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Spinoza e il problema dell'espressione
Le definizioni correnti della filosofia male si applicano a Spinoza: pensatore solitario e controverso, che concepisce la filosofia come un’impresa di liberazione e di demistificazione radicale, che ha equivalenti solo in Lucrezio o più tardi in Nietzsche. Il pensiero di Spinoza pone oggi questioni attualissime che riguardano il ruolo dell’ontologia (teoria della sostanza), dell’epistemologia (teoria dell’idea), dell’antropologia politica (teoria dei modi, delle passioni e delle azioni). L’oggetto di questo libro è di determinare il nesso fra queste tre dimensioni: l’affermazione speculativa o l’univocità dell’Essere nella teoria della sostanza; la produzione del vero o la genesi del senso nella teoria dell’idea; la gioia pratica o l’eliminazione delle passioni tristi, l’organizzazione selettiva delle passioni nella teoria dei modi. Queste tre dimensioni sono ordinate secondo un concetto sistematico, quello di espressione (la sostanza si esprime negli attributi, gli attributi si esprimono nei modi, le idee sono espressive).
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Gilles Deleuze
262 books2,619 followersDeleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.
Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.
He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.
Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.
He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 9, 2010
What a book!
First – the Ethics, written in 1677 is considered Spinoza’s magnum opus. Spinoza attempts to create a fully comprehensive, cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a coherent picture of reality and comprehend the meaning of an ethical life. It attempts to define the nature of God, the mind, human bondage to emotions, and the power of understanding – he says, ‘nothing is objectively good or bad but only appears so to those who do not understand the necessity of all events.”
Spinoza conceptualizes that God is completely indifferent to humans, and because of this there is not absolute conception of good or evil, hence there can be no objective ethics.
Spinoza does not conceive of God in some transcendent metaphysical realm beyond what constitutes the physical aspects of reality. His conception of God states that God is an immanent being, that is within the natural physical world. In fact, he writes the phrase ‘God or Nature’ to describe this phenomenon twice in the Ethics. God and the Natural World are one.
He takes this belief to the ultimate conclusion – God is Nature. Nature is made up of one substance, this substance is expressed in infinite variable attributes, and these attributes take on an infinity of modes. Spinoza says God is a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, each of which is infinite. God is expressed in nature, human beings are merely one variation of this one-substance.
In the sixth definition from the Ethics Spinoza says, “By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal infinite essence.” Each attribute expresses an infinite and eternal essence, an essence corresponding to a particular kind of attribute. Each attribute expresses the essence of substance, its being which grounds reality. Since the one substance is infinite, it is infinitely variable. This means this substance can be expressed in a multitude of ways, through an infinity of modes of expression. There is no end to the ways the infinite one substance (God/Nature) can be expressed.
What causes God? According to Spinoza – God is a ‘causa sui’, which means God is a ‘cause that causes itself’, nothing causes God to exist, it wills itself into existence, and since God is infinite it is not a ‘being’ at all, but an expression of an essence that constitutes the basis of all of existence. A human ‘thought’ is actually nothing more than an appropriation, or a making proper, a set of properties, that gel or focus into a subjective position, an ‘ego’ or the Cartesian Subject – “I think, therefore I am”.
In Spinoza’s philosophy, God does not care about ‘human beings’ and our wishes. People praying to have a favorable outcome for themselves is egotistical, and Spinoza would say this type of belief in God is quite childish. Instead, God is immanent within the natural world. God is expression, and life is infinite in its modes of expression. There are literally innumerable variations on how God’s power could conceive of itself, and find expression. God becomes viewed, not as an eternal judge, or lord hovering over us watching us, making us guilty for our sins, but as a ‘power’ an energy-force that exists within all life. In this sense, Power does not mean dominion, or domination, but force. Potenza (power over, power from ‘above’ as transcendent, or power as dominion) becomes rearticulated as potestas (the power to be, forceful living, living as creative expression that is empowered, power as immanence, that is, from within).
