Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction

by Todd May

Other books have tried to explain Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), one of the twentieth century's most important and elusive thinkers, in general terms. However, Todd May organizes his introduction around a central question at the heart of Deleuze's philosophy: How might we live? He demonstrates how Deleuze offers a view of the cosmos as a living entity that provides ways of conducting our lives that we may not have even dreamed of.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, France, Unfinished

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Todd May was born in New York City. He is the author of 18 books of philosophy. He was philosophical advisor to NBC's hit sit-com The Good Place and one of the original contributors to the New York Times philosophy blog The Stone. Todd teaches philosophy at Warren Wilson College.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review I now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

170914: well now i have to reread those deleuze books i could not follow. because: this is fascinating. this even interests me in reading more nietzsche, as may contends deleuze operates a sort of holy trinity of thinkers: spinoza, bergson, nietzsche. or as they are foci of his radical new ontology(ies)- immanence, duration, affirmation... which leads not necessarily to 'truth' but through 'difference', to concepts that are remarkable, interesting, and important...

i must suggest this is definitely a good place to embark on unguided, unread, deleuze. it helps to have read entire histories of continental philosophers. and be prepared for everything to be up for reassessment...

the key abstract at the beginning of this work, is the question which occupies dz throughout his entire career: 'how might one live?' this is not a question that often comes to conscious mind, as we are so busy, so involved, in our daily projects, there is no time for introspection, or so we tell ourselves. if we are to ask this question, we are likely to confront this question in however many possibilities, and see how it has changed from the original greek project, to the modern formulation, in recognition that dz proclaims as, quoting spinoza: 'we do not know what a body is capable of'. for the ancient certainty of cosmological order reflected in human life, is transformed by the rise of individualism or subjectivity, and we are no longer seen to be necessarily following dictates of order, enforced values, of some god or sovereign. may refers to how this question is approached differently in the styles of philosophy known as analytic and known as continental, with the contention all of the latter must deal in some way with nietzsche's 'death of god'. there is the historical sense of this, the work of foucault in delineating structures of society, of discipline, in systems, in instituting, in finally resulting in the state. there is the linguistic sense of derrida, in which representational accuracy is known as truth, but representation is itself a question, for what you say, what you begin with, is perhaps not best conceived in static being but dynamic becoming- i love this stuff, this argument that it is in the very nature of language to think of 'representation' when the structuralists must confront the world that is the 'excess' and not the 'sign', but always already beyond our terms, our language..

once again it is an introductory work on a particular philosopher that is a favourite, though it only gives a sketch of dz, an idea of where he is going, and in this we begin with a philosopher whose entire metaphysics demonstrates immanence. and this immanence accounts for all that is, as described metaphorically by the folding and unfolding of an origami form, a swan perhaps, which has no dualism, no transcendence, no loss or gain of given style, yet it becomes the sculpture when handled correctly. this immanence is spinoza. as dz sees it, as dz mentions it, this is the first 'ontology of difference', this is against the 'transcendence' which western philosophy has long associated with god, previously and then integrated, with platonic 'forms', but this intends two substances, one which we sense in this world and one that is above, beyond, that determines, or founds metaphysics of all our thoughts, of sense or concepts. this is in what way 'immanence' is more elegant, more simple, even if it seems against the entire history of our attempts to connect the two substance ideas, whether we call it 'participation’ or 'manifestation'- there is instead one, one monad, a kind of being that is neither simply ideal or simply material. this is spinoza...

bergson, his concept of 'duration', is one i have read of in several books as it appeals to the artist, the 'idealist', the sensualist in me. duration is what makes spinoza's immanence work: time, not as a series of points, infinitely divisible, a linear form that tracks 'history' but not the ecstatic unity of time, before, after- as much as directions of a compass offer north, south, east, west, rather than before, beside, behind- time is not simply the passage of these homogeneous empty moments, time as heterogenous change of each unity, each tension, each spectrum, each duration. not just time as offered in clock or calendar, but time as lived. usually, in philosophy and life we think of those successive numbers, and a second is always the second on a clock face, such is the 'spatialized' conception of time. st augustine might have proclaimed time as a mystery beyond his thoughts to explain, but this is necessary to investigate, if we want to understand how immanence can change, how 'multiplicity', how 'quality', describe time rather than space. how the 'immanence' 'expresses' itself through 'duration'...

