chapter - the problematic of stupidity, reading deleuze’s” image of thought”

7/28/2019 Chapter - The Problematic of Stupidity, Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought

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Otobe dissertation chapter 1

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Chapter 1

The Problematic of Stupidity: Reading Deleuzes Image of Thought

Cowardice, cruelty, baseness, and stupidity are not simply corporeal capacities or traits of

character or society; they are structures of thought as such.

Gilles Deleuze,Difference and Repetition

Introduction

This chapter aims at formulating the problematic of stupidity. By problematic, I

mean the locus and ways stupidity matters to our political livesespecially to political

thinking in theory and practice. As such, a problematic constitutes a constellation of

interconnected themes that does not come to the level of systematic thought. One of the

fundamental problems in my attempt to tackle stupidity is the deficiency of the studies on

this matter. Due to this deficiency, it is hard to see not only where the problematic lies,

but also even the extent to which stupidity constitutes a problematic or whether stupidity

is a problem for our politics or political thought at all. Thus it is inevitable that a vulgar

question arises: is stupidity really an important topic for political theory?1

Indeed, one of

the central purposes of the present study is to respond to this question through a

problematization of the relationship between politics, thinking, and stupidity.2For this

task of problematization, I start by articulating the following two theses, which constitute

the problematic of stupidity:

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Another reason to start this study by formulating the problematic is the elusiveness of stupidity: as

Derrida suggests, stupidity lies at the field of the indeterminable and thus resists any clear

conceptualization. Indeed it is tempting to define stupidity as what debunks clear conceptualization. For

example, In his letter to Louis Bouihet on September 4, 1850, Flaubert gives a succinct articulation, though

not conceptualization, of stupidity when he states that stupidity is the desire to conclude (1926-1930, 2:239;

1980, 128). Nonetheless, instead of formulating the concept of stupidity, I believe, it would be still possible

to explore the ways and the locus in which stupidity matters as problematic.2

For the ideas of problematic and problematization, see Introduction.


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I. Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking; we become stupid because we think.As an internal problem, stupidity resists any attempt of demarcation. Thus it is

impossible to distinguish stupid thought from other, more sophisticated kinds of

thought by any pre-given standard.3

II. Not only a problem of thinking, stupidity is also an inherent problem of politics;stupidity reveals the political character of thinking. Against a conventional

dichotomy between thinking and politics, which holds the former as a solitary

activity and the latter as a plural one, stupidity attests to a political, i.e., plural

character of thinking.4

In arguing for the above theses, I draw upon Deleuzes remarks on stupidity in

Difference and Repetition, which I think stands as one of the most insightful accounts of

stupidity. It is true that his remarks on the matter consist only of several paragraphs in the

more than three hundred pages ofDifference and Repetition, with a few more sentences

found elsewhere. In his later works, such as two volumes ofCapitalism and

Schizophreniaworks more explicitly political and popular among

political/social/cultural theoristsDeleuze no longer writes about stupidity.5

Hence, it

may appear that stupidity occupies only a minor role in Deleuzes philosophy, or even

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By thinking I mean the process of thinking while I use the word thought to signify the result of the

process of thinking. With this distinction, I freely translate la pense in Deleuzes texts into thinking

and thought according to the context. The distinction, however, is not to clearly separate the thinking

process from the articulated thought. Rather, as I emphasize later, one of my purposes in this chapter is to

attain a perspective that grasps both elements as an interconnected whole.4

By political I mean the predicate whose basic mode is plurality. This plurality is not limited to that of

already fixed, given entities, whether they are individuals or groups. Plurality exceeds those fixed identities

and works underneath them. I owe this notion of plurality to William Connollys idea of pluralism that

acknowledges the moment of pluralization exceeding fixed identities as a kernel element constitutive of

pluralism (Connolly 1995, xi-xxx). I use the word politics, on the other hand, to point to the practice held

among constituencies in and around given institutional settings.5

Deleuze touches on the topic of stupidity in two other works written beforeDifference and Repetition

(1968):Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) andProust and Signs (1964). Because those two books pose

nearly identical ideas toDifference and Repetition , I mainly focus on explicating Deleuze's words in

Difference and Repetition. Cf. Deleuze (1983, 103-110; 2000, 5).


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that it is discarded in his mature thought. But his remarks on stupidity in Difference and

Repetition are neither instances of poetic rhetoric nor marginal to his thought. Rather,

they are situated at the center of his philosophical project in his magnum opus, showing

the internal relationship between stupidity, philosophy and thinking.6

The phenomenon of

stupidity exposes elements Deleuze critically analyzes in the entireDifference and

Repetition: the emergence and abortion of representation and the emergence of thinking.

Moreover, as this chapter demonstrates, his insights help us to clarify the political

relevance of stupidity, even though Deleuzes primary concern in the book is

philosophical.7

In the next section, I analyze Deleuzes remarks on stupidity in Difference and

Repetition and formulate the problematic mentioned above. Then, in the rest of the

chapter, I attempt to reveal the relevance and utility of Deleuzes insights. First, I defend

my exploration against other interpretations of Deleuze and ambiguities within Deleuzes

texts. This clarification will mainly illuminate the first thesis. Next, I try to defend and

clarify the second thesis by comparing it with another candidate for the explanation of

stupidity, that is, Arendts notion of thoughtlessness. Though it is not on stupidity as

such, her observation on Eichmanns thoughtlessness shows an affinity with Deleuzes

account of stupidity; both Arendt and Deleuze respectively find the distinctive

characteristic of thoughtlessness and stupidity in the use of stock phrases, clichs. Then,

why should I not employ Arendts notion of thoughtlessness which, developing through

her theorization of one of the most disastrous political events in historytotalitalianism

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For studies that focus on the importance of stupidity for Deleuze, see Derrida (2009), Derrida (2010),

Hughes (2009), and Lee (2009).7

About the political relevance ofDifference and Repetition, especially of the chapter The Image of

Thought, see Marrati (2001).


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and the final solutiondeals with politics more directly? In fact, a brief comparison

between Deleuze and Arendt will reveal a certain flaw in Arendts orientation toward

thinkingthat is, her presupposition of the innate righteousness of thinking activity. This

presupposition makes it difficult to grasp the internal problematic of thinking as an

activity and thus the interrelation between thinking and politics.

I do not, however, offer solutions to the problematic of stupidity thus formulated

and clarified in this chapter. In fact, one of the most significant points to be made about

the problematic is that we cannotsolve it. As an endogeneous predicate of thinking and

politics, stupidity haunts us as a permanent problem. But this does not mean that we are

helpless to tackle the problematic or that we do not have to take it into account. Toward

the end of the chapter, I articulate three questions that the problematic poses to our

current practice and theory of politics, to which the following chapters respond without

aiming to solve them.

Stupidity as a Transcendental Problem for Thinking and the Political

InDifference and Repetition, the theme of stupidity appears in the third chapter,

The Image of Thought. While the scope of Deleuzes remarks goes beyond the

paragraphs of the third chapter, here I want to start with the context within which they

appear. !

The main theme of the Image of Thought is to criticize the conventional way of

philosophy for its inability to dissociate itself from presuppositions, that is, unexamined,

pre-philosophical doxa. Philosophy typically tries to be free from doxa by starting

without any presuppositions. In this attempt, it has been relatively successful in starting


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without what Deleuze calls objective presuppositions, those presuppositions contained

in concepts employed by philosophy. For example, Descartes inMeditations denies that

he starts with the pre-given concept of human being as rational animal because that

conceptualization would already presuppose what rationality and animal are.8

Such

presuppositions contained in concepts are called objective because they are external to

the process of thinking. However, according to Deleuze, expelling objective

presuppositions is not enough to truly begin philosophy. In fact, it still retains subjective

presuppositions. What are subjective presuppositions? Again, in the case of Descartes

Meditations, even after his denial of any pre-given concepts, his famous cogito still

expresses unexamined presuppositions about the thinking activity itself.In so doing,

cogito presupposes that we already know what thinking is before we begin to think. In

particular, Deleuze identifies two major presuppositions. The first is the assumption of

the good will in thinking, which Descartes calls good sense; since we are equipped

with the good will, we can reach the same conclusions as long as we think. Good sense

is of all things in the world most equally distributed (Descartes 1956, 1). The second

assumption, which is even more relevant to the problem of stupidity, is that we are all

endowed with the faculty of thinking; this righteous faculty for thinking leads us to the

truthful conclusion. However, what assures those two assumptions? Deleuze argues that

they actually express an unexamined common sense. As such, the Cartesian cogito

results in reproducing doxa in its image of thought, which Deleuze calls orthodoxy, or

the dogmatic image of thought.

