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Title: Difference and Repetition by Gilles Deleuze, Paul Patton ISBN: 0-231-08159-6 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Grounding a Philosophy of Difference
Comment: This is (arguably) the most important work written by Deleuze for a reason that seems to me is often obscured or merely forgotten: it is (maybe) the only work that seeks to lay the foundation for a systematic treatment of 'difference' and by ex-tension (or in-tension) 'repetition'. It does not seek to derive 'difference' and 'repetition' (simply) from identity and the in-dividual. It seeks to think of 'difference' and 'repetition' in themselves. And this is what is important here: thinking (and not some petty play of figures and words in the frontal attacks or soul mating with particular thinkers) in its rhizomatic form rather than its arborescent one.
What is therefore central in this work is 'idea', and (therefore) 'perception'. In simple terms, Deleuze has managed to provide us with some foundational links with the philosophies of mind, language and time (and moreover besides). He has given to the philosophy of difference a central and unifying role (across such and other disciplines) to play.
In this sense 'difference' and 'repetition' are not only (simply) linked between them (in the sense that one leads to the other), but also linked with other important notions usually discussed and developed in other (philosophical) disciplines. Let me provide some brief indications.
Chapter 1 is concerned with 'difference', not as mere 'diversity', 'otherness' or 'negation', bur rather as 'general' or 'specific' difference, where the latter refers to the moment when difference is reconciled with the concept in general. In this manner, Deleuze sees 'difference' as a concept of reflection in relation to 'representation' that involves 'movement'. He further discusses the notion of 'eternal return' and questions the adoption of a 'meta-viewpoint' for thinking about 'difference' and 'repetition' - the latter being the relation between originals and simulacra.
In chapter 2, Deleuze lays out the relation between (the dualities) 'repetition' and 'sensing', 'habit', and 'difference', under the guise that "difference inhabits repetition", in that it "lies between two repetitions" (p.76). He also makes the distinction between 'natural' and 'artificial' signs, hence the distinction between two types of 'difference', one being the expression of the other. In parallel, he distinguishes 'active' from 'passive' synthesis (relative to time) in that "the activity of thought applies to a receptive being, to a passive subject" (p.86). Finally drawing on Bergson, he distinguishes the 'real' centre from where emanates a series of 'perception-images' from a 'virtual' centre from where emanates a series of 'memory-images'.
Chapter 3 is for Deleuze the most important (sic) because the thinking of 'difference' and 'repetition' is based on a dogmatic image of thought characterised by eight postulates, each with a dual form, the artificial and the natural.
In Chapter 4, this duality underlies the development of the notion of 'idea' in that it is problematic, hence dialectical, an "n-dimensional, continuous, defined multiplicity" (p.182) in a 'perplication' as the distinctive and coexistent state of ideas. Each 'idea' is thus linked with 'difference' and 'representation' in that "the representation of difference refers to the identity of the concept as its principle" (p.178). In this manner he makes the claim for the superiority of problematic-questioning approach over the (traditional) hypothetico-apodictic approach because questions are imperatives.
Chapter 5 starts with the claim that "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" (p.222). Difference is therefore (a given) 'intensity' expressed as 'extensity'. There is 'depth' that unites intensity and extensity. Therefore, 'depth' is the intensity of being from where emerge at once extensity and the qualities of being. In this manner Deleuze accepts a dual condition of difference: one natural and one artificial.
In the concluding chapter Deleuze argues that 'representation' is a site of transcendental illusion which comes in four interrelated forms relative to 'thought', 'sensibility', 'idea' and 'being'. Hence the problematic of 'grounding' representation and his argument (or Idea) for 'groundlessness', and the justification of the use of (systems of) 'simulacra' as sites for the actualisation of ideas. Hence that of 'difference' and 'repetition' where the former is not only located between the levels and degrees of the latter, but also has two faces, namely, habit and memory.
Overall, despite the difficulty of the text itself as it takes for granted knowledge of the philosophies of some other thinkers (e.g. Bergson), it is a central text in the philosophy of difference and for just this reason, a text one must have read!
Rating: 5
Summary: Deleuze is a monster
Comment: Difference and repetition struck me as nothing I've ever read before has struck me. The fun thing about "reading" it, is that, when you think about it, the act of reading itself makes understanding parts of this work more clear. Reading this becomes a "machinic" activity as it were: immediate, affective, with its own unpredictability, with many gaps, moments of insight, despair, and so on. It seems contradictory, because I think it is the most rigorous and analytic of all of Deleuzes works. But it is immensely dense, as other reviewers also say.
It is certainly the crucial work in his oeuvre. Really if you have tried it a few times, you will notice that many ideas of his later work are based on the crucial notions of this grand exploration. Anti-Oedipe is such a delight to read and easy to understand after this one.
And I think it is good for those who want to approach Deleuze's thought, to start with the Anti-Oedipus and Mille Plateaux, then read some of the smaller and intensive works (What is philosophy, Leibniz et le Baroque). Then try this book. You will get many references and want to read all others once again.
It is clearly in this work that you will find the first monstrous and frontal attack against Hegel's dialectic. The fun thing is that this is a complete "anti-work". Every conceivable concept of modern philosophy (from the concept of "common sense", "history", or "being") gets an "anti", with which Deleuze consistently builds his grand idea of the immediate, the pre- or non-representational and the virtual--against any metaphysics. It is moreover his first, and I think also his last work where he builds his philosophy in a consistent manner.
After this one, I think he started exploring fragments of his thought more deeply, in his other works, which are derivatives so to speak. This is his goodbye to classic French philosphy (strong tradition of exploring the "history of philosophy") and his entrée into his own experimentation with the concepts he just developed.
To conclude, just some practical notes. The problem with the book is that, unlike his other works, you have to read all of it (because it is so consistent). This makes it a project for months, or even years. Good luck.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Deleuzian Century
Comment: The ontological relativity advocated here is inseparable from enunciative relativity. Knowledge of a Universe, Deleuze maintains, is only possible through the mediation of autopoietic machines. A zone of self-belonging needs to exist for the coming into cognitive existence of any being or modality of being. And it is the same for their enunciative coordinates. The relativity of points of view of space, time and energy does not, for all that, absorb the real into the dream. Residual objectivity is what resists scanning by the infinite variation of points of view constitutable upon it. Existential machines are at the same level as being in its intrinsic multiplicity. They are not mediated by transcendent signifiers or subsumed by a univocal ontological foundation. They are to themselves their own material of semiotic expression. Existence, as a process of deterritorialization, is a specific inter-machinic operation which superimposes itself on the promotion of singularized existential intensities. And, as Deleuze clearly shows, there is no generalized syntax for these deterritorializations. Existence is not dialectical, not representable.
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Title: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Brian Massumi ISBN: 0816614024 Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: December, 1987 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Logic of Sense by Gilles Deleuze, Constantin V. Boundas, Mark Lester, Charles Stivale, Charles Stivale ISBN: 0231059833 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Helen R. Lane, Robert Hurley ISBN: 0816612250 Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: July, 1985 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson, N. M. Paul, W. S. Palmer ISBN: 0942299051 Publisher: Zone Books Pub. Date: 08 November, 1990 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
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Title: Bergsonism by Gilles Deleuze, Hugh Tomlinson, Barbara Habberjam ISBN: 0942299078 Publisher: Zone Books Pub. Date: 08 November, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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