"Nothing But Little Lines".

This philosophical essay--written in a non-conventional and playful way, in the form of a dialogue with a friend and with other philosophers ranging from Socrates to Gilles Deleuze--asks the elemental question of what philosophy is and why such a question is raised in old age. In the tradition of Hegel, Heidegger, and Arendt, the author explores the significance of 'old age,' while intertwining his prose with that of a book written by Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy? (1991). The passing reference to the "oriental sage" in the book is highlighted and analyzed. Oriental thought, as expressed in Rumi's notion of the old mentor or gray-haired shaykh, is interpreted by the author as well as juxtaposed to other European notions of philosophy and old age.

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For D. S.: Two Dedications

To You, in your old age. And to Philosophy. I know, you don't take this juxtaposition to be a title of honor. Not necessarily, you would say, not necessarily an honor for you. I

I wonder, though. And I will, therefore, not separate, for the time being, not write two separate dedications. One for literature, let's say, and one for philosophy.

The question of What is Philosophy'? can perhaps be posed only late in life with the arrival of old age and the time for speaking correctly. (Deleuze/Guattari 1) (2)

Do you think that such things could be a matter of age? Or, to be more precise, of old age? There is an age of philosophy, and more astonishingly, there is an age for asking what philosophy is. Seriously, soberly. An age when it is time to know her or, at least, when it is time to desire to know her, finally.

This, at least, is what some philosophers say. They also say, or make someone say, that it is a matter of pleasures, of exchanging pleasures. And it looks, rather, like exchanging pleasantries. Remember, when Plato has those two old men, Cephalus and Socrates, dance around each other and their life's journey? "Oh yes, says Cephalus, it is marvellous, one is never left without. When the pleasures of the body fade away, the pleasures and charms of conversation increase. Oh yes, says Socrates, you know how much I love conversing, and there is nothing better than conversing with old men." (3)

But, Socrates, when you conversed with young men, how often did you tell them of your love of conversation? And, by the way, didn't you say at the end of your life that seeing and judging things through the lenses of pleasure and pain is the "worst evil" because it nails the soul to the body?

... There are times when old age produces not eternal youth but a sovereign freedom, a pure necessity in which one enjoys a moment of grace between life and death, and in which all the parts of the machine come together to send into the future a feature that cuts across all ages.... (1-2)

It seems to be the body. The body ages. The aging philosopher's body ages. And now will be time for two dedications. One to philosophy whose time has come, "when a figure of life has grown old"--in the words of Hegel--and one to the question: What is Philosophy?

Old philosophy, old philosophers, always old, old before their time. Oh, old philosophers, what did you do in your youth? Did you live, already then, in your old bodies and minds, thinking, wondering how the fire would go out? Extinction or exhaustion, violence or old age? One wouldn't know, at that age. And probably it didn't matter, at that age.

How or when the fire would die, was of no concern. One was so involved in one's plans and ideas--was just 'doing philosophy'--that the thought, the question, never occurred. What did it matter, if one's life was going to be a life where, as you, Deleuze, put it, there is no sudden breakage, a life that just slowly goes out, or if it would, just stop? It didn't seem to matter. For a philosopher, at least, there were guarantees. In case he would have wondered, despite his youth. It went like this: If one didn't reach old age, then what one was doing--philosophy--would reach for sure old age, because it always already had, because from the beginning it had gone out.

Picture old philosophers in their old bodies, Kant, Socrates, Heidegger, picture the thoughts traversing these old bodies, picture what each one thinks of his old body, and what he thinks about the body itself, its concept.

... In fact the bibliography on the nature of philosophy is very limited. It is a question posed in a moment of quiet restlessness, at midnight, when there is no longer anything to ask. (1)

Or picture a scene:

Midnight. In his dimly-lit room Gilles Deleuze, an old French philosopher, still restless, though considerably quieter than in his younger days, goes through a sequence of dress-rehearsals, each time posing as an old man: he first poses as the painter William Turner, then changes costume and reappears as the French writer Chateaubriand, then changes again and appears as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in order to finally appear as himself. In the last pose, the one where Deleuze, the old philosopher, acts the old philosopher Deleuze, I find him most convincing. He steps forward and recites: This is the time, at midnight, where there is no longer anything to ask (1). This is a prompt. It makes a ruthless question appear on stage. Knowing no mercy with an old man, it rushes on him, seizes him, and with a mild smile, asks: What is philosophy?