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Descartes (1996, 17): What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man? Shall I say a

rational animal? No; for then I should have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is


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In the chapter on the Image of Thought Deleuze examines such subjective

presuppositions under eight postulates, one of which is the negligence of stupidity as the

negative of thought, or the exemplary failure of what thinking is supposed to do.9 In

terms of our present purpose of articulating the problematic of stupidity, we do not have

to delve into each of the eight postulates. But a couple of implications for stupidity are

observable in the overall framework of the chapter. First, subjective presuppositions

concern the internal character of thinking. More precisely, those presuppositions blanket

the process of thinking with the assumption that to think constantly brings about right and

unobjectionable conclusions for everybody. In fact, such an assumption is not without

question, and as I argue in what follows, this presupposition makes philosophy ignore or

defer the internal problem of thinking, which appears as stupidity.

Second, Deleuzes description of those presuppositions as constituting the

dogmatic image of thought suggests why stupidity appears as clichs. The dogmatic

image of thought takes the form of everybody knows: we allknow what we mean by

thinking. By implicitly assuming it, the dogmatic image of thought reproduces what is

already known to usthat is, opinions of peopleeven when it thinks it sets thinking

free from those opinions. This is nothing but a mechanism of clichs that, as seen in the

introduction, a few pioneering writers always attribute to stupidity. As the dogmatic

image of thought lies in its initial reproduction of peoples opinions without knowing it,

stupidity appears as clichs that we make when we speak the words of others without

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The eight postulates are: the principle ofCogitatio natura universalis; the ideal of common sense;

the model of recognition; the element of representation; error as the negative of thought'; the

privileged status of designation; the postulate of responses and solutions according to which truth and

falsehood only begin with solutions or only qualify responses; the postulate of knowledge (Deleuze

1994, 167; 1968, 216-17).


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knowing it. Both depend on the intrusion of the voices of others in a seemingly

independent and spontaneous act.

Third, building from the last point, we now get a glimpse of the political character

of thinking and stupidity. Deleuzes criticism reveals that our activity of thinking is not

solitary but indeed immersed in opinions of people. If we define the political as a

plurality of people, can we not see a political character in such intrusion of peoples doxa

into cogito? Indeed, Deleuze writes we need the new power of politics in overturning

the image of thought (Deleuze 1994, 137; 1968, 179). What does this new power of

politics look like? I will turn to it later in this chapter and explore its potential more in

later chapters. But for now, I want to focus on Deleuzes words on stupidity, moving to

the analysis of the postulate of stupidity.

Among the eight postulates of the image of thought, stupidity concerns the fifth,

the postulate of taking error to be the sole negative of thought. As I have shown in the

previous section, the orthodox and dogmatic image of thought keeps the upright character

of thinking intact by presupposing that thought leads us to the right conclusion insofar as

we start to think. But it does not necessarily mean that the image of thought

acknowledges no negative or failure in thinking. Indeed, the failure of thought is a

constant concern for philosophy. Platos Theaetetus already takes up the problem of error,

which leads to an aporetic conclusion. Kant, in his transcendental dialectic in the Critique

of Pure Reason, deals with the internal illusion of reason and the antinomies as the cul-

de-sac of reason. Or rather, we can see the extent to which his acknowledgment of our

finite ability to think moved his entire project of critical philosophy when we read the

very first sentence ofCritique of Pure Reason: Human reason has the peculiar fate in


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one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss,

since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also

cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason (1998a, Avii). In a

sense, Kant speaks of a problematic here: speculative reason is fine within its limit but it

compulsively tends to go beyond the limit. Nevertheless, according to Deleuze, these

cases of the negative of thought, including Kants internal illusion, become endorsements

for the image of thought by being reduced to error: error, therefore, pays homage to the

'truth' to the extent that, lacking the form of its own, it gives the form of the true to the

false (Deleuze 1994, 148; 1968, 193). In errors, we miscalculate (e.g. answering three

to the question of what one plus one equals) and misrecognize (e.g. saying two oclock to

be three). But taking miscalculation and misrecognition to be exemplary cases of the

negative of thought, the dogmatic image of thought caricatures the negative of thought

and expels the problematic actuality it has. Who actually makes such simple errors?

Certainly we may. But is it a paradigmatic case where we lapse into the negative of

thought? In fact, error acquires a sense only once the play of thought ceases to be

speculative and becomes a kind of radio quiz (Deleuze 1994, 150; 1968, 195). Errors

turn thought into a radio quiz where thought is reduced to the matter of making right

reasoning or right cognition.

Another, but more serious problem is that those errors are taken from empirical

facts of the most banal kind. In so doing, they fail to raise the transcendental question

about thinking, the question quid juris whether thought is truly possible. It is true that

Kant, for example, comes closest to posing the transcendental question in the beginning

of hisFirst Critique which I quoted above. Kant even goes further to analyze the


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internal illusion of reason appearing in antinomies of pure reason. Notwithstanding this,

Kants transcendental dialectic of pure reason brings the question back to a matter of

error. For he attributes internal illusion to the wrong use of a faculty. Internal illusion, for

Kant, appears when, for example, reason as the faculty of ideas, and not understanding as

the faculty of categories, misconceives that it can directly grasp the world. As such,

internal illusion falls under the control through the correct use of faculties, whose

harmonious collaboration Kant grounds in the de facto model of common sense,sensus

communis.10 His retreat from the transcendental question is observable as early as the

second sentence of theFirst Critique: reason falls into this perplexity [that it can neither

avoid nor solve certain kinds of questions] through no fault of its own (Kant 1998a, A

vii). Even if reason often prompts such misuse of itself, the problem of thinking is not

reasons own fault. It is due to its improper use. To become dissociated from the

dogmatic image of thought, we need to look for a different negative of thought that is

also transcendental and hence internal to thinking as such.

It is because of this need for the internal negative that Deleuze introduces

stupidity:

One is neither superior nor external to that from which one benefits; a tyrant

institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first

to be installed within it Cowardice, cruelty, baseness and stupidity are not

simply corporeal capacities or traits of character or society; they are structures of

thought as such. (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 196)!

!

Unlike error, stupidity stands out as a transcendental problem for thinking. Being not

merely facts that can be dealt with simply as failures that can be corrected,stupidity lies

inside thinking as a condition for the latter: stupidity is a structure of thought as such.

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I will take up Kants notion ofsensus communis and his abortion of transcendental project in detail in the

third chapter.


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Stupidity is a thinking.11 Moreover, it is possible to say that there is no a priori principle

to distinguish upright, correct thought from stupid thought. Deleuze suggests this, as well

as implies the political relevance of stupidity when he writes: one is neither superior nor

external to that from which one benefits: a tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the

first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it (1994, 151; 1968,

196).12

To use Deleuzes own word, stupidity haunts thinking (151; 196).

