This brilliant exposition of the critique of identity is a classic in contemporary philosophy and one of Deleuze's most important works. Of fundamental importance to literary critics and philosophers,Difference and Repetition develops two central concepts—pure difference and complex repetition&mdasha;and shows how the two concepts are related. While difference implies divergence and decentering, repetition is associated with displacement and disguising. Central in initiating the shift in French thought away from Hegel and Marx toward Nietzsche and Freud, _Difference and Repetition_ moves deftly (...) to establish a fundamental critique of Western metaphysics. (shrink)

With clarity, precision and economy, Paul Patton synthesizes the full range of Deleuze's work. He interweaves with great dexterity motifs that extend from his early works, such as Nietzsche and Philosophy , to the more recent What is Philosophy? and his key works such as Anti-Oedipus and Difference and Repetition . Throughout, Deleuze and the Political demonstrates Deleuze's relevance to theoretical and practical concerns in a number of disciplines including philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and cultural studies. Paul Patton also (...) presents an outstandingly clear treatment of fundamental concepts in Deleuze's work, such as difference, power, desire, multiplicities, nomadism and the war machine and sets out the importance of Deleuze to poststructuralist political thought. It will be essential reading for anyone studying Deleuze and students of philosophy, politics, sociology, literature and cultural studies. (shrink)

These essays provide important interpretations and analyze critical developments of the political philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. They situate his thought in the contemporary intellectual landscape by comparing him with contemporaries such as Derrida, Rorty, and Rawls and show how elements of his philosophy may be usefully applied to key contemporary issues including colonization and decolonization, the nature of liberal democracy, and the concepts and critical utopian aspirations of political philosophy. Patton discusses Deleuze's notion of philosophy as the creation of concepts (...) and shows how this may be helpful in understanding the nature of political concepts such as rights, justice, and democracy. Rather than merely commenting on or explaining Deleuze's thought, Patton offers a series of attempts to think with Deleuzian concepts in relation to other philosophers and other problems. His book represents a significant contribution to debates in contemporary political theory, continental philosophy, and Deleuzian studies. (shrink)

One way to characterise the difference between analytic and Continental political philosophy concerns the different roles played by normative and descriptive analysis in each case. This article argues that, even though Michel Foucault’s genealogy of liberal and neoliberal governmentality and John Rawls’s political liberalism involve different articulations of normative and descriptive concerns, they are complementary rather than antithetical to one another. The argument is developed in three stages: first, by suggesting that Foucault offers a way to conceive of public reason (...) as a historical phenomenon. Second, it is suggested that both Rawls and Foucault allow us to consider rights as historical and particular rather than a-historical and universal. Third, it is argued that Foucault’s genealogy of modern liberal government illuminates some of the tensions and some of the alternatives within the liberal tradition in relation to the concept of political legitimacy. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays bringing together Deleuzian Philosophy and postcolonial theory. Bignall and Patton assemble some of the world's leading figures in these fields to explore rich linkages between two previously unrelated areas of study.

Includes discussions of Deleuze's original interpretations of Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and Bergson. Other chapters discuss his work on mathematics and the relevance of his conceptual creativity for art criticism, feminist, literary, and cultural studies. Includes contributions by leading French philosophers (Nancy, Macherey, Malabou, Zourabichvili) as well as American Deleuze scholars (Bogue, Boundas, Holland, Massumi, Smith).

This paper surveys Derrida’s discussions of political sovereignty in order to highlight his preference for a cosmopolitan world order and show how the deconstruction of sovereignty cannot proceed on the model of his earlier analyses of concepts such as justice, hospitality, forgiveness and democracy.

This paper outlines Foucault's genealogical conception of critique and argues that it is not inconsistent with his appeals to concepts of right so long as these are understood in terms of his historical and naturalistic approach to rights. This approach is explained by reference to Nietzsche's account of the origins of rights and duties and the example of Aboriginal rights is used to exemplify the historical character of rights understood as internal to power relations. Drawing upon the contemporary 'externalist' approach (...) to rights, it is argued that the normative force of rights can only come from within historically available moral and political discourses. Reading Foucault's 1978-1979 lectures on liberal governmentality in this manner suggests that his call for new forms of right in order to criticise disciplinary power should be answered by reference to concepts drawn from the liberal tradition of governmental reason. (shrink)

This challenging book focuses on the problem of justice for indigenous peoples – in philosophical, legal, cultural and political contexts – and the ways in which this problem poses key questions for political theory. It includes chapters by leading political theorists and indigenous scholars from Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the United States. One of the strengths of this book is the manner in which it shows how the different historical circumstances of colonisation in these countries raise common problems and (...) questions for contemporary political theory. It examines ways in which political theory has contributed to the past subjugation and continuing disadvantage faced by indigenous peoples, while also seeking to identify resources in contemporary political thought that can assist the ongoing processes of 'decolonisation' of relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. (shrink)

Nietzsche is widely considered to be an aristocratic and anti-democratic thinker. However, his early ‘middle period’ work, offers a more nuanced view of democracy: critical of its existing forms in Europe at the time, yet surprisingly supportive of a certain ideal of ‘democracy to come.’ Against the received view of Nietzsche’s politics, this talk explores the possibility of a conception of democratic political society on Nietzschean foundations.