... In old age Turner acquired or won the right to take painting down a deserted path of no return that is indistiuguishable from a final question. (2)

Deleuze smiles vaguely, and to be given release from its terribly gentle grip, he strikes a deal with it that allows him to paint. What he will paint, he says, is a picture of philosophy, "in the manner of the late William Turner." He intends, thereby, he says, to do to philosophy what Turner did to painting, namely, take it down a deserted path of no return that is indistinguishable from a final question. If it will ever be finished, it will be a fine picture, one where philosophy is in the end indistinguishable from What is philosophy? And it will be finished, if the old philosopher has time to finish it.

Not that it wasn't already painted. It was, but is going to be repainted. Thus, the curtain can open again. This time, it opens on something that looks from the distance like a vast expanse of water and, on closer scrutiny, turns out to be an immense swirl and whirl of droplets, or, rather, sparks flashing at infinite speed, faster than light, and thus gone when they appear.

... Art is not chaos but a composition of chaos that yields the vision or sensation, so that it constitutes, as Joyce says, a chaosmos, a composed chaos--neither foreseen neither preconceived. Art transforms chaotic variability into chaoid variety, as in ... Turner's golden conflagration.... (204-05)

The name Deleuze has for what these pictures depict is an old name, chaos. Chaos is, not only for Deleuze, but for so many philosophers that one may be inclined to say, "for philosophy," a reasonably unsettling affair. Something threatening, something one would want to be protected against. Something whose shadow Nietzsche recognized already in Parmenides' "Being" which he understood as the ancient gods' response to Parmenides' desperate call for a piece of wood to carry him over the depth of the waters. A little something, then, to hold on to? Something graspable, a concept, or, at least, a little order so that one may find one's way through--yes, through what?

Not exactly disorder: Chaos is defined not so much by its disorder as by the infinite speed with which every form taking shape in it vanishes (118). Well, why do we then require just a little order to protect us from chaos? (201) Maybe, because there is more to this chaos than what would lend itself to a depiction, or even, a painting? And, maybe, because the old name and the new one are already a bit too orderly for something that is much worse (or much better, who knows?) than "chaos." For one thing, chaos cannot be located. It is as much the swimmer as the water, or, to put it more philosophically, chaos is as much the characteristic of thoughts as it is the character of "things": Nothing is more distressing than a thought that escapes itself, than ideas that fly off, that disappear hardly formed, already eroded by forgetfulness or precipitated into others that we no longer master. These are infinite variabilities, the appearing and disappearing of which coincide. They are infinite speeds that blend into the immobility of the colorless and silent nothingness they traverse, without nature and thought (201). Thoughts, without thought?

Deleuze/Guattari tell of three ways of struggling against chaos, or rather, of three and a half: philosophy, science, art, and, somehow unwelcome, religion. The first three deserve the name of thought. The latter doesn't, really. This is due to differences in the way the triad meets "the enemy," on one side, and "religion" does, or rather, avoids doing, on the other.

The scene and its setting are not very new, but that should not detract because it enhances the old heroic charm. It looks like this: the first protective layer against chaos is opinion. You will recognize an old friend (and enemy) from Socrates' time. Opinion does, however, not yield what it promises. Worse, it pretends to bring a little order into chaos while increasing it and, thus, contributes to the misfortune of people (206).

Again, Deleuze/Guattari paint an old painting using old props: This is all that we ask for in order to make an opinion for ourselves, like a sort of "umbrella" which protects us from chaos (202). The philosophical public will "understand" Nietzsche's umbrella, Heidegger's Seinsvergessenheits-umbrella, Derrida's Heideggerian Nietzschean umbrella, so many umbrellas, so different.

Our opinions are made up from all this. But art, science, and philosophy require more: they cast planes over the chaos. These three disciplines are not like religions that invoke dynasties of gods, or the epiphany of a single god, in order to paint a firmament on the umbrella, like the figures of an Urdoxa from which opinions stem. Philosophy, science, and art want us to tear open the firmament and plunge into the chaos. We defeat it only at this price. (202) (4)

Although not quite at the height of the others in the battle against chaos, religions seem to warrant a short note in this scene, maybe, because they could easily be mistaken as combatants in the old struggle against chaos. But it is clear that their characterization is not necessarily due to recognition of them as "things." It seems much more due to a function they play in the economy of what Deleuze/Guattari call "thought." They mark, so to speak, one possibility amongst a variety of attitudes towards chaos that thought can think of In Deleuze/ Guattari words paint, religions paint, as artists and philosophers paint (do scientists paint?). So, they seem to combat chaos. But unlike the paintings of artists and philosophers, their paintings are made on opinions, not through them. They leave opinions intact, making them even firmer, painting a firmament, giving the impression of stability and reliability, while chaos boils beneath.

