the philosophy of deleuze: on its thoroughness, historical
TRANSCRIPT
The philosophy of Deleuze:
On its thoroughness, historical relativity
and usefulness
First Version Master’s Thesis Philosophy
Marijn Knieriem
10018735
4 August 2017
Supervisor: prof. dr. J. Früchtl
Second reader: dr. A. van Rooden
21230 words
Abstract
This thesis is concerned with three problems that appear with respect to Deleuze’s philosophy.
The first issue deals with the question of whether Deleuze argues thoroughly for his positions, or
whether he merely provides views that cannot convince anyone, but might be taken up if someone
considers them useful. The second problem concerns the question of whether Deleuze’s
philosophy is historically relative. The final issue considers in what way Deleuze and Guattari’s
books Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus can be understood as political philosophy. In order
to deal with these issues, Deleuze’s endeavour to think difference in itself will be discussed, as
well as his conception of philosophy.
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Table of Contents
Abbreviations p. 3
1. Introduction p. 4
2. Method, or How to Read Deleuze? p. 9
3. The Dogmatic Image of Thought and Difference in Itself p. 15
4. Ideas and the Necessity of Chance p. 26
5. Deleuze’s Conception of Philosophy p. 37
6. Conclusion and Discussion p. 44
Literature p. 47
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Abbreviations
The following list contains the abbreviations of Deleuze’s works that are used in this thesis. It
contains both works of which Deleuze was the single author, and works that he wrote in
collaboration with others.
AO Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2016a). Anti-Oedipus. London: Bloomsbury.
B Deleuze, G. (2011). Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.
D Deleuze, G., & Parnet, C. (2007). Dialogues II. New York: Columbia University Press.
DI Deleuze, G. (2004). Desert Island and Other Texts 1953-1974. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
DR Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. New York: Columbia University Press.
ES Deleuze, G. (1991). Empiricism and Subjectivity. New York: Columbia University Press.
LS Deleuze, G. (2015). Logic of Sense. London: Bloomsbury.
N Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations, 1972-1990. New York: Columbia University Press.
NP Deleuze, G. (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press.
PS Deleuze, G. (2008). Proust and Signs. London: Continuum.
TP Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2016b). A Thousand Plateaus. London: Bloomsbury.
TRM Deleuze, G. (2006). Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews 1975-1995. New York:
Semiotext(e).
WP Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What Is Philosophy? London: Verso.
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1. Introduction
Gilles Deleuze has produced a body of work that is remarkably rich, but which can also be—and
maybe for that very reason—quite elusive at the same time. Among other things, Deleuze has
written extensively on the history of philosophy (e.g. on Hume, Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza),
on several branches of art (e.g. cinema, painting and literature), on language and on issues of a
political nature. As if the difficulties that stem from the fact that this list contains a vast array of
topics were not enough, Deleuze complicated his oeuvre even more by changing his vocabulary
with every book that he wrote. The evasiveness of Deleuze’s oeuvre is reflected in the secondary
literature that surrounds his work; thus far, no consensus has been reached with respect to how
Deleuze’s philosophy should be approached (this point will be discussed in more detail in the next
section).
However, the disagreements surrounding Deleuze’s thought are not merely due to the
scope of his work and the language he employs; it also results from the fact that, in Deleuze’s work,
one can find arguments in favour of theses which appear to be mutually exclusive. I will now turn
to three of these issue that can be discerned in Deleuze’s oeuvre.
First issue
The first issue that can be discerned in Deleuze’s philosophy has to do with how one should
evaluate the theses that Deleuze brings forth. Are his claims the result of a process of rigorous
reasoning that convinces the reader of the value of these theses, or do they rather present views
that one can use and cherish if they please, and forget and ignore if they do not? There is textual
evidence to be found in favour of both of these ways to assess Deleuze’s work. For example, in the
middle chapter of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze deals with the question of where to begin in
philosophy: what should philosophy’s starting point be? By doing this, Deleuze is inscribing
himself in the Cartesian project of finding an absolute beginning from which philosophy should
proceed. Deleuze does not criticize the effort to find philosophy’s starting point, nor does he deny
the importance of the ideal of finding such a beginning; in fact, he subscribes to the project of
doing philosophy without any presuppositions (Bryant, 2008, p. 15). While supporting this ideal,
Deleuze criticizes Descartes for not being severe enough, since Deleuze thinks that Descartes,
while doubting a lot, was still assuming too much, namely “subjective or implicit presuppositions
contained in opinions rather than concepts: it is presumed that everyone knows, independently
of concepts, what is meant by self, thinking, and being” (DR, p. 129). In other words, Deleuze is
criticizing Descartes for not being rigorous enough, and Deleuze tried to point out and overcome
these shortcomings. Deleuze is not the only one who criticized Descartes in this respect.
Descartes’s contemporaries already made the objection that, given his deceiver hypothesis, he
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could not claim to know the meaning of words like ‘thought’ and ‘existence’, since he might have
been deluded in their meaning (Wilson, 2005, p. 31-33). Husserl, in his Cartesian Meditations, also
criticizes Descartes for not pushing his doubt far enough; in the phenomenological epoché,
questions of existence are suspended, and hence one does not encounter a thinking substance
under these conditions (Husserl, 1999, p. 24). Deleuze, thus, does not lack fellow-thinkers in his
critique on Descartes.
However, there are also remarks of Deleuze that give rise to the suspicion that he is not at
all interested in being a meticulous thinker. In the Dialogues II, for example, Deleuze says that he
does not want to deal with the opposition that other people bring forth towards his work: “Every
time someone puts an objection to me, I want to say: ‘OK, OK, let’s go on to something else’” (D, p.
1). Moreover, Deleuze does not seem to care very much about how his philosophy is employed
exactly: “concepts are exactly like sounds, colours or images, they are intensities which suit you
or not, which are acceptable or aren’t acceptable. Pop philosophy. There’s nothing to understand,
nothing to interpret” (p. 3). To amplify this point, Deleuze adds: “all mistranslations are good –
always provided that they do not consist in interpretations, but relate to the use of the book, that
they multiply its use” (p. 4). Here, Deleuze thus shows himself to be a pragmatist (cf. Patton, 2000,
pp. 6, 27-28).
On the one hand, we thus have a Deleuze who tries to be as thorough as he can be; on the
other hand, there is a Deleuze who says light-heartedly that he does not like to put forth
arguments and does not care about how his work is employed exactly. The question, then, is how
the tension between these two aspects of Deleuze’s philosophy should be understood. Is it
possible to explain why both facets are present in his philosophy?
Second issue
What kind of validity should be granted to Deleuze’s work? Is the validity of his books tied to a
specific historical period, or does his oeuvre transcend the era in which it was written? Just as
with the first issue, arguments in favour of both positions can be found in Deleuze’s philosophy.
In support of the claim that the usefulness of Deleuze’s ideas is relative to a historical era,
we can direct attention to what Deleuze wrote in the Postscript on Societies of Control (N, pp. 177-
182). In this short essay, he argued that the disciplinary societies that were described by Foucault
(1995) were on the verge of disappearing. In their place, a new societal form was in the process
of emerging. Deleuze called these new societies ‘control societies’ (N, p. 178). These societies no
longer try to mould people such that their behaviour coincides with a fixed norm; instead, the
norm itself now varies, such that people have to adapt themselves according to the circumstances.
Hence, Deleuze writes: “school is being replaced by continuing education and exams by continuous
assessment” (p. 179, emphases in original). Deleuze argues that one cannot say in general which
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of these societal forms is the worst and which is the best, since each provides its own dangers and
opportunities (p. 178). However, if one wants to withstand control societies, one has to create
new means to resist them, since opposition to a new societal form demands new forms of
resistance, according to Deleuze: “It’s not a question of worrying or of hoping for the best, but of
finding new weapons” (ibid.). This provides an example of a more general thesis of Deleuze, which
he formulates in a conversation with Foucault: “A theory has to be used, it has to work … If there
is no one to use it … then a theory is worthless, or its time has not yet arrived” (DI, p. 208). Hence,
for Deleuze, the usefulness of a theory, and thus its validity, seems to be tied to a historical period.
On the other hand, in Difference and Repetition, Deleuze has formulated an ontology of
which the validity does not seem to be relative to a historical period. In The Method of
Dramatization (DI, pp. 94-116)—a text which contains an examination of elements of Deleuze’s
ontology that are discussed at greater length in Difference and Repetition—Deleuze, after having
elaborated on determinations such as the ‘field of individuation’ and ‘larval subjects’, writes the
following: “These determinations as a whole indeed are not connected with any particular
example borrowed from a physical or biological system, but articulate the categories of every
system in general” (DI, p. 98, my emphasis). Deleuze thus seems to believe that the validity of his
ontology is not tied to this or that particular system, but holds for every system; hence, its
correctness and its usefulness is not a relative to a historical period.
Deleuze thus sometimes talks as if the validity of theory is dependent on a historical
period; at other moments, he writes that his theory has a general validity. How can the presence
of both aspects in Deleuze’s philosophy be explained?
Third issue
The third and final issue has to do with Deleuze’s ethics and his political philosophy. In what sense
can Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus be understood as works of ethics or of political
philosophy?
Foucault, in his preface to Anti-Oedipus, calls it “a book of ethics” (Foucault, 2016, p. xiii),
and he manages to distil seven principles from the book that together form an art of living which
can guard the reader against the seductions of fascism (pp. xiii-xiv). However, as Buchanan (2011)
points out, the principles that are formulated by Foucault are merely negative: “Foucault’s
instructions only specify what we should not do, and say nothing at all about what we should do”
(Buchanan, 2011, p. 11, emphasis in original). In other words, it is not clear what art of living is
actually affirmed in Anti-Oedipus.
Concerning the political aspirations of the Anti-Oedipus, the situation is not any clearer.
Deleuze can say that “Anti-Oedipus was from beginning to end a book of political philosophy” (N,
p. 170), but since the book does not engage in detail with topics that are traditionally seen as
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topics belonging to political philosophy—like what a just distribution of wealth would be, or how
far the people should go in obeying their government—it is not evident what Deleuze exactly
means when he calls it ‘political philosophy’. Moreover, even though Deleuze says that the
“question [of revolution] has always been organizational, not at all ideological” (D, p. 109), he
never deals in detail with organizational difficulties that have to be solved in order to generate
social or cultural change (Buchanan, 2011, p. 7).
Given the fact that Deleuze and Guattari do not provide clarity on what art of living is
affirmed, nor sketch a picture of how their ideal society would look like, nor provide an account
of how organizational problems should be solved, then in what respect can Anti-Oedipus and A
Thousand Plateaus perform a practical function and form “a little cog in much more complicated
external machinery” (N, p. 8)? What is the objective with which these books have been written by
Deleuze and Guattari?
This thesis will deal with the questions that follow from these three issues. The goal of this thesis
is to show how these issues can be handled when the later works, namely Anti-Oedipus, A
Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? are connected to Deleuze’s earlier books, in particular
Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense. It will be argued that these three issues are
consequences from Deleuze’s earlier philosophy, and that Deleuze ultimately presents a coherent
view. One has to take the development of Deleuze’s thought into account, in order to appreciate
this point.
Although this thesis is concerned with the practical philosophy of Deleuze as it is
formulated in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, I will not engage a lot with these books
directly. This is due to the fact that Deleuze contends that these books should be used rather than
interpreted; hence, they do not lend themselves for commentary of clarification (Stengers, 2005,
p. 151; 2012, p. 268; Colombat, 1991, p. 12). Instead, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus will
be treated as paradigms of a certain conception of philosophy; this conception of philosophy, in
turn, is something that can be clarified, and this, then, will be done.
This thesis is structured as follows. In the next section, the method that is employed in this
thesis to approach Deleuze’s philosophy will be discussed. This will be done by contrasting it with
other methods that are found in the secondary literature. The method used in this thesis consists
of starting from Deleuze’s project to think difference in itself, and then deduces which
commitments follow from this. In section three, we will deal with the questions of why it is
necessary, according to Deleuze, to think difference in itself, and why Deleuze thinks that other
thinkers failed in this respect. In order to do this, we have to discuss, among other things, what
Deleuze called the ‘dogmatic image of thought’ and his critique on this image. Then, in section four,
we will deal with the issue of how Deleuze tries to think difference in itself. He does this by
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developing a theory of Ideas. These Ideas, as well as other notions that are necessary to
understand them, will be discussed in some detail in this section. Here, we will also discuss
Deleuze’s claim that thought is the result of fortuitous encounters, and discuss his thesis on the
necessity of chance. In section five, we will examine Deleuze’s conception of philosophy that
follows from what has been discussed thus far. Here, we will see why Deleuze conceives of
philosophy as the creation of concepts that should make a difference in the present. Finally, in the
conclusion and the discussion, we will return to the three issues that were presented in this
introduction. By then, all the elements should be present to deal with the questions that followed
from these issues.
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2. Method, or How to Read Deleuze?
