[Music] hello everyone a lot of people want to read Deloo in particular Deloo and Guate anti- Edypus and A Thousand Plateaus but upon opening the text they'll either find him impenetrable or even completely nonsensical and this is very normal not because Deloo is writing nonsense he very much is not but because Deloo is working within a line of critical philosophy that has turned so much that is intuitive to human beings living under capitalism on its head ethically metaphysically and even mechanically your very capacity for correctly perceiving things in the world with your own two eyes the screen in front of you the people you talk to your own body all of these things are going to be directly challenged in some pretty radical ways to put it bluntly Doo is way in the deep end of the pool and if you just jump in without any swimming lessons or a lifeguard you're going to feel like you're drowning and I can say this because that's exactly what happened to me with that in mind as someone whose education was in political philosophy and who had a hell of a time getting to a point where I could make head or tail of what the loser is talking about I've put together a reading list of philosophy to help you get ready to be able to read and understand somewhat Anti Edypus after just one year significantly faster than it took me if you follow this list you're going to be going through a lot of philosophy so before I begin a caveat take your time let yourself be slow let it take 2 years if necessary hell let it take three it's okay you will find things that you are interested in as you go that you hadn't even imagined possible from when you started things you will be very glad that you didn't miss by rushing it's not about the destination doo is not the end of philosophy it really is about the journey and if you take your time to read carefully and to actually try to understand dwell on and engage with the philosophers mentioned in this list you'll be able to read delus better yes but you'll also be able to access so much more than that worlds will open up so don't rush don't push yourself don't exhaust yourself go at your own pace with that said the following will assume a reading pace of roughly 20 pages per day give or take based on the density of the material don't be dogmatic about that that's just what I aim for when I give general rough estimates of how long it'll take you to complete some section or other so without further ado let's begin the quest to sort of kind of understand anti-dypus by Doo and Guati first you're going to start by reading some Emanuel Kant in particular his critique of pure reason what you're going to read specifically is the two prefaces they're combined in most editions don't worry and the chapter on the transcendental aesthetic what you're going to pay special attention to is the way Kant frames human thought and experience as necessarily conditioned by the practical needs of an animal life form like humanity is this is going to be the running theme between all of the books on this list human thought and perception are conditioned by our environment and that includes our biological history as embodied creatures living in the world with bodily needs our senses and cognition are oriented towards satisfying those needs not toward a metaphysical truth beyond mere animal interest more importantly this book will introduce you to the method of critique which isn't merely the act of criticizing something like we say in common parliament when we point out what's wrong with some piece of media like that Marvel movie really sucked that's not what critique is critique as opposed to criticizing involves analyzing and unwrapping the implications and presumptions inherent in an idea notion or concept depending on the addition of Kant you use you're roughly looking at about 100 to 120 or 30 pages of material this should take you probably two weeks to a month next we're going to move on to Bergson henry Bergson deloo is massively influenced by two philosophers as you will see very quickly reading anything by Deloo friedrich Nichze and Henri Bergson specifically their respective critiques of dualism and mechanistic thinking as being two sides of the same erroneous coin and then their respective conceptions of things as being actually formed of multiplicities nze and Bergson are obviously very very different but they're similar in ways that you will pick up very quickly think of Bergson as a happier Nichze in some respects the books you're going to pick up are Bergson's Time and Free Will Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution there are lots of cheap editions of these books online i recommend the Dover editions personally the type is good and they are reasonably priced you don't need to worry about translations with Bergenson all the English translations are by the same guy and Bergson I believe actually oversaw them so you can more or less trust them zone Books does publish a very pretty edition of Matter and Memory that is well produced physically but it has several typos that I found and it's significantly more expensive i would go with the Dover together all three volumes amount to a little under 900 pages again don't be intimidated this is a long journey and you should take your time and savor every stop bergson is massively worthwhile and influential in his own right even outside of Doo he is very worth spending your time on again if it takes you 3 months to read these that's fine if it takes you longer that's fine don't be afraid to extend your reading schedule it's more important that you read these things well and benefit from them than burn yourself out setting arbitrary deadlines for yourself now