Deleuze’s Spinozist Gambler: Lessons on Games of Chance

Comments 3: [Overall, the article is accurate and insightful. The scope of the article is quite limited to theory rather than practical application, though.

The main concern with the argument is that there are points in the article which are in need of

concrete examples and clarification.]

Response 3: [Thanks for this advice. We have accordingly revised the manuscript with further examples and clarifications to emphasize this point.]

Comments 4: [On page 2, line 68, there is some odd phrasing around perception. Do the authors intend to say that Spinoza invents perception of others as it sounds?]

Response 4: [   Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We have accordingly revised the phrasing to: “Deleuze further remarks that “a philosopher is not only someone who invents notions, he also perhaps invents ways of perceiving” [13]. So, the Spinozist gambler would be someone who possesses a way of perceiving invented by Spinoza, as Deleuze calls it.” (p. 2, lines 63-65) to emphasize that the authors are not saying but citing Deleuze himself that Spinoza “invents ways of perceiving for others.”]

Comments 5: [On page 3, lines 81-83, the discussion around love needs some clarification, and examples. How these points relate to gambling would be good to know.]

Response 5: [Thanks for this suggestion. Revisions were made to improve the clarity of this passage:

“Deleuze begins to lay out Spinoza’s epistemology from his fundamental episte-mological distinction between affect (affectus) and idea. The latter is a mode of thought that represents something, that is, it has objective reality, while the former is a mode of thought that does not represent anything at all. Loving something, that is, the affect or feeling of love, for instance, does not represent anything. It has an object, which is the loved thing, for sure, but the feeling of love is not represented by this object; the loved thing is not the objective reality of the feeling of love; the feeling of love has no objective reality. The idea of love, in contrast, does represent an object, which is the feeling of love. Similarly, the idea of the loved thing, whether it is an image or a concept, has the thing as its represented object and the thing thus constitutes the objective reality of that idea. An idea also has formal reality, which corresponds to the degree of reality or of perfection of the idea [15], [13] (pp. 48–51, 73–76).

According to Deleuze, the idea has a chronological and logical primacy over affect, meaning that we first have an idea, which is always followed by an affect that can be either joyful or sad, such as love and hate, hope and fear, or confidence and despair. To love something, one must first have some idea of it: one sees an attractive person and is immediately affected with a joyful affect, such as love or hope. This structure leads to a continuous variation of ideas and affects, as one constantly has varying ideas accompanied by successive affects. When one’s power of acting is increased, the resulting affect is joy, while when it is diminished, they experience an affect of sadness [15], [13] (pp. 48–51, 73–76).

In the case of the gambler, this process can be understood as follows: when a die is thrown, a card is played, or the ball lands on the roulette wheel, the gambler has an immediate idea, whether an affection idea (the sensible perception of the die, card, or ball), a common notion (a universalizable grasp of the relations or structures governing this event), or an essence idea (an intuitive apprehension of the encounter as such), ac-companied by a corresponding affect. If the outcome is advantageous, the gambler ex-periences a joyful affect, such as hope or confidence, and if it is disadvantageous, a sad affect, such as fear or despair arises.”]

Comments 6: [The discussion of signs beginning on page 4 is interesting, but it is not clear how it relates to the main concern. More should be explained with relevant signs that are part of the kinds of

gambling at different stages in the article to show how signs are involved.]

Response 6: [Thanks for this suggestion. A paragraph on pp. 4-5, lines 192-212 was inserted to apply the discussion on signs to the case of gambling:

“In gambling, the regime of signs characteristic of the first kind of knowledge can be observed clearly. Indicative signs appear when the gambler takes basic sensory effects as reflecting something about the external situation, assuming the outcome will be advantageous when they observe a certain sensory effect, even though they merely register the current state of their own body. Abstractive signs arise for the gambler when they isolate a single feature of an encounter, such as a recent win, a particular number, or a recurring pattern, and abstract it from the broader network of relations, thereby forming a confused and partial universal on which their game will be based. Imperative signs are when the gambler mistakes effects for purposes, interpreting them as commands, or how it is meant to be, as if winning or losing was their fate, thereby introducing a teleological reading into events that are purely causal. Interpretive signs intensify this process through superstition, when imagination projects suprasensible causes onto chance en-counters: lucky colors, rituals, routines, or the presence of particular people are treated as if they influenced outcomes. Vectorial signs register the fluctuations of power, as the gambler takes feelings of hope or confidence as indicators of a favourable outcome, and fear or anxiety as omens of loss. Finally, ambiguous signs arise when these regimes intermingle, producing unstable oscillations between joy and sadness, confidence and despair. In all these cases, signs do not refer to objects or causes but to chains of affections generated by chance encounters among bodies; they are associative, variable, and equivocal, binding the impulsive gambler to imagination.”]