Allen criticizes Foucault for having a “narrow and impoverished conception of social interaction, according to which all such interaction is strategic.” I challenge this claim, partly on the basis of comments by Foucault which explicitly acknowledge and in some cases endorse forms of non-strategic interaction, but more importantly on the basis of the significant changes in Foucault’s concept of power that he elaborated in lectures from 1978 onwards and in “The Subject and Power.” His 1975–1976 lectures embarked upon a critical (...) re-examination of the “strategic” concept of power that he had relied upon up to this point. However, it was not until 1978 and after that he outlined an alternative concept of power as government, or more broadly as “action upon the actions of others.” After retracing this shift in Foucault’s understanding of power, I argue that the concept of power as action upon the actions of others does not commit him to a narrow conception of social interaction as always strategic. At the same time, Foucault’s concept does not answer normative questions about acceptable versus unacceptable ways of governing the actions of others. (shrink)

Against the tendency to regard Deleuze as a materialist and a naturalistic thinker, I argue that his core philosophical writings involve commitments that are incompatible with contemporary scientific naturalism. He defends different versions of a distinction between philosophy and natural science that is inconsistent with methodological naturalism and with the scientific image of the world as a single causally interconnected system. He defends the existence of a virtual realm of entities that is irreconcilable with ontological naturalism. The difficulty of reconciling (...) Deleuze’s philosophy with ontological naturalism is especially apparent in his recurrent conception of pure events that are irreducible to their incarnation in bodies and states of affairs. In the last section of this essay, I canvass some of the ways in which Deleuze’s thought might be reconciled with a more liberal, pluralist and ethical naturalism that he identified in an early essay on Lucretius. (shrink)

This article responds to Philippe Mengue's claim that Deleuzian political philosophy is fundamentally hostile to democracy. After outlining key elements of the attitude towards democracy in Deleuze and Guattari's work, it addresses three major arguments put forward in support of this claim. The first relies on Deleuze's rejection of transcendence and his critical remarks about human rights; the second relies on the contrast between majoritarian and minoritarian politics outlined in A Thousand Plateaus; and the third relies on the antipathy of (...) philosophy towards opinion as outlined in What is Philosophy? After responding to each of these arguments in turn, I outline an alternative and more positive account of Deleuze and Guattari's critical engagement with opinion by way of a contrast with Rawls. (shrink)

Between Deleuze and Derrida is the first book to explore and compare the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, two leading philosophers of French post-structuralism. This is done via a number of key themes, including the philosophy of difference, language, memory, time, event, and love, as well as relating these themes to their respective approaches to Philosophy, Literature, Politics and Mathematics. Contributors: Eric Alliez, Branka Arsic, Gregg Lambert, Leonard Lawlor, Alphonso Lingis, Tamsin Lorraine, Jeff Nealon, Paul Patton, Arkady Plotnitsky, (...) John Protevi, Daniel W. Smith. (shrink)

_Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip!' '_Thus Spoke Zarathustra__ _'the democratic movement is...a form assumed by man in decay' _Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche's views on women and politics have long been the most embarrassing aspects of his thought. Why then has the work of Nietzsche aroused so much interest in recent years from feminist theorists and political philosophers? In answer, this collection comprises twelve outsanding essays on Mietzsche 's work to current debates in feminist and political (...) theory, It is the first to focus on the way in which Nietzche has become an essential point of reference for postmodern ehtical and political thought.__. (shrink)

This collection brings together the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and the rich tradition of American pragmatist thought, taking seriously the commitment to pluralism at the heart of both. Contributors explore in novel ways Deleuze’s explicit references to pragmatism, and examine the philosophical significance of a number of points at which Deleuze’s philosophy converges with, or diverges from, the work of leading pragmatists. The papers of the first part of the volume take as their focus Deleuze’s philosophical relationship to classical pragmatism (...) and the work of Peirce, James and Dewey. Particular areas of focus include theories of signs, metaphysics, perspectivism, experience, the transcendental and democracy. The papers comprising the second half of the volume are concerned with developing critical encounters between Deleuze’s work and the work of contemporary pragmatists such as Rorty, Brandom, Price, Shusterman and others. Issues addressed include antirepresentationalism, constructivism, politics, objectivity, naturalism, affect, human finitude and the nature and value of philosophy itself. With contributions by internationally recognized specialists in both poststructuralist and pragmatist thought, the collection is certain to enrich Deleuze scholarship, enliven discussion in pragmatist circles, and contribute in significant ways to contemporary philosophical debate. (shrink)

