Vacuous.
Reminds me of David Stove's "What is wrong with our thoughts" [1].
Difference and multiplicity are core to empirical data and scientific & engineering modelling. To make a measurement you assume there is a scale to measure difference. To have a variable is to assume that something can vary. To be a cause is to assume something can make a difference. To have a process is to assume a system that can change and transform. There's nothing vacuous about this.
Tautology.
> To be a cause is to assume something can make a difference.
Tautology.
> To have a process is to assume a system that can change and transform.
Tautology.
Vacuous is exactly how I'd describe the above.
The only statement with potential depth is:
> To make a measurement you assume there is a scale to measure difference.
This invokes quantum mechanics a little. But if those are Deleuze's words, he's a bit late to the party. That stuff was being quantified and mathematically modelled decades before.
In order for something to be tautological, you need to be working within some formal system of proof. Proposing definitions to terms could never be tautological.
I think you just want to say "I know that already!"
Also, Deleuze would love this comment, precisely because of your confusion in the term.
> I think you just want to say "I know that already!"
> “All humans are mammals” is held to assert with regard to anything whatsoever that either it is not a human or it is a mammal. But that universal “truth” follows not from any facts noted about real humans but only from the actual use of human and mammal and is thus purely a matter of definition. [1]
Moving on.
I assumed parent was trying to make (non-vacuous) statements, firstly because he was replying to a comment, and secondly because he followed them up with "There's nothing vacuous about this."
> Proposing definitions to terms could never be tautological.
If you treat them as statements, the tautologies clearly appear by substituting the terms' definitions in:
* To have a (thing which can vary) is to assume that something can vary.
* To be a (something that can make a difference) is to assume something can make a difference.
But if parent was just defining his terms, then let's hear those terms used in non-vacuous statements.
It also invokes politics, economics, and all that implements some form of notional value, because as some other philosopher quipped, what gets measured gets treasured.
But I also don't have a strong reactionary anger to Deleuze's penchant for writing in an obscurant quasi-post-modern literary style, and I get that many do. In any case, it's not like similar ideas are not also worked through in less cryptic ways in contemporary philosophy of science journals.
All our modern advances from hypersonic missiles, large language models, quantum physics and spaceflight and are in spite of what is called philosophy, not due to it.
Advances, musings and insights in one domain do not preclude those in others, just as the ethical and epistemological boundaries (and possible trajectories) of missiles, models and spacecraft do not suddenly disappear just because we invented them.
Even moreso, the surrounding language games can be just as impactful: doomsday clocks, Turing tests and space supremacy have informed many policies on the docket, well before any practical applications were feasible. In these instances, it would be (and has been) quite difficult to seperate the science from our language, just as the other way around.
How do you feel about falsifiability?
[1] https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/deleuze-flows
[2] https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/deleuze-difference
Your comment is tantamount to someone that doesn’t speak German saying “vacuous” when they come across a word like Geist. Lazy and uninformed.
Parent is suggesting that if we don’t take Deleuze seriously, we should also not take Whitehead seriously. (Despite Whitehead being a fav of the analytic crowd.)
But the Deleuze comparison, to the extent that it makes any sense, only applies to the later Whitehead. We don’t have to reject the Pricipia. The obvious position is that Deleuze is not-even-wrong, process philosophy is not-even-wrong, and the principia is merely wrong (which is amazing in philosophy.)
Anyways, should read Process and Reality someday, since my interest in panpsychism is growing… (And which might be more useful than reading Deleuze/Guattari since they’re just too cryptic)
Shaviro's "Without Criteria" which discusses this connection was an absolute delight.
I do know the ancient philosophers cared a lot about change.
So I assume Deleuze's notions wrt change are serious too, and not just some self-help new age crap.