Comments 7: [On page 4, an ‘encounter’ is described as something limited to affect, but which still contributes to individual power. No stable understanding occurs. Is this correct? How is level 1 needed for knowledge at all? Why is there a first level if it is not productive?]

Response 7: [Thanks for highlighting this. We have added a sentence in the section 2.3 Common notions on p. 6, lines 294-297 to clarify how level 1 is productive in reaching level 2. However, if the reviewers feel this is not sufficient and further clarification is needed, we would be happy to develop this.

“What appears as a series of random encounters at the level of affection-ideas is revealed, at the level of common notions, to exhibit determinate patterns. In this regard, they are also the indispensable material from which common notions are extracted.”]

Comments 8: [The example of Beavis and Butthead may seem apt, but actually it is unrelatable for all but a very narrow audience. Non-western readers and those outside of a certain age group in the

Americas would not know this example. It also seems limited in characterization. Perhaps a

specific character from Dostoevsky is better, since the reasoning shifts to a new mode.]

Response 8: [Thanks for this suggestion. We have accordingly added further examples to Beavis and Butthead including Tacitus, and two specific characters from Dostoevsky on p. 5, lines 225-249:

“It is the mob mentality driven by immediate affects of fear and rage, leading to sudden reversals of loyalty and political dynamics, as depicted by Tacitus. It is a life lived at the level of immediate affections, where each new encounter overturns the last and no stable understanding emerges until one rises to the second or third kinds of knowledge. It is the regime of signs in which the primal affects of hate and love, fear and hope govern action, that keeps us dependent on fortune and vulnerable to manipulation, because what we “know” at any moment is just what our latest encounter has made us feel. It is how we act when we make choices under the influence of news cycles, social media outrage, or advertising cues.

If we think in terms of gambling, this corresponds to the worst possible gambler; an impulsive gambler of the kind we meet in Dostoevsky’s novels like Alexei Ivanovich in The Gambler or Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov, who live wholly at the level of affection ideas, thrown from one impulse to the next, mistaking the last streak of luck for a law of nature thereby falling into confidence and the last loss for cosmic persecution, thereby sinking into despair.”]

Comments 9: [Under common notions, the concept of an encounter seems to change, where chance has a role leading to a higher level. This should be connected to the previous reasoning.]

Response 9: [Thanks for sharing this suggestion. We have accordingly added the following sentence on p. 6, lines 294-297 to connect this to the previous section and emphasize the role of the concept of encounter in forming common notions. However, if the reviewers feel this is not sufficient and further clarification is needed, we would be happy to develop this.

“What appears as a series of random encounters at the level of affection-ideas is revealed, at the level of common notions, to exhibit determinate patterns. In this regard, they are also the indispensable material from which common notions are extracted.”]

Comments 10: [Since ‘aging’ is brought up in this section, more could be said about the role of accidental experience, and how it is meaningful.]

Response 10: [Thanks again for this suggestion. We have added a sentence to dwell upon the role and meaning of accidental experience on p. 7, lines 328-329:

“This capacity is only made possible by progressively accumulating chance encounters and drawing from them the common notions they implicitly contain.”]

Comments 11: [This section is also where the conception of gambling begins to become more obscure, and lost the details of Spinoza’s philosophy. A gambler is not mentioned in pages 6-8, and the relevance of many points are not clear.

By the time it is summarized on page 9, there are no examples in context.]

Response 11: [Thanks for bringing this to our attention. A gambler is not discussed on pages 6 to 8 because those sections first lay out a series of attributes of the second kind of knowledge, common notions, which must be established before explaining their relevance to the gambler. In response to this suggestion, we have added an example involving Sherlock Holmes on pages 9 to 10, lines 449 to 456, to clarify how common notions operate for a wider audience. We have also added a clarificatory paragraph on page 10, lines 457 to 485, illustrating how each element of the discussion of common notions applies specifically to the case of the gambler.

