Since the late 1960s there has been a resurgence of interest in Spinozism in France: Gilles Deleuze was among the first who gave life to a ‘new Spinoza’ with his seminal book Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. While Deleuze was primarily interested in Spinoza’s ontology and ethics, the contemporary French philosopher Étienne Balibar focuses on the political writings. Despite their common fascination for Spinoza’s relational definition of the individual, both thinkers have drawn very different consequences from the Spinozist inspiration regarding the (...) relevance of his philosophy for a contemporary ethical and political thought. Deleuze draws from Spinoza an ethics of the encounter, an ‘ethology’ that is concerned with the composition of bodies on a plane of immanence. Balibar, on the contrary, deals with the modes of communication that we institute between one another and that are always effectuations on two levels at once: the real and the imaginary. Whereas Deleuze emphasizes the conception of a... (shrink)

Resumen: Este escrito aborda la interpretación deleuziana de la sustancia spinozista. Su objetivo es mostrar que el núcleo fundamental de dicha interpretación reside en el señalamiento del carácter único y a la vez múltiple de la sustancia, carácter que Deleuze conceptualiza a través de la categoría de distinción formal, tomada de Duns Scoto. Con este propósito, se caracterizan las nociones de univocidad y de expresión, que nos conducen a plantear que la sustancia, por ser a la vez única y múltiple, (...) consiste en el desarrollo de una contradicción. Esta condición nos permite concluir que la interpretación deleuziana, más allá de su propósito manifiesto, enfatiza una arista del trabajo de Spinoza que lo acerca a la filosofía de Hegel. Lo cual implica que la propia producción de Deleuze ofrece, también, aspectos que la aproximan a la del filósofo alemán.: This paper addresses the Deleuzian interpretation of the Spinozist substance. It aims at showing that the fundamental nucleus of this interpretation lies in pointing out the unique and simultaneously multiple character of the substance, which Deleuze conceptualizes through the category of formal distinction, taken from Duns Scoto. To reach this goal, the notions of univocity and expression are characterized. This leads us to affirm that substance, being both unique and multiple, consists of the development of a contradiction. This character allows us to conclude that the Deleuzian interpretation, beyond its manifest purpose, emphasizes a dimension of Spinoza’s work that brings it closer to Hegel’s philosophy. This implies that Deleuze’s own production also offers aspects that approach it to the German philosopher’s work. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the uses made of the calculus by Gilles Deleuze and G. W. F. Hegel. I show how both Deleuze and Hegel see the calculus as providing a way of thinking outside of finite representation. For Hegel, this involves attempting to show that the foundations of the calculus cannot be thought by the finite understanding, and necessitate a move to the standpoint of infinite reason. I analyse Hegel’s justification for this introduction of dialectical (...) reason by looking at his responses to Berkeley’s criticisms of the calculus. For Deleuze, instead, I show that the differential must be understood as escaping from both finite and infinite representation. By highlighting the sub-representational character of the differential in his system, I show how the differential is a key moment in Deleuze’s formulation of a transcendental empiricism. I conclude by dealing with some of the common misunderstandings that occur when Deleuze is read as endorsing a modern mathematical interpretation of the calculus. (shrink)

As is well known, Deleuze says in Difference and Repetition that ‘the task of contemporary philosophy has been defined: to reverse Platonism’. This task is then continued in Logic of Sense, through its discussion of Stoic logic. Deleuze says there that ‘the Stoics are the first to reverse Platonism’. And, at the same time, in the big Spinoza book, we see Deleuze present Spinoza's ‘anti-Cartesian reaction’. This anti-Cartesian reaction is equivalent to the reversal of Platonism. We can say then that (...) the task of the reversal of Platonism unifies the three books Deleuze published at the end of the Sixties. The thesis of this essay will consist in arguing that ethics we find in Logic of Sense – which we can call ‘the ethics of the univocity of being’ – completes, in a constructive way, Deleuze's early project of the reversal of Platonism. The ethics centres on the idea of counter-actualisation. We shall argue that there are four senses of counter-actualisation. Here is a summary of the four senses of counter-actualisation: beatitude against resentment ; caring for the sense against neglecting the sense ; the embodiment of plural hopings and rememberings against the embodiment of one hope and one memory ; and ‘just enough’ against ‘too much’. Yet, as we shall see, there is a fifth meaning of counter-actualisation, the ultimate meaning. The ultimate sense of counter-actualisation is universal freedom. This is where my essay will end. (shrink)