Why is it necessary to ask how one should read Deleuze? It has to do with the fact that Deleuze’s
oeuvre allows for multiple ways of approaching it, without there being one single method that is
clearly superior to the others. Nonetheless, the way in which Deleuze’s work is accessed is of the
utmost importance, since it ultimately determines which picture of Deleuze’s philosophy emerges.
In this section I will discuss several of the methods that are found in the secondary literature, in
combination with some of Deleuze’s remarks that justify these different methods. The goal of this
overview is not to give an extensive review of all the strategies that are employed; rather, the
different methods are presented in order to form a contrast with the method that will be used in
this thesis, such that the merits and dangers of the latter will come into focus.
The different approaches to Deleuze’s oeuvre that are distilled from the secondary
literature are categorized around three topics. The first topic deals with the issue of what role
Deleuze’s studies in the history of philosophy play in Deleuze’s own philosophy. Do Deleuze’s
historical studies form an integral part of Deleuze’s philosophy, or should a distinction be made
between his historical studies and the philosophy that he has written in his own name? The
second topic has to do with the internal consistency and the internal evolution of Deleuze’s
oeuvre. Should we see Deleuze’s work as a whole, in which one issue follows more or less naturally
from something that he discussed in an earlier book? Or are his different books separate entities
that do not have a necessary relation to one another, and should we hence also not expect that the
different works are consistent with each other? The third topic has to do with Deleuze’s rigour.
Should we approach Deleuze’s oeuvre as an attempt to be more rigorous than his predecessors,
pointing out their blind spots, compromises and concessions, or should we see his philosophy
simply as an alternative that is not necessarily more adequate than other philosophies?
These three topics will now be discussed. I will not immediately take a stance in the
debates; at first, the different positions and their arguments will be only presented. After this has
been done, I will present the method that will be employed in this thesis and reflect on how this
relates to the different approaches to Deleuze’s philosophy that are found in the secondary
literature.
Deleuze and the History of Philosophy
Deleuze has written extensively on several figures in the history of philosophy. However, it is not
exactly clear how these written histories fit in his oeuvre as a whole. Bryant (2008) argues that a
distinction should be made between Deleuze’s historical work and his own, original philosophy:
“We cannot assume that the contents of Deleuze’s [historical] studies are identical to his
independent philosophical works” (p. xi). Deleuze himself gives rise to the position that is held by
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Bryant, since Deleuze himself subscribes to the same distinction between his original philosophy
and his historical studies:
There is a great difference between writing history of philosophy and writing philosophy.
In the one case, we study the arrows or the tools of a great thinker, the trophies and the
prey, the continents discovered. In the other case, we trim our own arrows, or gather those
which seem to us the finest in order to try to send them in other directions, even if the
distance covered is not astronomical but relatively small. (DR, p. xv)
Deleuze thus clearly does not group his historical studies together with his independent, original
work. Bryant suggests that the emphasis in the secondary literature on Deleuze’s historical
studies stems from the difficulty of Deleuze’s work; Bryant, however, disapproves of this practice:
“In a curious manner, this has given rise to a tendency to transform Deleuze into his histories
rather than to see how Deleuze departs from these histories” (Bryant, 2008, p. 222). Bryant
therefore thinks that, in studies regarding Deleuze’s own philosophy, references to his historical
studies are only justified when similar concepts and theories are found in the works that are
written in Deleuze’s own name (p. xii).
On the other side of this issue we find May (2005). May thinks that Spinoza, Bergson and
Nietzsche are the most important philosophers for Deleuze, and hence calls them “the Holy
Trinity” (p. 26). “It is they”, May writes, “who provide the motivation and the framework for the
ontologies Deleuze constructs over the course of his many writings” (ibid.). For May, there is thus
no need to make a categorical distinction between Deleuze’s historical works and the books
containing his own, original philosophy, since the latter are informed by and build upon the
former. Moreover, Deleuze has a very particular conception of what the history of philosophy is.
He writes the following about it:
I suppose the main way I coped with it at the time was to see the history of philosophy as
a sort of buggery or (it comes to the same thing) immaculate conception. I saw myself as
taking an author from behind and giving him a child that would be his own offspring, yet
monstrous. It was really important for it to be his own child, because the author had to
actually say all I had him saying. But the child was bound to be monstrous too, because it
resulted from all sorts of shifting, slipping, dislocations, and hidden emissions that I really
enjoyed. (N, p. 6).
This quote clearly shows that Deleuze did not merely want to explicate what the philosophers
whom he studied had written. Hence, Deleuze’s studies in the history of philosophy definitely bear
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his signature. This makes that the borderline between Deleuze’s original thought and his historical
studies becomes fuzzy.
The Internal Development of Deleuze’s Oeuvre
How should one understand the development of Deleuze’s philosophy? Does his oeuvre develop
more or less naturally from one issue to the next, whereby the first subject matter preludes to the
second, the second to the third, etcetera? Or is it rather the case that Deleuze’s philosophy displays
ruptures that make it impossible to conceive it as a consistent whole?
Hardt (2007), although limiting himself to Deleuze’s apprenticeship in the philosophies of
Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza, thinks that his oeuvre should be approached as having its own
internal progression. Hardt argues, for example, that Deleuze’s study of Bergson left some themes
undeveloped and problems unresolved. These themes only reached maturity and these problems
only were solved when Deleuze got to the next phase of his development and turned towards
Nietzsche (pp. 21-22). Hardt therefore writes that Deleuze’s thought is characterized by “a sort of
theoretical process of aggregation” (p. xix) and hence posits the following methodological
principle: “Read Deleuze’s thought as an evolution” (p. xx).
Other scholars, however, think that Deleuze’s philosophy consists of breaks that preclude
it from being presented as a unified whole. Boundas, for example, writes that “Deleuze’s own
rhizomatic growth and his strategy of writing should have warned against homocentric
evolutionist readings” (Boundas, 1991, p. 11), and he presents three theses of Deleuze on
subjectivity that are, according to him, incomprehensible in an evolutionist reading. Bryant
(2008) argues that there is no simple evolution in Deleuze’s work, because the ontology of active
and reactive forces which Deleuze presents in Nietzsche and Philosophy, whereby one force
overpowers another, is inconsistent with the ontology of reciprocal determination between
differential relations that is found in Difference and Repetition. (Although it should be noted that
Somers-Hall [2013, pp. 38-42] does find a Nietzschean ontology of forces in Difference and
Repetition.) Finally, Patton argues that Deleuze “is an experimental thinker committed to a
conception of movement in thought … There is always movement and discontinuity in his thinking
from one problem or series of problems to the next” (Patton, 2010, p. 10). Hence, according to
Patton, it is only in vain that one could seek for “an essence of his philosophy” (p. 15). (It should
be remarked, though, that in an earlier book on Deleuze, Patton found more continuity in
Deleuze’s thought. This is shown by Patton’s remark that “In many respects, Deleuze’s constant
engagement in his earlier writings with the question of the nature of thought is a prolegomenon
to the distinctive practice of philosophy developed in collaboration with Guattari” [Patton, 2000,
p. 18].)
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Deleuze’s Philosophy: Is it Superior or Merely One Alternative Among Others?
This third topic deals with the following issue: to what extent does Deleuze provide a philosophy
that is in some sense superior to the philosophies of earlier thinkers? Is it possible to say that
Deleuze’s thought provides an improvement in one respect or another, or is he merely providing
an alternative way to perceive the world, a model that can be used if it pleases and be forgotten if
it does not?
According to May (2003; 2005), Deleuze did the latter thing. May thinks that Deleuze’s
philosophy offers a new way of looking at things, without providing an ontology that is in some
way superior to others. As May writes of Deleuze: “He does not like to argue. He does not like to
harp on weaknesses in a philosopher’s work. He would rather change the subject” (May, 2005, p.
32). This is also how Deleuze appropriates other philosophers, according to May: “It is not that
Spinoza has detailed the difficulties of transcendence that fascinates Deleuze. Rather, it is that
Spinoza has successfully changed the subject, gone on to something else” (p. 33). May thus thinks
that Deleuze’s philosophy does not provide more satisfactory solutions to philosophical problems
than other systems of thought: “to follow Deleuze’s discussion of difference is not so much to
substitute a more adequate philosophical approach for a less adequate one. It is to follow thought
down another, more adventurous path: the path of concept-creation” (May, 2003, p. 145).
There are other authors, however, who think that Deleuze does provide a philosophy that
is in some sense more adequate than others and which solves certain problems in philosophy.
Foucault, for example, thinks that Deleuze does indeed deal with the weaknesses in the works of
other philosophers. Foucault writes the following about Deleuze’s relation to Western philosophy:
“He points out its interruption, its gaps, those small things of little value neglected by
philosophical discourse. He carefully reintroduces the barely perceptible omissions, knowing full
well that they imply an unlimited negligence” (Foucault, 1998, p. 348). In agreement with Foucault
and contrary to May, Hardt thinks that Deleuze does argue for his points of view: “the coherence
of his positions and the mode of explanation that supports them remain on the highest logical and
ontological planes” (Hardt, 2007, p. xviii). Finally, Bryant presents himself as a supporter of this
viewpoint when he writes that “one adopts the position [of transcendental empiricism] because
something is wrong with the philosophy of representation and transcendental empiricism is able
to solve this problem” (Bryant, 2008, p. 4). Explanations of Deleuze’s work that fail to argue for
the essential need of their positions “give one the sense that perhaps Deleuze’s thought amounts
to a simple thought experiment that ultimately amounts to nothing more than a set of ideas that
one might try out at one’s leisure” (p. 5).
Now that these three topics and the different positions within the debates have been discussed, it
is time to turn to the method that will be applied in this thesis. This method consists of one
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guideline: start from Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself and analyze what commitments
follow from this endeavour.
First of all, I should clarify what is meant by starting from Deleuze’s attempt to think
difference in itself. This consists of two parts: the first part deals with the question of why Deleuze
thinks that it is necessary to think difference in itself; the second part deals with the question of
why Deleuze thinks that other philosophers before him did not succeed in doing this. When this
is done, it should be shown how Deleuze tries to think difference in itself.
By taking Deleuze’s project to think difference in itself as our starting point, his book
Difference and Repetition comes to occupy a privileged position, since that is the book in which he
takes on this project in the most direct fashion. Deleuze himself also attributes a prominent place
in his oeuvre to Difference and Repetition; he writes about it that it was “the first book in which I
tried to ‘do philosophy’. All that I have done since is connected to this book, including what I wrote
with Guattari” (DR, p. xv).
This immediately brings us to the issue of the internal development of Deleuze’s oeuvre.
The aforementioned quote testifies of the fact that Deleuze thinks that a continuity exists between
Difference and Repetition and his later work; this is a thought that will be employed in this thesis.
Hence, I will assume that Deleuze displays more continuity in his thought than Boundas (1991)
and Patton (2010) give him credit for. In fact, this thesis can be read as a construction of what
Deleuze could mean with the following remark: “In my earlier books, I tried to describe a certain
exercise of thought; but describing it was not yet exercising thought in that way … With Félix
[Guattari], all that became possible, even if we failed” (D, p. 13). With respect to the issue of
whether Deleuze’s philosophy should be considered as a whole, the position in this thesis is thus
that it should; his philosophy can be understood as a unity. However, for now, this can only be
stated, rather than shown; it is an issue that we will have to come back to in the discussion.
With respect to the issue of whether Deleuze’s work should be seen as an attempt to be as
rigorous as he can be, or merely as an alternative that provides an alternative lens through which
the world can be perceived, this method allies with the former position. Since it starts from
Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself, tries to explain why Deleuze thinks that it is
necessary to do so and to what positions this endeavour commits him, this thesis will try to paint
a picture of Deleuze as an uncompromising thinker.
Lastly, concerning the remaining topic: in what position does the methodological principle
that informs this thesis stand regarding the relationship between Deleuze’s original philosophy
and his studies in the history of philosophy? As was said above, starting from the attempt to think
difference in itself privileges Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition above other books. In this
respect, it can be said that the central focus of this thesis is on his original philosophy.
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Nevertheless, his studies in the history of philosophy will also be employed. However, in the case
of discrepancies, the original philosophy will preponderate.
With respect to the method that is employed in this thesis, one thing remains to be done,
and that is answering the following question: why is Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself
the starting point that is chosen? Are there no other aspects of Deleuze’s work that could serve
equally well, or even better, as a way into his thought? There are three reasons that can be given
in favour of the starting point that is chosen in this thesis.
First of all, the attempt to think difference in itself is a central concern in Deleuze’s
philosophy. We have already seen the importance that Deleuze has granted to his book Difference
and Repetition in relation to the rest of his oeuvre. Moreover, Deleuze does not eschew big words
when he reflects on the significance of thinking difference in itself. The attempt to think difference
no longer as a derivative of identity, but rather to think identity as a derivative of difference—
which then would need to have its own concept, i.e. difference in itself—amounts, according to
Deleuze, to nothing less than “a Copernican revolution” (DR, p. 40) in philosophy.