Philosophy, science, and art, on the other hand, fight the enemy, chaos, by fighting the first bastion against it, opinion: It is as if the struggle against chaos does not take place without affinity with the enemy, because another struggle develops and takes on more importance--the struggle against opinion, which claims to protect us from chaos itself (203).

It is important to note that Deleuze/Guattari do not advocate a turning away from chaos towards opinion, although the latter seems to be the more important enemy. The attention is still focused on chaos, but in such a way that, thereby, opinion is drawn in. When philosophy, science, and art open to chaos, plunge into it, opinion feels attacked and, indeed, is attacked. Is opinion, then, a worse enemy, more threatening than chaos?

Deleuze/Guattari describe in detail the different ways in which each of the three combatants deals with its enemy. But as these lines are dedicated to you and to philosophy, I want to see how philosophia is painted.

Philosophy presents three elements, each of which fits with the other two but must be considered for itself: the prephilosophical plane it must lay out (immanence), the persona or personae it must invent and bring to life (insistence), and the philosophical concepts it must create (consistency). Laying out, inventing, and creating constitute the philosophical trinity--diagrammatic, personalistic, and intense features. (76-77)

Risking a certain degree of discourtesy and taking advantage of the slyness of old age and philosophy, I'll pass by the first two (immanence and insistence) with a short remark and concentrate on the third, (consistency), philosophy's creation of concepts.

Philosophy which intends to protect against chaos and which, pursuing this intention, does not imagine herself to be able to hover over chaos, or to construct, from above, some screen of protection, but fights by plunging into it, must in this plunge have something that stabilizes. The "raft" to which Deleuze/Guattari refer repeatedly must be created in the plunge. And, furthermore, it must float on something. What it floats on is, of course, water--the water that carries. The water that carries is not something on top of the water, something other than water. It is the plane of the water. Deleuze/Guattari call this plane the plane of immanence: The plane of immanence is like a section of chaos and acts like a sieve (42).

If this plane is, as Deleuze/Guattari put it, laid over chaos, then we have the strange phenomenon of a section of chaos over chaos. Yet, this is the meaning of immanence, as used by Deleuze/Guattari. Furthermore, in keeping with the image of the sieve, this section must be imagined as consisting of holes through which chaos flows (or flashes). Something like a section of space interspersed with black holes.

If this image overtaxes your imagination, add to it its elemental signature which I misquoted when I likened it to water: Immanence can be said to be the burning issue of all philosophy because it takes on all the dangers that philosophy must confront, all the condemnations, persecutions, and repudiations that it undergoes. This at least persuades us that the problem of immanence is not abstract or merely theoretical. It is not immediately clear why immanence is so dangerous, but it is. It engulfs sages and gods. What singles out the philosopher is the part played by immanence or fire. Immanence is immanent only to itself and consequently captures everything, absorbs All-One, and leaves nothing remaining to which it could be immanent (45). Immanence, then, is not water but fire, all-consuming fire. On a lighter note, one could say that immanence, as it is painted here, describes a thorough and furious refusal of any resort to transcendence. This, for Deleuze, is the most important mark of philosophy. And it is important, as we will see, for old age.

The other element with which philosophy takes the plunge into chaos, is the concept. For Deleuze/Guattari, philosophy is neither a matter of reflection, nor of contemplation, nor of communication. In short, not a matter of discourse. Philosophical thought is the activity of creating concepts: In this sense the concept is act of thought, it is thought operating at infinite (although greater or lesser) speed (21).

If the task Deleuze/Guattari recognized for philosophy is not carried out by some activity extraneous to chaos but within it, then the element suitable for this task must share the main character of chaos, that is, infinite speed. It must possess this quality and it must, to defeat it, possess a capacity that chaos lacks. Chaos contains all possible particles and draws out all possible forms, which spring up only to disappear immediately, without consistency or reference, without consequence. Chaos is an infinite speed of birth and disappearance. Now philosophy wants to know how to retain infinite speeds while gaining consistency, by giving the virtual [i.e. chaos] a consistency specific to it (118). The important point in this description is that whatever is capable of giving consistency to these particles and forms must do so without slowing them down. It must itself operate at infinite speed, that is, faster than light. Deleuze/Guattari find this requirement perfectly fulfilled by thought or, more specifically, philosophical thought. Their perception of thought is common and old, and it is summed up in their quotation from Epicurus: "The atom will traverse space with the speed of thought." (38)

What is remarkable about this self-perception of thought is that philosophy displays with equal ease a rich tradition of the 'opposite' characterization of thought and of 'the thinker.' There, words like 'thoughtful' or 'mindful' rather invoke very slow motion. But an inquiry into the nature of thought should be wary of arguing for one side or the other. The intriguing thing regarding portraits of thought painted with speed, is that they allow for both perceptions.