In Descartes one passes from the superiority of the cause (God creates us, we are subservient to the destiny laid out by God) to the superiority of certain forms of being over others – In Descartes, there is definitely authority – God or the Evil Demon has complete control over all aspects of reality, we are submissive to God in Descartes. In Spinoza, God plays a different role because Spinoza posits an equality of all forms of being. Spinoza posits an ‘immanence’ of being that is constituted by a unitary substance that connects all beings to one another. Spinoza is actually the world’s first communist – we are all equal because we are all created out of the same substance and we are all connected to each other through God – God is the source of this infinitely variable substance that connects all of existence. Spinoza is like Karl Marx and subsequent communist philosophers, like 20th century thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri, and to a lesser extent even Friedrich Nietzsche who was not a communist but who shared this belief - because Spinoza like them begins from a metaphysics comprised of equality and infinite difference. We are equal because the human essence can be expressed an infinity of different ways. Thus difference constitutes the basis of our equality, and the metaphysical ground of all of reality is constituted as a unifying-difference – we are all different, but the essence of nature links us all together because reality derives from one single substance – God. Reality is all just little pieces of God, mirroring back to us, reflected back to us, and human subjectivity is simply an awareness of this substance or a concealment of the substance, an extrication of our essence in knowledge or a retrieval of this essence through knowledge and self-mastery.
In Descartes, the dualism proposed by Descartes insinuates that the mind can become alien from the soul which inhabits the body. In Spinoza, this process cannot happen. For Spinoza there is no distinction between the mind and body – where Descartes worshipped two Gods the mind and the body, Spinoza only talks about one God – Spinoza was a monist. Where Descartes states – God exists because his idea is in us; and also because we ourselves, with our idea of God exist, therefore God must exist. Spinoza begins with an always already existing God. God is indifferent to us. Our ‘thoughts’ are not even brought into the equation. God consists of an equality of powers emanating from an always already existing force, from an infinite power of thinking to an infinite power of existing, which emanates directly from within existence, via the power of existing. Since God is immanent, within all of existence, this means God has only certain attributes. Spinoza claims that God does not have the attribute – movement, because that would imply there is somewhere God is not, yet he does claim that God can show the attribute – extension, since God’s modes of expression can forever diversify, grow, and multiply through infinite variations of differential ontology (being of beings).
Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible – there is no such thing as an ‘infinite number’, numbering involves separation of each thing, whereas infinity is innumerable because by definition infinity is everything, everywhere, it is by definition all things, hence it is not a thing at all, but a force, hence Spinoza describes God as infinite and indivisible.
Existence in Spinoza is extension, a plurality of parts. The nature of existence is plurality and Spinoza says it is defined by a certain relationship between motion and rest. The nature of reality is that ontology (being) is dynamic, differential, and constantly changing. Thus, the differential dynamic constitutes the basis of what philosophers call a ‘physics of power’ – actions are always defined by their correlative reactions. The world is a modality, seen in the indefinite movement of various causalities, causes and effects, and the movement of the mind (subjectivity) is an internal and simultaneous determination of an infinite power (God).
Spinoza explains this process by saying – “An affect that is called a passion of the mind is a confused idea, by which the mind affirms of its Body or some part of it, a greater or lesser force of existing than before, which when it is given, determines the Mind to think of this rather than that.” This constitutes the end of Part 3 of the Ethics, which poses Subjectivity as a constitutive element of being. What appears to be ‘spontaneous’ thinking, is actually a result of a complex set of power relations that underlie the nature of reality...
First – the Ethics, written in 1677 is considered Spinoza’s magnum opus. Spinoza attempts to create a fully comprehensive, cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a coherent picture of reality and comprehend the meaning of an ethical life. It attempts to define the nature of God, the mind, human bondage to emotions, and the power of understanding – he says, ‘nothing is objectively good or bad but only appears so to those who do not understand the necessity of all events.”
Spinoza conceptualizes that God is completely indifferent to humans, and because of this there is not absolute conception of good or evil, hence there can be no objective ethics.
Spinoza does not conceive of God in some transcendent metaphysical realm beyond what constitutes the physical aspects of reality. His conception of God states that God is an immanent being, that is within the natural physical world. In fact, he writes the phrase ‘God or Nature’ to describe this phenomenon twice in the Ethics. God and the Natural World are one.
