gibbons have had a complex demographic history involving hybridization or mixing between diverged populations