when you've read these three books by Bergson Time and Free will Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution celebrate by reading Doo's book Bergenism at roughly 110 pages that should take you roughly one to two weeks and congratulations once you've done this you've read your first full book by Deloo our next stop is Spinosa you'll know why Spinosa matters after having read carefully through Bergson don't worry but the short of it is that Spinosa is going to introduce a concept of desire that doesn't involve lack i.e when we talk about desire in delus we are not talking about something that someone wants that they don't have we're talking fundamentally about a kind of connection that is always there don't worry about this for now you'll get it when you get there but what you're actually going to read is a book called a Spinosa Reader edited and translated by Edwin Curley this contains the full text of Spinosza's ethics the authoritative translation of that book the major book by Spinosa that we're interested in here but more importantly this volume in particular comes with supplementary material that forms basically a small course in Spinosa with selections from more or less all of Spinosa's earlier major works that will make the ethics much more clear and digestible read this volume from front to back and read the notes and supplementary material again take your time absorb it engage with it dwell on it it's okay now when you finished reading a Spinosa Reader celebrate by reading Spinosa Practical Philosophy by Deloo again this short book should take you one to two weeks if you're reading carefully this is also technically your first book on Nichzche by the way who is the philosopher we're going to dive into next now for Nichze it is critical that you take your time and you do your best to get him before you move on so my recommendation is to start with his later book Twilight of the Idols which is compared to his more apheristic works we'll get into that in a moment relatively conventional in its writing and serves as a good general introduction to most of his more important philosophical positions following this you're going to read The Gay Science this is one of those apheristic works this book is structured as a series of apherisms small thoughts almost in the form of poetic little notes but don't take them any less seriously for that this is dense material following this read beyond good and evil and then on the genealogy of morality all combined you're looking at again roughly 900 to a,000 pages depending on what editions you get to get the most bang for your buck I recommend two volumes the portable Nichzche published by Viking and the basic writings of Nichzche published by Random House both translated by Walter Calfman calfman also has his own translation of the gay science although the Cambridge is also perfectly good the important thing isn't to get the best translation humanly possible the best translation isn't like a trophy remember books are tools for learning and research even a bad translation can be extremely useful perhaps even more useful sometimes problems in translation that spur on debates about proper translations of terms and concepts and so on and so forth actually help to direct your attention to really important elements of a piece of writing that you otherwise would just skirt by again you're not reading Nichzche here to finish reading Nichze this is just about making sure that you have the basic tool set to be able to understand later material that engages with Nichze and Nichze's concepts and Nichzche's methodologies that said Calfman's translations are actually quite decent perfectly serviceable even quite good and you will get a very good understanding of Nichzche's philosophy if you read these volumes carefully and you also read the supplementary material and the notes now as before once you've read these books by Nichzche celebrate by reading Duza's book Nichzche and Philosophy again give yourself 1 to two weeks take your time and this one by the way is very good so enjoy it so at this point I'm going to advise you to take sort of a break and look back on your progress no matter how long it's taken you 3 months 6 months maybe a year by the time you get to this stage you will have read a solid 2300 or more pages of really dense philosophy really interesting dense philosophy and get this you will have read more than three whole books by Doo already this is something very few people manage to achieve in life feel good about it this is also a good opportunity to get off the train for a little bit and dig into some other philosophers as well sort of explore the terrain here are some suggested side quests quote unquote i recommend doing at least one before you continue so for example you could explore some other critical theory by this point you are more than well enough equipped to read and understand philosophers like Judith Butler Simone de Bvoir Maurice Merllo Ponti Martin Haidiger Jean Paulart and Michelle Fuko and so on again go slow none of these theorists are easy but you're able to tread water now here are some example texts you could try some of the shorter books like Gender Trouble you could probably read carefully in a week or two others like Simone de Bavoir's The Second Sex or John Paulart's Being and Nothingness will probably take you upwards of 1 month to two maybe even three by themselves and that's okay alternatively you could go back into some classical political philosophy if you haven't read Plato Aristotle Hobbes or Rouso this is a great opportunity to get acquainted with some of the major objects of critique by all of the affforementioned authors as well as their