“This is the moment when Sherlock Holmes organizes seemingly unrelated pieces of evidence, or affection ideas, into coherent causal narrations through common notions. At the outset of an investigation, the world appears as a disorderly sequence of random encounters: scattered clues, contradictory testimonies, and emotionally charged incidents that seem governed by chance. Holmes’s method consists precisely in organizing these encounters by identifying relations that recur across cases, thereby forming common notions that hold beyond any single event. What initially appears accidental becomes intelligible once grasped through these common notions.

For the rational gambler, common notions emerge through the active organization of encounters. However, although they are grounded in random encounters, these are not taken at face value but used as material from which an understanding of commonalities in relations can be extracted. Sadness never makes the gambler intelligent, since losses and failures do not themselves generate common notions, yet even unsuccessful plays can improve the gambler’s power of understanding of their game insofar as the gambler learns from what they have done good in those plays and build their common notions on those. Like any practical skill, gambling improves with time and aging; the gambler is worst in their first game and gradually improve as encounters allow them to discern how relations agree or disagree with their own characteristic manner of play. These relations concern not only the gambler’s body in relation to cards, dice, or opponents, but also relations among those elements themselves, giving rise to tactics and strategies apt for their own characteristic relations that is their particular style of play. As such, common notions are always formed from a viewpoint: they do not necessarily apply universally to every gambler, yet they remain universal within the context of a given style of play. And more universal common notions can be found as one move upward to the rules that structure the game itself. Nevertheless, these universals are not abstractions, since separating in thought what cannot be separated in practice would be useless at best, and harmful at worst in play, as that would be slipping into abstractive signs. Once the gambler forms such an idea of what is common between themselves and the game, this idea is supposed to be an adequate idea as it cannot belong merely to imagination but expresses a relation that pertains to the game itself. Such adequate ideas increase the gambler’s power of acting and thereby their capacity to win. Moreover, the rational gambler does not merely organize past encounters retrospectively, in the manner of Holmes, but also anticipates future ones. Although no one knows what a body can do, this ignorance reflects an epistemic limitation rather than the nature of being itself. As Deleuze emphasizes in his discussion of Spinoza’s probability treatise, the Calculation of Chances, common notions can be developed for anticipating future encounters probabilistically; the gambler thus wagers not blindly on chance, but on relations learned through experience [23], [24].”

Comments 12: [When discussion of the gambler emerges again on page 11 in the context of knowledge, it is extremely abstract. Extensive examples largely drop out in the latter sections on Spinoza.]

Response 12: [Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned in the previous response, further examples and clarification was provided on pp. 9-10, lines 449 to 485, including an example involving Sherlock Holmes to clarify how common notions operate for a wider audience, along with a clarificatory paragraph, illustrating how each element of the discussion of common notions applies specifically to the case of the gambler. We would be glad to further develop these if the reviewers require.]

Comments 13: [On Page 14 the discussion of Pascal’s gambler is useful. The remaining comparisons are also helpful, but there is a possible fallacy of generalization from the act of making art, to creative life.]

Response 13: [Thanks for pointing this out to us. We assumed that this is in reference to our discussion of Deleuze’s use of Bacon’s painting technique to discuss chance-taking. If something else was meant, please notify us so we can make further changes. We revised the appropriate parts to clarify that this is an example that illustrates art creation, and so we do not generalize from it any claims about creative life, not even about creative thinking, which was discussed explicitly right after the Bacon section. You can find these changes on p.17 lines 761-763 and p. 18 lines 820-822.]

Comments 14: [Final section: What Can a Spinozist Gambler Do? This section is very short, and could really say more about what it is possible to do. By the time competing notions of a gambler are discussed on page 19, it is very difficult to imagine what the authors believe is at stake, a simple game of dice, or major life decisions that are educational, romantic, or political, etc.? If the latter, please give some concrete scenario.]

Response 14: [Thanks also for this excellent suggestion. We added some additional material to that section. We noted the explicit stakes for Deleuze, and we briefly mention specific possible ones. We also discuss a source that provides a concrete application of the dice-throw for political activity. These revisions can be found on pp.20-21 lines 905-917.]