This paper critically examines Deleuze’s treatment of the Nietzschean problem of nihilism. Of all the major figures in contemporary continental thought, Deleuze is at once one of the most luminous, and practically a lone voice in suggesting that nihilism may successfully be overcome. Whether or not he is correct on this point is thus a commanding question in relation to our understanding of the issue. Many commentators on Nietzsche have argued that his project of overcoming nihilism is destined to failure (...) because of the affinity between the problem of nihilism and the logic of negation. While Nietzsche wants an absolute affirmation of life, Spinoza’s principle that “all determination is negation,” as well as Hegel’s dialectical conception of negation, suggest that affirmation free of negation is not possible. However, some commentators indicate that Deleuze successfully shows how overcoming nihilism is possible because his “logic of difference” allows for an affirmation which is not dialectically reappropriated by negation. This paper argues that beyond such logical considerations, there are metaphysical and existential reasons why Deleuze’s interpretation of nihilism fails to show that it can be overcome. For Deleuze, the overcoming of nihilism hinges not just on a logic of difference, but on a radical interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return as “selective being.” Drawing on recent scholarship and on Nietzsche’s own writings I argue that this is not a tenable interpretation, and also, more importantly, that the metaphysical and existential implications of this understanding of eternal return reinstate nihilism at the very point where it is supposedly overcome. Moreover, I argue that there are attendant ethical and political dangers to Deleuze’s position on nihilism. (shrink)

Partimos da perspectiva que nos convida a observar que a leitura que Bergson faz sobre Leibniz tanto nos seus cursos, quanto em Possível e o Real e em A Evolução Criadora participam da construção de um modelo de individuação no âmbito filosofia bergsoniana. No curso sobre o opúsculo De rerum natura originatione, Bergson propõe uma avaliação sobre o finalismo metafísico leibniziano a partir da noção do possível e sua relação com o princípio da harmonia pré-estabelecida. Neste artigo, pretende-se mostrar que (...) as implicações decorrentes da leitura de Leibniz são conservadas até as proposições sobre o elã vital e as tendências. (shrink)

Resumen El concepto de “quiasmo” es fundamental en la filosofía del “último” Merleau-Ponty. Me interesa retomar este concepto para mostrar que, en la nueva ontología esbozada en Le visible et l’invisible y en las notas de la misma época, su función guarda correspondencia con la tarea que, a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía, ha desempeñado la imaginación. En este sentido, una ontología del quiasmo supone por necesidad pensar una ontología de la imaginación. Además, este concepto permite arrojar (...) una luz nueva sobre el problema de la subjetividad.The concept of “chiasm” is central to the philosophy of the “late” Merleau-Ponty. My aim is to retrieve this concept in order to show that, within the framework of the new ontology outlined in Le visible et l’invisible and the notes written during the same period, its function corresponds to the function that imagination has performed throughout the history of philosophy. Thus, an ontology of chiasm necessarily involves reflecting upon an ontology of imagination. Furthermore, the concept of chiasm enables us to shed new light on the problem of subjectivity. (shrink)

Planteamos el problema del aparecer de la hylè husserliana, lo que nos conduce al problema de la auto-donación de la vida como condición de una fenomenología de la percepción. Para solucionar este problema, establecemos las condiciones de un diálogo entre Michel Henry, que pone énfasis sobre la auto-afección de la vida inmanente, y Merleau-Ponty, que privilegia una concepción intencional del cuerpo mundano. Tal diálogo nos permite identificar un prejuicio común, cuya superación podría ofrecer la posibilidad de una solución al problema (...) del aparecer sensible desde la vida. (shrink)

The paper identifies three recent lines of interpretation of the politics that can be derived from Deleuze and Guattari, all of which share a way of reading the dualisms in their work that can be traced back to how they understand the actual/virtual partition, and to an alleged pre-eminence of the virtual over the actual. It is argued that this reading is not only inaccurate, but obscures the political dimension of Deleuze and Guattari's work. Clarifying the latter requires a reinterpretation (...) of the dualisms involved (as dyads rather than binaries), of the relation between virtual and actual (as a formal distinction where one acts back upon the other), and the drawing of a clear distinction between what Deleuze calls a ‘transcendent exercise’ of thought and sensibility and the properly metaphysical exercise that sets up the distinction between virtual and actual. What then appears is an image of Deleuze's and Guattari's thought that is far more concerned with practical questions and with a situated political practice of intervention. (shrink)

This paper discusses the meaning of the concept of ‘second-order observation’ used by Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann identifies second-order observation as a defining characteristic of modern world society. According to Luhmann, all social systems construct a social reality on the basis of the observation of observations. Rating agencies in the economy or the peer-review process in the academic system are examples of social mechanisms manifesting second-order observation. Social media also represent organized second-order observation. The paper suggests that in a society based (...) on second-order observation, ‘genuine pretending’ is an adequate mode of existence. This notion is derived from the Daoist text Zhuangzi. It indicates a disassociation from social roles which allows their performers to exercise these roles with ease and, at the same time, maintain a state of sanity. (shrink)