Be that as it may, philosophical thought could not perform the task it is meant for, unless it has another trait, namely, the capacity to give consistency. This work, to bring consistency into a whirl of forms and particles traveling at infinite speed, without reducing their speed, is for Deleuze/Guattari the work, the activity of the concept.

The word "concept" suggests gestures like "grasping," "holding fast," "capturing," and it is the latter that renders Deleuze/Guattari's use of it best. One should, however, notice that, given the previous description of philosophical thought as plunging into chaos, concepts cannot be imagined as means to get hold of particles and forms by 'fishing them out.' In other words, conceptual thought does not stand above the swirling sea of things. Which place would it have to stand on? It does not catch things or try to 'yank' them out, even if such a move could be imagined as occurring with infinite speed: It is as if one were casting a net, but the fisherman always risks being swept away and finding himself in the open sea when he thought he had reached port (203). Philosophical thinking is 'in the water' or, more faithful to Deleuze/Guattari's element, 'on fire.' The word 'consistency' describes, therefore, capturing in chaos. (5)

To this moment, it seems that things are well with conceptual thought: it operates at infinite speed, does not slow down things and nothing slows it down. To a closer look it appears, however, that in this smoothly-running little machine one can detect from early on, and then with increasing evidence, traces of exhaustion, bother and fascination in turns. Deleuze/Guattari call these weariness (fatigue).

These first two aspects or layers of the brain-subject, sensation as much as the concept, are very fragile. Not only objective disconnections and disintegrations but an immense weariness results in sensations, which have now become woolly, letting escape the elements and vibrations it finds increasingly difficult to contract. Old age is this very weariness: then, there is either a fall into mental chaos outside of the plane of composition or a falling-back on ready-made opinions ... The case of philosophy is a bit different [from the case of art], although it depends on a similar weariness. In this case, weary thought, incapable of maintaining itself on the plane of immanence, can no longer bear the infinite speeds of the third kind that, in a manner of a vortex, measure the concept's copresence to all its intensive components at once (consistency). It falls back on the relative speeds that concern only the succession of movement from one point to another, from one extensive component to another, from one idea to another, and that measure simple associations without being able to reconstitute arty concept. No doubt these relative speeds may be very great, to the point of simulating the absolute, but they are only the variable speeds of opinion, of discussion or "repartee," as with those untiring young people whose mental quickness is praised, but also with those weary old ones who pursue slow-moving opinions and engage in stagnant discussions by speaking all alone, within their hollowed head, like a distant memory of their old concepts to which they remain attached so as not to fall back completely into the chaos. (214)

So, thought ages. There is young thought and there is weary, old thought. Or should I rather say, the thinker's body ages, and his mind ages insofar as it thinks through the body. What is this "body?" Is it the so-called "natural," or "physical" body? Is Deleuze/Guattari's philosophy, then, a kind of 'physicism' which sees the world, or rather, the cosmos, as well as thought itself, as an immense flurry of 'particles?' Is it just a clumsy kind of natural science that would be easy food for the real scientist? Not so easy. First, because such a 'naturalism' would be too 'natural' and, thus, not philosophical, not sufficiently thought. Second, it is because Thought and Nature, Nous and Physis, for Deleuze/Guattari, are the two facets of the plane of immanence (38). That is, they are both what Deleuze/Guattari call "prephilosophical" aspects of philosophical conceptuality. And as such they allow for a situation where thinking and being are said to be one and the same. Or rather, movement is not the image of thought without being also the substance of being. When Thales's thought leaps out, it comes back as water. When Heraclitus's thought becomes polemos, it is fire that retorts. It is a single speed on both sides: "The atom will traverse space with the speed of thought." (38)

Aging is, therefore, as much a matter of thought as it is of nature. But what, precisely, does this "matter of" mean?

I have to revise: thought itself does not age. It ages as little as nature, or as life. What ages is thinking, thinking (of) things or, for that matter, living life. And this is so because to create is to resist (110). As, one may say, to live is to resist: books of philosophy and works of art also contain their sum of unimaginable sufferings that forewarn of the advent of a people. They have resistance in common--their resistance to death, to servitude, to the intolerable, to shame, and to the present (110).

Philosophy creates concepts. Thereby, it resists. But resistance does not only fan the fire, it exhausts it, wears it down. The age of conceptual thought, being the age of resistance, would, therefore, be neither the age of those untiring young people whose mental quickness is praised, [nor the age of] those weary old ones who pursue slow-moving opinions because they can no longer bear the infinite speeds (214). These ages are not good news for philosophy. Yet, Deleuze/Guattari have good news. News that is not taken from another youth, a second wind one may wish for in one's old age, or news from another kind of old age. No, they have news from the arrival of old age (quand vient la viellesse) (1).