Este estudo tem como principal objetivo uma análise do conceito de determinação em Espinosa. Historicamente, o pensamento de Espinosa foi assimilado a uma filosofia acosmista, isto é, uma filosofia que nega a realidade das coisas finitas em um mundo onde apenas Deus ou a substância seria real. Tal interpretação se consolida a partir das considerações hegelianas em suas Lições sobre a História da Filosofia e na Ciência da Lógica, em que Hegel lê todo o sistema de Espinosa a partir do (...) princípio "omnis determinatio est negatio". Nosso estudo se desenvolve então, primeiramente, apresentando as consequências contemporâneas desta leitura hegeliana; em seguida analisamos a interpretação hegeliana e algumas contribuições de Deleuze a respeito do conceito de determinação em Espinosa; e, por fim, analisamos no texto espinosano a função que o conceito de determinação desempenha e como ela se distancia do consagrado marco de leitura hegeliano de que “omnis determinatio est negatio”. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone estudiar la noción de expresión en los dos libros que Deleuze publica en 1968: _Spinoza y el problema de la expresión _y _Diferencia y repetición. _Se trazarán las correspondencias entre las formas de expresión en el primero y los planos ontológicos del segundo, para luego considerar en qué consiste el _renversement _ del spinozismo que Deleuze propone. Se mostrará que este no consiste en invertir el rol del fundamento entre lo Uno y lo múltiple, sino en (...) liberar las formas de expresión del cuádruple cepo de la razón suficiente, y darle a cada una su lógica y potencia propias. (shrink)

In the lecture of December 16, 1980, Deleuze proposes a cross-reading of Spinoza and Rousseau. First, Deleuze reinterprets Rousseau’s morality in the light of Spinoza’s critique of ‘morality’ based on the opposition of good and evil; second, and reciprocally, he rereads Spinoza’s practical and ethical philosophy from a concept extracted from Rousseau’s work: that of the ‘materialism of the wise’. According to Deleuze, this ‘practical materialism’ evoked by Rousseau, consisting of both ‘determinism’ and ‘sensualism’, has a Spinozist inspiration, insofar as (...) it has an amoralist dimension, close to the critique of morality developed in the Ethics. But on the other hand, Rousseau’s ‘materialism of the wise’ allows us, conversely, to reread the Spinozist explanation of the conquest of freedom, by revealing the presence of practical principles very close to those of Rousseau’s ethical materialism. The cross-reading of Spinoza and Rousseau thus presents a double aim: on the one hand, to identify the presence of amoralist themes and issues in Rousseau’s work; on the other, to reveal the existence of materialist principles in the Spinozist ethical itinerary. (shrink)

Thinking with Spinoza about education involves thinking with and beyond his authored texts, situating his work within the tradition of Western thought, and exploring his contribution to the philoso...

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)

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)

The collection Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference brings together a range of new philosophical engagements with mathematics, using the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as its focus. Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics in order to reconfigure particular philosophical problems and to develop new concepts. These alternative conceptual histories also challenge some of the self-imposed limits of the discipline of mathematics, and suggest the possibility of forging new connections (...) between philosophy and more recent developments in mathematics. This component of Deleuze’s work has, to date, been rather neglected by commentators working in the field of Deleuze studies. One of the aims of this collection is to address this critical deficit by providing a philosophical presentation of Deleuze’s relation to mathematics; one that is adequate to his project of constructing a philosophy of difference and to the exploration of some of its applications. This project developed as a result of encounters with an increasing number of researchers who have been working on the mathematical aspects of Deleuze’s work and the key role that these play in his philosophy. By bringing this work together for the first time, this collection makes an important contribution to the emerging body of work that endeavours to explore the broad range of Deleuze’s philosophy. (shrink)

True to his early Schellingian roots, Slavoj Zizek, in his recent book, Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World describes a virus as “a kind of zero-level life,” invoking Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Perhaps the closest reference, though Zizek did not mention it, is his second major work on the subject, namely, First Outline of A System of the Philosophy of Nature where Schelling originally propounded the theory of nature’s ‘duplicity’. In the following discussions, we will situate Zizek’s timely intervention within the context of (...) his naturalism that politically mediates the differential flows of the present world and the subject itself, against the background of a space of difference between the two, whereby the virus acts as a kind of deferral mechanism in which something like the future is suspended, finally rendering the relation motionless. The discussions will also briefly situate Zizek’s political naturalism within contemporary political discourse involving some of his direct and indirect engagements with Agamben, Latour, Badiou, Berardi, Deleuze, and others. This critical review stakes out a view of Zizek’s recent intervention as a timely polemics, consistent with his global image as one of the most dependable public intellectuals of our troubled time. (shrink)

Deleuze said that he detested Hegelianism and dialectics: this paper claims that Deleuze is contra Hegel because he has and proposes a different philosophical system. Thus, I suggest that if we want to understand the reason of such a “disgust,” we need to focus the philosophical question that moves the entire Deleuzian system (§ 1). Then, I explain that if the ground-question of Hegel’s philosophy is “how is it possible that things are surpassed, that they go on?”, the Deleuzian one (...) is “how is it that there is always something new, that things come out?” (§ 2). Finally, I discuss how desire can be considered as a key-example for seeing how the perspectives of the two thinkers diverge (§ 3). (shrink)