nietzsche, his eternal return, is the focus of dz and his concept of difference, in which it is 'return is the being which is affirmed in becoming'- it recalls n's challenge to the person, if her life was to recur without changes, could she say 'yes'? could she celebrate endlessly, and this is the 'affirmation' dz finds in nz. too often in traditional philosophy there is attention given only to being, where n emphasizes becoming, where the time of past, present, future, is entwined- this is nz’s contribution to this 'interesting, remarkable, important' ontology of dz...

i feel an unreasoned impatience with myself, as i enjoy this work greatly- i am reading it again- but would like to feel i can tell just how interesting are the problems of dz. the point is not to ask questions with the assurance of already knowing the answer, imparting 'knowledge' in its limited practical formula, the way we learn at school from the youngest child to university graduates- the point is to ask questions to spur 'thinking'. thought is the act of philosophizing, but dz never accepts a dialectical, argumentative, model as prevails in some styles of philosophy. he is interested in answering 'how we should live' on an alert, questioning, problem-offering level, and in this disregards those rules of logic to such an extent some insist he is not a philosopher at all. i would say that he is more. more than captured in our history or our language, forever to be thought of, forever to be questioning, no this is not remotely analytic... investigation of ontology is not a problem to be solved but an ambiguity to live...

this review has been only the first two chapters of the book, if you are not intrigued by now, i have failed to fully express the great pleasure here- though much of it may be his thought and not the book, and perhaps you should try this other, easier, introduction to dz.: Deleuze

as this is only the first third of the book, and being only the second work on d that i think to understand- i could mention the titles of next chapters: 3- thought, science, and language 4- the politics of difference 5- lives. and all this review has not yet mentioned one of his conceptual tools: planes, as in planes of immanence... difference? yes, it shows up everywhere. i do not know what professional philosophers, especially those of analytic style chasing something called 'truth' think of dz: all i know is that i find it engaging, fascinating, and of course remarkable, interesting, and important...

more
010220:
Deleuze
Nietzsche and Philosophy
What Is Philosophy?
Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts
Bergsonism
Bergson-Deleuze Encounters: Transcendental Experience and the Thought of the Virtual
Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception
Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy
Deleuze on Cinema

and of course, my interests in all philosophy- particularly phenomenology but now also deleuze, i describe here: The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science

[Paul Ataua · Rating 5 out of 5]

The problem with reading such a revolutionary thinker as Deleuze is that there is no easy way to get to get into him. I read this book about five years ago, and although I felt it gave me a basic understanding, it didn’t really clear up the complexities in his thought. After finishing it, I read Deleuze on Hume, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson as well as his extremely difficult ‘Difference and Repetition’ and ‘A Thousand Plateaus’. Finally I came back to reading this introduction. Lo and behold, it was a great asset that answered a lot of my residual questions. If you are in the middle of reading Deleuze and getting confused, this will really help.

[Ozgur Deniz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gündelik hayat eleştirisi , pratik akıl rehberi diye aldığım kitap , pandoranın kutusu çıktı. Deleuze dünyayı anlayışımıza bambaşka bir kapı açıyor, Todd May rahat bir dil ile deleuze'nin karmaşık kavramlarını bize sunuyor.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably clear and concise introduction to Deleuze's works, from one of the smartest writers on the topic.

[r0b · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very accessible exposition of an apparently very difficult philosopher. I might even try reading the man himself soon ;)
As far as Deleuze’s philosophy, the groundlessness, the openness to everything, perhaps even essenceless?....a very interesting approach to how we can see the world...however, I think I will stick to my Tibetan Buddhist weltanschauung.

[Awaz Mebashar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to an influential philosopher of the 20th century Deleuze. It was really helpful to me to understand some of his ideas without any background.




Deleuze creates a radically new ontology, Which inverts the traditional relationship between identity and difference. If ontological approaches are only about discoveries of what there is, the essential and unchanging nature with conceptual stability of identities. Then Deleuze embraced a new ontology, a totally new approach. Deleuze thinks nothing has a stable identity. For him the question of what there is? It is only one thing that is manifested “ difference “, it is not a difference between two identities, it is also not a thing but a process. it is an unfolding ( a folding, and a refolding) in a continuum manner. This ontology is not a prescription of how we should act or live, Nor about future possibilities but what he concerned was "what might living consist in”

Immanence, duration, affirmation: Spinoza, Bergson, Nietzsche. These are the parameters of an ontology of difference.