The fire of conceptual thought may certainly burn high and it may find natures who are strong and last enough to bear its infinite speeds. They are Deleuzian/Guattarian heroes of thought--the philosopher, the scientist, and the artist--who return from the land of the dead, bringing back from chaos (202) their trophies. But they are too heroic--and, at the same time, not heroic enough. Their fire may have reached its apex of heat, but not its apex of exhaustion. When that moment arrives, philosophy arrives on stage, and it arrives in the form of a question, the question, what is philosophy? And what happens at that moment, "at midnight," at a moment of grace between life and death is the coining of age of old philosophy: When Thales' thought leaps out, it comes back as water. When Heraclitus' thought becomes polemos, it is fire that retorts (38). When Deleuze/Guattari's thought becomes question, it is old age that replies.

Is it not possible that a philosopher live past midnight? What becomes of conceptual thought when it crosses its apex of exhaustion and drifts into weaker kinds of weakness? Stagnant discussions of an old one speaking all alone within his hollowed head, like a distant memory of his old concepts to which he remains attached so as not to fall back completely into the chaos?

What a strange remark, after all Deleuze/Guattari said about immanence, after all their vehement attacks against transcendence, against the priests and empires! Deleuze/Guattari, at midnight, observe what happens to an old one who has passed midnight, who lost the last bit of strength required to keep up with infinite speeds, to think captively, conceptually. But this observation isn't the speech (or the thought) of an old one's thought past midnight. It is the observation of someone about something, someone who went out, above, who leaped, and, now, has no place to fall back to, not even old chaos. If Deleuze/Guattari had stayed on with the old one, we would hear an old person's thinking into the night, into the question, What is Philosophy? But we don't. And there is no further question, no more philosophy. Instead, someone informs us about what happens to old ones who lost the strength required for conceptual thought. That "someone," is he not the same "Deleuze/Guattari" who insisted on telling us of philosophy's glory, immanence, and who so vehemently attacked all kinds of transcendence, all priests and empires?

Nothing but little lines, that's how he says he conceives of an old man's project. (6) Little lines, at the hour of sobriety, when fire and fatigue meet. When one doesn't have to be someone anymore, when it's enough to be, when one doesn't have to do philosophy, when thought and life meet. When, when, when. Nothing but little lines ... with little else.

A little difficulty. For, if the philosopher, or his thought, becomes gradually exhausted, then he must think to the point where the fatigue, the cold, is still conceptual, still allows for the creation of concepts. And, maybe, he will think up to the 'last' concept: philosophy. But that means, as a philosopher, he must not be past midnight and must not think past that question. Not to be past midnight signifies that thought would have to stop, at midnight. Yet, how should it stop, and who would be there to notice? How can the philosopher make sure that there will be no thinking past midnight, no thinking into the depth of the night? By making sure not to be, past that time. And, by making sure that one doesn't mistake the babble of the old ones for thought.

The remarkable feature of Deleuze/Guattari's question What is philosophy?--a feature which is reflected throughout their thought--lies in the dating of this question. That is not necessary. Questions in the form of 'what is...?' belong to the repertoire of philosophical thought as such, whose elements can be well defined logically and irrespective of any temporal determinations. One may say that this is the case where philosophy is understood as "science," as knowledge, and Aristotle could be cited as the best witness. This definition of the three questions-which the science they are seeking, i.e., philosophy as metaphysics, must ask--makes it sufficiently clear. First, we ask, "if it [i.e., something] is," then, "what it is," and finally, "why it is." If I regard all of the three questions equally, then I will find no indication as to a particular time of life when they could be appropriately asked. And I could conclude that this is so because of the nature of 'science,' of 'scientific knowledge' which is timeless or, as the Scholastics say, "essential."

There is, however, already here in Aristotle, a strange duplicity which shouldn't make it so easy to relegate this question to the realm of scientific-philosophical procedure. Aristotle cannot, or does not, debate the issue of the appropriate questions for knowledge without debating the capacity, or incapacity of human beings to reach such knowledge. This debate has two aspects. One: Are human beings capable of the science, the knowledge, Aristotle is searching for and which he calls "the highest knowledge?" And another: Which 'humanity,' or which level of humanity human beings have to reach to be capable of it? One could call this, quickly, superficially, and belatedly, the transcendental condition for knowledge. In later philosophers, like Nietzsche and Deleuze, to name only two, this second aspect has become immanent to thought, or, to use Deleuze/Guattari's words, immanent to immanence. Philosophy has, for a long time, been moved and irritated by this issue, and one of its formulations is what Deleuze calls in his book on Nietzsche "the noble affinity of thought and life." (7) Once the old question is re-formulated in this way, it becomes, of course, necessary and possible to look for that time in a human being's life which would be the most suitable.