He takes this belief to the ultimate conclusion – God is Nature. Nature is made up of one substance, this substance is expressed in infinite variable attributes, and these attributes take on an infinity of modes. Spinoza says God is a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, each of which is infinite. God is expressed in nature, human beings are merely one variation of this one-substance.
In the sixth definition from the Ethics Spinoza says, “By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal infinite essence.” Each attribute expresses an infinite and eternal essence, an essence corresponding to a particular kind of attribute. Each attribute expresses the essence of substance, its being which grounds reality. Since the one substance is infinite, it is infinitely variable. This means this substance can be expressed in a multitude of ways, through an infinity of modes of expression. There is no end to the ways the infinite one substance (God/Nature) can be expressed.
What causes God? According to Spinoza – God is a ‘causa sui’, which means God is a ‘cause that causes itself’, nothing causes God to exist, it wills itself into existence, and since God is infinite it is not a ‘being’ at all, but an expression of an essence that constitutes the basis of all of existence. A human ‘thought’ is actually nothing more than an appropriation, or a making proper, a set of properties, that gel or focus into a subjective position, an ‘ego’ or the Cartesian Subject – “I think, therefore I am”.
In Spinoza’s philosophy, God does not care about ‘human beings’ and our wishes. People praying to have a favorable outcome for themselves is egotistical, and Spinoza would say this type of belief in God is quite childish. Instead, God is immanent within the natural world. God is expression, and life is infinite in its modes of expression. There are literally innumerable variations on how God’s power could conceive of itself, and find expression. God becomes viewed, not as an eternal judge, or lord hovering over us watching us, making us guilty for our sins, but as a ‘power’ an energy-force that exists within all life. In this sense, Power does not mean dominion, or domination, but force. Potenza (power over, power from ‘above’ as transcendent, or power as dominion) becomes rearticulated as potestas (the power to be, forceful living, living as creative expression that is empowered, power as immanence, that is, from within).
In Descartes one passes from the superiority of the cause (God creates us, we are subservient to the destiny laid out by God) to the superiority of certain forms of being over others – In Descartes, there is definitely authority – God or the Evil Demon has complete control over all aspects of reality, we are submissive to God in Descartes. In Spinoza, God plays a different role because Spinoza posits an equality of all forms of being. Spinoza posits an ‘immanence’ of being that is constituted by a unitary substance that connects all beings to one another. Spinoza is actually the world’s first communist – we are all equal because we are all created out of the same substance and we are all connected to each other through God – God is the source of this infinitely variable substance that connects all of existence. Spinoza is like Karl Marx and subsequent communist philosophers, like 20th century thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri, and to a lesser extent even Friedrich Nietzsche who was not a communist but who shared this belief - because Spinoza like them begins from a metaphysics comprised of equality and infinite difference. We are equal because the human essence can be expressed an infinity of different ways. Thus difference constitutes the basis of our equality, and the metaphysical ground of all of reality is constituted as a unifying-difference – we are all different, but the essence of nature links us all together because reality derives from one single substance – God. Reality is all just little pieces of God, mirroring back to us, reflected back to us, and human subjectivity is simply an awareness of this substance or a concealment of the substance, an extrication of our essence in knowledge or a retrieval of this essence through knowledge and self-mastery.
In Descartes, the dualism proposed by Descartes insinuates that the mind can become alien from the soul which inhabits the body. In Spinoza, this process cannot happen. For Spinoza there is no distinction between the mind and body – where Descartes worshipped two Gods the mind and the body, Spinoza only talks about one God – Spinoza was a monist. Where Descartes states – God exists because his idea is in us; and also because we ourselves, with our idea of God exist, therefore God must exist. Spinoza begins with an always already existing God. God is indifferent to us. Our ‘thoughts’ are not even brought into the equation. God consists of an equality of powers emanating from an always already existing force, from an infinite power of thinking to an infinite power of existing, which emanates directly from within existence, via the power of existing. Since God is immanent, within all of existence, this means God has only certain attributes. Spinoza claims that God does not have the attribute – movement, because that would imply there is somewhere God is not, yet he does claim that God can show the attribute – extension, since God’s modes of expression can forever diversify, grow, and multiply through infinite variations of differential ontology (being of beings).
Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible – there is no such thing as an ‘infinite number’, numbering involves separation of each thing, whereas infinity is innumerable because by definition infinity is everything, everywhere, it is by definition all things, hence it is not a thing at all, but a force, hence Spinoza describes God as infinite and indivisible.
Existence in Spinoza is extension, a plurality of parts. The nature of existence is plurality and Spinoza says it is defined by a certain relationship between motion and rest. The nature of reality is that ontology (being) is dynamic, differential, and constantly changing. Thus, the differential dynamic constitutes the basis of what philosophers call a ‘physics of power’ – actions are always defined by their correlative reactions. The world is a modality, seen in the indefinite movement of various causalities, causes and effects, and the movement of the mind (subjectivity) is an internal and simultaneous determination of an infinite power (God).
Spinoza explains this process by saying – “An affect that is called a passion of the mind is a confused idea, by which the mind affirms of its Body or some part of it, a greater or lesser force of existing than before, which when it is given, determines the Mind to think of this rather than that.” This constitutes the end of Part 3 of the Ethics, which poses Subjectivity as a constitutive element of being. What appears to be ‘spontaneous’ thinking, is actually a result of a complex set of power relations that underlie the nature of reality...
April 2, 2021
This is the second time I've read this book. The first time this book really influenced my thinking, but I was a little less clear about some of the nuances. This time around I see how deeply mathematical Deleuze can get, even though he isn't explaining his concepts in the framework.
All the same, Deleuze is a pretty dry read -- I used to be so bedazzled by his concepts. The way in which he expresses himself is fairly straightforward, but like his other book on Spinoza (practical philosophy) this book is both deeply philosophical AND talks about lived life experience, something that many philosophers/philosophies often cannot achieve as they sacrifice one for the other. Deleuze is able to navigate both. In the cannon of Deleuze books this one is often over looked -- but here he gets into how to consider the relationship of actual/virtual in terms of active/passive -- and how the organization of forms in our everyday life experience/awareness is in fact given in these relationships as they occur to us, and necessarily influence us.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but if you are in the midst of studying Deleuze, I would say this is the way to go -- a must read.
All the same, Deleuze is a pretty dry read -- I used to be so bedazzled by his concepts. The way in which he expresses himself is fairly straightforward, but like his other book on Spinoza (practical philosophy) this book is both deeply philosophical AND talks about lived life experience, something that many philosophers/philosophies often cannot achieve as they sacrifice one for the other. Deleuze is able to navigate both. In the cannon of Deleuze books this one is often over looked -- but here he gets into how to consider the relationship of actual/virtual in terms of active/passive -- and how the organization of forms in our everyday life experience/awareness is in fact given in these relationships as they occur to us, and necessarily influence us.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but if you are in the midst of studying Deleuze, I would say this is the way to go -- a must read.
January 10, 2018
คิดว่า Deleuze เป็นนักปรัชญาคนหนึ่งที่อ่านตัวบทได้ดี เช่นเดียวกับเล่มที่เขียนเกี่ยวกับค้านท์ เล่มนี้เดอเลอสเขียนเกี่ยวกับสปิโนซ่าด้วยท่าทีที่เคร่งครัดต่อแนวคิดของสปิโนซ่าเอง
June 14, 2019
A brilliant book. Fascinating exposition of Spinoza's philosophy as well as one of the keys to understanding Deleuze's later works.
Read
January 2, 2023I finally fuckin' finished it. Goddamn, that took a long-ass time. Good book.
March 6, 2023
spinoza dijo en las próximas páginas me basaré
Read
December 26, 2008I think this is the first book of strict philosophy I have ever read. I was really impressed by the structure of logic constructed to create a whole framework of perception. There were hardly any analogies at all, just pure explanation of Spinoza's ideas. A seemingly full proof of the immanence but not emanence of G-d and the purpose of creation as an expression of His mysterious and emotionless Will. Also, a proof for the purpose of existence as making connections to the unity of Being and the joy that creates.
What could be more important than having a proof for finding expressive joy?
Maybe just laughing....
I AM READING IT AGAIN it is a tough and fascinating book.
I finished it again, I think I have a better handle on the relationships between Substance, attributes, and modes. Attempting to apply this philosophy to life is fun but I am unclear if I really "get it". I am still figuring out what exactly for myself would be passive and active affections.
