Truth and Reality

How can we know which truths really matter?

It is well known that in his masterwork, Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze argues for extending the concept of ‘true’ with the concept of ‘interesting’. It is less well known, but perhaps more important, that he claims we should not confuse the real with the actual. Instead, we must expand the real to include the virtual, which can be understood, initially, as latent abstract potential, where abstract means potential not strictly associated with a given actual thing and its known effects.

There are fairly accessible intuitions we can follow to grasp what he is getting at. Many truths are of no obvious interest at all. I just took a sip of coffee, dear reader. On the other hand, there are propositions and ideas which catch our attention and initiate important actions. They want the Greek government to fail.

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David Morey 2 26 February 2015

See blog Larval Subjects for more on Deleuze.