Deleuze/Guattari themselves are quite ambiguous on the issue of knowledge. I will outline some traits of this ambiguity, insofar as it is relevant for philosophy.

The understanding of philosophy as "knowledge," that is, "science" in the literal sense of this word, marks a long tradition of thought which begins with Ancient Greek philosophy and is still reflected in Hegel's thought. There is, however, a certain oscillation between versions of the concept of science. Even there--where philosophy did not hesitate to call itself by the name of 'science'--it hastened to explain, to correct, to distinguish, until the necessity for the title itself became so insignificant that it could do without. In a certain sense, it may, however, be more correct to say that philosophy has a tense relationship with knowledge. Following the course of Deleuze/Guattari's thought, one might be inclined to say that knowledge cannot be the outstanding aim of this philosophy. But the stress would, then, be on the word "outstanding." Precisely because thought is creation, for Deleuze/Guattari, knowledge can only be a feature of this activity, not an aim that it would envisage, beyond itself: The concept is obviously knowledge--but knowledge of itself, and what it knows is the pure event (33). In other words, knowledge is not what one tries to reach through concepts; it is the very activity of conceptual thought. This knowledge is not new for Deleuze/Guattari. They try to establish that it is already a feature of Greek philosophy: It is often said that since Plato, the Greeks contrasted philosophy, as a knowledge that also includes the sciences, with opinion-doxa, which they relegate to the sophists and rhetors. But we have learned that the opposition was not so clear-cut. How could philosophers possess knowledge, philosophers who cannot and do not want to restore the knowledge of the sages and who are only friends? (147)

The trail of knowledge, of old philosophy as a knowledge, leads into something still older, into the realm of the sage. Or, as Deleuze/Guattari call him, the old oriental sage (3). How, in which sense, could someone be older than old? Would he be old in a different way, in a different sense of "old?" If it was so, it would be well worth pursuing this lead, for I might have to revise what I thought I had found regarding the question what is philosophy? and regarding old age.

Such an endeavor is, however, made quite difficult through the fact that Deleuze/Guattari paint the old oriental sage in a way which suggests that its main purpose is to highlight the old philosopher, while leaving the sage in some semi-obscurity: other civilizations had sages, but the Greeks introduce these "friends" who are not just more modest sages. The Greeks might seem to have confirmed the death of the sage and to have replaced him with philosophers--the friends of wisdom, those who seek wisdom but do not formally possess it. But the difference between the sage and the philosopher would not be merely one of degree, as on a scale: the old oriental sage thinks, perhaps, in Figures, whereas the philosopher invents and thinks the Concept. Wisdom has changed a great deal (3).

Yes, maybe, a great deal. But what has changed little is the gesture, traced by Deleuze/Guattari, of this thinking: Role-distribution. Each person, each personnage conceptuel, is described in opposition against another. One never gets to know the sage, only the sage in distinction from, or against, the friend. Neither will one meet the philosopher alone, only the philosopher in contrast to the sage. If I were introduced to you, and you would say, 'I am a friend,' would I understand? Would I understand by looking at you, or would I have to look towards someone else? Whose rules are these? Let me know a philosopher. An old one, if you like. Or let me know a sage. Oriental, and still older, if you like.

Of course, the old oriental sage also thinks, Deleuze/Guattari say, only differently. And he knows, not more than the philosopher, not less, only differently. For whom is this difference so important? It seems, for the one who thinks, conceptually.

The philosopher is the concept's friend; he is potentiality [il est en puissance] of the concept (5). Is the older oriental sage also en puissance, only differently? Is there something else in his potentiality and potency? Deleuze/Guattari do not really say. For it is somehow much more important to understand the friends (philo) of the concept. Fair enough, you might say, isn't the question a question of (Greek) philosophy or of one of of its modern versions, and not (really) of old oriental wisdom? Fair enough. But I would like to know just how old this old oriental sage is.

For Deleuze/Guattari, "oriental" means pre-Greek, much like "preSocratic," or "prephilosophical," it means: one does not necessarily have to regard the sage as dead and replaced with the philosopher. The philosopher, this old person, started something new; that is important. It is not so important to ask, if the "oriental" ceased, disappeared, with the emergence of the Greek, or if it lived on, maybe, to very old age. And it is not so important to ask: In which sense is the old oriental sage old? At least, Deleuze/Guattari do not seem to think of it.

