A critical account of the key connections between twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and nineteenth-century German idealist G. W. F. Hegel.

When students read Difference and Repetition for the first time, they face two main hurdles: the wide range of sources that Deleuze draws upon and his dense writing style. This Edinburgh Philosophical Guide helps students to negotiate these hurdles, taking them through the text step by step. It situates Deleuze within Continental philosophy more broadly and explains why he develops his philosophy in his unique way. Seasoned Deleuzians will also be interested in Somers-Hall's novel interpretation of Difference and Repetition.

The aim of this paper is to explore Deleuze's use of Kant's argument from incongruent counterparts, which Kant uses to show the existence of what he calls an “internal difference” within things. I want to explore how Deleuze draws out an important distinction between the concept and the Idea, and provides an incisive account of his relationship to both the Kantian and Leibnizian projects. First, I look at Kant's use of the argument to provide a refutation of the Leibnizian account (...) of space, before showing how this criticism in fact rests on the question of the conceptual determination of object. Second, I show how Deleuze develops a taxonomy of difference on the basis of his reading of Kant's argument. Finally, I look at what Deleuze sees as the limitations in Kant's understanding of this concept and Deleuze's attempt to overcome these limitations through the introduction of the notion of the Idea, which will provide a genetic and nonconceptual account of the object. In doing so, I show why Deleuze takes the formulation of an adequate account of difference to be one of the central aims of his own metaphysics. (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)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction Henry Somers-Hall; 1. Deleuze and the history of philosophy Daniel W. Smith; 2. Difference and repetition James Williams; 3. The Deleuzian reversal of Platonism Miguel Beistegui; 4. Deleuze and Kant Beth Lord; 5. Phenomenology and metaphysics, and chaos: on the fragility of the event in Deleuze Leonard Lawlor; 6. Deleuze and structuralism François Dosse; 7. Deleuze and Guattari: Guattareuze and Co. Gary Genosko; 8. Nomadic ethics Rosi Braidotti; 9. Deleuze's political philosophy Paul Patton; 10. Deleuze, (...) mathematics, and realist ontology Manuel Delanda; 11. Deleuze and life John Protevi; 12. Gilles Deleuze's aesthetics of sensation Dorothea Olkowski; 13. Deleuze and literature Ronald Bogue; 14. Deleuze and psychoanalysis Eugene Holland; 15. Deleuze's philosophical heritage: unity, difference, and onto-theology Henry Somers-Hall. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore why Deleuze takes up Hamlet's claim that ‘time is out of joint’. In the first part of this paper, I explore this claim by looking at how Deleuze relates it to Plato's Timaeus and its conception of the relationship between movement and time. Once we have seen how time functions when it is ‘in joint’, I explore what it would mean for time to no longer be understood in terms of an underlying (...) rational structure. The claim can be understood as about a relationship between time and action. In the second part of this paper, I want to relate this new understanding of time to Hamlet itself, in order to see how temporality operates within the play. I will conclude by relating these two different conceptions of time out of joint to one another through Nietzsche's eternal return. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the metaphysical foundations of Throne of Blood , Kurosawa's reworking of Shakespeare's Macbeth . Using Hegel's theory of tragedy, I develop the distinction between Greek and modern tragedy, with their differing bases in ethical and subjective freedom. I then show that Noh drama also includes a very different metaphysical account, stemming from its theoretical roots in Buddhism. I then use these three differing accounts (Greek, modern and Noh drama) to explore the effect (...) of Kurosawa's use Noh aesthetics in Throne of Blood on the metaphysical ground of the film itself. (shrink)

This thesis has the following aims. First, to show that Deleuze can be situated clearly within the post-Kantian tradition. This is achieved through an analysis of the relations between Kant's transcendental idealism and Deleuze's transcendental empiricism. Second, to explore the criticisms of representational theories of difference which can be found in the work of Deleuze and Hegel. Representational theories are best understood as theories which rely on a logic which is governed by relations between entities which pre-exist those relations. Deleuze (...) argues that these logics presuppose the formal equivalent of a homogeneous space within which these relations can be construed. Hegel similarly understands representation as the utilisation of finite categories which rely on the fixity of the subject of predication. The third aim is to provide a rigorous explication of some of the key themes of Deleuzian ontology, particularly in relation to the problem of representation. This will involve looking at the logic of multiplicities, which attempts to provide a theory of difference that is non-oppositional. This logic will be clarified through a discussion of Deleuze's use of modern geometry, and his analysis of the foundations of the calculus. The fourth aim will be to contrast Deleuze's solution with that of Hegel, particularly with respect to their relationships to Kant and the calculus. This is achieved through the Deleuzian distinction between finite and infinite representation, the latter in Deleuze's view characterising the Hegelian attempt to bring the idea of transition into representation itself. Finally, having shown where Deleuze and Hegel differ in their respective projects, the thesis will explore whether either of these philosophies has the resources to provide a refutation of the other with reference to the dialectic of force and the understanding in the henomenology of Spirit, and the problem of the one and the many. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a close reading of Deleuze's complex account of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Difference and Repetition. The first part provides a reading of Beyond the Pleasure Principle itself, showing why Freud feels the need to develop a transcendental account of repetition. In the second, I show the limitations of Freud's account, drawing on the work of Weismann to argue that Freud's transcendental model mischaracterises repetition. In the third part, I show how (...) Freud's account of the death drive is shadowed by Deleuze's own non-representational transcendental account. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to respond to the discussions by John McCumber and Joshua Ramey of my monograph, Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. In the first part of this paper, I analyse McCumber’s claim that Deleuze’s concept of difference is already present within Hegel’s thought in the form of diversity. I make the claim that Deleuze formulates his concept of difference as the transcendental ground for Hegelian diversity, arguing that as such it differs in kind from (...) it. I show how Deleuze’s concept of difference leads him to develop an alternative solution to the one and the many to that of Hegel, and trace some of the systematic implications of this for both philosophers. In the second part of the paper, I engage with Ramey’s analysis of chance within Deleuze’s philosophy, arguing that Ramey wrongly looks for a model of chance in Deleuze in the category of the virtual, rather than in a transition between virtual and actual. I then show how a proper understanding of chance in Deleuze’s thought allows us to develop a non-teleological account of Deleuze’s ethics. (shrink)