The second reason is of a pragmatic nature. By starting from Deleuze’s attempt to think
difference in itself, and following the consequences of what this project entails, all the elements
that are necessary to answer the questions that were posed in the introduction, will be presented.
However, again, for now this can only be declared, and not yet demonstrated; hence, it is an issue
that has to be reflected upon in the discussion.
The third and final reason has to do with the issue of what picture of Deleuze will be
painted in this thesis. By taking difference in itself as a starting point and analysing what
commitments follow from this, it is possible to display Deleuze as a rigorous thinker. This is not
the only image of Deleuze that can be drawn—the other approaches in the secondary literature
that were discussed above testify of this fact—and it is not to say that the other appropriations of
Deleuze’s philosophy are incorrect. However, the upside of the current method is that it constructs
Deleuze’s philosophy as a body of work that is compelling; it cannot simply be put aside if it does
not please, but instead it demands a reaction. In that respect, this method is close to the position
of Bryant (2008, p. 5), namely in that it tries to avoid to present Deleuze as a philosopher who
only has something to say to those who already find him appealing, while others may simply leave
his thought behind.
Now we can end our methodological reflections. It has been an extensive discussion of the
method employed, and how it relates to other approaches to Deleuze’s work; however, given
Deleuze’s elusive philosophy and the different readings that it has given rise to, it was necessary
to linger over the method. Now, after a long detour, we can finally turn to Deleuze’s philosophy
itself.
15
3. The Dogmatic Image of Thought and Difference in Itself
In this section, we will deal with two issues in Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself. The
first question is: why does Deleuze think that it is necessary to think difference in itself? What is
missing from a philosophy that does not include difference in itself? The second question is: why
is it, according to Deleuze, that other philosophers before him did not succeed in thinking
difference in itself? What is it that they overlooked, and why does Deleuze think that he can avoid
this omission? For finding an answer to the first question, we have to examine why Deleuze thinks
that problems emerge in a philosophy that lacks a concept for difference in itself. In order to
answer the second question, we have to discuss what Deleuze called the ‘dogmatic image of
thought’ and his critique on it. According to Deleuze, this image consists of a wrong understanding
of what it means to think, and this is what precluded his predecessors from thinking difference in
itself. First of all, however, we need to introduce what Deleuze has in mind when he talks about
difference.
When Deleuze uses the word ‘difference’, he is not referring to the variety of phenomena
that exist in the world. As he explains it: “Difference is not diversity. Diversity is given, but
difference is that by which the given is given, that by which the given is given as diverse. Difference
is not phenomenon but the noumenon closest to the phenomenon” (DR, p. 222). This quote
testifies of the fact that Deleuze operates against a transcendental-philosophical background, and
that there is something beyond what we perceive, and which gives rise to the perceived. Diversity,
then, means that there are multiple individuals and that there “is no individual absolutely identical
to another individual” (LS, p. 275). Or, as Deleuze formulates it elsewhere: “no two grains of dust
are absolutely identical, no two hands have the same distinctive points, no two typewriters have
the same strike, no two revolvers score their bullets in the same manner” (DR, p. 26). It is
difference, however, that gives rise to this diversity of entities: “Every phenomenon refers to an
inequality by which it is conditioned. Every diversity and every change refers to a difference which
is its sufficient reason” (DR, p. 222). It is clear, then, that Deleuze thinks that we should not search
for difference at the level of phenomena; we have to go beyond the phenomena and into
metaphysics in order to reach difference in itself.
Why Difference in Itself?
Why is it necessary to think difference in itself? The short answer is that without difference in
itself, it is impossible to account for the genesis of both thought and beings. In other words, this
issue has both a transcendental and an ontological component.
Aristotle is a main target in Deleuze’s critique on how difference has been conceptualized
in the history of philosophy. For Aristotle, there can only be a difference between two entities if
16
these entities have something in common at a higher level (Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 25; Smith, 2012,
p. 38). As Deleuze explains Aristotle’s notion of difference: “two terms differ when they are other,
not in themselves, but in something else; thus when they also agree in something else: in genus
when they are differences in species, in species for differences in number” (DR, p. 30). Hence, man,
as a rational being, differs from other animals by the fact that he is endowed with the ability to
think rationally; but this only counts as a difference, because man and other animals have
something in common, namely their belonging to the genus of animals (Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 25).
This Aristotelian conception of difference, in which difference between two entities refers
back to what they have in common, corresponds to what Deleuze calls a ‘sedentary distribution’
(DR, p. 36; Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 40). “A distribution of this type”, Deleuze writes, “proceeds by
fixed and proportional determinations which may be assimilated to ‘properties’ or limited
territories within representation” (DR, p. 36). According to Deleuze, representation consists of
four elements: identity (the concept has an identity and is hence always applicable in the same
way); analogy (judgment operates in the same way with respect to different concepts: a table is a
table because it satisfies the properties of the concept table, just as an animal is an animal because
it satisfies the predicates of the concept animal); opposition (two concepts are each other’s
negation: A is not-B and B is not-A); and resemblance (two different things belong to the same
concept because of a resemblance between these two things) (DR, pp. 29, 137-138; Groot, 2012,
p. 117; Williams, 2003, p. 62). These four elements make that an animated, rational being fits the
concept of man and hence belongs to that species. Moreover, by being a man this entity forfeits
the possibility of being anything else than a human being; since this being is rational, and
rationality is a property that only belongs to the species of man, this being cannot belong to any
other species (cf. May, 2005, p. 75). Therefore, Deleuze writes that the different determinations
occupy a ‘limited territory’ within the system of representation.
The sedentary distribution thus grants a concept to each individual and negates the
possibility of attributing another concept to that individual. In this distribution, things are what
they are, because they have properties that exclude them from being a member of another class;
the sedentary distribution operates according to the logic of “this and not that” (Somers-Hall,
2013, p. 41). The identity of a thing makes that it differs from another species, because it does not
have the properties of this other species; difference is thus derived from identity and
conceptualized as negation, that is, as the negation of belonging to another species. Now, what
does the sedentary distribution fail to explain? According to Deleuze, this distribution is “a
dividing up of that which is distributed” (DR, p. 36). Hence, the sedentary distribution only applies
a certain order to that which exists; it does assume the existence of that which is divided up, and
thus fails to explain how it came into being: “[Representation] mediates everything, but mobilises
and moves nothing” (pp. 55-56). If there is nothing essential above the identity of things, nothing
17
that distorts their identities, then their creation and their destruction cannot be explained.
Deleuze, however, wants to give a sufficient reason for the existence of a variety of beings and
thus has to account for how they came into being. The notion of sufficient reason is borrowed by
Deleuze from Leibniz and refers to the principle that a reason should be given for why existing
beings exist, rather than other beings (Smith, 2012, pp. 44-45). In order to fulfil his aim, Deleuze
has to turn to those aspects that escape the sedentary distribution.
In order to understand the becoming of beings, we need to turn to another kind of
distribution. Deleuze, in this respect, talks about a ‘nomadic distribution’ (DR, p. 36). In this
distribution, “there is no longer a division of that which is distributed but rather a division among
those who distribute themselves in an open space – a space which is unlimited, or at least without
precise limits” (DR, p. 36, emphasis in original). In this distribution, beings are not organized
according to the categories of representation. Rather, in the nomadic distribution, beings organize
themselves and break through the conceptual determinations of representation: objects no longer
have a fixed identity, but are understood in their process of coming into being (p. 37). This means
that the nomadic distribution is not limited; if beings come into existence through a process of
becoming, and if this process continues to produce new beings, then the distribution cannot be
closed-off (ibid.; cf. Baugh, 1992, p. 136). If beings can no longer be understood as having an
unchanging identity, then the process of becoming must remain opaque for an understanding that
operates via representation which tries to capture beings within concepts (Williams, 2003, p. 66).
The nomadic distribution presents a world in which beings overflow the identities that
are assigned to them by representation, and representation cannot capture this overflowing. How,
then, can this world be grasped? Deleuze says the following about it: “There is a crucial experience
of difference and a corresponding experiment: every time we find ourselves confronted or bound
by a limitation or an opposition, we should ask what such a situation presupposes” (DR, p. 50).
Thus, one cannot remain satisfied with merely representing the world as it appears. Instead, one
has to investigate what is presupposed by the identities that are represented in concepts.
Deleuze’s answer is the following: “It presupposes a swarm of differences, a pluralism of free, wild
or untamed differences” (ibid.). These differences belong to a ‘sub-representative’ domain (p. 56).
The continuous change and becoming of objects makes that beings cannot be understood as fixed
by a concept. “The object must therefore be in no way identical, but torn asunder in a difference
in which the identity of the object as seen by a seeing subject vanishes” (ibid.). Deleuze
consequently formulates the following requirement that a philosophy of difference should fulfil:
“Every object, every thing, must see its own identity swallowed up in difference, each being no
more than a difference between differences. Difference must be shown differing” (ibid., emphasis
in original). One can only understand how the variety of beings came into existence if one breaks
free from the demands of representation and no longer thinks that the identity of beings is
18
ontologically primitive: “difference, potential difference and difference in intensity as the reason
behind qualitative diversity. It is in difference that movement is produced as an ‘effect’” (p. 57).
Now, one might protest and say the following: what if there is not necessarily something
that eludes concepts? If there are concepts that do not merely capture the properties of things as
they are, but also all the relations to all other beings that generated their becoming in the first
place? In that case, concepts would express the totality of the world from their own point of view
(since they would contain all relations of a being to all other beings), and have an extension of one
(since this set of relations is unique for each individual being); in other words, it would be much
like the way in which Leibniz conceived of concepts, i.e. as referring to individual beings, thus
without any generality (see Smith, 2012, pp. 44-48). In that case, the difference between two
beings is captured by the differences between their respective concepts, and hence difference
would always be conceptual difference, which would make a concept of difference in itself
superfluous (DR, pp. 11-12; Smith, 2012, p. 49). However, we then have to ask the following
question: is it possible to develop these complete concepts, that refer to one object only and
express the totality of the world? Deleuze thinks that this is a hopeless endeavour. One of
Deleuze’s arguments is found in the existence of words (DR, p. 13). Words have definitions, but
these do not preclude words from being applied in different sentences, different contexts, etcetera
(ibid.). One and the same word is necessarily applicable on multiple occasions; this “forms the real
power of language in speech and writing” (ibid.). The concept or definition of a word thus
necessarily has an extension that is greater than one. (For a more comprehensive discussion of
the incompleteness of concepts in the context of Deleuze’s philosophy, see Bearn [2000, pp. 444-
446].)
Here, Deleuze makes the same point as Derrida when the latter refers to the essential
iterability of words (Derrida, 1988, p. 7). The meaning of a word always contains an excess that
makes it possible to use it in different contexts, but this also implies that a word always means
more than was intended by the writer or the speaker: “it leaves us no choice but to mean (to say)
something that is (already, always, also) other than what we mean (to say)” (p. 62). For Derrida,
concepts are thus never able to refer to one thing and to one thing only, and Deleuze agrees with
him in this respect. However, Deleuze does not remain satisfied with this point, for it is one thing
to talk about the inadequacy of concepts, it is quite another to explain why this adequacy becomes
manifest; in this regard, Deleuze moves beyond the Derridean point (Bearn, 2000, p. 446). It may
be true that concepts do not refer to one single object, but this does not yet explain how the
different referents came into being in the first place. As Bearn expresses this point: “The top may
have been loose, but all by itself, that will not explain why the jar leaked: the jar could have been
empty” (Bearn, 2000, p. 446). Therefore, Deleuze thinks of the inadequacy of the concept that it
only provides a negative explanation (DR, p. 16). What is still needed is a positive explanation, and
19
Deleuze finds this in difference in itself. Here we see the importance of what Deleuze called ‘the
experience of difference’, as we have seen above: the fact that concepts fail to refer to one thing
and one thing only does not merely presuppose the inadequacy of concepts (a negative
explanation), but also the genesis of different beings that can be subsumed under the same
concept. This process of genesis is captured by Deleuze’s nomadic distribution.
This nomadic distribution is ontologically prior to the sedentary distribution, according to
Deleuze. This is because of the fact that one can go from the nomadic distribution to the sedentary
distribution, but one cannot go the other way around. The sedentary distribution can be derived
from the nomadic distribution when the four elements of representation are imposed on the
latter; things are then understood as having an identity, and one perceives objects as static beings,
rather than grasping their process of becoming. Inversely, the nomadic distribution cannot be
derived from the sedentary distribution. When objects are captured by concepts, and difference
is consequently understood as the negation of belonging to another concept, then one cannot
account for how these objects came into being in the first place; this makes it impossible to grasp
the processes that overflow the categories of representation and which are the subject matter of
the nomadic distribution. Hence Deleuze concludes: “Those who bear the negative know not what
they do: they take the shadow for the reality, they encourage phantoms, they uncouple
consequences from premises and they give epiphenomena the value of phenomena and essences”
(DR, p. 55).