But I would like to know. Will you, in your old age, allow me to leave conceptual thought aside, for a moment? Let us suppose it was still possible to meet an old oriental sage, wouldn't you in your old age like to meet him? Or not anymore? Wouldn't you want to ask him about old age? Or have you heard enough?

I will let you read these words from someone who wouldn't mind being called 'old oriental sage,' although, I fear, he is not what Deleuze/Guattari had in mind.

And then, I will write some little lines.

And then, I will leave you--and this dedication.

Jalalu'ddin Rumi said:

   A little bird was hunting a worm: a cat found its opportunity
   and seized it.
   It (the bird) was a devourer and a thing devoured, and
   (being engrossed in its hunting) was ignorant of another
   hunter ...
   If the herbage is drinking pure water, (yet) afterwards an
   animal's belly will feed on it.
   That grass is devouring and devoured: even so (is) everything
   that exists ...
   Every phantasy is devouring another phantasy: (One)
   thought feeds on another thought
   Thou canst not be delivered from any phantasy or fall
   asleep so as to escape from it. (8)

I read: The devourer devoured. The fate of both "nature" and "thought." Or, the fate of "everything that exists." The fate of fire. Of the plane of immanence. Devourer devoured. In an ancient Greek version:

   However, it is to be noticed that there are two ways in
   which fire ceases to exist; it may go out either by exhaustion
   or by extinction. That which is self-caused we call
   exhaustion, that due to its opposites extinction. [The former
   is due to old age, the latter to violence. ] But either of these
   ways in which fire ceases to be may be brought about by the
   same cause, for, when there is a deficiency of nutriment and
   the warmth can obtain no maintenance, the fire fails. (9)

If there is no escape, for everything that exists, neither from anything that exists, nor to anything that exists, neither to life, nor to death, not even to sleep, is there anywhere to go to? Who would be there to ask you, where are you? At midnight, or earlier, or at any time?

Rumi said:

   The Elder (which is) thy intellect, has become childish
   from being a neighbour to your selfish soul (nafs) which
   is in the veil. (10)

I read: Yes, the "intellect" (thought, nous) is old. He will not become young through any means. But he will take from those in whose company he is. Old people become childish in the company of children. Old people become old in the company of the old. In whose company is the philosopher at midnight? Either in that of the first ones or in that of the second ones. If he is in the company of the devourer-devoured, at midnight, that is, in his own company, by himself, he has but one second. Let him think of that moment what he will, even that it be the moment where his thinking arrives at itself, the moment of what is philosophy? It is a moment of childishness, but the child is "in the veil," and so he takes it to be old.

Rumi said:

   Who is a "Shaykh?" An old man (pit), that is (to say),
   white-haired. Do you apprehend the meaning of this
   '(white) hair,' O hopeless one.
   Black hair is self-existence: (he is not "old") till not a single
   hair of his selfishness remains.
   When his self-existence has ceased, he is "old" (pir). (11)

I read: "Old" means many things and, maybe, one. Besides old nature and old thought there is old company. Who is by himself, that is, in his or her own company, whatever their age, they are children. Therefore, it is possible to refuse one's age, even by stressing it. The young can refuse being young, through stressing it or hiding it. The old can refuse to be old, hiding it or stressing it.

A philosopher can, for a moment of immense fatigue, be too tired to clown.

But in whose company will he be?

PS (From D. S. to S. S.);

Alas, here I am, at the approach of the midnight hour, both serious and sober (at least most of the time), slowing down, to be sure, from infinite speed, so that the concepts sometimes escape me and I find myself measuring simple association for the most part, swinging trapeze-like from one extensive component to the other, sensations decidedly woolly, a bit weary to be sure, and finding it increasingly difficult to contract the escaping elements and vibrations. I fear I must fall back on ready-made opinions, since I sure as hell don't want to fall into mental chaos outside the plane of composition. Like Virginia Woolf, I like to keep my feet on the strip of pavement over the abyss. Since you say I have an opinion, I think I'll refuse to be old, hiding it as long as possible and then stressing it. In any case, you'll get no little lines from me. And come to think of it, why wait for midnight to ask the question? The clock is ticking, here I go. What is Philosophy? From beyond (or beneath) all chaos, I plump for Deleuze, I reply: Philosophy is being, being is resistance, resistance is philosophy. Philosophy is philosophy. As ever, a rose is a rose.

Hopeless one that I am, I've still got a full head of hair, and I really don't mind living on opinions till I get down to a single hair of selfishness. My self-existence still hasn't ceased, but I am old whatever the oriental sage might think. Yes, I'd like to meet him, but only after midnight, when no one knows where I am.