Nos proponemos pensar una teoría de la acción implícita en la filosofía deleuziana del espacio. El concepto de profundidad, en el que se despliega el carácter de la intensidad como afirmación de la diferencia, funciona como presupuesto de esta teoría. A partir de dos textos de Ruyer y Simondon mencionados por Deleuze, los afectos aparecen como expresión de aquella dimensión espacial en el sujeto. La profundidad se articula a su vez con las síntesis temporales en un recorrido que encuentra en (...) la noción de pliegue el concepto adecuado para pensar un sujeto de la acción alternativo al yo sustancial. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una explicación e interpretación del contenido y estructura de Différence et répétition de Gilles Deleuze. La obra expone un sistema de filosofía contemporánea cuyo objetivo es determinar las condiciones de la experiencia real. El sistema se compone de varias partes: crítica de la forma y contenido del concepto filosófico; métodos filosóficos; estesiología trascendental; dialéctica de las Ideas; estética de las intensidades. Esta interpretación muestra el recorrido y función de la razón suficiente en varios descubrimientos: el método como (...) procedimiento de determinación filosófica, la afectividad diferencial, las nociones no-categoriales, la función de los imperativos ontológicos, la triple figura de la determinación, la determinación individuante, la apertura a la ética de las cantidades intensivas. Esta manera de interpretar la obra incorpora la filosofía de Deleuze a preocupaciones ontológicas, gnoseológicas, éticas, estéticas, de la filosofía tradicional. Además, puede ser útil para dar un sentido al conjunto de su obra posterior. (shrink)

This paper deals with Parmenides of Elea’s way of inquiry about reality and the opposition emerging from it. In more detail, it analyses how Parmenides’ concepts of logos and doxa present some analogies with Bergson’s thoughts about duration and Time and how these theories influenced the understanding of visual media, especially the cinematographic camera. This survey will allow us to demonstrate that some scientific theories about space that accompanied the development of the cinematographic camera progressively allowed for the birth of (...) a new understanding of this device. In the last section of this study, we will then focus on the way through which the film camera - understood as an intelligent device - passes from the sphere of doxa to the sphere of logos. (shrink)

Using the work of philosopher Henri Bergson to examine the nature of movement and memory, this article contributes to recent research on the role of the body in learning mathematics. Our aim in this paper is to introduce the ideas of Bergson and to show how these ideas shed light on mathematics classroom activity. Bergson’s monist philosophy provides a framework for understanding the materiality of both bodies and mathematical concepts. We discuss two case studies of classrooms to show how the (...) mathematical concepts of number and function are themselves mobile and full of potentiality, open to deformation and the remapping of the possible. Bergson helps us look differently at mathematical activity in the classroom, not as a closed set of distinct interacting bodies groping after abstract concepts, but as a dynamic relational assemblage. (shrink)

Philosophers have thought more about the nature of thinking than about anything else. After Plato and Aristotle, philosophers’ main concern was to promote good, that is, correct, thinking. Because correct thinking was achieved best in propositional statements, thinking became a matter of logic, and logic became a discipline dealing with the formulation of true predicative sentences.In the twentieth century, many philosophers expressed their dissatisfaction with this view. Some, such as Heidegger, have pointed to the ontological presuppositions of a logic that (...) makes truth a matter of correspondence between predicative sentences and the reality of states of affairs. Other philosophers, such as Deleuze, have .. (shrink)

Borrowing conceptual tools from Bergson, this essay asks after the shift in the temporality of life from Merleau‐Ponty's Phénoménologie de la perception to his later works. Although the Phénoménologie conceives life in terms of the field of presence of bodily action, later texts point to a life of invisible and immemorial dimensionality. By reconsidering Bergson, but also thereby revising his reading of Husserl, Merleau‐Ponty develops a nonserial theory of time in the later works, one that acknowledges the verticality and irreducibility (...) of the past. Life in the flesh relies on unconsciousness or forgetting, on an invisibility that structures its passage. (shrink)

Through the philosophies of Bergson and Deleuze, my paper explores a different theory of time. I reconstitute Deleuze’s paradoxes of the past in Difference and Repetition and Bergsonism to reveal a theory of time in which the relation between past and present is one of coexistence rather than succession. The theory of memory implied here is a non-representational one. To elaborate this theory, I ask: what is the role of the “virtual image” in Bergson’s Matter and Memory? Far from representing (...) the simple afterimage of a present perception, the “virtual image” carries multiple senses. Contracting the immediate past for the present, or expanding virtually to hold the whole of memory (and even the whole of the universe), the virtual image can form a bridge between the present and the non-representational past. This non-representational account of memory sheds light not only on the structure of time for Bergson, but also on his concepts of pure memory and virtuality. The rereading of memory also opens the way for Bergsonian intuition to play an intersubjective role; intuition becomes a means for navigating the resonances and dissonances that can be felt between different rhythms of becoming or planes of memory, which constitute different subjects. (shrink)