This also accounts for Deleuze’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s eternal return, and for why
Deleuze uses the eternal return as a model to conceive of the world of difference in itself. If it is
no longer possible to think of identity as the primary ontological term, but one rather has to take
difference as ontologically primitive, then it is no longer the same that returns, but rather the
different; identity, then, is only derived from difference. What is it, therefore, that returns?
“Returning is being, but only the being of becoming. The eternal return does not bring back ‘the
same’, but returning constitutes the only Same of that which becomes” (DR, p. 41). Thus, it is only
that which becomes, what differs from itself, that returns. Therefore, it is true that the eternal
return can be said to be the recurrence of the same, but only under the condition that the same
refers to difference: “the circle of the eternal return … is a tortuous circle in which Sameness is
said only of that which differs” (p. 57). Now, one might object against taking Nietzsche’s eternal
return as an ontological doctrine in which the same (as the same) does not return, and ask, as
Tanner does: “if by ‘Eternal Recurrence’ [Nietzsche] did not mean Eternal Recurrence, why did he
not call it what he did mean?” (Tanner, 2000, p. 62). Deleuze’s interpretation is susceptible to this
critique, since he clearly appropriates Nietzsche’s doctrine and uses it for his own philosophy of
difference (cf. Malabou, 2010). However, rather than criticizing Deleuze for distorting the
Nietzschean view, one might also argue, like Foucault, that it is a creative misreading, such that
20
the originality of this vision should not be attributed to Nietzsche, but “will bear the name of
Deleuze” (Foucault, 1998, p. 367; see also Leigh, 1978, p. 223).
Up to now, we have only seen why Deleuze thinks that it is necessary to think difference
in itself, and what requirements the thought of difference in itself should fulfil. It should be
emphasized, however, that Deleuze does not argue that identity does not exist; rather, he argues
against the primacy of identity and replaces this with the primacy of difference. Deleuze does not
deny identity, but argues that it should not be taken as ontologically primitive: “That identity not
be first, that is exist as a principle but as a second principle, as a principle become; that it revolve
around the Different” (DR, p. 40, emphasis in original), such is the philosophy that Deleuze
propagates. This puts Deleuze to the task of thinking difference in itself. We have not yet seen how
Deleuze actually fulfils this job; this is the subject matter of the next chapter. First, however, we
need to turn to another question: how does Deleuze explain that other philosophers did not
manage to think difference in itself? In order to find an answer to this question, we have to discuss
Deleuze’s conception of the dogmatic image of thought.
The Dogmatic Image of Thought
The most extensive discussion of the dogmatic image of thought that Deleuze provides, is found
in the middle chapter of Difference and Repetition, of which he writes in the preface to the English
edition that it “now seems to me the most necessary and the most concrete, and which serves to
introduce subsequent books up to and including the research undertaken with Guattari” (DR, p.
xvii). The image of thought is an issue that preoccupies Deleuze during his entire philosophical
life: it is found in the books that he wrote early in his career (in Nietzsche and Philosophy and
Proust and Signs), up until his latest collaboration with Guattari (What is Philosophy?). For
Deleuze, the image of thought is “the image thought gives itself of what it means to think” (WP, p.
37). The image of thought fulfils a regulative function with respect to thought: “The image of
thought retains only what thought can claim by right” (ibid.). Hence, the image of thought
determines which elements belong essentially to thought, and what the contingent features are
from which thought should be purified.
In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze argues that the dogmatic image of thought consists
of eight postulates (DR, p. 167). In the Dialogues II, an abbreviated version of these is formulated:
They can all be summarized in the order-word: have correct ideas! It is first of all the image
of good nature and good will – good will of the thinker who seeks the ‘truth’, good nature
of thought which possesses ‘the true’ by right. Then, it is the image of a ‘common sense’ –
harmony of all the faculties of a thinking being. Then, again, it is the image of recognition
– ‘to recognize’, doesn’t this mean that something or someone is set up as a model of the
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activities of the thinker who makes use of all his faculties on an object which is supposedly
the same. Then again, it is the image of error – as if thought had only to mistrust external
influences capable of making it take the ‘false’ as true. Finally, it is the image of knowledge
– as place of truth, and truth as sanctioning answers or solutions for questions and
problems which are supposedly ‘given’. (D, p. 18)
What is it, according to Deleuze, that is wrong with this image? The problem with this image of
thought is that it presupposes too much. It assumes that thought has a natural affinity with the
truth, but does not explain where this affinity comes from. It assumes that thought is directed at
producing knowledge by answering certain questions, but does not explain why these questions
are the only questions worth asking. Deleuze does not argue that there are no correct ideas (which
would be a self-contradictory statement), but that it should not be assumed that thought
converges naturally towards the correct and the true. Thought can also be about ideas that are
not correct. As Deleuze expresses it: “no correct ideas, just ideas [pas d’idées justes, justes des
idées]” (D, p. 7). If one assumes as a fact of nature that an alliance exists between thought on the
one hand and truth and knowledge on the other hand, and if one is interested in the conditions
that make these facts of nature possible, one only finds out what one has assumed beforehand;
this is the mistake that Kant made (Smith, 2012, p. 238). As Deleuze elucidates: “Kant traces the
so-called transcendental structures from the empirical acts of a psychological consciousness: the
transcendental synthesis of apprehension is directly induced from an empirical apprehension,
and so on” (DR, p. 135). When one tries to explain an empirical phenomenon by finding the
conditions that make it possible, one is merely finding back what one has presupposed all along;
hence, such a project involves circular reasoning that should be avoided, at least according to
Deleuze (p. 129). Moreover, it is not only Kant who makes this mistake of tracing the
transcendental from the empirical; Deleuze discerns the same mistake in the philosophy of
Husserl (LS, p. 100).
Tracing the transcendental conditions from the empirical exercise of a faculty amounts to
anticipating the results of an investigation; one knows what should be looked for and only focuses
on that. Deleuze, however, argues that “nothing can be said in advance, one cannot prejudge the
outcome of research” (DR, p. 143). The reason for this is that, in searching for what one is looking
for, one loses sight of all the things that were not anticipated and which may surprise the
researcher. Therefore, Deleuze argues that we should not presuppose what thought is; we should
thus not assume beforehand that thought is about recognition. Deleuze writes the following about
this:
22
it is apparent that acts of recognition exist and occupy a large part of our daily life: this is
a table, this is an apple, this the piece of wax, Good morning Theaetetus. But who can
believe that the destiny of thought is at stake in these acts, and that when we recognise,
we are thinking? (p. 135)
If we want to know what thought is capable of, then we should not limit ourselves to investigating
only the cognitive acts of everyday life. The dogmatic image of thought should be criticized for
taking these acts as a model, and turning them into a norm by extrapolating an ideal of what
belongs to thought by right from what belongs to thought by fact, “as though thought should not
seek its models among stranger and more compromising adventures” (ibid.).
Deleuze’s focus on the ‘strange adventures’ of thought is not the result of a particular taste
for the extraordinary and the bizarre, but should rather be seen as a consequence of
methodological considerations. By concentrating on what falls outside of the everyday and
ordinary operation of thought, one can avoid turning the normal functioning of thought into a
model to which thought should obey, and hence find out of what thought is capable (Bryant, 2008,
p. 138). This also explains the role of paradoxes in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. They are not evoked,
just for the fun of it:
Paradoxes are recreational only when they are considered as initiatives of thought. They
are not recreational when they are considered as ‘the Passion of thought’, or as discovering
what can only be thought, what can only be spoken, despite the fact that it is both ineffable
and unthinkable. (LS, p. 77)
Paradoxes put thought into movement; they generate thought by showing that current solutions
and the current understanding do not suffice, and hence that thought should proceed along other
paths (Williams, 2008, pp. 24-25).
Why is it, according to Deleuze, that recognition should not be counted as thought?
Deleuze defines recognition as “the harmonious exercise of all the faculties upon a supposed same
object: the same object may be seen, touched, remembered, imagined or conceived” (DR, p. 133).
One can walk past a house and see how it looks; this view coincides with the memory that one has
of how the house looked yesterday; one can then touch the bricks of the house and feel that they
engender the excitement that one expected, etcetera. If all these different sensations agree with
one another, there is a reciprocal confirmation of the correctness of all of them, and one recognizes
the house as a house. The possibility of recognition, then, is based upon the sameness of the object
that is experienced: “An object is recognized … when one faculty locates it as identical to that of
another, or rather when all the faculties together relate their given and relate themselves to a form
23
of identity in the object” (ibid.). Recognition is thus intimately related to representation:
recognition as the accord of the different faculties paves the way for thinking that objects have
fixed identities. When all the faculties are in agreement, it becomes possible to think of objects in
terms of identities from which nothing escapes; in this way, recognition is a first step on the way
towards representation (p. 138). When objects are seen as having identities, and difference is
reduced to difference between these identities, it is no longer possible to conceive of difference in
itself.
Moreover, if everything is captured by the identities of things, there is nothing left that
disturbs thought. In order to understand what animates thinking, we need to leave the domain of
representation and recognition and enter the realm of encounters. As Deleuze says: “recognizing
is the opposite of the encounter” (D, p. 7). The concept of the encounter refers to something very
specific in Deleuze’s philosophy. It is important to emphasize this, since, one might ask, is it not
true that one also encounters the objects of recognition? Not according to the vocabulary that
Deleuze employs. For Deleuze, we can only speak of an encounter if “Something in the world forces
us to think” (DR, p. 139). The object of the encounter is thus not something that can be recognized.
Deleuze uses the word ‘sign’ to refer to the object of the encounter (PS, p. 62). The sign is hence
something on which the different faculties cannot find an accord with one another.
Deleuze characterizes the sign as follows: “its primary characteristic is that it can only be
sensed … It is not a sensible being but the being of the sensible (DR, pp. 139-140, emphasis in
original). Deleuze calls it the ‘being of the sensible’, because it is not the sensible itself, but rather
that which gives rise to the variety of experiences (Bryant, 2008, p. 64). As Deleuze says of the
sign: “It is not the given but that by which the given is given. It is therefore in a certain sense the
imperceptible. It is imperceptible precisely from the point of view of recognition” (DR, p. 140).
As we saw, the sign is that which forces us to think. Hence, thought has an essential
relationship with signs, and no longer with truths and certainties: “Certainties force us to think no
more than doubts” (DR, p. 139). What is lacking from the dogmatic image of thought are “the claws
of absolute necessity … of a strangeness or an enmity which alone would awaken thought from its
natural stupor or eternal possibility” (ibid.). In terms of modality, we could thus say the following:
one could try to determine the conditions of possible experience, but this does not yet explain how
actual experience is realized. The conditions of possible experience “are too general or too large
for the real. The net is so loose that the largest fish pass through” (DR, p. 68). In order to account
for real experience, one has to determine what adds necessity to the possibility, such that the
latter will be realized. Deleuze finds this necessity in the encounter with the sign.
Determining the conditions of real experience: this is one of Deleuze’s main goals in
Difference and Repetition. These conditions of real experience “are not larger than the
conditioned” (DR, p. 68). If the conditions were larger, then they would merely be conditions of
24
possible experience (Smith, 2012, p. 240). Encounters fulfil this requirement of not being larger
than what they condition, since they are the encounters with signs, i.e. beings that force us to
think; if they do not force to think, they are not signs. In other words, the potential of signs to
engender thinking is always fully realized; signs do not have an excess potential which was not
realized, but could have led to thought if the circumstances were somewhat different. Signs are
thus not larger than what they engender, namely instances of thought. Each encounter has its own
signs and forces us to think in its own way. Therefore, encounters are the conditions of real
experience, rather than merely of possible experience.
Now, we have seen that recognition and representation fail to capture difference in itself.
We have also seen that signs are the opposite of recognition; while the latter is only the condition
of possible experience, the encounters of signs are the conditions of real experience. Signs escape
thought that is understood on the basis of the model of recognition and representation. What,
then, is the relationship between difference in itself and signs? Deleuze writes the following about
it: “It is in difference that movement is produced as an ‘effect’, that phenomena flash their meaning
like signs” (DR, p. 57). It is thus difference that gives rise to signs. There are therefore two aspects
to Deleuze’s project of thinking difference in itself. On the one hand, difference in itself is a
necessary concept to account for the nomadic distribution, which is that which generates the
sedentary distribution and thus accounts for the coming into existence of the phenomena to which
the categories of representation, in turn, can be applied. This is the ontological aspect. On the other
hand, difference in itself is that which gives rise to signs that account for real experience. This,
then, is the transcendental aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy of difference.
