Glen Fuller – Cosmic Deleuze and Adventures of the Fourth-Person Singular in the Fifth Dimension

Abstract  What are the essentials of Gille Deleuze’s philosophy? There is a multiplicity of Deleuzes, with multiple points of engagement. This presentation begins with the presupposition that they are all actualised examples of a philosophy of the event. Emphasising Deleuze’s philosophy as a philosophy of the event is largely congruent with major commentaries but is purposefully constrained and minimalist. What happens when the mechanics of the event itself, rather than philosophical development or contestation, becomes the only focus? This minimal Deleuze is organised around three concepts.  The first concept is of the ‘fourth-person singular’ which denotes a perspective beyond first, second and third perspectives common to narrative writing and understandings of subjectivity. The fourth-person singular is the perspective of the event, in its eternity and expression. Other perspectival positions are arrayed in the multiplicity of the event as a dimension of the event. The challenge is to think the fourth-person singular of any given event. The second concept is of the ‘fifth dimension’ that helps us imagine a cosmic realm of pure multiplicity where causality is in flux. Causality is fixed as events are actualised into states of affairs and correlating finite perspectives. The challenge is to think causality in its full recursive blossom. The third concept is of the ‘adventure’, borrowed from Whitehead, which helps situate us in the turbulence of human finitude that unravels in the midst of events. An applied mechanics of the event will necessarily be an adventure of perspective and causality. We have myriad techniques of adventure – from affect to aesthetics – for helping us implicate sense from chaos, and ‘fix’ perspective and causal relations.  The paper ends by arguing a critical event mechanics needs to be vigilant for those dark masters who manipulate events to discipline (human) finitude in exploitative causal traps.  Bio  Glen is a professor of communication and media. He has published across a range of topics and fields, including cultural studies, communication and media studies, and gender studies.  This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to GlenFuller_Presentation.pptx