My exploration so far has shown the first thesis of the problematic I mentioned at

the beginning of this chapter: the internal relationship of stupidity to thinking. Also,

Deleuzes passing reference to the relationship between tyranny and the servant suggests

a political character of thinking, which would constitute the second thesis. There remain,

however, several questions. If error does not suffice as the model of the negative of

thinking, how can we say stupidity serves the role better? In the first place, what is

stupidity? It is true that we cannot distinguish stupidity from thought with pre-given

standards, but there must be some characteristic phenomenon of stupidity, which we

observe when we say it is stupid. Deleuze mentions a couple of authorsReon Bloy,

Charles Baudelaire, and the most important of all, Gustave Flaubertclaiming that the

best [literature] was haunted by the problem of stupidity. By giving this problem all its

cosmic, encyclopaedic and gnosological dimensions, such literature was able to carry it

as far as the entrance to philosophy itself (!994, 151; 1968, 196). But how can we

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For this interpretation, see Derrida (2008, 49; 2010, 152).12

Focusing on Deleuzes reference to the tyrant, Derrida develops his investigation into btise, an

interpretation that is similar to mine in explicating the political relevance of stupidity (btise) but different

by emphasizing the problematic of sovereignty. While my investigation does not preclude the problematic

of sovereignty, here I do not pursue the theme as such for two reasons: (1) Derridas exploration is deeply

tied with the term btise, which suggests animality as well as stupidity, whereas I focus on a broader family

of notions including stupidity, btise, dummheit, and orokasa () ; (2) while the problematic of

sovereignty is not proper to stupidity and can be approached by way of other notions, we can tackle the

problematic of politics and thinking, which I pursue in the greatest detail in this study by focusing on

stupidity. Cf. Derrida (2010, especially sessions 5 and 6).


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theorize or philosophize the problem Flaubert (as well as the other two authors) takes up

in his literature?13 To answer the above questions, we need to go beyond following

Deleuzes words on stupidity and move to account for them, a task that requires

analyzing his passing remarks in light of the broader philosophical framework of

Difference and Repetition. With this analysis, we can not only discern the mechanism of

stupidity in play but also make the political character of stupidity clearer.

Claiming stupidity as a transcendental problem for thought, Deleuze poses a

transcendental, that is, Kantian question: how is stupidity possible? His answer is: It

[stupidity] is possible by virtue of the link between thought and individuation.

It [the ground] is there, staring at us, but without eyes. The individual

distinguishes itself from it, but it does not distinguish itself, continuing rather to

cohabit with that which divorces itself from it. It is the indeterminate, but the

indeterminate in so far as it continues to embrace determination, as the ground

does the shoe. Stupidity is neither the ground nor the individual, but rather this

relation in which individuation brings the ground to the surface without being able

to give it from (this ground rises by means of the I, penetrating deeply into the

possibility of thought and constituting the unrecognized in every recognition).

(Deleuze 1994, 152; 1968, 197)!

!

This individuality is not the Cartesian cogito and is prior to it (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968,

331). While cogito (and its variant the thinking I in Kants philosophy) is posed as an

insular actor of thinking, individuality is never free from the ground (Being), and this

relation forms the locus of stupidity. Such a relational character suggests the political

character of stupidity. But Deleuzes explanation above is still too obscure. What is

individuality? How does it differ from cogito? Why the relationship among thinking,

individuation, and the ground? We need to decipher those notions.

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As a work that explores Deleuzes insights into literature and especially into Flaubert, see Colebrooke

(2007).


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The key to interpreting these notions is to be found in Deleuzes critique ofcogito.

As I just explained, the notion of individuation was introduced as an alternative to what

Deleuze believes to be the flawed assumption of the Cartesian cogito. As is well known,

Descartes introduced the insular substance ofcogito as the ground of Being, as the

foundation of all knowledge and the existence of the world. Isolated from the outside,

cogito, the thinking I, serves as the ground, free from all doxa imposedfrom outside upon

thinking, which itself is supposed as always right and certain. Although Descartes once

introduced the idea of a deceiving God, which could betray the assumption of the innate

righteousness of thinking, he quickly overcomes this possibility. Of course, his notion of

cogito had been subject to a long line of criticisms before Deleuze. Kant in Critique of

Pure Reason already made one of the most well-known criticisms against it, pointing out

that Descartes confused the activity of thinking with the substance ofcogito. According

to Kant, the activity of thinking as afunction is not sufficient to ground the actual

existence of the subject,the thinking I (Kant 1998a, B405). Nonetheless, Kant repeated a

similar reasoning to Descartess when he grounded the possibility of experience by

introducing the concept of pure apperception, which takes the form of I think: The I

thinkmust be able to accompany all my representations... I call it the pure

apperception... I also call its unity the transcendental unity of self-consciousness in

order to designate the possibility ofa priori cognition from it (Kant 1998a, B131-2, bold

and italics in original). One might suggest that Kant betrayed his own criticism by

making the thinking I into a unity, thereby returning to the insular substance in

grounding the thinking I and Being.


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However, interestingly enough, Deleuze finds another possibility in Kants

criticism and re-introduction ofcogito. By displacing or, in a sense, deconstructing

Kants exploration ofcogito, Deleuze re-interprets it as an account of the emergence of

thinking, individuation, and cogito from within their mutual relationship, the emergence

of what he calls the passive synthesis.

In his interpretation of Kant, Deleuze focuses on Kants reformulation of the

Cartesian cogito, through which Kant not only criticizes the Cartesian proposition but

also deepens it, explicating its condition. Kant is in a sense Cartesian when he says of

pure apperception that the I thinkmust be able to accompany all my representations

(Kant 1998a, B131, bold in original) and grounds all representationcognition with the

thinking I. The thinking I always brings all given intuition into a represented unity, and

thus serves as an anchor of all possible cognition. However, Kant also argues that the

Cartesian proposition, I think, therefore I exist is insufficient for this purpose of

grounding.For the I think to determine the existence of myself, first, something needsto be given to construct the representation of my existencethat is, given intuitions that

will be united under the thinking I. While the thinking I serves its unifying function and

can determine my existence, my existence requires the object of this act of

determination, an object that is not necessarily unified as such but can be the object of

determination. Simply put, the thinking I [ego], as the spontaneous function for

thinking, needs the material for self [moi], the passive and empirical material upon

which the activity of thinking is anchored.

With the need of the passive self (or at least its material), Kant introduces a split

into the Cartesian cogito, the split between a thinking I and the empirical self. Whereas it


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is the I that thinks, this thinking activity is sensed only in the passive, empirical self. I as

intelligence and thinking subject cognize my self as an object that is thought, insofar as

I am also given to myself in intuition, only, like other phenomena, not as I am for the

understanding but rather as I appear to myself (Kant 1998a, B155, bold in original). But

this split cogito does not endanger the stability of singularcogito as long as the

unification is smooth. For example, if the passive self is given as a lived experience with

which the thinking I fits smoothly, the split will be covered up as soon as it is introduced,

with this re-coupling constituting the organic, lived unity. However, this is not the case

with Kant, who deals with the transcendental question that purports to articulate the

possible conditions of experience (in this context, the existence of the given manifold of

intuitions) and not specific experiences. For him, the existence of a self is not the matter

of fact, but the object of the question: under what condition is the manifold of intuition

given? Kants answer to this question is time as the form of inner sense: since our

intuition is always sensible, no object can ever be given to our senses (Kant 1998a, B52).

As the formal condition of internal intuition, time serves as a condition of our existence,

and therefore, the central element of grounding. This is what Kant explains in the

following:

Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me I also need an intuition in

addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I

determine that general concept, so for the cognition of myself I also need in

addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, anintuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I

exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious of its faculty for combination but

which, in regard to the manifold that it is to combine, is subject to a limiting

condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable

only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts

of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it

appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable


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of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if

its intuition were intellectual. (1998a, B158-9, bold in original)

It is this introduction of time that debunks the unity ofcogito, the coupling of

thinking I and the self, for it deprives the thinking I of its independent spontaneity,

transmitting it to the passive self that is subject to the condition of time. Deleuze writes:

The consequences of this [answer by Kant that the form of time is necessary forthe I think to determine my existence] are extreme: my undetermined existence

can be determined only within time as the existence of a phenomenon, of a

passive, receptive phenomenal subject appearing within time. As a result, the

spontaneity of which I am conscious in the I think cannot be understood as the

attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being, but only as the affection of a

passive self which experiences its own thought its own intelligence, that byvirtue of which it can sayIbeing exercised in it and upon it but not by it.