Spinoza uses the word immanence that God is manifested in the material world (monistic pantheism). Which is opposed to Transcendence . Transcendence requires the existence of at least two ontological substances, both are interacting and one is superior to the other, how do two different substances interact? That is not to worry about for Deleuze. There are three concepts which are entwined, the univocity of being, immanence, and expression. Being is univocal: there is no distinction between layers, levels, or types of being. But doesn’t univocity give self-sustained identity? That is where the concept of expression is required for “ difference”. Substance expresses itself in attributes, attributes are dynamic and active forms.
of which thought and extension are the only two accessible to human consciousness. Attributes, in turn, express themselves in the modes that are expressions or modifications of those attributes. There is no transcendence ( superiority) but only immanence. This is what makes Spinoza Christ of philosophers, and Bergson is the Father.

According to linear form of time , it is infinitely extended, no matter how much we go to the past, we will always find an instant before that. Same for the future. Bergson calls this “spatialized” because it is thought to be a container. Time is exterior to those things happening in it. There is also another form, a conception of time that was challenged in the 20 th century, first Husserl then by Heidegger and Sartre. The linear spatialized form is replaced by an existential form, according to this form, time is not a container that exists outside the human life rather it is something lived only afterwards given a linear form, and every instant of time is incorporated with other times(ex: past is incorporated with future). Both conception of linear and existential can’t be used for spinoza’s ontological immanence, for the former the substance is different from what it expresses, it is disconnected from expressing as if it one thing and in another time it is another thing, but the latter It is subjectively oriented, that the future are characterized by human plans and projects which denies multiplicity of the “one” in the question of how one might live. But for Bergson expression is temporal and temporality is itself temporal rather than spatial. That is what “Difference” requires the “Duration”. There are memories of our past, they are not actual like things happen in the present but they are real and virtual, As Deleuze says, the virtual actualizes itself, but it is not actual. The virtual past is there; it is not nothing. It is not the past of the linear conception of time. It is not an instant, or a thing. But it is there, in a different way from the way the present is there. So Immanence requires the virtuality of duration.

But what about the future? This question is answered by resourcing the third member of the Trinity: the Holy Ghost, Nietzsche.
Deleuze uses Nietzsche’s eternal return as a return of difference. There is nothing specific that has to be there in the future, but so much that can be. It is not the repetition of its actualizations, but by a difference that can never be brought fully into one’s grasp. He embraced becoming , creativity and affirmation of difference.



“Anything might happen,” not simply in the pedestrian sense that we cannot predict the future, but also and more deeply in the sense that the future itself is pure multiplicity. That is the throw of the dice. It is a chance”.

“To affirm is not to take responsibility for, to take on the burden of what is, but to release, to set free what lives. Toaffirm is to unburden: not to load life with the weight of higher values, but to create new values which are those of life, which make life light and active. There is creation, properly speaking, only insofar as we can make use of excess in order to invent new forms of life rather than separating life from what it can do''.

~Deleuze


These are main ideas of the first two chapters..

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong introduction to Deleuze. I particularly enjoyed the introduction to Deleuzian politics in chapter 4 which focuses on Deleuze's move towards a new political ontology which moves away from liberalism, but digs deeper than communitarianism towards a new political ontology which centre's around inclusion. The concept of "and...and...and..." where in liberalism/communitarianism the "either/or" is prominent. Earth, animal, AND, human are all important politial categories. None taking precedence or transcendence is given to any category.

[Anil Kahvecioglu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gilles Deleuze is not a philosopher that can be digested in a breeze not only because his philosophy touches upon miscellaneous fields, but also because his approach is a striking harvest of the philosophies which are the milestones of their epoch. Todd May’s Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction should be read as a different insight towards Deleuze which constitutes its framework around the question “how might one live?” and the study, no doubt, presents a productive discussion in order to answer this question.