This work examines Gilles Deleuze’s concept of intensity and the role of this concept in his philosophy of technology. The work has two main objectives. First, it analyses the role of Deleuze’s theory of intensity in his metaphysical system and in his philosophy of technology. Second, on the basis of this theory, it presents an original analysis of the creative potential of technology. The importance of the concept of intensity in Deleuze’s philosophy has been acknowledged, but so far, his views (...) on intensity have not been analysed in terms of a consistent theory. Furthermore, the implications of Deleuze’s theory of intensity for his and Félix Guattari’s analysis of technology have been entirely overlooked. This thesis shows for the first time the pivotal role of intensity in Deleuze’s philosophy and demonstrates the importance of the concept of intensity for the analysis of technicity. Part I explicates Deleuze’s theory of intensity. For Deleuze, intensity is the nature of the gradual variation of material, heterogeneous wholes. Within such wholes, intensity characterises variation in processes of individuation and systemic transformation. Moreover, these intensive processes and transformations take place within a sphere of material immediacy. Part II fleshes out the implications of this theory for a philosophy of technics. It proposes a definition of technics as immediate interaction with material variation. Technics always has an established role as a component of a particular social system, but it also bears a constant undercurrent of creative and transformative potential. Finally, the current dominance of information technology and the potential for technical creativity in contemporary society are examined on the basis of the analysis of intensive technics. The work offers an original and comprehensive analysis of Deleuze’s theory of intensity and demonstrates his contribution to the philosophy of technology. It also clarifies the processual nature of materiality and the nature of systemic transformation. Finally, it offers conceptual tools for fathoming the constraints as well as the creative potential of technics in contemporary culture. (shrink)

In this chapter, we evaluate the politically generative dynamic of urban space. Notably, we put forward the notion of the ‘multiplier effect’ of the urban, referring to its ingrained tendency to multiply resistance to oppression and violence being exerted against subaltern groups and minorities and, in doing so, to turn this multiplied resistance into an active force of social change. We, therefore, look at the twofold valence of ‘resistance’: negative and affirmative. Resistance initially takes form as a defensive response to (...) oppression and violence. When this happens, the urban becomes the living platform for a multiplying dynamic of encounter and, potentially, of inter-group solidarity, thus laying the foundations for a cooperative – rather than competitive, as in neoliberal rationality, or inimical, as in national-populist reason – way of ‘being together’. After having developed this argument against the backdrop of the women’s movement in Tehran and the urban disobedience to anti-immigration policies in Italy, our chapter concludes by reflecting on the multiplier effect of urban resistance within the current context of national revanchism. (shrink)

Tässä artikkelissa käsittelen Henri Bergsonin (1859–1941) intuition käsitettä ja sen suhdetta hänen filosofiseen menetelmäänsä. Bergsonin on nähty tarkoittavan intuitiolla yhtäältä filosofian metodia ja toisaalta tiettyä älyyn verrattavaa filosofialle ainutlaatuista tiedon muotoa. Esitän, että Bergsonille intuitio on samanaikaisesti näitä molempia. Se on todellisuuden ajattelemista kestona, sisäistä jatkuvuuttamme muistuttavana liikkeenä. Intuitiossa tavoitetaan todellisuuden luonne sikäli kuin se on läsnä myös meissä itsessämme tällaisena jatkuvuutena. Metodologisesti se on todellisuuden tarkastelua ajallisuuden ja muutoksen perspektiivistä. Tiedon muotona se on välitöntä ymmärrystä tarkastelun kohteesta itsestään.

It is important for the theory of knowledge to understand the factors involved in the generation of the capacities of knowledge. In the history of modern philosophy, knowledge is generally held to originate in either one or two sources, and the debates about these sources between philosophers have concerned their existence, or legitimacy. Furthermore, some philosophers have advocated scepticism about the human capacity to understand the origins of knowledge altogether. However, the developmental aspects of knowledge have received relatively little attention (...) both by past philosophers and in current philosophical discussions. This dissertation provides a historical approach to this developmental problem of knowledge by interpreting the developmental theories of knowledge of Maine de Biran (1766–1824) and Henri Bergson (18591941) from the perspective of a theory of the ‘generative factors of knowledge.’ It first studies the philosophies of Maine de Biran and Bergson separately and then brings together and compares the metaphilosophical aims drawn from these philosophers. The dissertation’s novel analysis, provided by its theory and structure, has far-reaching consequences. From a wide point of view, it fills in considerable scholarly gaps and provides great opportunities for future research in the study of the history of philosophy. From more specific points of view, it provides its most decisive contributions in such metaphysical and epistemological topics as the nature of causality, self-generated activity, the role of effort in knowing and learning, the complementary relationship between philosophy and science, and the non-conceptual basis of knowledge. (shrink)

Despite the distance between the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and of Deleuze, it is possible to discover not only analogue complicity with regard to thecriticism addressed to Husserl. In the aesthetic, for example, we note that the last thoughtsof Merleau-Ponty, present mainly in The visible and the invisible, are a constant referencefor the works that Deleuze dedicates to the painter Francis Bacon. In the present researchwe expect to define the passages on account of the reading of Husserl, and to show thepoint (...) of contact between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. So, we hope to change the image of apparent indifference with regard to understanding their philosophies. (shrink)