This article traces a connection between the Daoist conception of nothingness and democratic deliberation by way of Derrida’s deconstructive analysis of decision. A widespread understanding of deliberation relies on the idea that the force of argument should be the sole determinant of individual and collective views. It follows that deliberation is genuine only if participants can change their views as a result of reasoned argument, that is to say only if there is the possibility of a decision. Analysis of the (...) aporia(s) at the heart of decision is a recurrent feature of Derrida’s later work and, I argue, this aporetic analysis highlights the function of nothingness in the act of decision. After identifying some points of convergence between Derridean deconstruction and the Daodejing in relation to the constitutive role of nothingness in material and immaterial things, I argue that it is only because of the nothingness between reasons and a decision that there really is ‘a decision’. This nothingness as the heart of any decision is further compounded by the ‘ordeal’ that Derrida describes in relation to decisions that aspire to be just or responsible to the other. Here, it is not simply a question of the rupture with reasons or calculations but of indeterminacy in the face of the obligation to decide responsibly, that is in the light of an appropriate response to the condition or the circumstances of the other. This indeterminacy is in effect a secondary nothingness that is bound up with the attempt to do justice to the other. Finally, I argue that Derrida’s analysis of decision suggests a possible way to spell out the connection between nothingness and the ethics of difference as presented in the Zhuangzi. Awareness of the primary and secondary nothingness involved in decision reminds us that there is no ground for ‘good conscience’ with regard to any decision that has been taken and that there is always more to be done. (shrink)

Simulations never existed as a book before it was "translated" into English. Actually it came from two different bookCovers written at different times by Jean Baudrillard. The first part of Simulations, and most provocative because it made a fiction of theory, was "The Procession of Simulacra." It had first been published in Simulacre et Simulations. The second part, written much earlier and in a more academic mode, came from L'Echange Symbolique et la Mort. It was a half-earnest, half-parodical attempt to (...) "historicize" his own conceit by providing it with some kind of genealogy of the three orders of appearance: the Counterfeit attached to the classical period; Production for the industrial era; and Simulation, controlled by the code. It was Baudrillard's version of Foucault's Order of Things and his ironical commentary of the history of truth. The book opens on a quote from Ecclesiastes asserting flatly that "the simulacrum is true." It was certainly true in Baudrillard's book, but otherwise apocryphal.One of the most influential essays of the 20th century, Simulations was put together in 1983 in order to be published as the first little black book of Semiotext's new Foreign Agents Series. Baudrillard's bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of general linguistics, was in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don't refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix.In effect Baudrillard's essay was upholding the only reality there was in a world that keeps hiding the fact that it has none. Simulacrum is its own pure simulacrum and the simulacrum is true. In his celebrated analysis of Disneyland, Baudrillard demonstrates that its childish imaginary is neither true nor false, it is there to make us believe that the rest of America is real, when in fact America is a Disneyland. It is of the order of the hyper-real and of simulation. Few people at the time realized that Baudrillard's simulacrum itself wasn't a thing, but a "deterrence machine," just like Disneyland, meant to reveal the fact that the real is no longer real and illusion no longer possible. But the more impossible the illusion of reality becomes, the more impossible it is to separate true from false and the real from its artificial resurrection, the more panic-stricken the production of the real is. (shrink)

This paper points to significant similarities between the political orientations of Deleuze and Derrida. Derrida's appeal to a pure form of existing concepts (absolute hospitality, pure forgiveness, and so on) parallels Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between relative and absolute 'deterritorialisation'. In each case, the absolute form of the concept is a condition of the possibility of change.

Deleuze and Foucault shared a period of political activism and both drew connections between their activism and their respective approaches to philosophy. However, despite their shared political commitments and praise of each other's work, there remained important philosophical differences between them which became more and more apparent over time. This article identifies some of the political issues over which they disagreed and shows how they relate to some of their underlying philosophical differences. It focuses on their respective approaches to the (...) state, to ‘actuality’ and to the analysis of the present. (shrink)

Joanna Crosby and Dianna Taylor: The theme of this special section of Foucault Studies, “Foucauldian Spaces,” emerged out of the 2016 meeting of the Foucault Circle, where the four of you were participants. Each of the three individual papers contained in the special section critically deploys and/or reconceptualizes an aspect of Foucault’s work that engages and offers particular insight into the construction, experience, and utilization of space. We’d like to ask the four of you to reflect on what makes a (...) space Foucauldian, and whether or not you’d consider the space created by the convergence of and intellectual exchanges among an international group of Foucault scholars at the University of New South Wales in the summer of 2016 to be Foucauldian. (shrink)

Published one year after Forget Foucault, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities may be the most important sociopolitical manifesto of the twentieth century: it calls for nothing less than the end of both sociology and politics. Disenfranchised revolutionaries hoped to reach the masses directly through spectacular actions, but their message merely played into the hands of the media and the state. In a media society meaning has no meaning anymore; communication merely communicates itself. Jean Baudrillard uses this last outburst (...) of ideological terrorism in Europe to showcase the end of the "Social." Once invoked by Marx as the motor of history, the masses no longer have sociological reality. In the electronic media society, all the masses can do--and all they will do--is enjoy the spectacle. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities takes to its ultimate conclusion the "end of ideologies" experienced in Europe after the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the death of revolutionary illusions after May 1968. Ideological terrorism doesn't represent anything anymore, writes Baudrillard, not even itself. It is just the last hysterical reaction to discredited political illusions. (shrink)