Notes

(1) My essay begins with simple/complex questions: Philosophy sees it necessary to comprehend time. Is time only an object of philosophical thought, or is thought itself a matter of time? And is there a particular time for philosophy? These questions are triggered by a reading of Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari's What is Philosophy? The essay will, therefore, elaborate the questions as far as possible, unto the stage of Deleuze/Guattari's "philosophical theatre." For Deleuze/Guattari, philosophy is, firstly, not timeless. They describe her as "old," and they give her an even older precursor, the "old oriental sage." Thought itself has, for Deleuze/Guattari, an extremely temporal character. And thirdly, the attempt of philosophy to understand herself, or, the attempt of a philosopher to understand philosophy, has for Deleuze/Guattari also a time: old age. This attempt, indicated in the title of Deleuze/Guattari's book (What Is Philosophy?), is, of course, not without echoes. It echoes (or is echoed by) other philosophers, other books, other titles (e.g. Heidegger's What is Philosophy?). Neither is the ascription of philosophy to old age without parallels: Hegel's Owl of Minerva begins her flight "when a figure of life has grown old." It is, therefore, inevitable, to quickly glance sideways. This essay, however, concentrates in a second move on the "passion of thinking" as it is described in an essay Hannah Arendt wrote at the occasion of a birthday of her teacher M. Heidegger ("Martin Heidegger at Eighty"). It is noteworthy that this contribution is a gift to a philosopher in his old age. It is surprising to learn to which extent this timely occasion leads her to celebrate the timeless quality of a "passion of thinking." If the pendulum can swing so easily from one side to the other, then it is advisable to ask more closely: is what is described in these philosophical texts (and in others) as "old age" a marker for philosophical thought, an extraneous signpost by which philosophy can recognize herself, or is "old age" always already defined philosophically? Are there, in other words, other concepts of "old age"? My essay suggests, in fact, that there are other ways of conceiving "old age." And it does this by referring, in the end, to "old oriental sages" that are not compatible with those hinted at in Deleuze/Guattari's thought (e.g. Rumi). For Arendt, Hegel, and Heidegger, see: H. Arendt, "Martin Heidegger at Eighty," The New York Review of Books 17.6 (October 21, 1971), available at <www.nybooks. com/articles/10408>; G. W. F. Hegel, "Vorrede," Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), Bd. 7, 28; M. Heidegger, What is Philosophy? (English and German), trans. W. Kluback and J. T. Wilde (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958).

(2) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia UP, 1994). All references to this text in the article will simply refer to this edition and indicate page numbers in parentheses. This essay calls frequently on Deleuze/Guattari's book and enters in dialogue with it. My citations from their book will be in italics followed by page numbers. Accordingly, what is originally italicized in the book will be in regular font (as customary in print). Occasionally, citations from the English translation are in this essay accompanied by phrases from the original French, to add to the precision that might have been lost in translation. Words between square brackets in the citations of Deleuze/Guattari are my own additions to clarify references. Gilles Deleuze et Felix Guattari, Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1991).

(3) Plato. The Republic of Plato, trans. A. Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), Book I, 328e.

(4) Deleuze/Guattari are not very precise on what is torn open: once it's the umbrella, then it is the firmament which, according to his own declaration is painted on the umbrella. This seems to indicate a desire to circumvent a problem regarding those who "figure on the firmament."

(5) Deleuze has found this activity in such varied areas as contemporary music and the "rhythm that animates the State Apparatus." In the context of the latter, he speaks of the mystery "of the Binder-Gods or magic emperors. One-Eyed men emitting from their single eye signs that capture, tie knots at a distance." It would be interesting to know, if there is a way leading from those god-men to conceptual thought. There are, indeed, signs. After all, Deleuze's god-men occur in a chapter about the "State Apparatus" and philosophy has a story or two to tell about philosophers and statesmen. See Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 424.

(6) L'Abecedaire de Gilles Deleuze, avec Claire Parnet; Gilles Deleuze's ABC Primer, with Claire Parnet, trans. Charles J. Stivale, II, 21. <www. langlab.wayne.edu/CStivale/D-G/ABC2.html>, September 25, 2003.

(7) Gilles Deleuze, Niet,sehe and Philosophy (New York: Columbia UP, 1983), 101.

(8) Jalalu'ddin Rural, The Mathnawi, ed. and trans. R. A. Nicholson (Cambridge: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, 1982), Book V, 45.

(9) Aristotle, On Youth, Old Age, On Life and Death, On Breathing, trans. G. R. T. Ross, Part. 5, The Internet Classics Archive, <http://classics.mit.edu/ Aristotle/youth_old.html>, June 14, 2004.

(10) Rumi, Book V, 46.

(11) Rural, Book III, 100.