(Deleuze 1994, 86; 1968, 116, italics in original, underlining mine)!

!

In the split cogito, the self feels the spontaneous thinking of the I. But the materials for

the determining self are passively given only through the form of time. Now the passive

self can have the representation of the spontaneous I think only as an indirect effect

that stems from the thinking Is affecting upon time, through which the self is given

(Kant 1998a, B155). According to Deleuze, this leads to the conclusion that the passive

self represents the activity of I think but only as an experience external to the passive

self. Using a phrase of Rimbaud, Deleuze articulates, I is an Other (Deleuze 1997, 29-

31). Furthermore, the possibility of the peaceful unification of the passive self and

thinking I is no longer available with the introduction of time. Subject to the condition of

time (as a formal condition), each of the two turn into a fractured I and a dissolved

self (Deleuze 1994, 259; 1968, 333).14

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!14

As Widder (2008, 92) points out, Kantians would argue against Deleuzes interpretation of the pure

apperception, pointing out that it belongs to the noumenal and has nothing to do with actual conditions in

the phenomenal. My point here, however, is to see how Deleuze productively develops the Kantian insight

to account for his own idea of the passive synthesis.


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Simply put, the proposition ofcogito, which is said to have grounded Being with

the insular, autonomous, and spontaneous activity of thinking, is immersed in Otherness.

As Deleuze succinctly puts it toward the end ofDifference and Repetition, in the

psychic system of the I-Self, the Other thus functions as a centre of enwinding,

envelopment or implication. It is the representative of the individuating factors (1994,

261; 1968, 335). By finding the intrusion of the Other in cogito prior to the emergence of

the latter, we can say the thinking I (that is, determination by cogito) is not able to ground

(determine) the existence of Being (the undetermined), but actually the spontaneity of the

former is subject to the latter. In this play between the thinking I whose assumed

spontaneity is endangered and Being that actually affects on the former in its passivity,

Deleuze finds the source of stupidity: Thought is the highest determination, confronting

stupidity as though face to face with the indeterminate which is adequate to it (Deleuze

1994, 275; 1968, 353). It is not yet clear enough how this play of spontaneity and

passivity, or its reversal, appears as stupidity. The key to finding the connection is the

character of the Other that the form of time introduces to cogito, whose exploration

reveals the mechanism of stupidity and helps to clarify stupidity's political character.

Deleuzes exploration of the Other appears mainly at the end of the final chapter

ofDifference and Repetition, the part where he deals both with the emergence of

representation andits abortion. As I have shown above, the intrusion of the Other in the

formation ofcogito means that the representation of the thinking I, contrary to the

presupposition of its spontaneity and independence, contains a passive element inspired

by the Other. Deleuze distinguishes this Other from an empirical other, who is not

different from myself but still can be seen as another person: Theories tend to oscillate


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Kantian formal time that achieves (and fails) this synthesis ofcogito as the third synthesis

of time, the synthesis of future, which achieves (and again, fails) the entire syntheses of

temporality with the other two temporalities, the present and the past, that is the passive

synthesis.15

Here I cannot delve into Deleuzes account of the three syntheses, but it

would suffice for my present purpose of exploring the characteristic of Deleuzean

otherness to point out the two characteristics of the third synthesis. First, this time

concerns the future because, as Kant writes in Critique of Pure Reason, time as the

formal condition of the passive self, of inner sense,is what enables time to pass. Second,this time is devoid of any content and thus of experience. Because this time serves as a

transcendental condition, it has nothing to do with content, free from any empirical, lived

time (1998a, A30-36/B46-53). With those two characteristics, the Kantian notion of the

future deprives cogito of its attachment to the empirical, lived world. Kantian time

achieves the synthesis of temporality, but in a way that prohibits the seamless unification

between the thinking I and the empirical self. It returns the divided cogito into unity, but

as an impossible unity: the order of time has broken the circle of the Same and arranged

time in a series only in order to re-form a circle of the Other at the end of the series

(Deleuze 1994, 91; 1968, 122). Deleuze overlaps this aborted synthesis of temporality

(and cogito) with his interpretation of the Nietzschean eternal return. But this eternal

return neither repeats the identical unity nor presents the pure alterity of otherness (for if

it did, any synthesis would be impossible) but repeats nameless others: As Klossowski

says, it is the secret coherence which establishes itself only by excluding my own

coherence, my own identity, the identity of the self, the world and God. It allows only the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!15

For a detailed account of the structure of the three moments of passive synthesis in the chapter

Repetition for Itself ofDifference and Repetition, see Hughes (2001, 86-126); Widder (2008, ch. 8).


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plebian to return, the man without a name (Deleuze 1994, 90-1; 1968, 122, italics mine).

This other is beyond representation, but it is beyond representation not in the way in

which, say, God is. Rather, we cannot represent the other because it is the nameless

plebian: the other is everybody. As I have repeatedly emphasized, in the representation of

I think, thinking of the I is indeed the thinking of others. Moreover, now it becomes

clear that such thinking of others is the thinking of everybody.

Such de-possession of thought into the nameless other, into everybody, is the

mechanism Flaubert observed in his writings on stupidity. Deleuze counts Flauberts

writing as the best literature haunted by the problem of stupidity. For Flaubert,

stupidity appears in the arena of communication as clichs. For example, in his Bouvard

and Pcuchet, two figures keep accumulating stock phrases they absorb from books. This

accumulation culminates in FlaubertsDictionary of Received Ideas, which he planned to

insert inBouvard and Pcuchetas their writing. This dictionary, which the author called

the historical glorification of everything generally approved, is composed entirely of

clichs. However, those words in the dictionary are clichs not simply by being generally

accepted. They are clichs because people as individuals, as independent thinking Is,

utter them as if they are the expressions of their own independent opinions or thoughts.

Flaubert in his letter to Louise Colet on December 17 of 1852 explains the purpose of the

Dictionary to be the following: I think that the whole thing would be a formidable lead

shot[plomb]. There would not be a single word invented by me in the book. If properly

done, anyone who read it would never dare open his mouth again, for fear of

spontaneously uttering one of its pronouncements (1926-30, 3:67; 1980, 176, italics in

original). Put in other words, the words of the dictionary function as the illumination of


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stupidity because those words show that we become prey to stupidity at the very moment

when we regard ourselves as spontaneous and independent thinkers.

So far, I have tried to show stupiditys internal relation with thinking by following

the reformulations of the Cartesian cogito by Kant and Deleuze. Deleuze sees Flauberts

Bouvard and Pcuchetas the outcome of theDiscourse on Method (1994, 276; 1968,

353). Cartesian cogito, unable to grasp the individual, the realactor of thinking, comes to

represent the thought of others while it presupposes that representation as its own

spontaneous projection. But since cogito represents its (assumed) thinking on the

empirical ground, the Otherness within it also needs to appear in its empirical

representation, at the cost of losing its status as pure alterity, which is otherwise beyond

representation. This fundamental failure ofcogitos spontaneous grounding and the

inevitable intrusion of otherness leads to our seemingly spontaneous and independent

thought through a series ofclichs.