In this chapter, we have first dealt with the question of why Deleuze thinks that it is necessary to
come up with a concept of difference in itself. Deleuze argues that the categories of representation
primarily conceive of beings in terms of identity. Difference, then, is understood as a derivative of
identity; a thing is different from another thing when it has other properties and therefore cannot
share the latter thing’s identity. When the categories of representation are into play, difference is
understood as negation. A thing has an identity of which nothing escapes; therefore, a being is
‘this and not that’, i.e. it is negated the identities of other things. However, this leaves unexplained
how things came into being, and in order to account for that, one has to refer to that which escapes
from the identities that things have under the reign of representation; therefore, one can no longer
think of difference as something that exists because things have an identity. Rather, one has to
take difference as the primary term, and identity as a derivative, in order to account for the
becoming of being. Hence, one has to think difference in itself.
The reason that philosophers before him (with the exception of Nietzsche) have not been
able to think difference in itself, is explained by Deleuze by the fact that they were subject to the
25
dogmatic image of thought. One of the elements of this image is the postulate of recognition, which
entails the agreement of different faculties and is based on the supposed identity of the object that
is apprehended; this, in turn, makes it impossible to think difference in itself. However, the
dogmatic image of thought cannot account for what gives rise to thought; it merely provides a
picture of possible thought, but lacks the necessity that ensures that thought is realized. The
encounter with a sign provides the necessity to thought, and it is difference that gives rise to the
sign. It is thus difference in itself that provides the key to the process of genesis in Deleuze’s
philosophy: difference in itself gives rise both to beings and to thought.
We have not yet discussed in what way Deleuze actually fulfils his project of thinking
difference in itself. We did see, however, what difference was not: difference should not be
confused with diversity of phenomena, it is not something that can be represented, and difference
should not be thought of as a derivative of identity. How can this be done, thinking difference in
itself, independent of a prior identity? The answer to this question lies in Deleuze’s appropriation
of empiricism. According to Deleuze, the distinctive property of empiricism is the externality of
relations: “Relations are external to their terms” (ES, p. 99). Deleuze will employ this thesis and
push it to its extremes, up to the point that relations no longer even require prior relata (Smith,
2012, p. 245). Empiricism, then, is a theory of multiplicities, since in “a multiplicity, what counts
are not the terms or the elements, but what there is ‘between’, the between, a set of relations
which are not separable from each other” (D, p. vii).
This leads us to the topic of the next chapter: how does Deleuze proceed in thinking
difference in itself? How does he think relations without prior relata? In order to answer these
questions, we have to turn to Deleuze’s notion of ‘Ideas’ and his discussion of the differential
calculus.
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4. Ideas and the Necessity of Chance
In this chapter, Deleuze’s notion of Ideas will be discussed. Deleuze adopts this notion from Kant,
for whom Ideas are intimately connected to problems: “Kant never ceased to remind us that Ideas
are essentially ‘problematic’. Conversely, problems are Ideas” (DR, p. 168). For Kant, Ideas result
when the categories are used outside of their rightful domain, i.e. when they are no longer tied to
the intuition (Kant, 1998, B377). For example, the category of causality can be applied in such a
way that we can think of the totality of all causal relations (in other words: the world), even though
we can never know it (since knowing, for Kant, involves both concepts and intuition) (B391-392;
Smith, 2012, p. 108). Now, when the causal nexus is extended to infinity, we can ask questions
like: did the world have a beginning? To such a question, no answer can be given, because it refers
to an object that we do not find in experience (Smith, 2012, p. 109). Hence, for Kant, the object of
the Idea is “a problem permitting of no solution” (Kant, 1998, B510). Ideas are thus problems that
are constructed by reason when the categories are applied without the input of the intuition.
However, Deleuze does not remain satisfied with Kant’s discussion. With Kant, according
to Deleuze, the Ideas are only determined by means of an analogy with the objects of experience,
which leaves their determination extrinsic to the Ideas themselves (DR, p. 169-170; Smith, 2012,
p. 110). Deleuze believes that this shortcoming can be overcome if the challenge that Salomon
Maimon posed to Kant is taken up. Maimon argued that Kant simply assumes knowledge and
morality as matters of fact, and subsequently seeks the conditions of their possibility; instead,
Kant should have shown how knowledge and morality are generated in the first place (Smith,
2012, p. 111). As a second point of critique, Maimon argued that Kant did not succeed in explaining
why the categories of the understanding are applicable to the sensed data of the intuition; there
is a gap between the understanding and sensibility, and Kant did not manage to bridge this gap
(for a more comprehensive discussion of this point, see Voss [2011, pp. 63-67]). Therefore,
Maimon thinks that Kant’s viewpoint of external conditioning between concepts and intuition
should be replaced by a method of internal genesis (Smith, 2012, p. 111; Voss, 2011, p. 63). This
internal genesis is based on differentials that determine each other in a reciprocal relationship,
and are therefore not determined extrinsically. Deleuze follows Maimon in this respect, but
disagrees with the latter regarding the location of the differential Ideas; for Maimon, these Ideas
are enclosed within the understanding of the subject, whereas for Deleuze these Ideas are not
enclosed within the realm of a subject (Voss, 2011, p. 71). Instead, Deleuze speaks of “a fractured
I” (DR, p. 169) and that “Ideas swarm in the fracture” (ibid.), which means that there is an essential
relation between thought and an outside.
In this chapter, we will discuss Deleuze’s theory of Ideas. These Ideas allow Deleuze to
elaborate on how one can think of difference in itself, without subordinating it to a prior identity.
27
The examination of Deleuzian Ideas will lead us to his use of the differential calculus, the
Bergsonian notions of the virtual and the actual, and to Deleuze’s thesis of the necessity of chance.
First, however, we will discuss what Deleuze has in mind when he talks about problems.
Problems
In the last chapter, we have seen that Deleuze uses the notion of ‘sign’ to refer to that which forces
us to think. The sign accomplishes this, because the sign “moves the soul, ‘perplexes’ it – in other
words, forces it to pose a problem: as though the object of encounter, the sign, were the bearer of
a problem – as though it were a problem” (DR, p. 140). How do we find out about the problem?
Deleuze, in this respect, makes a distinction between knowledge on the one hand, and learning or
apprenticeship on the other. Knowledge is defined by Deleuze as something that one possesses by
finding a solution to a problem, which in turn makes that the latter disappears (p. 164). Learning,
on the other hand, is a process which is engendered by an ‘objecticity’ that does not disappear
when an answer is found (ibid.). This objecticity is the problem. Although the problem “does not
exist, apart from its solutions”, it does not disappear when these are determined, but rather
“insists and persists in these solutions” (p. 163). A favourite example of Deleuze in this respect is
the relationship between the eye and light: “An organism is nothing if not the solution to a problem
… such as the eye which solves a light ‘problem’” (p. 211). This shows clearly the insistence and
persistence of the problem when a solution is found. The light problem does not vanish when the
eye exists; rather, the light problem persists and might invite different solutions in the future, such
as an eye that can see sharper, or that has a better night vision. Moreover, this example shows that
the problem changes as a result of earlier solutions. The first phase of the light problem may have
been concerned with how a simple photosensitive organ can be developed. After this has been
done, more complex eyes can emerge that can build on the earlier solution. The problem thus
changes as a result of the fact that it progresses from earlier solutions, but it is never solved in a
definite way (Williams, 2003, p. 134). Therefore, the process of learning about the problem is
never finished. According to Deleuze, this means that the problem cannot be grasped in a concept
and be represented in consciousness (DR, p. 192). The problem gives rise to “propositions of
consciousness which designate cases of solution, but those propositions by themselves give a
completely inaccurate notion of the instance which engenders them as cases” (ibid.).
As a result, learning about the problem is not a conscious activity. Problems are what gives
rise to solutions that are represented in consciousness, but problems themselves remain
unconscious: “problematic Ideas are precisely the ultimate elements of nature and the subliminal
objects of little perceptions” (DR, p. 165). Ontologically, we should understand problematic Ideas
then as what gives rise to the diversity of beings; transcendentally, we should understand these
Ideas as that which gives rise to thought. As we saw, however, Deleuze also argued that difference
28
in itself is that which gives rise to both thoughts and beings. This claim, and the claim that Ideas
are responsible for the genesis of beings and thought, turn out to be consistent when we
understand that Ideas are made up of differential relations (ibid.). This will be explained in more
detail in this chapter. The fact that, for Deleuze, problematic Ideas are subliminal, means that they
belong to an unconscious; however, this is not a Freudian unconscious (Smith, 2012, p. 55). The
unconscious that Deleuze has in mind is more like the unconscious as it is conceived of by Leibniz
and Maimon, i.e. as a realm of differentials that give rise to conscious perceptions when the
differentials determine each other reciprocally (pp. 54-55). This reciprocal determination will be
examined in more detail below, but for now this suffices in order to see that, according to Deleuze,
problematic Ideas do not appear to consciousness; therefore “‘learning’ always takes place in and
through the unconscious, thereby establishing the bond of a profound complicity between nature
and mind” (DR, p. 165).
The Idea or the problem, then, is something that is not experienced in consciousness; it is
something which insists or persists, even when the solution is found; the Idea is made up of
differential relations; and Ideas are the entities that give rise to both thought and beings. In order
to make this more concrete, we can look at an example of Ideas, which Deleuze finds in the
differential calculus.
Ideas and the Differential Calculus
In the differential calculus, Deleuze finds a model for thinking difference in itself. The differential
calculus provides an example of how one can think about that which gives rise to the variety of
beings and thought, but which itself cannot be experienced empirically. Deleuze writes the
following about it:
The symbol dx appears as simultaneously undetermined, determinable and
determination. Three principles which together form a sufficient reason correspond to
these three aspects: a principle of determinability corresponds to the undetermined as
such (dx, dy); a principle of reciprocal determination corresponds to the really
determinable (dy/dx); a principle of complete determination corresponds to the
effectively determined (values of dy/dx). In short, dx is the Idea. (DR, p. 171)
The differential relation of the calculus shows how it is possible to think of difference in itself,
independent of a prior identity. The differential calculus was developed in order to deal with the
question of how two variables were related to one another (Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 132). An
example of such a relation between two variables is average velocity: average velocity (v) is the
distance covered (∆s) divided by the time that was needed for this (∆t). In the form of a formula,
29
this gives: v = ∆s/∆t. This method works for determining average velocities, but it fails if one wants
to determine the speed at a moment of time (ibid.). In that case, the value of ∆t would be zero, and
since it is impossible to divide something by zero, it would be impossible to calculate the speed.
The differential calculus provides the tools to overcome this problem by providing a logic of
relations. In order to understand the differential calculus as a logic of relations, one has to leave
the Leibnizian notion of differentials—i.e., infinitesimals that converge towards zero—behind and
stop thinking that differentials have a value on their own (DR, p. 172; DI, p. 176; Smith, 2012, p.
246). Deleuze therefore writes:
The relation dy/dx is not like a fraction which is established between particular quanta in
intuition, but neither is it a general relation between variable algebraic magnitudes or
quantities. Each term exists absolutely only in its relation to the other: it is no longer
necessary, or even possible, to indicate an independent variable. (DR, p. 172)
If differentials only exist in relation to each other, and thus have no independent existence, then
one avoids the problem of having to attach a value to the individual differentials. In this way, the
problem of a fraction with a denominator which has the value of zero, does not appear. It is only
in a relation that differentials can determine each other reciprocally, and it is only in this relation
that differentials exist. In this sense, it can be said that the differential calculus provides a logic of
relations that exist independently of prior relata. Moreover, these relations persist, even when its
terms no longer exist.
Differentials are thus undetermined in themselves; we have also seen that they are
reciprocally determinable when they enter into a relation with one another. We have not yet seen,
however, what Deleuze means with ‘complete determination’, which he distinguishes from the
reciprocal determination between differentials (DR, p. 175). The complete determination of Ideas
is fulfilled when values are attached to the differential relation (ibid.). This, in turn, gives a
distribution of singular and ordinal points (ibid.; Smith, 2012, pp. 115-116). An example might
clarify this distinction between the two kinds of points. If we have the function y = x2 and hence
the differential relation dy/dx = 2x, then we can speak of a complete determination when values
are given to x, such that we find the values of dy/dx. If x has negative values, then dy/dx also has
negative values, which decrease in absolute value when x increases; if x has the value of zero, then
dy/dx also has the value of zero; and if x is positive, then dy/dx is also positive. When x has the
value of zero, we have an example of a singular point, because it marks the place where the
function changes its direction, i.e., from a decrease to an increase. The other points on the curve
of the function are the ordinary points. The singular points are thus defined as the points where a
transformation occurs.
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We have now seen the three aspects that belong to Ideas that are made up of differentials.
By conceptualizing Ideas in this way, Ideas fulfil the requirements that were formulated above:
they are not accessible by consciousness, since differentials do not have an independent existence
that could be apprehended; they only exist in a reciprocal relation, which persists and insists even
when the differentials do not exist; and this accounts for the genesis of determinate entities. At
this place, it should be emphasized that Deleuze uses the differential calculus as a model of Ideas.
