This paper examines the Leibnizian influence in Deleuze's theory of the spatium. Leibniz's critique of Cartesian extension and Newtonian space leads him to a conception of space in terms of internal determination and internal difference. Space is thus understood as a structure of individual relations internal to substances. Making some Nietzschean corrections to Leibniz, Deleuze understands the spatium in terms of individuating differences instead of individual relations. Leibnizian space is thus transformed into a genetic space producing both extension (quantity) and (...) quality. (shrink)

Bergson’s critique of intensive magnitude in Time and Free Will mainly targets Kant’s “Anticipations of Perception”, in which the Kantian distinction between matter and form is lowered. Bergson pra...

In Bergson and Intensive Magnitude: Dismantling his Critique, Florian Vermeiren argues that Bergson’s critique of intensive magnitude in Time and Free Will is inconsistent with his later philosophy, and even inconsistent with the role of a “difference in degrees of freedom” in Time and Free Will. I argue that it is rather Vermeiren’s analysis which mischaracterizes Bergson’s critique and therefore the interpretation of an inconsistency cannot stand. In the first two sections I reevaluate Bergson’s critique, showing what, according to Bergson, (...) are the good and bad senses of intensity, and how this critique allowed Bergson to institute a new conception of difference as expressed in concrete continuity. In the final section I examine the importance of infinitesimal thought in Bergson’s good sense of intensity. (shrink)

Henri Bergson's philosophy is centered on forming a concept of lived time or durée, which he saw as a process of continuous variation and flux. He believed that the study of time should be the foundation of philosophy. By studying time, we find an integration of concrete, infinite, qualitative multiplicity within consciousness that we should use to understand the essence of reality. I show that his insights into the reality of duration come directly from a metaphysical or phenomenological interpretation of (...) integral and differential calculus. Drawing on the recently published lectures from 1902–1905, I show how An Introduction to Metaphysics schematizes the methodology of Matter and Memory and Time and Free Will by means of this mathematical analogy. To Bergson, the concepts of calculus are not mere metaphors; they unleash certain metaphysical implications that problematize the mind's relation to movement, life, consciousness, time, and consequently, reality itself. (shrink)