It is always difficult to write a review for a book written on a certain philosopher or a certain tradition, as the main part of the book is reserved for the ideas of the philosopher/tradition and in many respects the author remains passive. For this reason, I will also strive to explain, as much as I know and can, Deleuze’s own arguments through May’s reading. The book contains several interesting detections concerning Deleuze such as ontology as a matter of creation instead of discovery which yields one with the opportunity to excess the limits of what is, which has not been identified yet. To put it another way, it provides one to consider not identity, but difference. As Deleuze puts it “difference is behind everything, but behind difference there is nothing.” (19) The most cardinal point here is, in my view, to understand creation within an immanentist ontology from which any sort of transcendental value is excluded. In effect, Deleuze’s endeavor, as Todd May underlines, is not to designate an ontology that seeks beyond what is. Ontology “speaks of what there is. But what there is cannot be identified.” (21) For Deleuze, the unidentification of what there is entirely stems from the assumption that what there is is nothing more than a difference. In this way, Deleuze does not concentrate on the question of absolute truth whose function is nothing but creating an insight about what there is, but rather focuses on the concepts of difference that motivates us to answer the question “how one might live.” (22) May argues that in such an ontology “we can discover our possibilities (...) by probing difference, seeing what new foldings, unfoldings, and refoldings it is capable of.” (25)

This introduction automatically entails a perscrutation to the philosophical background of Deleuze which finds itself, according to May, in three important figures: Spinoza, Bergson and Nietzsche and three concepts accordingly: immanence, duration and affirmation. (26) I think that the most powerful part of the book is May’s systematic reading of Deleuze in this context in which he traces the links between these figures and Deleuze. It is not possible to give here a detailed picture of May’s analysis. To put it all in simple terms, “immanence is the first requirement of an ontology of difference,” for what immanence is the very ground that vitalize Deleuze’s ontology. On the contrary, transcendence is what “freezes living, makes it coagulate and lose its flow.” (27) In other words, one might say that transcendence is what totalizes, completes and in the end what produces an identity. That is why “univocity of Being” is a necessary condition for an ontology, otherwise “transcendence will inevitably return to haunt the construction of any ontology.” (35) Deleuze himself stresses the importance of Spinozism, which “asserts immanence as a principle and frees expression from any subordination to emanative or exemplary causality... And such a result can be obtained only within a perspective of univocity.” (35) In brief, the ultimate conclusion is “there is no transcendence, only immanence.” (38) Properly speaking, after reading May’s analysis I discerned that Spinoza is not only the fundamental thinker that constitutes the very philosophical and political ground of Deluze, but Spinoza’s immanentism is like substratum of the very close links between him and Nietzsche.

Spinozist immanence is followed by Bergson’s duration. I have to admit that I could not comprehend this part very well most likely because my lack of knowledge pertaining to Bergson’s philosophy. Yet as far as I understood, May analyzes two different conceptualizations of time; one is linear, and the other one is existential. In linear time, objects occupy space, but never overlap. In other words, two objects cannot be in the same space and time. It is like Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction. In addition, in linear view, time is a container in which things happen. That is to say, time is always in the condition of subsuming the things that happen which validates the thesis that time is “transcendent to what happens.” (42) The second one, existential view, does not recognize time as a container, but rather grasps it as something which is lived that is followed by a linear form. On the one hand, linear time privileges the present, because time as a container involves things happening in the present in a non-contradictory way. On the other hand, according to existential stance, the present is meaningless without past and future, because what defines the present is the past and the future themselves. (43) May argues that these approaches are not convenient for Deleuze which puts Bergson’s duration onto the stage. Instead of accentuating only the Now, Deluze simply offers the coexistence of past and present from which the concept of virtuality is presented. “It is not an instant, or a thing. But it is there, in a different way from the way the present is there.” (48) May simply says that virtuality can be defined “as something that exists but not in actuality.” (48) In other words, the past through which virtuality manifests itself in the present as non-actual “exists within me, and appears at each moment I am engaged with the world.” (51) Considered in this respect, “the temporal character of Spinoza’s substance is beginning to come into view. Substance is duration, the virtual that is always there in all of its modes. Actualization is the ‘modalizing’ of the virtual, the folding, unfolding, and refolding of the virtual into modes. This actualization, this ‘modalization,’ is not making of one thing into another. It is not a creation or an emanation. It is a process in which substance expresses itself in the course of folding, unfolding, and refolding.” (52) According to Deleuze, the significance of duration underlies this reversal of the relationship between past and present: “We do not move from the present to the past, from perception to recollection, but from the past to the present, from recollection to perception.” (55)