intellectual forebears plato's Republic Aristotle's Nicomeian Ethics Hobbes's Leviathan and Russo's discourses and his social contract are all very worthwhile reading that will deeply enrich and help situate the rest of your reading so far you could probably get through all of the books on the screen now in three or so months if you dedicate the time maybe less or you could go back and keep on reading Khan's critique of pure reason there's a lot of good stuff in there alternatively read some more Nichze in fact personally that's the one I would choose take a month take on Nichzche's other major books such as Thus Spakes Zerahustra The Antichrist or Ekihomo you could even if you're feeling particularly bold take a swing at some other books by Doo such as Kant's critical philosophy or Cinema 1 and 2 if you were really taken by Bergson and I don't blame you or even try The Logic of Sense if you're feeling brave side note whatever you choose to do always and I know I sound like a broken record always read the supplementary material not only does it often contain invaluable historical and background information giving you a general history of the period as much as of the philosophers's work and of how people have engaged with it through time especially when a piece of writing is in translation it is extremely important to know what decisions the editors and translators made in rendering the text into the specific language that they did old books in particular that are translated from other languages must be treated as if they are new at least as new as the translation you are reading because they are new they aren't the actual old book their someone's rendition read in the light of other work that was around at the time and so it is very important to know how translators change a text to make it more readable for people reading in their own time and place well we've diverted long enough back onto the train we are continuing the main quest line and moving forward towards Antipus next we are stopping at Karl Marx you're going to read some Karl Marx in particular you're going to read the economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844 and part one of capital not all of volume 1 don't worry just part one of volume 1 on the commodity which is a little over a 100 pages we are interested in commodity doubling how individual objects of exchange that are used as tools or what Markx calls use values are transformed into exchange values or commodities products that are created and mass for exchange and that are interchangeable with each other for example this hammer that I use this particular hammer versus a given model of this hammer exchanged as an abstraction and mass on the market we are also interested in the ways commodities are fetishized invested with properties through exchange as commodities that they do not have as mere physical objects for example as money as far as editions are concerned I recommend the Dover edition of the manuscripts and the new Princeton translation of Capital Volume 1 which is not only beautiful in construction but comes with excellent supplementary material that should clarify a lot i also find the language relatively clear compared to the Penguin edition you should be able to read all of this in about 2 or 3 weeks next stop is George Batai specifically his books Theursed Share Volume 1 and his collection of essays Visions of Excess in particular what we are interested in is an analysis drawn from nature of an economy based on debt whose level of analysis is called general economy concerned with the flow and capture of energy from the sun by organisms on Earth we're also interested in his theory of life specifically of the way life fills explosively a space builds upon its own constructions to increase that space and then when the total amount of usable space is fully occupied relies on violent death to clear up old already colonized space in order for life to continue its activity in the absence of new territories now do you want to take on the boss early at this point you might just want to attempt Antioipus and you can i'm not going to recommend that you do but you can before you do though I'm going to recommend a philosopher that you probably haven't heard of before but who is going to massively improve your reading of Antiopus Pierre Klesowski specifically Klazowski's essays living currency and sod and forier which are both published under the title living currency by Bloomsbury this should take you a week at most that said I personally find Klazowski's writing even harder than deluses at his most complicated so give yourself as much time as you need one week two weeks even 3 weeks however through these essays what you will get is an ingenious application of the concept of perversion taken from the marquee dade that will be put to great use in Antiopus especially in the critique of state despatism now while we're here let's consider some additional possible side quests that will make your reading of Antiipus just that much better if you spent your first side quest period reading more Nichze I would recommend some more Klausowski in particular Nichze and the Vicious Circle by Klausowski warning this is a roughly twoe read at minimum and it is dense but it is very good arguably the best book on Nichze ever written alternatively take a DH Lawrence side quest read DH Lawrence's books published together in one volume psychoanalysis and the unconscious and fantasia of the unconscious lawrence is better known as a novelist but his Nietian critiques of psychoanalysis prefigure much of Delusian Guad's critique of psychoanalysis and he almost replicates Klazowski's use of sod albeit in a key that heavily