In 1967, after a talk Deleuze gave to the Society of French Philosophy, Ferdinand Alquiéé expressed concern during the question and answer session that perhaps Deleuze was relying too heavily upon science and not giving adequate attention to questions and problems that Alquiéé took to be distinctively philosophical. Deleuze responded by agreeing with Alquiéé; moreover, he argued that his primary interest was precisely in the metaphysics science needs rather than in the science philosophy needs. This metaphysics, Deleuze argues, is to (...) be done ‘‘in the style of Whitehead’’ rather than the style of Kant, and in developing this metaphysics Deleuze draws heavily on Spinoza. The present essay examines this Deleuzian-Spinozist metaphysics done in the style of Whitehead, the ‘‘metaphysics science needs’’, drawing on the writings of David Hume and Bruno Latour in the process. This discussion will in turn enable us to situate Deleuze's metaphysics in relation to contemporary debates concerning speculative realism and correlationism, and especially Quentin Meillassoux's critique of the latter. Our conclusion will be that the kind of metaphysics Deleuze pursues is neither correlationist nor straightforwardly realist, but rather charts a course between realism and anti-realism. (shrink)

This paper sets out a series of critical contrasts between Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of the event. It does so in the context of some likely objections to their positions from a broadly analytic position. These objections concern problems of individuation and location in space-time. The paper also explains Deleuze and Badiou's views on the event through a literary application on a short story by John Cheever. In conclusion it is argued that both thinkers have good answers to (...) the objections, but that they diverge on the ontological commitments of their definitions of the event. (shrink)

This paper introduces Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming in a system theoretic framework and proposes an alternative ontological foundation to the study of systems and complex systems in particular. A brief critique of systems theory and the difficulties apparent in it is proposed as an introduction to the discussion. Following is an overview aimed at providing access to the ‘big picture’ of Deleuze’s revolutionary philosophical system with emphasis on a system theoretic approach and terminology. The major concepts of Deleuze’s ontology—difference, virtuality, (...) multiplicity, assemblages, quasi-causation, becoming, intensity and progressive determination are introduced and discussed. Deleuze’s work is a radical departure from the dogma of western philosophy that guides the foundations of science and systems theory. It replaces identity with difference and being with becoming; in other words, it provides systems theory with an ontological ground based on change, heterogeneity and the inexhaustible novelty-producing process that underlies all phenomena. The conceptual tools made available by this philosophy seem to capture the fundamental aspects of complexity and complex systems much better than the current conceptual system that is based on static transcendent ontological entities. (shrink)

This article approaches Gilles Deleuze's notion of problems through a series of thinkers Deleuze draws on in developing this notion: Heidegger, Plato, Kant, Bergson and Nietzsche. Taking these thinkers as its guide, it sketches six broad characteristics that accompany an investment in problems, ultimately arguing that problems are attained through the activity of critique. It echoes Deleuze's essay ‘How Do We Recognise Structuralism?’ by asking: for whom do problems exist? What does Deleuze recognise in those who recognise problems? And what (...) do those who recognise problems make visible for us? (shrink)

The article enters a heated debate about the ideals and organization of the postmodern left. Hardt and Negri, two key figures in this debate, claim that their concept of the multitude — a revolutionary, proletarian body that organizes singularities — integrates the insights of Deleuze and Lenin. I argue, however, that Deleuze anticipated and resisted a Leninist appropriation of his political theory. This essay challenges the widely accepted assumption that Hardt and Negri carry forth Deleuze’s legacy. At the same time, (...) the essay advocates Deleuze’s concept of left assemblages — protean political bodies working for freedom and equality — as a valuable but underappreciated contribution to the liberal-democratic tradition. (shrink)

Perhaps because of their dismissal of him as living ‘une carrière à l’américaine’, there have been few attempts to explore the relationship between the work of Gregory Bateson and that of Deleuze and Guattari. This paper offers two ways in which we might do this. First, it explores the concepts, such as plateau of intensity and rhizome, which migrate from Bateson into Capitalism and Schizophrenia. This helps focus on this text as an attempt to create and imagine non-schismogenic forms of (...) social relation. Here, the earthliness of this work is a necessary ‘grounding’ for the plateaus that Deleuze and Guattari seek to develop. Second, this paper builds on this by looking at Guattari’s concept of ecosophical subjectivity, arguing that Bateson is crucial for the ‘ethico-political’ dimensions of this work. It concludes with the claim that as a key influence on their work, exploring Bateson in relation to Deleuze and Guattari can open up new understandings of the ‘earthliness’ of their ideas. (shrink)

The Heidegger–Deleuze relationship has attracted significant attention of late. This paper contributes to this line of research by examining Deleuze’s claim, recently reiterated and developed by Philip Tonner, that Heidegger offers a univocal conception of Being where there is one sense of Being that is said throughout all entities. Although these authors maintain that this claim holds across Heidegger’s oeuvre, I purposefully adopt a conservative hermeneutical strategy that focuses on two writings from the 1927–1928 period—Being and Time and the following (...) year’s lecture course translated as The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic—and emphasize the lesson of the ontological difference that Being is always the Being of an entity, to argue that with regards to these texts, at least, an alternative equivocal interpretation is possible in which Being is always said differently. The conclusion draws out the implications of this for the relationship between Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and Deleuze’s differential ontology. (shrink)