Nietzsche is the last thinker that May scrutinizes on so as to complete his investigation. I personally think that the concept of affirmation is the most remarkable concept of the 20th century, specifically in terms of the political sphere. In my opinion, politics, radical politics in particular, has reshaped itself through affirmation by dislocating the idea of negation. We can observe a significant impact of the concept of affirmation in the philosophies of Deleuze, Foucault, Badiou or even Latour. May particularly focuses on the concept of eternal return, which is “the being of becoming itself, the being which is affirmed in becoming.” (59) As one might notice in the concept of difference, Deleuze is the thinker of becoming, not being. The univocity of Being always extends and renews itself; it is composed of multiplicities which “are the affirmation of unity.” (60) It is unity, because there is no place for a transcendent being in Deleuze’s philosophy that may interrupt the order of that unity. “There is no constant identity outside our world –no God, no laws of history, no goal- that dictates its character.” (60) In this context, eternal return always signifies the return of difference itself, not identity. If a unity is in question, it is the unity of difference, multiplicity. What should be affirmed is this difference which constitutes the very ground of immanent thinking. It is a simple yes to difference, to multiplicity, to the productive side of becoming rather than stability of being. There is no Nietzscheian resentment at stake. “To affirm is not to take responsibility for, to take on the burden of what is, but to release, to set free what lives. To affirm is to unburden: not to load life with the weight of higher values, but to create new values which are those of life, which make life light and active.” (65) To affirm is always to experiment. When you say yes, you find yourself in a bet that permanently maintains itself as an experiment.

Without doubt, May brilliantly explains Deleuze’s philosophy through a deep analysis of Spinoza, Bergson and Nietzsche which brings us to “The Politics of Difference”, the title of the fourth chapter. “The question for Deleuze, the political question, is whether we can think otherwise” May states. What one can clearly discern is that Deleuze’s concern is not macro, but micro; not molar, but molecular; not anthropocentric, but object-based. That May underscores quantum flows as striving to explain Deleuzian politics is quite interesting, as what I can see in the 20th century is a parallel development in philosophy, physics and mathematics. That is to say, it would not be wrong to assert that philosophical formulations are influenced by the developments in natural science at a great degree. Quantum flows, May argues, are “fluid identities that arise from a chaotic and often unpredictable folding, unfolding and refolding of matter. Micropolitics is not an issue of the small; it is an issue of quantum flows.” (127) Deleuze’s attention is not directed towards stable entities such as state or society, but rather he would like to deal with things remaining out of the boundaries of these static beings. The ultimate answer to the first question “how might one live?” is given at the end of this chapter by May: “Our task in politics is not to follow the program. It is not to draft the revolution or to proclaim that it has already happened. It is neither appease the individual nor to create the classless society. And it does not lie in the slogan “To the molecular, to the lines of flight.” Our task is to ask and answer afresh, always once more because it is never concluded, the question of how one might live. It is a question we ask and answer not solely with our words or our thoughts but with our individual and collective lives, in an experimentation that is neither guaranteed nor doomed but always in the process of becoming.” (153)

This is a brilliant introductory book for those who want to learn something about Deleuze’s philosophy and May presents not a sum of superficial arguments with respect to Deleuze, but a deep analysis, which does not choke within the complexity, but helps the reader to get into the depths of a Deleuzian life.

[Jonathan Karmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. How Might One Live?

Conformity is one way we might live. Foucault said we conform to things that have been determined historically, such as sexual normality. Derrida said we conform to things that have been determined linguistically. But suppose we stop trying to discover the truth and instead just try to be creative. Deleuze believed that philosophy is “the act of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts.” Concepts reach beneath the apparent world of stable identities and disrupts them. An ironing board is different from a shoe, but each moment offers the possibility of disrupting any given identity. “Thought” moves beyond “knowledge” to the difference that is beneath it.

