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...

ABSTRACT This article examines Bergson’s critique of intensive magnitude in Time and Free Will. I demonstrate how his rejection of a different kind of quantity that is ordinal and does not allow measurement, and the underlying strict dualism of quantity and quality, is inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit of his later philosophy. I dismantle two main strategies for explaining these inconsistencies. Furthermore, I argue that Bergson’s simplistic conception of quantity in terms of homogeneous multiplicity, which is operative (...) in his rejection of an alternative conception of quantity, lacks justification in the face of the transformations that the concept of quantity underwent in the history of mathematics and physics. (shrink)