Deleuze’s differential ontology is a sustained attempt to think and affirm difference as opposed to the unity of identity he insists philosophical thought has tended to privilege. However, by distinguishing between three senses of identity, termed identity of the identical, same, and common, I show that, while Deleuze’s differential ontology offers a powerful critique of identity in the senses of the identical and same, at numerous points in his analysis, such as the virtual-actual movement, the transcendental conditions defining different forms (...) of thinking, and the relationship between the forms of thinking, it appears Deleuze’s affirmation of difference depends on identity in the sense of the common. Rather than using these instances to offer a critique of Deleuze’s differential ontology, I follow his exhortation to read a philosopher creatively and suggest that distinguishing between three senses of identity reveals the complexity of the difference-identity relationship and acts as a stimulus to rethinking this relationship. (shrink)

In this article I will suggest ways in which adding the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze to the mix can complement and extend the 4EA approach to cognitive science. In the first part of the paper, I will show how the Deleuzean tripartite ontological difference (virtual/intensive/actual) can provide an explicit ontology for dynamical systems theory. The second part will take these ontological notions and apply them to three areas of concern to the 4EA approaches: (a) the Deleuzean concept of the virtual (...) will clarify the ontological status of perceptual capacity as sensorimotor skill; (b) the Deleuzean concept of “intensive individuation” will clarify the ontological status of the genesis of perceptually guided behavior; (c) the Deleuzean critique of confusing the actual and the virtual will enable us to intervene in the realism/idealism debate. These aspects will not be addressed sequentially but will be interwoven into an unfolding argument. (shrink)

In this essay I bring Gregory Bateson together with Deleuze and Guattari (primarily with the latter) to show their ecological compatibility, especially with Guattari’s ecosophy. I do this against the backdrop of the Anthropocene which presents us not only with a ‘climate’ of post-truth and political corruption, but also with the so-called climate crisis. In the context of these two broad examinations, I ask what can an artisan-artist-designer do given this problematic context? My reply is to call on ‘speculative design’ (...) by an ‘avant-garde without authority’ to expose the symptoms of the Anthropocene era. (shrink)

In this essay I bring together Lacan, Žižek, Deleuze and Guattari as mediators and intercessors for one another. The tensions that exist between them still continue to reverberate throughout the academic community. The intent is to query their pedagogies in what they are trying to ‘do’ within the context of capitalism in particular. I have called their pedagogies anomalous in keeping with their thrust of becoming other in their own particular ways through what I take to be three pedagogical conceptual (...) personae: saint, jester and nomad. I try to show how Deleuze and Guattari managed to supplant and perhaps overcome Lacan's own pedagogical project to have psychoanalysis as a way out from capitalism, which has been continued today by Žižek. I do this by showing how Lacan's mathemes, used in his four discourses, can be understood as having been deterritorialised by Deleuze and Guattari to present us with a counter-actualised pedagogy that challenges psychoanalysis as presented by both Lacan and Žižek. Nevertheless, reconciliations between the thought of Deleuze, Guattari and Lacan are possible. The reader will also find that particular door open, yet not fully explored here. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze (January 18, 1925–November 4, 1995) was one of the most influential and prolific French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. Deleuze conceived of philosophy as the production of concepts, and he characterized himself as a “pure metaphysician.” In his magnum opus Difference and Repetition , he tries to develop a metaphysics adequate to contemporary mathematics and science—a metaphysics in which the concept of multiplicity replaces that of substance, event replaces essence and virtuality replaces possibility. Deleuze (...) was also well-known for a number of important monographs he published in the history of philosophy (on Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson, Spinoza, Foucault, and Leibniz), as well as for his writings on the various arts, which include a two- volume study of the cinema, books on Proust and Sacher-Masoch, a monograph on the painter Francis Bacon, and a collection of essays on literature. Deleuze considered these latter works as pure philosophy, and not criticism, since he sought to create the concepts that correspond to the artistic practices of painters, filmmakers, and writers. In 1968, he met Félix Guattari, a political activist and radical psychoanalyst, with whom he wrote several works, among them the two-volume Capitalism and Schizophrenia , comprised of Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Their final collaboration was What is Philosophy? (1991). (shrink)

Slovita francoska filozofa Jacques Derrida in Gilles Deleuze pogosto imenujemo tudi filozofa Razlike, da bi poudarili pojmovni pomen razlike v njunih delih. Ta članek bom namenila opisu omenjenega pojma ter njegovi vlogi pri osnovanju tako imenovane Filozofije Razlike. Da bi lahko celostno razumeli logiko omenjenih dveh filozofov, bomo morali zaobiti enega najmočnejših očitkov številnim post­modernističnim filozofom. Otresti se bomo namreč morali ideje, da so nasprotniki vsakršne metafizike. Poskusila bom dokazati, da sta Derrida in Deleuze na začetku dediča metafizike, šele kasneje (...) pa prideta do spoznanja o nemožnosti metafizike, kar pa od njiju zahteva paradoksalne formulacije – metafizika namreč kaže na svojo lastno nemožnost, istočasno pa tudi na nemožnost nemožnosti. (shrink)

While the lens based image can be seen as a simple manifestation of our ability to make records and to document, it is also a philosophical meditation on the specific power visuality, and its unique ability to shape ethical, moral and aesthetic perceptions.