A concept is not fiction when philosophy is not even seeking the truth. Deleuze believed that nothing has a stable identity, and we should think of everything as being different from itself. How should we live? Don’t conform to what you think is “true.” Instead, think differently in order to conceive new concepts about how to live that are Interesting, Remarkable and Important.

2. Spinoza, Bergson and Nietzsche: The Holy Trinity

(1) Baruch Spinoza effected Deleuze’s idea of immanence, which is basically the opposite of transcendence. Spinoza questioned the concept of a transcendent God, believing that God and Nature were of a single substance. Deleuze rejected the distinction between natural and supernatural, body and mind, and instead believed that life and death, creation and non-creation, identity and difference, are all part of a plane of immanence.

(2) Henri Bergson effected Deleuze’s idea of duration. There is no past; there is just a memory of the past in the present, which is “virtual,” not “actual.” But this virtual thing is “real.” In contrast, something that is just “possible” is not “real.” The “possible” and “real” have the same quality except for realness. The “virtual” and “actual” are both real even though in the present moment we only have direct access to what is actual. Our present exists in the context of our past. “The actualization of the past is the psychological moment.” Most ontologies lead to conformism, because they’re dominated by transcendence and spatiality. Deleuze, however, believes an ontology dominated by immanence and temporality can achieve something other than the withered task of ratifying the status quo.

(3) Friedrich Nietzsche effected Deleuze’s concept of the affirmation of difference. Nietzsche wrote about the “eternal return” of ourselves to the same, selfsame life, and Deleuze said there is no being, just becoming. Liberation, joy, creation and the affirmation of difference is the embrace of the eternal return.

If we refuse to ask how one might live, established values lead us to quiescence. Instead of being conformists, we should become different from ourselves by constantly embracing creativity.

3. Thought, Science, and Language

Thought, science and language are the mediums of the new conception that makes affirmation of difference possible. We can use these mediums to leave behind the “dogmatic image of thought.”

(1) Thought. The truth of statements is based on the stability of concepts; but what if there’s chaos to both the world and language? Stop searching for what is true; think differently. What is Interesting, Remarkable and Important? Good sense is rational and common sense allows us to get along in the world, but both lead to the deathly conformity of doxa (acceptance of the common opinion). We should reject the dogmatism of representational thought. Instead, seek out difference by believing in paradox, which is the stimulus to real thought and philosophy. A problem can be thought of as something other than a thing that needs a solution. Pure difference resists representation, but even if it cannot be experienced directly, if we palpate what we can experience, we can get a sense of the difference that lies below the surface.

(2) Science. According to Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation, things do not have stable identities; rather, they go through a never-ending ontological process of becoming. For example, identical twins have the same genes, but they become different because they individuate differently. The only being is the being of becoming. Science confirms this.

(3) Language. Language isn’t just logical; there is also sense. Sense is what happens at the point where language and world meet. For example, when a man walks into a bank and says “This is a stickup!” there is a “sense” that is more than the literal meaning of the words. There is also nonsense: a paradoxical element that both is and is not language, that both is and is not of the world. This is captured in the book Through the Looking Glass. True learning is not the transferring of dogma from teacher to student; but rather, it is experimentation that takes place in and through the unconscious.

4. The Politics of Difference (ideas created in collaboration with Felix Guattari)

Is there more to politics than representation of the interests of “individuals” who are governed? Michael Sandel, in Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, argues that people exist in connection with people and things outside of themselves; they are not merely separate individuals. The dogma is that individuals form governments to get what they lack. Deleuze believes in machinic thinking. The machinic concept is that there is an environment of interacting machines (systems) and human-machine systems, and perceptions only become intelligible in relation to them. Machines produce in a creative way; they are not trying to satisfy a desire by getting something they lack.

Something in the environment, like El Nino or polar bears, could be a political actor. Think about how Hurricane Katrina ended the era of George W. Bush and brought about the era of Barak Obama. Traditional political theory (capitalism, Marxism) only captures some aspects of our political experience. But think about the experience of nomads and minorities, who interact with the world outside of the realm of “conservatives” and “liberals.” Think about the Gathering of the Juggalos, the festival put on by the record label for Insane Clown Posse. It’s a politics that is about experimentation and creatively and finding new connections. Parts of individuals also can be political actors. For example, people lose themselves in erotic love not necessarily as complete individuals but also because of body parts.