In fact, Ideas exist in many different forms; Deleuze gives the examples of physical Ideas, biological
Ideas, and social Ideas, amongst others (DR, pp. 184-186). What they all have in common is that
they are constituted according to a threefold structure: the undetermined, the determinable, and
the determined.
Moreover, the Idea accounts for how thought is produced. As we have seen, thought is the
result of an encounter with a sign, but the sign is the product of two differential elements that
enter into a relation with each other (DR, p. 57). The differentials that give rise to thought are the
minute and unconscious perceptions that become discernible to consciousness when they enter
into a reciprocal relation with one another (Smith, 2012, pp. 94, 119-120). Therefore, Deleuze can
write that “thought thinks only on the basis of an unconscious” (DR, p. 199), i.e., on the basis of
the minute perceptions that cannot be perceived but which nevertheless give rise to thought.
These Deleuzian Ideas are therefore unlike the clear and distinct ideas of Descartes (DR,
p. 213). Only to the extent that differentials enter into a relation with one another, they become
clear to consciousness; however, they are then no longer distinct, but rather confused. When these
differentials are distinct and thus not in a relation, they do not become clear to consciousness and
remain obscure (Smith, 2012, p. 97). Deleuze, following Leibniz, replaces the clear-distinct couple
therefore with two other couples: the clear-confused experience and the distinct-obscure
differentials that give rise to this experience (DR, p. 213).
If Ideas are made up of differential relations that are undetermined in themselves and only
determinable when they are determined reciprocally, then there is no longer any resemblance
between the genetic elements and that to which they give rise. The differentials are nothing in
themselves, but only in relation to each other and give rise to something that is determined; in
this way, difference is constitutive and productive of that which is determined. In order to capture
this absence of resemblance between the determined and its genetic elements, Deleuze employs
the terms ‘virtual’ and ‘actual’.
The Virtual and the Actual
Deleuze makes a distinction between two pairs of terms. On the one hand, there are the possible
and the real; on the other hand, we have the virtual and the actual (B, p. 96; DR, p. 211). This is a
distinction that Deleuze adopts from Bergson. It should be emphasized that Deleuze does not
31
think that this distinction is applicable to the thought of every philosopher. For example, Deleuze
notices that Heidegger’s notion of the possible is in fact a virtuality (DR, p. 201). However, in order
to appreciate the function of the distinction between the two pairs of terms (possible-real and
virtual-actual), we have to follow the definitions that Deleuze proposes.
For Deleuze, the relation between the possible and the real is of a very different nature
than the relation between the virtual and the actual. Realization, the process of going from the
possible to the real, is defined by two rules: resemblance and limitation (B, p. 97). It is
characterized by resemblance, since “the real is supposed to be in the image of the possible that it
realizes”, because the real is the same as the possible, only with “existence or reality added to it”
(ibid.). The possible thus resembles the real, and they are therefore captured by the same concept
(ibid.). The second rule is that of limitation. Realization is a process of limitation, because not every
possibility is realized: “realization involves a limitation by which some possibles are supposed to
be repulsed or thwarted, while others ‘pass’ into the real” (ibid.). The rule of limitation thus
ensures that not all possibilities are realized, but only a certain number of them.
Why does the possible-real distinction not suffice, according to Deleuze? Deleuze argues
that it is necessary to invoke the virtual-actual pair, because something is missing from an account
that only refers to the possible and the real. This is due to the similarity between the possible and
the real. If the possible and the real resemble each other, then “we no longer understand anything
either of the mechanism of difference or of the mechanism of creation” (B, p. 98). If there is no
difference between the possible and the real except for the existence of the latter, then “we are
forced to conceive of existence as a brute eruption, a pure act or leap which always occurs behind
our backs and is subject to a law of all or nothing” (DR, p. 211). The possible-real pair leaves
unexplained why this, rather than that, came into existence. Moreover, it fails to account for the
creation of something new; if the real is simply the possible, only with existence added to it, then
there is no way in which anything new—i.e. something which is not captured by the possible—
can come into being. Given the fact that Deleuze tries to develop an ontology that provides the
conditions under which the new can emerge, the notion of possibility does not suffice for him
(Smith, 2012, pp. 237, 252-253).
According to Deleuze, then, the Idea cannot be understood along the lines of the possible
and its realization. Therefore, Deleuze writes: “The virtuality of the Idea has nothing to do with
possibility” (DR, p. 191). The virtual and the actual are related to each other in quite a different
manner than the possible and the real. The rules of resemblance and limitation of realization are
replaced by the following two rules: difference or divergence and creation (B, p. 97). These two
rules result from the fact that the virtual and the actual do not resemble each other: “Actualisation
breaks with resemblance as a process no less than it does with identity as a principle” (DR, p. 212).
The process of actualisation thus entails more than just adding existence to the virtual; in the
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process of actualisation, the virtual elements undergo a divergence, such that the actualized
beings no longer resemble the virtuality that served as their genetic counterpart. This is also
captured by the fact that actualization is the process in which the distinct-obscure virtual
elements of the Idea enter into a relation and turn into the clear-confused that is experienced
(Smith, 2012, p. 120). The absence of any resemblance between the virtual Idea and the
corresponding actuality means that actualisation “is always a genuine creation” (DR, p. 212). Since
the virtual is not a pre-existing possibility that is realized via limitation, but instead consists of
differential relations that bear no resemblance to what they give rise to, one could say that the
process of actualisation is the creation of something that is genuinely new (ibid.; Colebrook, 2002,
p. 96).
The process of actualization is not the same as the interaction that takes place between
actualized elements. Therefore, Deleuze writes, it involves “a genesis without dynamism, evolving
necessarily in the element of a supra-historicity” (DR, p. 183). It is without dynamism, because it
is a genesis that is not caused by the interplay of one actual element with another, but by a
movement from a virtual structure to its actual incarnation (ibid.). Therefore, Deleuze refers to
this form of genesis by the term ‘static genesis’ (ibid.).
Because there is no resemblance between the virtual and the actual, Deleuze avoids
tracing the transcendental from the empirical. In this way, Deleuze avoids the circular reasoning
that he discerns in a transcendental philosophy that is only interested in the conditions of possible
experience (Alliez, 1998, p. 50). Deleuze criticizes Kant for making this mistake, because the latter
determines the transcendental structures of experience on the basis of the empirical acts of
psychological consciousness, and hence only finds back what he has assumed beforehand (DR, p.
135). The possible, then, is not what gives rise to the real, but it mirrors the real “because it has
been abstracted from the real once made, arbitrarily extracted from the real like a sterile double”
(B, p. 98). The possible-real couple thus takes the real as given and traces the possible from it,
which leaves unexplained how the real came into being in the first place.
The absence of any resemblance between the virtual and the actual can be made more
concrete by using the case of genetics as an example (May, 2005, pp. 48, 88). A person’s DNA could
be conceived of as a virtual Idea. DNA is located in the cell nucleus and contains information about
how this cell will develop, through all the embryonic and foetal stages, to an actual person. DNA
thus explains differences between individual persons; however, it does not explain all these
differences. For example, identical twins have exactly the same DNA, but they do not have identical
fingerprints (Jain, Prabhakar & Pankanti, 2002, p. 2655). Hence, not all differences between
individual persons can be led back to differences in their DNA. Therefore, it is incorrect to
understand DNA as a ‘blueprint’ of the living organism (Dawkins, 2011, pp. 196-199). One could
derive a blueprint from the house and one could also go in the opposite direction, since each
33
element in the drawing corresponds to an element in the house, and vice versa. It is impossible,
however, to ‘reconstruct’ someone’s DNA on the basis of all his phenotypical characteristics; based
on the different fingerprints, one would then be led to the conclusion that identical twins have
different DNA, which is false. It is thus impossible to understand DNA in terms of the possible and
the real; rather, one has to understand DNA in terms of virtuality and actuality, whereby DNA’s
actualization is the process through which something genuinely new is produced.
The process of actualization is thus a process in which something new emerges, whereby
the actualized entity does not resemble the virtual elements that are its genetic factors. But how
is this process of actualization determined? What is it that is responsible for the fact that the
actualized being is as it is, that this rather than another being is actualized? In order to answer
this question, we need to turn to Deleuze’s notion of intensity. “The expression ‘difference of
intensity’ is a tautology”, Deleuze writes, “Intensity is the form of difference in so far as this is the
reason of the sensible” (DR, p. 222). Intensity is the reason of the sensible by virtue of its
interaction with the Idea (DR, pp. 244-246; Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 181). If one would think that the
Idea is solely responsible for the actualisation of the virtual, and hence would be the sufficient
reason of all phenomena, then one would be making the error of “confusing the virtual with the
possible” (DR, p. 247; cf. Somers-Hall, 2013, p. 181). If the Idea were not related to something
outside of it, then the virtual would already have to contain the actual as a possibility; the process
of actualization would be nothing more than a limitation of all that was included in the virtual;
and there would be no creation of anything genuinely new, since the actual was already potentially
present in the virtual. Therefore, the Idea is actualised in interaction with an environment that
makes that the Idea’s virtual elements are actualized along lines of divergence; this environment
is the space of intensive quantity or, as Deleuze also calls it, the spatium (DR, pp. 230-231; cf.
Smith, 2012, pp. 95-96). Because of the essential relation that the virtual Idea has with an outside
and which determines what eventually will be actualized, entities will only be actualized if the
outside conditions are such that this actualization can take place; because of this dependence,
some actualizations can only take place at certain places and at certain moments (cf. Bell, 2009,
pp. 137-139).
Again, we can take genetics as an illustration in order to make this more concrete. As
Deleuze notes: “A living being is not only defined genetically, by the dynamisms which determine
its internal milieu, but also ecologically, by the external movements which preside over its
distribution” (DR, p. 216; cf. Bryant, 2012, pp. 376-377). Again, this becomes clear when we look
at the differences between the fingerprints of identical twins. This difference is explained by the
fact that the two foetuses from which the twins emerge, are located at different locations in the
womb (Jain, Prabhakar & Pankanti, 2002, p. 2655). Thus, it is the interaction between the virtual
Idea and the intensity of the exteriority, which ultimately gives rise to the diversity of things.
34
Therefore, Deleuze can say that intensity “is the sufficient reason of all phenomena, the condition
of that which appears” (DR, p. 222).
The necessity of relating the Idea to the field of intensities has consequences for what
questions should be asked. Since the actualization of Ideas depends on their place in the spatium,
it no longer makes sense to search for their essences by asking the question ‘what is X?’ (DI, pp.
95-96). Instead, it is the concrete situation in which the Idea is placed, that determines how the
process of actualization unfolds. Therefore, one has to investigate the concrete conditions. The
Idea “can be determined only with the questions who? how? how much? where and when? in which
case?” (DI, p. 96, emphasis in original).
Up to now in this chapter we have seen that an Idea or problem becomes pressing due to
an encounter with a sign; we have also seen that the actualization of an Idea happens in the
interaction between the Idea and a field of intensities. These two elements lead us to another claim
of Deleuze, which is of the utmost importance to answer the questions with were posed in the
introduction. This is the Deleuzian thesis that there is a necessity of chance.
The Necessity of Chance
We have seen that the encounter of the sign is that which adds necessity to the possibility of
thought, and thereby constitutes the condition of real experience. However, this is only half the
story. The other half is that “it is precisely the contingency of the encounter that guarantees the
necessity of what it leads us to think” (PS, p. 62). There is nothing that guarantees that a certain
sign will occur and that the encounter will happen. The encounter is always the encounter with
something outside of thought: “more important than thought is ‘what is food for thought’” (PS, p.
21). It is therefore not the subject who initiates thought; rather, he is dependent on an outside
which forces him to think. What can be thought is therefore relative to the time and place in which
someone finds himself: “Ideas no more Problems do not exist only in our heads but occur here and
there in the production of an actual historical world” (DR, p. 190). Thought thus reacts to the
problems with which it is confronted in a historical era (Patton, 2000, p. 21). Because of the chance
encounters that are necessary to engender thought, Deleuze describes his procedure for doing
philosophy as a ‘pick-up procedure’ (D, p. 14)
In order to avoid confusion, we need to determine what Deleuze has in mind when he talks
about ‘chance’. Chance, according to Deleuze, should not be understood along the lines of an
expected value. Deleuze, in this respect, refers to the throw of two dice (NP, pp. 25-26). If one
throws multiple times, the outcomes will follow a certain probability distribution and one could
expect an average outcome of seven. If one throws a thousand times, one can be quite certain
about what the average outcome will be (given, of course, that we are not dealing with loaded
dice). However, if one throws only once, there is no certainty about the outcome. This is what
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Deleuze talks about when he refers to chance: the absence of certainty and predictability about
the outcome of a process.
Why does Deleuze think that chance, understood in this way, necessarily exists? This has
to do with the fact that actualization is an unpredictable process (cf. Baugh, 1992, pp. 139, 141).
