Talk:Multiplicity (philosophy)

Various

Nobody could possibly get even a rough idea of what "multiplicity" (as used by Deleuze) is supposed to mean by reading this article. Also, please make it clear if and when authors are being directly quoted, and cite sources. Dbtfz 20:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed. I have no idea what this article is talking about. Yvh11a 18:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed again. This article does absolutely nothing to clarify the concept of a multiplicity. I got to it because the Wiki page on "line of flight" crucial relies on the notion of a multiplicity to define "line of flight." So if I don't know what a multiplicity is then I don't know what a line of flight is. Right now, I have no idea about either. 69.255.143.12 (talk) 14:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, not a very well made page.

Deleuze actually borrowed the word Multiplicity from Henri Bergson[[1]] (Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution), and although it is usually translated as Multiplicity in English books (From French, Multiplicités) the way the term is used is actually often thought to be closer in meaning to the mathematical term 'Manifold'[2] which is a topological space in which each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open set in a Euclidean space of specified dimension.Stuart Milgram 12:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Aye, it's fairly crucial that multiplicity means, most simply, manifold (God help us when manifolds are the most simple way of understanding something). Deleuze never gives a straight-up definition (so, analytic philosophers should probably... defenestrate themselves, like our boy Gilles).

This page is pretty terrible... but I can hardly blame the poor bugger that wrote it. I started writing one just now, but it's difficult to do without writing an essay (rather than encyclopedia entry). Whilst, obviously, it needs a paragraph or two introduction, I can't see how it's explicable without a 'maybe think of it like this...' part, followed by some explanation of why Deleuze developped the concept, where he developped it from &c.

Well, hopefully stick something up soon. Baadog 1:07, 01 February 2007

In Foucault (1986), Deleuze states his sources for the concept: "It was Riemann in the field of physics and mathematics who dreamed up the notion of 'multiplicity' and different kinds of multiplicities. The philosophical importance of htis notion then appeared in Husserl's Formal and Transcendental Logic, and in Bergson's Essay on the Immediate Given of Awareness". Thus I have changed the article, which claimed it was Deleuze's invention. Unfortunately I don't know the way to best cite the reference so I've left it in parenthesis in the text... Paralysisordeath 03:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

What German terms were used by Bernhard Riemann, Karl Weierstrass, Georg Cantor and Edmund Husserl which were then translated as multiplicités or multiplicité? Is it basically Vielheit? Part of the complexity here is in moving between German, French and English (as well as between developing philosophical uses, each of which stands in some relation to mathematical uses which have themselves developed & specialized since the C19th). There needs to be, I suggest, a section on multiplicity in Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic, a section on multiplicity in Bergson, a section on Deleuze, and also something on Badiou. Dsp13 (talk) 14:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Would someone mind making this specific? That is, what is this multiplicity? A manifold is a manifold of something because it is in some kind of space. The pertinent point here is that this identification is -- at a minimum -- what is missing in this page. Tsember (talk) 17:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I would almost against equating multiplicity with manifolds. Granted, this is only my first reading through Difference and Repetition but from what I gather, he intends for the term to refer to something which is 'anti-modular' ('surpasses' 'differentiates-from' the model). . erewhonandonlymultiple 10:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Definition

What is the definition of "multiplicity"? What it says in the article--"Multiplicity is a philosophical concept that Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson developed from Riemann's mathematical concept"--is not one. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I've decided to be WP:BOLD and change the lead sentence. Although I don't know what multiplicity means in this context (and also can't figure it out from reading the page), I find it hard to believe that anything matching this description is actually derived from mathematics. Therefore I've edited the definition to say "by analogy". Also, the concept of multiplicity in mathematics was around long before Riemann's work. As well as this, I find it hard to believe in the phrase Bergson's theory of multiplicities distinguishes between two types of multiplicity: continuous multiplicities and discrete multiplicities (a distinction that he developed from Riemann)—I'm not aware of anything of this sort in Riemann's work—but without checking the Deleuze reference I'm hesitant to change that sentence. Jowa fan (talk) 12:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

My Understanding of multiplicity

After both reading this article and other articles on the subject and thinking about it for a while here's the definition I came up with "Essentially multiplicity is the set of all the traits something has, including all the traits each trait has. The relationship each trait has with itself, others traits of the object, and the traits of other object, both in the past and the present, are all considered to be additional traits of the object. The word multiplicity is used both to explain the concept as well as any object which demonstrates this concept (everything.)"

The two pages that inspired, but did not state this definition, are http://proximities.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/what-is-a-multiplicity/ and http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/what-is-multiplicity-for-deleuze.

Based on my reading I think my definition is accurate but I would like other people more versed on the subject to give me their views. jph (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

First question that needs addressing:

What in tarnation is a geo-historical trajectory? Can this be defined in this article, or does it necessitate it's own? Even citing specific passages by Deleuze (or others) would be helpful. Terms like this shouldn't just be tossed in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.41.246.213 (talk) 02:42, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah this was nothing

If someone wants to try again from scratch, they're certainly welcome to, but absolutely nothing about the Deleuze quote made sense out of context. I'm not sure that original writing by him or Guattari should ever be posted anywhere on the project, it's not comprehensible to anyone, I doubt they knew what any of the word salad they published meant. - car chasm (talk) 03:49, 31 May 2023 (UTC)