5. Lives

John Coltrane was revolutionary because of the way that he created; he didn’t rebel against what already existed. In the 1950s and 1960s, urban renewal failed. Jane Jacobs knew that cities are machinic; they must be designed to allow the connection of many different aspects of human existence to create new things in unpredictable ways. People make different connections and these chance connections cause people to create in different ways. As Nietzsche advocated, we must embrace the throwing of the dice. Experiment. Throw the dice. Palpate difference. There is more, always more.

Heavy stuff. I think I got the gist of it, but I’m sure I didn’t fully understand it. To me, the most interesting concept is that perhaps the meaning of life does not come from belief in God or from the search for truth, but rather from the process of creativity. A person does not have a stable identity. Rather than looking for the “truth,” each person has a genius that is capable of generating new concepts that are Interesting, Remarkable and Important. Individuation is not about being ourselves; it is the never-ending process of becoming ourselves.

[Beril Evlimoğlu · Rating 4 out of 5]

we don't know what a body is capable of

[Oaker Thwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book!
It's very readable, hence I believe it's a legit 'introduction'.

This book is much about ontology,
because Deleuze builds his philosophical views based upon his ontology, but not a traditional ontology. Deleuze calls his ontology 'an ontology of difference'.

The major sources of inspiration for Deleuze were Spinoza, Bergson and Nietzsche (the holy trinity), and a contemporary philosopher, Gilbert Simondon. So, do u need to have an understanding of those philosophers in order to read this book, a Deleuze introduction?
No, it's quite the other way around. This book actually provides interpretations of some important concepts of those four philosophers, the ones Deleuze uses for his ontology. My favourite one would be that of the Eternal Recurrence of Nietzsche, as I always found that notion so obscure. Moreover, it also discusses existentialism, Platoism, Liberalism, Marxism and so on. The author also does Deleuzian analyses of some issues concerning politics (in addition to the chapter The Politics of Difference), science, music, love, and urban way of life. But the primary reason I like this book is ,of course, because I think Deleuze's philosophy itself is beautiful, insightful and resourceful.

So, I'd like to recommend this book to all my friends who's interested in theory. And I'm surely gonna re-read this in the future.

[sude · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is more, always more.

[Jeff Samuelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, well written intro on some difficult concepts

[Esmail Mahmoude · Rating 5 out of 5]

لا يوصف

[Sam Boone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dit kan nog weleens verregaande gevolgen hebben voor mijn leven.

[kombuchalamet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very accessible and helpful in guiding your journey with Deleuze

[Dara Ghaznavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my view about life! I do not claim to have been able to grasp all the technicalities of Deleuze's philosophy but his general approach towards life and thought was quite liberating for me.

[AvianBuddha · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The life of the individual gives way to an impersonal and yet singular life that releases a pure event freed from the accidents of internal and external life, from the subjectivity and objectivity of what happens: a ‘Homo tantum’ with whom everyone empathizes and who attains a sort of beatitude.”
- Giles Deleuze

Todd May has crafted an insightful introduction to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Given the complexity and breadth of Deleuze's work, I will provide a brief and concise summary of this summary here.

1. Immanence over Transcendence: Deleuze rejects the idea of a transcendent realm of forms or essences. Instead, he focuses on the immanence of the world, like Spinoza, where there is one substance always in a state of folding, unfolding, and refolding.

2. Difference and Identity: Deleuze argues that difference is more fundamental than identity. He views reality as fluid, continually shaped and reshaped by underlying differences, rather than as something fixed and unchanging.

3. Virtuality and Actuality: Deleuze distinguishes between the "virtual," a realm of real potentialities, and the "actual," what exists in our tangible experience. The virtual continuously unfolds into the actual through a process of differentiation.

4. Time and Becoming: Time, for Deleuze, is not linear but a complex interplay between past, present, and future. His concept of "Bergsonian duration" emphasizes the interconnection and continuous unfolding of time.

5. Anti-Representational Thought: Deleuze's thoughts on "sense" and "nonsense" challenge conventional categories of understanding, which he calls the "dogmatic image of thought". He sees paradox and contradiction as central to the creation of meaning.