Now, let me turn to the second thesis that I mentioned in the introduction, the

problematic about the political character of stupidity. The key to this problematic is the

Deleuzean notion of the Other. As I explained above, Deleuzean otherness is unique in

seeing otherness in its nobody-ness as everybody-ness, while his contemporaries tend to

take otherness as pure alterity. For example, for Levinas, the paradigmatic case of our

relationship to the Other is theBook of Job, where otherness is evinced as the gods

fundamental unintelligibility. The Levinasian notion of otherness, regardless of its

asymmetrical character, offers great resources for ourethicalorientation, but less for our

politicalorientation. For such pure alterity of the Other cannot be multiplied. By taking

otherness as everybody-ness, however anonymous it is, Deleuze offers a different way to


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account for the multiplicity of otherness. Now the relationship between myself and the

Other is that between myself and multiplicity, which is better seen as a political

relationship than as an ethicalone. Therefore, stupidity, by revealing the intrusion of the

Other as everybody, is a problem not only for thinking but also for politics.16

This point

will be explored later by comparison with Arendt.

Beyond the Image of Thought?

So far, I have tried to account for Deleuzes short paragraphs on stupidity in the

Image of Thought chapter. My interpretation of them has exposed the two theses on

stupidity that I anticipated in the beginning: (1) stupidity is an internal problem of

thinking; and (2) stupidity is a problem not only for thinking, but also for politics.

Moreover, intrusion of otherness in the thinking I reveals the fundamentally political

element in thinking activity. Thus the two modes of human activitythinking and

politicsare connected by stupidity as their hinge. For stupidity, appearing as clichs, is

possible by virtue of thinking and the intrusion of the Other in the very incipience of the

former.

However, my interpretation so far still leaves several uncertainties concerning

those theses as well as Deleuzes texts. First, if stupidity constitutes an internal problem

for politics, is it possible to solve the problem? Simply put, can we do away with

stupidity? In the previous sections, I repeatedly emphasized the ineluctable character of

stupidity, showing stupidity to be an enduring problem. Yet my account so far does not

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!16

For example, Deleuze writes about the world ofon (people, they) as the following: The world of one

or they is a world ofimpersonal individuations andpre-individual singularities; a world which cannot be

assimilated to everyday banality but one in which resonates the true nature of that profound and that

groundlessness which surrounds representation, and from which simulacra emerge (1994, 277; 1968, 355,

italics in original).


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eradicate such a question or attempt to solve the problem of dissociating thinking from

stupidity. This question also comes out of ambiguities contained in Deleuzes texts

themselves, both inside and outsideDifference and Repetition. In fact, my reading of

Deleuze, in emphasizing the ineluctable quality of stupidity and the role (however

negative it is) ofcogito in thinking, seems to deviate from prevalent, not so say

hegemonic, readings, which more or less articulate Deleuzes purpose in the Image of

Thought chapter andDifference and Repetition to be the pursuit of thinking without

imagerepresentation. If we could attain thinking without the image, we would do away

with stupidity as its component. Also, as the second uncertainty, another but similar kind

of reading may try to underestimate the importance of stupidity for Deleuzes philosophy,

pointing out that the theme disappears in his later writings, and that it appears only in

passing inDifference and Repetition. This line of reading emphasizes, instead of stupidity,

the importance of the notion of idiocy, which, already appearing inDifference and

Repetition, becomes a key notion in his later book co-authored with Guattari, What is

Philosophy? Does this shift in focus suggest a certain flaw in Deleuzes orientation

toward stupidity that would be fixed by replacing it with a notion of idiocy, which hovers

outside the dogmatic image of thought while stupidity is embedded within it? This

question about the difference between stupidity and idiocy leads to a third question, a

question about the meaning of stupidity, or to be more precise, about the meaning of

posing the question of stupidity. My focus on the ineluctable and enduring character of

stupidity anticipates a pessimistic vision of human thinking: thinking, incessantly haunted

by stupidity, seems unlikely to reveal anything, much less certainty or truth. If such is the

destiny of human thinking, should we accept skepticism with resignation? Are there any


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positive moments in thinking? Or, put in other words: what is the point of taking stupidity

seriously? In this section, I respond to those three questions by clarifying the

corresponding ambiguities in Deleuzes texts.

The first question concerns the extent to which stupidity and the image of thought

haunt our thinking. If stupidity (and the image of thought) is an internal problem for

political theory, is there any possibility that we can do away with the problem? In other

words, is there any new mode of thinking that is free from stupidity? That question draws

its plausibility from two ambiguities in the chapter on the Image of Thought: one

concerns the status of the image of thought in general; and the other concerns the

relationship between stupidity and thinking. Let me start with the status of the image of

thought.

InDifference and Repetition, Deleuze articulates the main object of his criticism.

The image of thought, with its unexamined presuppositions, makes philosophy unable to

truly initiate thinking. As such, does his criticism rather imply that we cannot think as

long as we are under the tutelage of the image of thought? Does the philosophical system

Deleuze conceives inDifference and Repetition evince an entirely new thinking, thinking

without the image? In fact, Deleuzes orientation may look toward this direction, when he

pursues an encounter with radical novelty in thought, calling for the new power of

politics that will overturn the image of thought (1994, 137; 1968, 179, italics mine).

Moreover, using the metaphor of painting, Deleuze even concludes: The theory of

thought is like painting: it needs that revolution which took art from representation to

abstraction. This is the aim of a theory ofthought without image (1994, 276; 1968, 354,

italics mine). Given this blunt manifestation, it would be reasonable that many current


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interpretations of Deleuze follow this direction when they claim that his philosophy is the

search for new thinking without image, thinking without representation.

Now, if our thinking can be truly free from the image of thought, thinking would

be also be free from stupidity. For, as I have shown in the previous section, stupidity

appears under the mode of thinking that takes the formulation ofcogito or the thinking I.

It is true that Deleuze writes that stupidity is possible by virtue of the link between

thought and individuation (1994, 151; 1968, 197). And individuation is different from

cogito, because individuation is what proceeds to cogito (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968, 331).

Nonetheless, it is through cogito, or rather, fissures within it (fractured I and dissolved

self) that stupidity appears. Thus, if Deleuze offers an alternative to the image of thought

of which the subject of representation is cogito, such thinking would necessarily do away

with stupidity altogether. If so, however, this direction would contradict the first thesis,

the problematic that finds stupidity to be an internalproblem for thinking.

In fact, some of Deleuzesremarks on stupidity seem to resonate with the above

direction, to suggest that stupidity lies outsidethe true thinking, external to the thought

without image. For example, Deleuze speaks of the negligence of stupidity in the image

of thought, in conventional philosophy, as an obstacle to thinking: The subject of

Cartesian Cogito does not think: it only has the possibility of thinking, and remains stupid

at the heart of that possibility (1994, 276; 1968, 353-54, italics mine). Does he not

suggest here that stupidity does not think? He seems to suggest so when he writes

stupidity is evidence of an inability to constitute, comprehend, or determine a problem

as such (1994, 159; 1968, 207). Is stupidity for Deleuze the zero degree of thinking? If

so, does it mean stupidity is a problem ofothers, for those who are entrapped in the cave


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of the image of thought, and not for ourselves, for the real philosophers who attain

thought without image?

