Sunday, January 23, 2011

Deleuze, Hume, Empiricism, Practice

According to Deleuze's interpretation, the Humean 'Subject' is both Practical and Empiricist. It is Practical because its fundamental mode of experience is the pursuit of the satisfaction of its interests, and it is Empiricist because that pursuit is informed by Knowledge gained from previous experiences. However, that knowledge, in seemingly all the examples from Hume's texts that Deleuze cites, is knowing-that, e. g. that A and B have been constantly conjoined. Thus lacking, are examples of knowing-how, e. g. that B can be expected to occur upon the performance of A. Likewise, the only Humean habit-formation that Deleuze cites is a cultivation of expectation, not one of motor habits. Hence, Deleuze falls short of deriving from Hume an Empiricism that is truly a "theory of what we are doing" as he claims at the end of the book to have presented in its course.

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