6. "How might we live?": Deleuze encourages exploration and experimentation with different ways of living ("lines of flight"). He promotes novelty and non-conformity, reflecting his belief in a processual reality.

[maxyeote · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Philosophy creates concepts. It is concerned not with the truth but with the remarkable, the interesting, and the important."

a lucid and compelling introduction to gilles deleuze's philosophy. it's not possible to distill the work of a lifetime into a hundred and fifty pages, and this introduction doesn't try. however, it does provide some gesturing towards key themes and ideas in deleuze's work - particularly regarding his earlier readings of other philosophers like Nietzsche, Bergson, & Spinoza.

the book does feel a little out of its depth when it comes to its explanation of deleuze's later works with guattari - understandably so, since you could write several books about the concepts they introduce in Anti-Oedipus & A Thousand Plateaus. the treatment of ideas like lines of flight, molar segments, and the body without organs can be rushed. however, the book as a whole makes a clear case for deleuze as an ethical philosopher: not one who prescribes solutions to defined moral problems - an approach the author rightly criticises as short-sighted and impoverished - but one who confronts the question of "how might one live?"

i would unreservedly recommend this book to anyone interested in deleuze's thought and its wide-ranging implications for art, politics, science, and philosophy.

[John Cumming · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book cropped up on the Philosophise This! podcast series on Deleuze so I thought I’d give it a go. I can already feel a deep influence on my work as a coach resulting from reading this book and it feels exciting.

An ontology of difference rather than identity, his treatment of language as action, the present as actualisation of the virtual are all aspects of Deleuze’s work that are contributing to an approach to facilitating change in the extremely homeostatic organisations I seem to be attracted to.

I know Dave Snowden has trod similar ground and I don’t intend to align myself with that high level of intelligence, but I feel the excitement and potential that the exploration of the virtual could offer.

If you read it, the penny dropped in the last chapter, just don’t expect to be able to jump straight to it - you will miss the contents of the room that are lit up by that last chapter.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing and introduction to Deleuze is an extremely tricky task. The complexity and originality of his thought does often defy something like an introductory text, but Todd May does manage to sweep through the majority of Deleuze's core ideas in this very short volume. Perhaps the main criticism I would have of this book is it tries to incorporate too much and thus risks oversimplifying things to the extent that the ideas are not explored in enough depth to make them fully understandable. However, as an introductory text goes it's hard to see someone being able to get Deleuze's key ideas across in a more readable way. Overall recommended for anyone attempting to get an overview of Deleuze's project, but perhaps some of the introductions to Difference and Repetition might give a more detailed account of his philosophy in general.

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whilst i have little depth of knowledge of Deleuze, this felt like a good introduction for two reasons. It gave what I feel is a good sense of the approach of Deleuze and so provides a basis from which to begin an exploration of his work. It also provided an accessible exploration of some of the terminology he uses and how it fits together in Deleuze's work. Also helpful was the last chapter which draws on four concrete examples to show how what has come before can be applied to the particular. The reason I read this is because I was beginning a reading group with the Thousand Plateaus and having little experience in Deleuze's work I wanted something to give me a sense how he works... This very much provided it, I think, although I am now only into the second chapter of the Thousand Plateaus.

[Miguel DJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is somehow an incredibly lucid, readable summary of one of the most bonkers thinkers and chaotic thought-systems in history (yeah, yeah, technically GD's work doesn't form a system in the sense of totalizing structure. what-ever.) TM captures the beautiful and onto-experimental in Deleuzean thought more than the radical and political, but that works just fine for me.

[Robbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating.

And such an impressive feat to summarise ideas as difficult to convey as these in extremely clear language.

Gonna jump into some Deleuze now, I feel far more prepared than before.

[Zacki Kino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few books consume me the way this one did
To say that it blew my mind would be an understatement
İt's such a masterfully written introduction to deleuze that really gets you excited !
After all we don't even know what a body is capable of

[Cuồng Say]

here to more Deleuze in the future

[Dave Tilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent introduction to Deleuze.

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is jazz and time is a cone

[Cal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and clear introduction to a notoriously difficult thinker!

[Charlie Moll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good introduction to deleuze. I have already read a lot of deleuze’s work on it’s own but this very readable text helped to make a lot of connections between his different works.