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			[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Pharmacology Back to the book]
	== '''Introduction: Drugs are us''' ==		== '''Introduction: Drugs are us''' ==

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	'''Notes'''		'''Notes'''

	1. See my Culture on drugs: narco-cultural studies of high modernity (Manchester University Press, 2006).		1. See my Culture on drugs: narco-cultural studies of high modernity (Manchester University Press, 2006).

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	'''Notes'''		'''Notes'''
	1. See my Culture on drugs: narco-cultural studies of high modernity (Manchester University Press, 2006).		1. See my Culture on drugs: narco-cultural studies of high modernity (Manchester University Press, 2006).

	2. These are gathered in Robert Byck (ed) The Cocaine Papers (New York: Stonehill Press, 1974).		2. These are gathered in Robert Byck (ed) The Cocaine Papers (New York: Stonehill Press, 1974).

	3. In 1959 C.P. Snow delivered the annual Rede Lecture in Cambridge with the title ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’. He spoke of the gap that had opened up between literary inquiry and the sciences and the breakdown of communication between the two groups of intellectuals. Suffice to say here (in lieu of a lengthy bibliography) the ‘two cultures’ debate has been a British ‘culture wars’ chestnut ever since.		3. In 1959 C.P. Snow delivered the annual Rede Lecture in Cambridge with the title ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’. He spoke of the gap that had opened up between literary inquiry and the sciences and the breakdown of communication between the two groups of intellectuals. Suffice to say here (in lieu of a lengthy bibliography) the ‘two cultures’ debate has been a British ‘culture wars’ chestnut ever since.

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	There are numerous, perhaps countless instances where a ''chiasmus'' of science and the humanities, rather than the rending of ‘culture’ into ‘two’, is evident in interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation – and this is apparent within the diverse field of ‘drugs research’ as this is presented in this living book. I have set the ball rolling here by including contributions that I believe illustrate how this is the case. In doing so I want to indicate how we can indeed embrace the idea that ‘we are chemistry’ and that ‘drugs are us’, as it were, without subscribing to what I would call naive empirico-postivistic reductionism. Dialectical thinking has to deal with the positive and the negative. Alternatively, perhaps what is called for is an anti-dialectical transcendental empiricism and a rethinking of immanence of the kind we find in the work of Gilles Deleuze, or at least to think along conceptual lines that enable us to take drugs seriously in terms of drug ''affects''. It is not the case that the humanities have been ''superseded'' by the natural sciences – that is a political myth, when it comes to drugs, or indeed any other field of inquiry. We do, nonetheless, have to embrace a certain ‘empiricism of the substance’; but also to critique it on the basis of ‘it’ being just as much subject as substance: drugs are only drugs in their being taken, that is ‘subjectivised.’ Subjectivation in this sense does not rest on the denial of the empirical, it refers us rather to the super-empiricism of life: drugs interact with ‘life’, with ‘perception’, with ‘experience’; they alleviate pain; they reset the controls of our cells; they facilitate transitions in our being in fundamental ways, etc.; and all of these things are irreducibly ‘empirically real’.		There are numerous, perhaps countless instances where a ''chiasmus'' of science and the humanities, rather than the rending of ‘culture’ into ‘two’, is evident in interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation – and this is apparent within the diverse field of ‘drugs research’ as this is presented in this living book. I have set the ball rolling here by including contributions that I believe illustrate how this is the case. In doing so I want to indicate how we can indeed embrace the idea that ‘we are chemistry’ and that ‘drugs are us’, as it were, without subscribing to what I would call naive empirico-postivistic reductionism. Dialectical thinking has to deal with the positive and the negative. Alternatively, perhaps what is called for is an anti-dialectical transcendental empiricism and a rethinking of immanence of the kind we find in the work of Gilles Deleuze, or at least to think along conceptual lines that enable us to take drugs seriously in terms of drug ''affects''. It is not the case that the humanities have been ''superseded'' by the natural sciences – that is a political myth, when it comes to drugs, or indeed any other field of inquiry. We do, nonetheless, have to embrace a certain ‘empiricism of the substance’; but also to critique it on the basis of ‘it’ being just as much subject as substance: drugs are only drugs in their being taken, that is ‘subjectivised.’ Subjectivation in this sense does not rest on the denial of the empirical, it refers us rather to the super-empiricism of life: drugs interact with ‘life’, with ‘perception’, with ‘experience’; they alleviate pain; they reset the controls of our cells; they facilitate transitions in our being in fundamental ways, etc.; and all of these things are irreducibly ‘empirically real’.

	In my view we can embrace this state of affairs ''intellectually'', precisely because the pharmakon is a special kind of concept to start with; or, rather, as Derrida would say, it is neither simply a word nor a concept, it is rather a power of differentiation. It signifies at once both ‘poison’ and ‘cure’ and, therefore, all ‘pharmacologies’ are, perhaps in very differing senses, sciences of doses. The quest of all drugs research is ultimately the pursuit of some sort of ‘measure’ for drugs. There’s always a risk of ‘overdoing it’; there’s always the chance of nothing happening – the risk of a volume like this perhaps. There’s always a risk associated with drugs as a theme, a topic, a therapy. There is a sense in which drugs also represent a ‘chance’ of sorts, a throw of the dice and an opportunity.		In my view we can embrace this state of affairs ''intellectually'', precisely because the pharmakon is a special kind of concept to start with; or, rather, as Derrida would say, it is neither simply a word nor a concept, it is rather a power of differentiation. It signifies at once both ‘poison’ and ‘cure’ and, therefore, all ‘pharmacologies’ are, perhaps in very differing senses, sciences of doses. The quest of all drugs research is ultimately the pursuit of some sort of ‘measure’ for drugs. There’s always a risk of ‘overdoing it’; there’s always the chance of nothing happening – the risk of a volume like this perhaps. There’s always a risk associated with drugs as a theme, a topic, a therapy. There is a sense in which drugs also represent a ‘chance’ of sorts, a throw of the dice and an opportunity.

	In curating the collection comprising this volume (at the point at which it goes live at least), I have attempted to get the mix right so as to provoke interdisciplinary thinking around the theme of drugs and pharmacology. And I have tried to calibrate for possibility of addition, change, reorganisation of boundaries and the rethinking of disciplinary overlaps and exchanges through further addition, reorganisation and juxtaposition. I have aimed to include material which will attract those interested in drugs and pharmacology as they already understand these things to read the work of others arriving at them from entirely different directions. I very much look forward to seeing and reading the contributions which users from all areas of ‘drugs research’ will add to these pages.		In curating the collection comprising this volume (at the point at which it goes live at least), I have attempted to get the mix right so as to provoke interdisciplinary thinking around the theme of drugs and pharmacology. And I have tried to calibrate for possibility of addition, change, reorganisation of boundaries and the rethinking of disciplinary overlaps and exchanges through further addition, reorganisation and juxtaposition. I have aimed to include material which will attract those interested in drugs and pharmacology as they already understand these things to read the work of others arriving at them from entirely different directions. I very much look forward to seeing and reading the contributions which users from all areas of ‘drugs research’ will add to these pages.

Pharmacology/Introduction - Revision history

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