Given this statement about stupidity as non-thinking, it would look reasonable

that a widespread image of Deleuze holds him to be a thinker of anti-representation,

seeking direct experience without mediation, or of vitalism that liberates the life force

from the obstacle of philosophical representation, both of which deny any subject of

representation, whether it might be cogito or the thinking I.17

Moreover, Deleuze himself looks to support this widespread image when he

draws upon the notion of idiocy as a positive alternative to a negative non-thinking of

stupidity. Idiocy may look similar to stupidity in that both are opposed to upright thinking

and good will. However, the ways in which they are respectively opposed to upright

thinking and good will are different. Whereas stupidity appears as a reproduction of

shared opinions, that is, of clichs, idiocy refers to the lack of such sharing. The

philosopher takes the side of the idiot as though of a man without presuppositions

(Deleuze 1994, 130; 1968, 170). The representative figures of stupidity are Bouvard and

Pcuchet; for idiocy they are Prince Myshkin and the nameless narrator from

underground in Dostoyevskys work. Or, while Deleuze does not mention him in relation

to idiocy, we can add Bartleby to the list of idiots. Idiots cannot agree on what is shared

in society, thus unable to even utter clichs.18 With this inability, the idiot possesses the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!17

This characterization of Deleuzes thought is rather an image, which is not pursued by many Deleuze

studies but still shared by many readers beyond the narrow scholarship on Deleuze. For a study pursuing

this way, see Manuel de Landas characteriziation of Deleuzes project as philosophical realism (de

Landa 2002). See also Tuscano (2010).18

Deleuze explores idiocy and clichs (formulae) of Bartleby in his essay Bartleby; or, the Formula. It is

true that Bartleby speaks one clich:I would prefer not to But his clich is radically different from

those in Bouvard and Pcuchet. While the latter two repeat words of others, Bartleby, as Deleuze observes,

makes clichs (Deleuze 1997, 68-90). This difference between Bartleby and Bouvard and Pcuchet,

between idiocy and stupidity helps to clarify my exploration from another approach that is prevalent in the


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potentiality to truly initiate thinking without image. Free from shared assumptions and

thus from representation, idiocy rather shows a potentiality of thinking, the power of

initiating new thinking beyond the image of thought. While stupidity remains stupid

within the image of thought, idiocy, hovering above the dogmatic image, seems to show

the true power of overturning that image.

If it is true that stupidity appears as mere non-thinking and the idiot as a true

thinker, such an interpretation would contradict the second thesis concerning the political

character of stupidity and thinking, as well as the first thesis about the co-existence of

stupidity and thinking. For such a reading poses true thinking of idiocy beyond the realm

of shared plurality: the idiot is a solitary thinkerthe classical figure of philosopher.

Then the purpose of Deleuzes remarks on stupidity, of The Image of Thought chapter,

and probably the entire book ofDifference and Repetition would preclude the realm of

plurality and politics as that of non-thinking, repeating the orientation frequently

observed in philosophy since Socrates death.

It would not be without reason, then, that most of the readings that seek the

political dimension of Deleuzes philosophy turn to his later works with Guattari,

especially the two volumes ofCapitalism and Schizophrenia, which introduce explicitly

political notions such as the rhizome, nomadism, the state apparatus and the war machine.

More crucial to our current concern is that the theme of stupidity fades away in these two

volumes. Deleuzes departure from the theme, in fact, may appear related with his turn to

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

current scholarship in continental political theory, that is, Agambens exploration which is organized

around the problem of sovereignty. Referring to Deleuzes essay on Bartleby, Agamben pushes Deleuzes

insights further, toward his own idea of potentiality. According to Agamben, Bartleby attests to the

absolute potentiality of thought, which is the supreme object of philosophy. Such positive evaluation of

absolute potentiality seems to be resonant with Agambens emphasis onzo!as the pre-sovereign life. In

contrast, what Bouvard and Pcuchet attest to, and thus problematize, is not such potentiality vis--vis

sovereignty, but a certain dissonance in representedthought. I will return to this point in the conclusion.


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more explicit political themes. As we have observed, stupidity makes its appearance due

to necessary fissures in cogito. Thus stupidity is possible as far as we inevitably draw

upon the assumption ofcogito as the subject of presentation, the assumption of the

dogmatic image of thought; if we can do away with the image of thought and

representation, we will be free from stupidity altogether. And such total disavowal of

representation seems to take place under his assumed political turn. While, as I argue,

Difference and Repetition remains, in a sense, reserved in its attempt to think difference

in itself independently of the forms of representation (1994, xix; 1968, 1-2) since it

maintains that representationhowever flawedemerges, his work with Guattari looks

less ambiguous in its attempt to grasp difference in itself, which is now called

multiplicity. This shift in philosophical orientation, with an apparently political tone in

Capitalism and Schizophrenia, leads a reader interested in Deleuzes political aspects

such as Brian Massumi to juxtapose representation (in his word, representational

thinking) with the state philosophy, the mode of thinking that subjugates people (or

the multitude) under state, with the purpose of breaking the two altogether with nomad

thought which takes us beyond the narrow sphere of philosophy (Massumi 1987). Thus

it may look as if the theme of stupidity fades away once Deleuze leaves the narrow, even

state-centered realm of philosophy and becomes a true political thinker.

In fact, the connection between philosophy and politics for Deleuze is not so

simple.A Thousand Plateaus, for example, does not simply call for pure de-

territorialization and a direct grasp of multiplicity. The authors are keen to pay attention

to moments countering de-territorialization, such as re-territorialization, codification, and

so on. Moreover, even afterCapitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze returns to the central


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importance of philosophy in What is Philosophy? The book, seen to have been written

more by Deleuze than Guattari (Dosse 2007), explores the same theme of The Image of

Thought written about more than twenty years before: what thinking should be like.

Moreover, What is Philosophy? repeats several motifs originally appearing in The

Image of Thought, exploring presuppositions in philosophy, stupidity, and idiocy. But it

now deals with them in a slightly different tone. Now stupidity occupies a smaller role

and gives way to more positive characteristics attributed to idiocy. Whereas stupidity

finds its expression in clichs, idiocy, now clearly stated as the predicate of philosopher,

exercises its positive role in breaking from accepted clichs: the idiot, the one who

wants to think for himself and is a persona who can change and take on another meaning

(Deleuze and Guattari 1994,70). Also, the dogmatic image of thought inDifference and

Repetition gives way to more affirmative images of thought, or planes of immanence

which refer to each philosophical system. Thus it is a privilege of philosophy that,

standing above the realm ofdoxa, repudiating clichs, brings about a new image of

thought. In the end, does not every great philosopher lay out a new plane of immanence,

introduce a new substance of being and draw up a new image of thought, so that there

could not be two great philosophers on the same plane? (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 51).

Because of such a prominent role given to the philosopher-idiot, authors like

Alain Badiou see in Deleuze the figure of a classical, or even Platonic philosopher, an

image entirely opposed to that of Massumis. According to Badiou, Deleuzes project is

far from anti-foundational or anti-philosophical, but essentially a return to classical

ontology of the One, of which the paradigmatic case remains Plato. Not only is

Deleuzes philosophy to be understood as a thinking of ground, but it is, of all the


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contemporary configurations, the one that most obstinately reaffirms that the thought of

the multiple demands that Being be rigorously determined as One (Badiou 1999, 45).

Badiou further argues that despite Deleuzes disavowal of the conventional dichotomy

between one and many inA Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 4) and his

recurrent criticism against Plato, his call for the virtual and multiplicity is not so different

from Platos call for the Idea. Moreover, this classical character in Deleuzes

philosophy goes beyond the narrow character of ontology to its ethical dimension and to

political-social functions. In requiring thinking to think oneness, the univocity of Being,

thinking for Deleuze is aristocratic, because the highest purpose of thinking lies in

thinking the supreme oneness of Being (whatever its name is) that is distributed

hierarchically among beings. Thus Deleuzes project, being purely philosophical, does

not have a necessary connection with any political positions according to Badiou: It is

one of the signs of Deleuzes greatness that, in spite of his success, he was unable to be

incorporated into the major blocks of opinion that organize the petty parliamentary life of

the profession (Badiou 1999, 96). While Deleuze's readers try to connect his philosophy

with democratic political movements, it has nothing to do with Deleuzes philosophical

system. Rather, Badiou claims, Deleuze remains purely philosophical in his work and

stays aloof from any attempt to find political implications in his philosophy with his keen

awareness of the classical danger faced by philosophersthe corruption of the youth

(Badiou 1999, 97).

Badious reading, however, has the same implication as that of Massumi for our

current attempt to find the political character of stupidity. If Deleuzes project is to think

the virtual in its oneness, stupidity would remain a pure negative of thinking, that is, non-


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thinking. Moreoverand this is the second possible rejoinder to my argument developed

in the previous sectionthis pure negativity would mean that stupidity has nothing to do

with a positive (or actual) event of thinking. Unlike idiocy, which can initiate

(philosophical) thinking, stupidity remains inside the realm of daily life, ofdoxa.