As we have seen, the actual does not resemble the virtual. Therefore, the actualization is a process
in which something genuinely new is produced, something that was not contained in the virtuality
from which it sprang, and hence it cannot be known beforehand how the actualized being will look
exactly. This is determined by the place where the virtual Idea is located in the spatium, and this
is fortuitous. The thought or the being that emerges as a result is therefore also fortuitous.
The statement that there is a necessity of chance thus has two senses (Bryant, 2008, p.
208). The first is that there necessarily is chance; one cannot predict what will result from the
actualization of a virtual Idea. The second sense of the necessity of chance is that the chance
encounter leads to thought: thought is something that necessarily follows from the sign which one
encounters only by chance. Thinking thus only appears as the result of an interplay between
chance and necessity: “the accident of the encounter and the necessity of thought: ‘fortuitous and
inevitable’” (PS, p. 65).
This chapter dealt with the question of how Deleuze works out a way to think difference in itself.
He does this by use of the Idea. The Idea is made up of differentials that are nothing until they
enter into a relation with one another. In this relation, the differentials are reciprocally
determinable and are completely determined in the distribution of ordinary and singular points
that they generate. Because there is no resemblance between the differentials and that to which
they give rise, the possible-real couple has to be replaced by the virtual-actual couple. The process
of actualization is the creation of something that did not exist before; thereby, it provides an
explanation for the variety of beings and thoughts, and shows how difference gives rise to
diversity.
The process of actualization is an unpredictable process. As a result of this, Deleuze can
speak of the necessity of chance. The necessity of chance is thus a result of Deleuze’s attempt to
think difference in itself. There necessarily is chance, and the encounter is the result of this chance.
This encounter, in turn, necessitates thought. There are hence two senses in which the necessity
of chance should be understood.
Deleuze did not merely want to declare that there is a necessity of chance; he also wanted
to think about what the consequences of this finding are. In particular, Deleuze argue that it has
repercussions for what it means to think and for what it means to do philosophy. The dogmatic
image of thought does not suffice in this respect. Therefore, a new image of thought and a new
conception of philosophy have to be developed.
36
This task constitutes an important part of Deleuze’s later philosophical work, which he
often carried out in collaboration with others. The next chapter deals with Deleuze’s vision on
philosophy. We will discuss what the task of philosophy is, according to Deleuze, and how he
thinks that this task should be fulfilled. It will be argued that Deleuze’s views on philosophy, which
are formulated in his later work, exhibit a continuity with his project to think difference in itself.
37
5. Deleuze’s Conception of Philosophy
In this chapter, we will deal with Deleuze’s conception of philosophy, which is a quite idiosyncratic
one. Philosophy, according to Deleuze, is a creative activity; philosophers are just as creative as,
for example, artists and scientists (TRM, p. 318). More specifically, Deleuze thinks that philosophy
is about creating concepts (WP, p. 5). Philosophy should be useful, and this usefulness can be
measured by the extent to which new concepts give rise to a change regarding certain aspects of
the present (Patton, 2010, p. 64). Therefore, according to Deleuze, “Philosophy does not consist
in knowing and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, or
Important that determine success or failure” (WP, p. 82).
This chapter will first of all deal with Deleuze’s conception of philosophy as an instrument
that should be used. Then, we will turn to the essential relation that philosophy has with the
present. Finally, we will discuss the means that philosophy employs, and discuss what the creation
of concepts actually entails.
Theory as an Instrument
In a conversation with Foucault on the relation between theory and practice, Deleuze says that
theory is a ‘tool box’: “A theory has to be used, it has to work. And not just for itself. If there is no
one to use it … then a theory is worthless, or its time has not yet arrived” (DI, p. 208). A theory is
thus not worthwhile on its own, according to Deleuze. A theory should be connected to something
outside of it, and for which it fulfils a practical function. Deleuze, in this respect, also refers to the
relay: “Praxis is a network of relays from one theoretical point to another, and theory relays one
praxis to another. A theory cannot be developed without encountering a wall, and a praxis is
needed to break through” (p. 206). This means that there is no totalization between theory and
practice; new theories make new practices possible and vice versa, but the one does not determine
fully what the other looks like (ibid.).
Deleuze’s view on theory as a tool box or as an instrument that should be used, is inspired
by Proust’s view on his own books (DI, p. 208). Deleuze appropriates this view and uses it in order
to explain his view on what theory is. Although a theory should be used, this does not mean that
there is only one correct way to employ the theory. In fact, there are many different possible ways
to make use of a theory; the theory can be whatever one likes it to be. As Deleuze writes with
respect to Proust’s novels: “[It] is anything it may seem; it is even its very property of being
whatever we like, of having the overdetermination of whatever we like, from the moment it works”
(PS, p. 94, emphasis in original). The theorist does not prescribe how the theory should be utilized;
someone can employ the theory as he thinks fit. However, Deleuze emphasizes, if the theory is of
38
no value to the user, then one should not go back to this theory, but rather invent new ones (DI, p.
208).
If theories have to be used, and if there is not one correct way to use them, then one should
not try to interpret a theory or try to understand what the theorist had in mind when he developed
the theory. Another way of reading books of theory is needed in order to do justice to them.
Deleuze calls this an ‘intensive way of reading’, i.e. a manner of reading that is “in contact with
what’s outside the book … as a series of experiments for each reader in the midst of events that
have nothing to do with books” (N, pp. 8-9). A theoretical book should thus not be approached as
something that is sufficient in itself; it always has to connect with something that is external to the
book. A theory can, for example, be connected to political struggles that are going on, to social
transformations, etcetera, and form a ‘relay’ that allows for new practices to emerge (DI, p. 207).
How a book is used is thus not an intrinsic property of the book, but is determined ‘between’ the
book and its outside (cf. D, p. vii).
The intensive way of reading has as its correlate a view on what a book should be. If a book
is to be used to make a difference in the world, it should not be an image of the world; if a book is
thought of in this way, it merely invites an attempt to interpret the book in order to understand
the world (TP, pp. 3-5). According to Deleuze and Guattari, a book should rather be like a ‘rhizome’
(p. 5). A rhizomatic book does not represent the world, but rather forms a connection with it (p.
10). It does this by ‘mapping’ the world, rather than ‘tracing’ it. Tracing the world is the attempt
to mirror the world as it is, while mapping the world has to do with performance, with fostering
links between beings that had no connection before (pp. 11-12). Tracing is thus an activity that
has no effect on the world, but only creates the world’s double in the form of a representation,
whereas mapping changes the world by creating new connections (Oosterling, 2012, p. 191).
In this respect, Bell (2009) makes an informative comparison between Deleuze and
Latour. The existence of entities is not a matter of all or nothing; it is not the case that something
either exists, or does not exist (p. 137). Instead, it would be better to speak of the ‘relative
existence’ of entities, since entities will exist more fully if they can enter into relations with other
beings and hence can influence other entities to a greater extent (p. 138). In other words, by
creating new connections between beings, their power of acting is increased. For Deleuze, the use
of a book is only legitimate if it increases someone’s power of acting and does not separate him
from his power of acting; these are the ‘immanent criteria’ that distinguish between legitimate
and illegitimate uses of a book (AO, p. 132). (For an extensive discussion of Deleuze’s immanent
ethics, see Smith [2012, pp. 146-159].)
Theories thus should be useful, and they are only useful if they are connected to an outside.
The theorist does not prescribe how the theory should be used; everyone can employ the theory
39
as it suits him. However, the theorist does not develop a theory out of the blue; the theory has a
specific connection to the present. This is the point to which we will turn now.
Making a Difference in the Present
Although a theorist does not prescribe how a theory should be used, there are nevertheless some
things that can be said about the way in which a theory functions. Philosophy is the activity that
involves the creation of concepts, but concepts do not leave things as they are: “Concepts cut up
and combine the things corresponding to them in various and always new ways. They cannot be
distinguished from a way of perceiving things: a concept forces us to see things differently” (TRM,
p. 330). By forcing us to see the world in a different light, concepts make a difference in the
present.
Deleuze often emphasizes that philosophy is intimately connected to the present. Deleuze
discerns this also in concepts of other philosophers: in Péguy’s ‘Aternal’ and in Foucault’s ‘Actual’
(which should not be confused with the meaning that Bergson and Deleuze give to this term), but
most importantly in ‘the Untimely’ of Nietzsche (WP, pp. 111-113). Although Deleuze refers
regularly to the Untimely and mentions Nietzsche’s name in connection to it, Deleuze’s use of this
concept is not exactly the same as Nietzsche’s (Lundy [2009] provides a discussion regarding
Deleuze’s appropriation of this concept of Nietzsche). For Deleuze, acting in an untimely fashion
amounts to the following: “Acting counter to the past, and therefore on the present, for the benefit,
let us hope, of a future” (WP, p. 112). This future, however, does not refer to some moment or
period in a time to come, but rather to a becoming (ibid.). This means that the becoming which
Deleuze has in mind does not belong to history. Rather, becoming should be distinguished from
what happens in history: “Becoming isn’t part of history; history amounts only the set of
preconditions, however recent, that one leaves behind in order to ‘become’, that is, to create
something new” (N, p. 171). As we saw, something new is created through the process of
actualization, and this is what Deleuze has in mind when he refers to becoming (May, 2003, p.
148). Since actualization is an unpredictable process, Deleuze writes that the result of becoming
cannot be foreseen; therefore, becoming has to do with experimentation: “experimentation is
always that which is in the process of coming about—the new, remarkable, and interesting” (WP,
111). Experimentation does not take place in history; rather, history provides the “set of almost
negative conditions that make possible the experimentation of something that escapes history.
Without history experimentation would remain indeterminate and unconditioned, but
experimentation is not historical. It is philosophical” (ibid.). In this respect, it is helpful to think of
experimentation as a static genesis; just as the actualization of the virtual is something that
escapes from the interaction of actualized entities, experimentation is something that escapes
from history.
40
Deleuze thinks that the Untimely and experimentation belong to philosophy proper, and
the centrality of the presence therefore also informs his reading of other philosophers. This
becomes clear when Deleuze clarifies what it means to engage with Bergson’s philosophy.
Returning to Bergson “does not only mean a renewed admiration for a great philosopher but a
renewal or an extension of his project today, in relation to the transformations of life and society,
in parallel with the transformations of science” (B, p. 115). The same holds in the case of Nietzsche;
we should not ask what Nietzsche’s philosophy is, but what Nietzsche’s philosophy is today (DI, p.
252). The meaning of Nietzsche’s philosophy only becomes clear when it is related to an outside,
and since this outside does not stay the same all the time, Nietzsche’s philosophy itself also
undergoes changes, according to Deleuze (p. 256). Hence, reading philosophy is itself an
experimentation, turning it into something new and making it relevant to the present.
Why does Deleuze emphasize the importance of the present so much? Why should
philosophy be able to make a change in the current situation, rather than providing eternal truths
that are always valid and useful? It has to do with something that we have already discussed,
namely with the fact that thought is provoked by the sign. The sign disturbs the mind, makes that
something is experienced as problematic, and therefore demands a response. This is what
happens in a chance encounter. This encounter does not have to happen. It comes from the outside
and “does violence to thought” (PS, p. 62). This makes that something is experienced as
problematic. The problem, however, is relative to already existing solutions; as we saw, the light
problem changes as a result of earlier solutions (different eyes) to that same problem. Strictly
speaking, we should therefore not speak of the light problem, but instead of different problems
and thus of different signs that are encountered. Because of the dependence on earlier solutions,
one could say that our problems are the problems of our era; they could not have appeared in this
specific form at an earlier moment (cf. Patton, 2000, p. 21). Hence, we cannot take over a problem
as it was centuries ago. As Deleuze writes: “we have new problems to discover, instead of trying
to ‘return’” (TRM, p. 355).
It is by means of experimentation that it is possible to find answers to the problems that
one encounters. It is thus because of the fact that our problems belong to the present, that
philosophy, as a response to these problems, is also tied to the present. Furthermore, because a
problem only emerges as a result of a fortuitous encounter, not everyone in a current era
necessarily shares the same problem, and hence philosophical concepts do not appeal to everyone
equally. As Deleuze and Guattari express it: “one person’s creative line is the other’s
imprisonment” (TP, p. 240). It is also because of the fortuitousness of the encounter that Deleuze
does not want to prescribe how a theory should be used; someone might find a theory useful for
a problem, even when the theorist did not anticipate on this (cf. May, 1991, pp. 33-34).
41
An example of this form of philosophy, i.e., philosophy as a response to contemporary
problems, is provided by Anti-Oedipus, a book in which psychoanalysis is subjected to a harsh
critique. Deleuze writes the following about it:
Our outside … was a particular mass of people (especially young people) who are fed up
with psychoanalysis. They’re ‘trapped’, … because they generally continue in analysis even
after they’ve started to question psychoanalysis—but in psychoanalytic terms … The fact
that this current is there made Anti-Oedipus possible. (N, p. 8)
It is thus only in connection to an outside which is specific to a historical era, that philosophy fulfils
its untimely role. It is only in relation to people who are trapped in psychoanalysis, that Anti-
Oedipus fulfils its task. Deleuze and Guattari do not shy away from accepting the consequences
that follow from such a view on philosophy. At the end of Anti-Oedipus, after having spent a book
on criticizing psychoanalysis, they write: “If someone reading this book feels that things are fine
in psychoanalysis, we’re not speaking for him, and for him we take back everything we have said”
(AO, p. 431).