"This volume brings together a team of international specialists on Deleuze and Guattari to provide in-depth critical studies of each plateau of their major work, A Thousand Plateaus. It combines an overview of the text with deep scholarship and brings a renewed focus on the philosophical significance of their project.'A Thousand Plateaus' represents a whole new way of doing philosophy. This collection supports the critical reception of Deleuze and Guattari's text as one of the most important and influential works of (...) modern theory. Key Features : emphasises the philosophical nature of A Thousand Plateaus, provides detailed coverage of the text as a whole, brings together cutting edge research from some of the leading lights in scholarship on Deleuze and Guattari, an ideal companion to a plateau-by-plateau reading of Deleuze and Guattari's work."--Back cover. (shrink)

This book proposes a radical new reading of the development of twentieth-century French philosophy. Henry Somers-Hall argues that the central unifying aspect of works by philosophers including Sartre, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Derrida is their attempt to provide an account of cognition that does not reduce thinking to judgement. Somers-Hall shows that each of these philosophers is in dialogue with the others in a shared project to overcome their inheritances from the Kantian and post-Kantian traditions. His analysis points up the (...) continuing relevance of German idealism, and Kant in particular, to modern French philosophy, with novel readings of many aspects of the philosophies under consideration that show their deep debts to Kantian thought. The result is an important account of the emergence, and essential coherence, of the modern French philosophical tradition. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 47, Issue 1, pp 85 - 107 The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of Henri Bergson to the philosophical development of Jean-Paul Sartre’s thought. Despite Sartre’s early enthusiasm for Bergson’s description of consciousness, and the frequent references to Bergson in Sartre’s early work, there has been virtually no analysis of the influence of Bergson’s thought on Sartre’s development. This paper addresses this deficit. The first part of the paper explores Sartre’s analysis of the (...) function of the imagination in his two early works on the subject, _The Imagination_, and _The Imaginary_. I argue that many of Sartre’s central criticisms of what he calls “the illusion of immanence” can be traced back to Bergson, and that, despite Sartre’s rejection of Bergson’s account of consciousness, Sartre’s account of the imagination is still heavily indebted to Bergson’s logic of multiplicities. The second part argues that Sartre’s analysis of the imagination leads, in _Being and Nothingness_, to an account of freedom that still bears traces of his early Bergsonism, even if it reverses the direction of Bergson’s own analysis of freedom. (shrink)

In ‘Liberal individualism and Deleuzean Relationality,’ Clegg, Murphy, and Almack argue that the ability to choose has become something of a dogma in the management of intellectual disability, and one that sits badly with the heterogeneity of those with intellectual disabilities. They argue for a move away from choice as the primary ethical category to an ethics of relationality, following from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, to offer a more nuanced and stable form of care. In this commentary, I (...) set out the theoretical considerations that Deleuze and Guattari take to underlie such an ethics, and then briefly question the focus of their uptake of Deleuze and Guattari. Although Deleuze and Guattari may... (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy of painting can be seen to pose certain challenges to a phenomenological approach to philosophy. While a phenomenological response to Deleuze’s philosophy is clearly needed, I show in this article how an approach taken in a recent paper by Christian Lotz proves inadequate. Lotz argues that through Deleuze’s refusal to accept the place of representation in art, he is unable to distinguish art from decoration, or to give a coherent account of how the content of art can be (...) represented. I show that this criticism emerges from a misreading of the place of representation in Deleuze’s philosophy. I will argue that by failing to take account of some of the key features of Deleuze’s wider ontology, such as the importance of both the virtual and the actual for his analysis of objects, Lotz’s critique proves unsuccessful. In particular, I want to show that Lotz’s criticisms rest on a failure to attend to the systematic nature of Deleuze’s philosophy, and in particular, the place of Deleuze’s analysis of Bacon within the system as a whole. I will further show that Lotz’s phenomenological defence commits the fallacy of petitio principii, assuming the validity of the phenomenological method in order to justify the phenomenological approach. (shrink)