Therefore, what results from such a classical manner of philosophy of oneness seems to

be a thorough devaluation of our daily thinking.19

Here in this chapter, I neither try to solve all of these ambiguities in Deleuzes

texts nor squarely respond to these interpretations. Instead of giving an interpretation to

the entire uvre of Deleuze, giving a definite statement as to the extent to which

Deleuzes later works are political, or assessing the validity of each of its interpretations,

I want to focus onDifference and Reptitionnamely on the notion of stupidity. I deal

with ambiguities and interpretations insofar as they concern that focus.

Let me summarize what is at stake in the ambiguities of Deleuzes texts and

interpretations. First, about the internal relation between thinking and stupidity,

Deleuzes text sometimes locates stupidity outside the realm of thinking, as non-thinking.

This possibility renders readings by Massumi and Badiou more plausible. For while

presenting different interpretations concerning the political implications of Deleuze's

texts, both concur that Deleuzes philosophy aims at going beyond representation and the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!19

A similar line of criticism is posed concerning Deleuzes attack on the assumption that the capacity for

thinking is equally distributed to everyone, the assumption exemplified in Descartess statement in

Discourse on Methodthat Good sense is of all things in the world most equally distributed. For example,

Tuscano (2010) regards this attack to be an anti-democratic attitude for, he argues, this denial leads to

privileging philosophers thinking. But such criticism seems hasty to me. It is one thing to attack the pre-

philosophical assumption about the capacity for thinking, but denying the capacity of people for thinking is

another. The point of Deleuzes denial is to show how philosophy has been leaving one of the most

problematical elements in thinking untouched, not to claim that philosophy has the capacity for thinking.

Moreover, I regard Deleuzes criticism as implying a certain egalitarianism. Contrary to the Cartesian

equality in our capacity for thought, Deleuzes egalitarianism is based on the impossibility of giving

hierarchy in our thinking capacity: stupidity equally troubles philosophers and the people, the sophisticated

and the vulgar.


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world of beings, toward, for Massumi, non-representation and, for Badiou, toward the

oneness of Being. Such an orientation is not compatible with my interpretation of

stupidity. Mine sees representation as a flawed but inevitable condition. Second,

concerning the political character of stupidity, whereas Badiou and Massumi starkly

differ on the political implications of Deleuzes philosophy, they share a certain

presumption about what the political implications of philosophy mean. Both mean by

political implication only a specific normative political orientation: while Massumi

finds an anarchic political project in Deleuzes criticism against state philosophy,

Badiou identifies a hierarchical character of thinking in Deleuze and denies its political

implications for the lack of any necessary linkage between Deleuzes philosophy and any

political position. Third, as a consequence of the previous two, such interpretations taken

by Massumi and Badiou would not find any importance in stupidity. Different from

nomadic thought or philosophy of oneness, stupidity would, for Massumi and Badiou,

lack a relation to a positive mode of thinking, staying as the degree-zero of thinking at

best. How can I counteract those readings that marginalize the role of stupidity?

I have already attempted to show the internal relationship between thinking and

stupidity in the previous sectionthe relation whose crucial moment resides in the

argument that thinking cannot but appear as representation, however flawed it is, through

cogito.20 Thus in the following, I want to defend the problematic through a different path:

by exploring differences between Deleuze and Heidegger, whose orientation toward

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!20

My reading, as we saw in the review of current Deleuze scholarship, might sound an unorthodox one.

However, textual evidence supports it. For example, Deleuze writes that selves must be presupposed as a

condition of passive organic syntheses, already playing the role of mute witness (1994, 258; 1968, 333).

Surely his emphasis is on the need to go beyond or below the form ofcogito. But we should be equally

attentive to his realization that we still need cogito, or a certain form of subjectivity. Bryant (2008) and, in a

more nuanced manner, Hughes (2010) emphasize that Deleuzes philosophy is not simply a philosophy of

anti-representation.


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thinking and the lack of thinking in What is Called Thinking? has an influence on

Deleuzes Image of Thought chapter and thus makes Deleuzes philosophy susceptible

to the criticisms posed by Badiou.

Heideggers influence over Deleuze is apparent throughoutDifference and

Repetition. Deleuze himself is unequivocal about his indebtedness when he mentions

Heideggers philosophy of difference as one of the contemporary accounts that helped to

prepare his book. Moreover, as I will point out later, the Image of Thought chapter can

be seen as Deleuzes version ofWhat is Called Thinking?. At the same time, Heideggers

influence contributes to makingDifference and Repetition appear as if it is privileging

one kind of thinkingthe thinking of Beingover others, moving beyond representation,

and having nothing to do with the political. Badiou, for example, refers to Heideggers

influence, which he rightly claims is greater than generally accepted, as evidence of the

quintessential philosophical character of Deleuze. Insolely focusing on the oneness of

Being as the object of thinking, not on multiple beings in society, Deleuzes philosophy,

Badiou claims, is a loyal successor to Heidegger: The question posed by Deleuze is the

question of Being. From beginning to end, and under the constraint of innumerable and

fortuitous cases, his work is concerned with thinking thought (its act, its movement) on

the basis of an ontological precomprehension of Being as One (Badiou 1999, 20).

According to Badiou, Deleuze is indeed more thoroughgoing than Heidegger on this

point when Deleuze criticizes the residual phenomenological element in Heidegger.

While for Heidegger thinking needs to start with pre-ontological understandings

revolving around beings, Deleuze seeks to sever the internal linkage between beings and

Being (Badiou, 1999, 21-26). For Deleuze, the thinking of Being is disconnected from


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those about beings. Whether or not Badiou is right in maintaining a more Heideggerian

Deleuze than Heidegger himself, it is no doubt that such a figure of the philosopher who

concerns himself solely with Being stems from the image of Heidegger. Heidegger, in

What is Called Thinking?, states that thinking involves listening to the call of Being.

Such a listening seems to reduce the assertive mode of thinking to a mere passive

reception. According to Heidegger, our modern image of thought that centers on logic,

aiming at the grasp of logical relations among represented beings (that is, concepts),

remains far from true thinking. In fact, for Heidegger, under this confusion between

thinking and representation, we do not yet think. Heidegger opposes this image of

thinking as a responsive activity, as a thankfulness to the call of Being.

Thinking in its authentic form appears as a pure activity vis--vis Being under this

Heideggerian formula. It is true that Heidegger does not simply oppose the true thinking

of Being against representational thinking or non-thinking. In fact he cautiously

maintains that Being is always guarded by beings that we represent; Heidegger does not

simply argue for our direct grasp of Being. Rather, to the philosopher of oblivion,

Being never becomes transparent. Thinking always arrives in a certain passivity (e.g. as

thanks, gift, recollection), that is, as a response to the call of Being made available at that

time. More importantly, our non-thinkingthe fact that we do not yet thinkis not

simply a negative state for Heidegger. On the contrary, the fact that we do not yet think

is the food for thought that needs to be thought and that drives out assertive thinking.

Here we see Heideggers thesis concerning the ambiguity of truth: the truth appears, on

the one hand, as the unconcealment of Being while, on the other hand, Being needs to be

preserved in the concealment of beings. Nevertheless, thinking for Heidegger is still


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directed toward the unconcealment of Being insofar as the negative fact of our non-

thinking makes us realize that we are still not thinking. In fact, according to Heidegger,

modern thought, in its self-understanding centered on the spontaneity of reason and

representation, shutters our way toward the true thinking and thus toward Being

(Heidegger 2004, 210-11). Thus it seems that we have two kinds of non-thinking: one as

a preservation of Being in its unconcealment; the other as a pure non-thinking as the

degree-zero of thinking, appearing as our modern poverty of thinking. Not only is

Heidegger's thinking detached from representation, it is also anti-political in that the

unconcealment of Being arrives outside the realm of our ordinary human intercourse.21

The realm of people, of das Man, has a positive impact on our thinking only insofar as

it calls for the need to transcend itself. What Heideggers thinking calls for is the

receptive quiet thinking of the solitary philosopher, which is based on a lingering

dichotomy between authentic and inauthentic thinking.