resembles Bergson mixed with theosophy it's a weird book that is full of scientific errors but it's very rich in useful ideas and Doo makes use of them it is also when compared to most of the other texts on this list a relatively easy and fun read so you could treat this as a bit of a break alternatively again go pursue some more Batai in particular take the opportunity to read volumes two and three of the Ocursive Share published in one volume by Zone Books as well as his book eroticism or erotism depending on the edition for a lot more interesting stuff about his philosophy of life sexuality and perversion or someone we actually haven't covered on this list at all you could go on a Hume side quest read David Hume's treatise of human nature and then when you're finished celebrate by reading Doo's book Empiricism and Subjectivity an essay on Hume's theory of human nature a little more obscure you could read on the mode of existence of technical objects by Gilbert Simondon i'm not even going to begin to try and explain his relevance to Doo but it's absolutely there and it's very interesting a little more controversially you could try reading Doo's Difference and Repetition provided you've completed your David Hume side quest and at some point you read Haidiger's basic writings and being in time because it's responding to all these people you're going to need your Spinosa you're going to need your Bergson you're going to need your Haidiger you're going to need your Kant all of them this is a hard book but heavily worth it and if you can do it if you can hack it this will also massively contribute to your reading of Antiopus certainly in terms of getting Doo's ontology now after all of that here we are what a journey if you've reached this point you've been reading for roughly a year at least maybe two maybe three years you've read thousands of pages of extremely difficult philosophy and you've read it carefully you sort of kind of know this stuff and that's impressive don't pat yourself on the back too hard though if you're serious about philosophy you'll be rereading this stuff forever that's the job so to speak but by this point I can only imagine how eager you are to finally jump into Anti-Eted itself be warned it will still be very difficult and we've left out a lot of potential material that would enrich your reading of Antiopus even further but you won't be finished with Antipus even if you've read it from cover to cover once no you're going to be going back so don't worry you'll get an opportunity to struggle with that other material too but before I end off I do want to talk about how difficult it is to read Antiopus for the first time and especially about why that is because it's not just a very hard book it's a very hard book for reasons that kind of suck so also if it takes you a long long time to struggle through it that's okay that's very normal but whatever you do do struggle through it and don't try to cheat there are lots of videos for example claiming to explain Doo on YouTube and most of them are very bad if you've ever picked up a copy of Antiopus already and tried to read it you'll quickly see why they're very bad deloo's writing is dense and difficult it is also by the way probably not Deloo's writing that you're reading see the original I don't know if you can tell by Deloo's name is in French which means you're going to be reading it in translation and there is only one English translation available for Doo and it's got problems for example in Antietipus in English the word flux is mistransated multiple times as flow which gives the impression of water running down a pipe so that for naive readers in English it appears that Doo and Guadi are writing about the economy as if it was a big waterworks when they're actually talking about the flux of the economy there's a different French word that they use ki to actually refer to flow and they distinguish these for a reason flows are unidirectional it's like water down a pipe flux by contrast is not this goes back to that whole desire as lack versus desire as connection thing we were talking about earlier a connection along which drives are directed but not in the sense of a literal fluid going down a conduit these are just things to keep in mind when reading Antietus in translation but having the philosophy in this list under your belt will make it a lot easier to actually understand Doo who is not entry-level stuff but to be clear this won't just make you able to read Deloo this will open up the door to you being able to engage with and profit from a huge amount of some other really advanced critical theorists as well if it feels like you're going slow that's okay it takes time for everyone and it's okay if it takes more time so long as you are taking the time to make sure you understand it make sure you're engaging with it in philosophy it's more important to actually do the hard work of getting it of understanding what you're reading and how it relates to the stuff around it than to do it efficiently to rush to the finish line in philosophy is to never get there at all again this is one of those cases where keeping an attitude of it's about the journey not the destination is so important because it's the truth and theorists as complicated and serious as Doo are simply not for people who rush i hope you found this helpful happy reading and as always thank you for listening and take care [Music] [Music] what am I going to do netanyahu's I'm Benjamin Netanyahu's top guy what am I going to do like they weren't in the same century look at Rowling's Potter series and the Quiddish game youtube's wonderful praise Google ah I read before it's a statute of limitations rats