We have now seen that, according to Deleuze, philosophy provides theoretical tools that
can be employed if they suit the user, and left behind if they do not. Philosophy is tightly connected
to the present, because the problems to which philosophy responds, are also problems of the
present. We have not yet seen, however, in what way philosophy fulfils this function. This is the
concrete practice of philosophy, to which we will now turn.
Philosophy as the Creation of Concepts
For Deleuze, as we have already noticed, philosophy is the creation of concepts, but the
philosopher does not create concepts without any urgency. Rather, concepts are created out of
necessity, as a response to problems (N, p. 136; WP, p. 16). However, for Deleuze, as we have seen,
the necessity of finding a response to the problem emerges as a result of the fortuitous encounter
with a sign that disturbs the mind and “forces us to think” (PS, p. 12). Therefore, there is no
contradiction between the view that philosophy is the creation of necessary concepts, and the
claim that “philosophy does have a principle, but it is a synthetic and contingent principle—an
encounter, a conjunction. It is not insufficient by itself but contingent in itself” (WP, p. 93).
Furthermore, since history will always throw up new problems, the task of philosophy is never
finished. Therefore, it is useless, according to Deleuze, to speak of the death of philosophy (N, p.
136). The creation of concepts, as a response to new problems, is something that belongs to
philosophy and to philosophy alone (ibid.; WP, p. 33).
42
What is the concept, according to Deleuze? What is his conception of the concept? It is
important to emphasize that Deleuze’s understanding of concepts does not remain the same
during the development of his oeuvre (Bearn, 2000, pp. 443-444). In Difference and Repetition, for
example, the concept is the pendant of representation, and captures the presumed identities of
things (DR, p. 29; Groot, 2012, p. 115). In What is Philosophy? another conception of the concept
comes forth. Here, the concept no longer simply refers to a thing; rather, Deleuze and Guattari
write that the concept “has no reference: it is self-referential” (WP, p. 22, emphasis in original).
Hence, when Deleuze and Guattari use the concept of nomadism, they do not refer to actual
nomads in the same way as an anthropological study does (Patton, 2010, p. 35). On the other hand,
a concept should also not be confused with a metaphor. It is not the case that concepts are in some
respect comparable to the thing that they stand for: “In none of the cases are we making a
metaphorical use of it: we don’t say that is ‘like’ black holes in astronomy, that is ‘like’ a white
canvas in painting” (D, p. 14). Concepts should rather be understood as fictions; they are made,
not with the goal of being an accurate description of something, but in order to influence how
something is perceived (Patton, 2000, pp. 25-26; 2010, pp. 72-73). By coining new terms for, for
example, political events and social processes, philosophy is able to influence everyday life
(Patton, 2010, p. 73). Moreover, concepts do not remain the same all the time, since they enter
into relations and undergo resonances with other concepts; concepts, thus, are essentially mobile
(D, p. 108; N, p. 122; Patton, 2010, p. 32). An existing concept may thus become different when it
is related to a problem with which it did not have a connection before.
If philosophy is the creation of concepts that “have an impact on ordinary life, on the flows
of ordinary or day-to-day thinking” (TRM, p. 176), then the opposite of philosophy is thinking
always in the same way and along the same lines. Deleuze calls this opposite of philosophy
variously ‘stupidity’, ‘opinion’ or ‘cliché’ (e.g. DR, p. 151; WP, p. 150). When opinions and clichés
reign, there is no possibility of ever being disturbed by a problem, since everything that could
potentially disrupt day-to-day thinking is reduced to the familiar (Patton, 2000, p. 20; Smith, 2012,
p. 144). As we have seen, this is also a critique that Deleuze formulated against recognition, and it
is therefore no surprise that, according to Deleuze, opinion “is closely molded on the form of
recognition” (WP, p. 145). Philosophy can counter the threat of opinion to thought by creating
concepts, since “Concepts are what stops thought being a mere opinion” (N, p. 136). Concepts thus
are not merely a response to problems, but they also ensure that the problem develops its full
force and is not immediately rendered impotent by opinions and clichés (Smith, 2012, p. 136).
Because of the fact that a concept is unfamiliar, it cannot be led back to something that is
recognizable (N, p. 136). Now it is true that, after some time, newly invented concepts may become
clichés as well, thereby losing their power to make a difference in the present. However, new
problems will keep coming up and demand responses in the form of concepts. The fact that
43
concepts may lose their ability to have an effect on the present therefore merely means, according
to Deleuze, that philosophy has to continue its task of creating new concepts; it is in this way, that
philosophy “is by nature creative or even revolutionary” (ibid.).
Along these lines we can understand Deleuze and Guattari’s claim that “to create is to
resist” (WP, p. 110). By creating novel concepts, the ways of thinking that are suggested in the
present, are resisted. As Deleuze notes: “Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of
getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which
they might eventually find something to say” (N, p. 129). New concepts serve as a blockage for
opinions and clichés, and makes that their murmur is silenced. This ensures an open future, and
makes that philosophy aligns with the Untimely.
In this chapter Deleuze’s conception of philosophy has been discussed. He views philosophy as a
tool that should be employed by users to make a difference in the present. Philosophy achieves
this by creating concepts that are opposed to mere opinions, and which disturb day-to-day
thought.
It has been argued that Deleuze’s conception of philosophy follows from his project to
think difference in itself. Deleuze sees problems as the result of chance encounters with signs that
unsettle thought. Because of this, the problems that one encounters are always contemporary
problems; therefore, philosophy has an essential relation to the present. Moreover, not everybody
in a certain era has these encounters and hence experiences the same problems. Therefore,
Deleuze thinks that it is not a disqualification of philosophy if it does not serve everybody equally;
this simply follows from the fact that all do not share the same problems. Furthermore, Deleuze’s
conception of concepts as that which distorts opinion exhibits a continuation with his critique on
recognition. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze criticized recognition for not being able to think
difference in itself; in his later work, recognition is made impotent by the creation of unfamiliar
concepts that distort recognition’s functioning.
With this discussion of Deleuze’s conception of philosophy and its relation to Deleuze’s
project to think difference in itself, we now have all the elements to answer the questions that
were posed in the introduction. This will be done now, in the conclusion and the discussion.
44
6. Conclusion and Discussion
This thesis started with three issues that follow from Deleuze’s philosophy. The first issue dealt
with the status of Deleuze’s theses: are these claims the result of rigorous reasoning that can
convince his readers, or are they merely alternative visions that can be cherished if they please,
and be forgotten if they do not? The second issue focused on the validity of Deleuze’s philosophy:
is the validity of his philosophy tied to a certain historical era, or does it transcend the moment in
which it was written? The third and final issue focuses on the question of in what way Anti-Oedipus
and A Thousand Plateaus can be understood as books of political philosophy. Now, after having
discussed Deleuze’s endeavour to think difference in itself and how this relates to his conception
of philosophy, we are in the position to formulate answers to these three questions.
With respect to the first issue, we have seen that Deleuze tries to think difference in itself,
not just because it might be an interesting project, but because he discerns serious problems with
an ontology that reduces difference to a derivative of identity, and hence does not have a concept
for difference in itself. Without difference in itself, it is neither possible to explain how something
new comes into being, and neither is it possible to explain how actual thoughts come forth.
Deleuze argues that the inability to think difference in itself is a result of the demands of
representation. In order to overcome these problems, Deleuze developed the notion of the virtual
Idea, which contains differentials that only exist when they enter into a relation with each other.
The actualization of the virtual, however, is an unpredictable process, such that the problems with
which we are confronted are the result of chance. Concepts, which are responses to problems, are
thus only useful to those who have certain problems and can find a use for the tools that Deleuze
provides. Deleuze thus does not argue for the usefulness of these tools or for how they should be
used; if a concept resonates with the problems of its users, then these users themselves are able
to find employment for the concept and do not have to be convinced by Deleuze. Deleuze’s
pragmatic conception of philosophy, in which theory should be judged according to its usefulness
and where arguments do not play a central role, thus follows from Deleuze’s project to think
difference in itself and for which Deleuze does provide reasons that can convince his readers. The
absence in his later work of any attempt to convince his readers thus is a result of his earlier work,
which was characterized by argumentation.
Regarding the second issue, which deals with the historical relativity of Deleuze’s work,
we can make a similar distinction between Deleuze’s earlier and his later work. In Difference and
Repetition, Deleuze argued that problems are the result of chance encounters; therefore, some
problems can only occur at certain moments and at certain places. Hence, the usefulness of the
concepts that are a response to these problems, is also dependent on a historical period, and it is
therefore correct to speak of the historical relativity of Deleuze’s philosophy. On the other hand,
45
Deleuze has also argued that there necessarily is chance; since the process of actualization is an
unpredictable process, one cannot know in advance which problem will emerge. What problems
we will confront is thus the contingent result of fortuitous encounters; but it is necessary that
these problems will be the result of chance. The necessity of chance is something that is true for
every historical period. It is because of this thesis, which holds true for every historical era, that it
is necessary to create concepts whose usefulness is relative to a historical period.
It is thus necessary to make a distinction between Deleuze’s earlier work and his later
work, in order to appreciate the philosophy that he develops in both periods. If one would, for
example, read Difference and Repetition merely as an alternative view that can be used if it pleases
and forgotten if it does not, then one loses sight of the arguments that Deleuze puts forth in this
work. On the other hand, if one wants to be convinced of the usefulness of the concepts that
Deleuze develops in his later philosophy, one would end up disappointed, because he does not try
to convince the reader of their value. However, this pragmatism of Deleuze’s later work follows
from his earlier philosophy. The earlier work provides the necessity for a new image of thought,
but does not present this new image; the later work is an example of this new image of thought.
Both aspects of Deleuze’s philosophy become more unsettling when the continuity between them
is taken into account, and such an interpretation is therefore in line with Deleuze’s view on what
thought should be (cf. DR, pp. 135-136).
The third issue concerned the question of how Deleuze’s later philosophy can be
understood as an ethics and a political philosophy, since he does not provide concrete guidelines
for action, and neither formulates how an ideal society looks like. This should not be understood
as an omission, however. According to Deleuze, thought emerges as a result of fortuitous
encounter, and is hence tied to a historical period. The concept’s usefulness is therefore relative
to a historical period. This explains why Deleuze does not formulate rules or images of an ideal
society that have a universal validity. Deleuze’s philosophy is practical in a more specific way, in
the sense that it provides a way to deal with concrete problems. If these problems get a response
when a new concept is created that allows us to see the world in a new light, then the practical
use of philosophy should be sought in concrete situations; it should not be viewed as a way to deal
with abstract or universal problems.
Now that we have formulated answers to the three questions that were posed in the
introduction, we still need to reflect on two issues that were brought forth in the methodological
section. The first issue was whether Deleuze’s philosophy should be considered as a whole. As
was argued above, there should be made a distinction between Deleuze’s earlier and his later
work; nevertheless, a continuity can be discerned in his oeuvre. Deleuze’s conception of
philosophy as the creation of concepts that should have an impact on the present, follows from
46
his earlier philosophy. In this sense, Deleuze’s philosophy should be viewed as a whole, and not
as a composition of fragments that do not have a relation to each other.
The second issue to which we have to come back is whether the methodological choice, to
start off from Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself, is justified. Was it necessary to invoke
this endeavour to answer the questions that were posed in the introduction? In the above sections,
it was argued that, according to Deleuze, a philosophy that does not have a concept for difference
in itself does not succeed in explaining how new beings and new thoughts can emerge. From the
project to think difference in itself, several commitments followed for Deleuze. One of these was
that the problems with which thought is faced, are the result of chance encounters and dependent
on history. This accounts for the historical relativity of the concepts of Deleuze’s later philosophy,
and the absence of any attempt to convince his readers of the usefulness of these. However, the
fact that new beings and new thoughts emerge in this way is something that has a universal
validity, according to Deleuze, and makes that this transcends historical periods. In order to
provide an answer to the problems that were posed in the introduction, it was thus necessary to
take this detour along Deleuze’s attempt to think difference in itself.
In this thesis, it was argued that Deleuze’s philosophy gains in interest when the continuity
between his earlier and his later work is taken into account. With respect to the earlier philosophy,
the emphasis in this thesis was on Difference and Repetition, because of the focus on Deleuze’s
endeavour to think difference in itself. However, other continuities might have been discerned
when Deleuze’s Logic of Sense and his philosophy of language would have been the emphasis. How
this Deleuzian logic of sense functions in the later work that he produced in collaboration with
Guattari, is one of the aspects of Deleuze’s philosophy that deserves further exploration.
47
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