When we turn our eyes to Deleuzes Image of Thought chapter, Heideggers

influence is obvious. As Heidegger insists that we do not yet think, Deleuze counters

that the dogmatic image of thought has been preventing our thinking from truly initiating

itself. The two also concur when regarding representation as the main source of

misunderstandings about and obstacles for thinking. Moreover, Deleuze makes his debt

to Heidegger evident when he refers to the phrase the fact we do not yet think in

discussing stupidity (Deleuze 1994, 153; 1968, 198). Thus it might seem reasonable to

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Here I do not discuss Heideggers own political thought, his commitment to National Socialism, or the

possibility of Heideggerian political theory. However, one characteristic I want to note is that Heideggers

politics, if there is such a thing, would belong to the classical Platonic tradition in privileging philosophical

nous and a certain form of community, regardless of the great distance between Plato and Heidegger. In

seeing in Heidegger the classic philosophicaland thus not politico-theoreticalattitude, I concur with

Arendts view in her essay, Heidegger the Fox (Arendt 1994, 361-2).


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assume that Deleuze shares with Heidegger not only the orientation to the question of

thinking but also its flawthe flaw of privileging the philosophical mode of thinking

above others marked as non-thinking. Badiou diagnoses this problem in Deleuze when he

criticizes Deleuzes idea of a disjunctive synthesis, the distinction between Being and

beings (Badiou 1999, 22). If we accept this distinction, Badious line of argument will

claim, thinking quaphilosophy has nothing to do with beings in the world of

thoughtlessness.22 Therefore, Badiou would argue not only against the first thesis on the

internal relationship between thinking and stupidity, but also against the second thesis

concerning the political character of thinking.

However, we need to be attentive to the differences between Deleuze and

Heidegger as well as the similarities. In fact, Deleuzes displacement of the fact that we

do not yet think with stupidity, I argue, reflects his displacement of Heideggers

dichotomy between authentic, philosophical thinking and inauthentic non-thinking.

Deleuzes reference to Heideggers What is Called Thinking? appears at the very

end of the paragraphs dealing with the problem of stupidity: the transcendent element

which can only be thought (the fact that we do not yet think or What is stupidity?)

(1994, 153; 1968, 198). A straightforward reading of this quote seems to make stupidity

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!22

To put it more precisely, Deleuze for Badiou prioritizes Being and thus disconnects the realms of Being

and beings further than Heidegger: The real reason for the disparity between Deleuze and Heidegger,

within their shared conviction that philosophy rests solely on the question of Being, is the following: for

Deleuze, Heidegger does not uphold the fundamental thesis of Being as One up to its very end. He does not

uphold this because he does not assume the consequences of the univocity of Being. Heidegger

continuously evokes the maxim of Aristotle: 'Being is said in various senses,' in various categories. It is

impossible for Deleuze to consent to this 'various'(Badiou 1999, 23, italics in original). While Heidegger

sees the authentic connection between Being and beings in certain mitsein, Deleuze, Badiou claims,

repudiates any such connection and puts solely the virtualBeing for Deleuzeas the object of

philosophy. As I argue throughout this chapter, however, it is misleading to take Deluzes philosophical

project inDifference and Repetition solely as the search for the virtual. It is true that Deleuze offers a kind

of monism, but Badiou has overlooked the protean character of Deleuzes monism, its capacity to morph its

many modes of capacities. Equally important is Deleuzes account of how thinking needs to appear as

representation, however much flawed the representation is.


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appear as just another name for the fact that we do not yet think. Yet there is another

possibility: the conjunction or replaces Heideggerian non-thinking, the fact that we do

not yet think with what is stupidity? If, as I have argued, stupidity is internal to

thinking (and if Deleuze avoids the above-mentioned pitfall of the Heideggerian

orientation), this latter interpretation appears more plausible. Deleuzes assessment of the

contributions and risks of Heideggers philosophy in one of the longest notes in

Difference and Repetition supports this latter reading. In the note, while acknowledging

Heideggers significant contribution to the philosophy of difference, Deleuze expresses

his concern about the slippery use of the negative in Heidegger: It can nevertheless be

asked whether Heidegger did not himself encourage the misunderstandings, by his

conception of Nothing as well as by his manner of striking through. Being instead of

parenthesising the (non) of non-Being (1994, 66; 1968, 91). If Heidegger posits the

negative of Being by the word non, a hierarchical dichotomy between the world of

Being and that of nothingness results. Such externalization of the negative is of the same

kind that I pointed out in Heideggers orientation toward non-thinking, the annihilation of

the realm ofdas Man. A productive path to avoid this danger is, according to Deleuze, to

interpret Heideggers non as difference, especially as the ontological difference

between Being and beings. His proposal shows that Deleuze, while proposing to think

difference in itself independent of the form of representation, neither leaves the world of

beings nor completely does away with the world of representation. Thinking needs to

become other than representation, but it does so by way of represented thinking and the

fissured cogito. Deleuze makes this point clear in the quote above when he states this

unthought has become the necessary empirical form, in which, in the fractured I


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Stupidity and Thoughtlessness: Deleuze and Arendt on Political Relevance of

Thinking

In the last section, I attempted to clear up ambiguities in and around Deleuzes

texts by repudiating some interpretations and criticisms against him, especially those

concerning the first thesis about the endogenous relation between thinking and stupidity.

The central issues at stake among those ambiguities and criticisms involve the internal

relationship between stupidity and thinkingthat is, the degree to which stupidity haunts

our thinking. By refuting such readings that interpret Deleuzes purpose to be solely

concerned with Being or the overcoming of representation, I have shown the

characteristics and thus importance of the notion of stupidity that traverses the realms

both of Being and beings, or sub-representation and representation. Stupidity is not the

problem of others (of beings, of das Man, of representation, and so on), nor is it external

to thinking and philosophy. It is ourproblem.

This endogeneity of stupidity helps to clarify another problematic that the

previous sections touched on but did not fully address: the political character of stupidity.

In the course of examining interpretations of Deleuze, we have seen opposing views

concerning the political relevance of his philosophy. On the one hand, readers concerned

with its political utility, such as Massumi, see Deleuzes so-called anti-representational

philosophical project itself as a political project against the state while, on the other hand,

readers like Badiou posit the exclusively philosophical concern of Deleuze and regard its

connection with radical political movements to be merely arbitrary. I have already shown

that those two views are philosophically misleading in ignoring the accountDifference


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and Repetition gives to the emergence of (flawed) representation. What is also

noteworthy is that in politics, too, Massumi and Badiou share one assumption: the

assumption that the political relevance of philosophy is to be tested solely according to

the extent to which philosophy offers the ground for specific political agendas or

attitudes. In holding such a reductionist view that judges political relevance for its

applicability, their seemingly opposing positions converge. I do not deny that Deleuzes

philosophy can serve to deepen our political sensibility. Indeed, my study is devoted to

explicate the positive political contributions of the problematic of stupidity, part of which

I briefly suggested at the end of the previous section.But such positive elements appear

not simply through the explication of a certain political agenda from philosophy and by

virtue of its applicability.23 Moreover, the political relevance of one philosophical system

can be of great value when it helps us to clarify the very relationship between politics and

philosophy, and/or between politics and thinking. It is regarding such relationships that

Deleuzes exploration of stupidity is illuminative. If, as I have shown,

chapter - the problematic of stupidity, reading deleuze’s” image of thought”

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