What could be more important than having a proof for finding expressive joy?
Maybe just laughing....
I AM READING IT AGAIN it is a tough and fascinating book.
I finished it again, I think I have a better handle on the relationships between Substance, attributes, and modes. Attempting to apply this philosophy to life is fun but I am unclear if I really "get it". I am still figuring out what exactly for myself would be passive and active affections.
May 14, 2025
Molt i molt bo. Em sembla que Leibniz és d’aquells filòsofs —molt— difícilment accessibles si no és a través d’un comentador, i la feina que fa aquí Deleuze és descomunal: no sols observa la totalitat dels textos de Leibniz, sinó també bona part de les interpretacions que se n’han fet per, alhora, establir un nou Leibniz més coherent, amb un parentesc clar tant amb Spinoza i Descartes com, en termes del concepte d’esdeveniment, Whitehead. Diria que és —hehe— el millor dels accessos possibles a Leibniz. Quinze classes a seguir, prenent apunts, en quinze dies. Oh, com estima una el geni de Deleuze, capaç fins i tot d’ordenar, de crear un cosmos en el caos del pensament alliberat i sense constriccions de Leibniz.
“Para nosotros siempre hay momentos deliciosos en la filosofía, y uno de los más deliciosos es cuando la punta extrema de la razón, el racionalismo llevado hasta el final de sus consecuencias, engendra y coincide con una especie de delirio, que es un delirio de la locura. En ese momento asistimos a esta especie de cortejo, de desfile, esas nupcias donde la misma cosa es lo más racional, lo racional llevado hasta el extremo de la razón, y es el delirio, pero el delirio de la locura más pura.“
“Para nosotros siempre hay momentos deliciosos en la filosofía, y uno de los más deliciosos es cuando la punta extrema de la razón, el racionalismo llevado hasta el final de sus consecuencias, engendra y coincide con una especie de delirio, que es un delirio de la locura. En ese momento asistimos a esta especie de cortejo, de desfile, esas nupcias donde la misma cosa es lo más racional, lo racional llevado hasta el extremo de la razón, y es el delirio, pero el delirio de la locura más pura.“
July 11, 2022
Dudo que alguien haya escrito o escriba jamás una obra sobre Spinoza de estas características. A veces resulta indigesta y produce jaquecas pero es magistral
November 27, 2025
For me, it is the first book by Deleuze that I have read from the first to the last page. I had already studied Spinoza some years ago, and I do think that one needs some understanding of Spinoza’s Ethics and of his conception of monism before reading this book. It is probably the only way to grasp the true meaning of univocity, which forms the basis of Deleuze’s entire philosophical project (TBD).
It is a systematic reconstruction of the Spinozist system around a single guiding idea: EXPRESSION (or UNIVOCITY as Univocity can only be expressed!). And as a Philosophy of pure Affirmation (p.60)
Although Deleuze’s book is highly technical, especially in its treatment of Scholastic distinctions, it offers a powerful lens through which to understand Spinoza as a philosopher of univocity, immanence, and expression.
Probably this is a one sentence conclusion: “Real knowledge is discovered to be a kind of expresssion, which is to say both that the representative content of ideas is left behind for an immanent one, which is truly expressive, …” p.326
How can we understand UNIVOCITY? This is well explained in the first chapters.
Substance (infinite essence) expresses itself in its attributes but Substance is not the expression of this essence itself (it only expresses!)
==> Or: This infinite essence is not visible/representational as such; Substance expresses itself in /via the attributes (Attributes are the Expression of the Essence but not the Essence itself!) and finally attributes express themselves in modes (Multiplicity)
==> These expressions form the architecture of an immanent ontology that resists both representational thought and transcendence. This provides a key for understanding Deleuze's Difference and Repetition and his ontology of the virtual /actual/plane of immanence.
Note : the concept of attributes are not used in Difference and Repetition but it is not necessary to understand the concept of UNIVOCITY as such.
----------------------------------------------------
Some personal notes:
1. Substance as Pure Essence: Expression Before Existence
From the very beginning, Deleuze insists that substance is pure essence = pure expressing, that is, natura naturans. As he writes:
“Substance, first of all, expresses itself in itself.” (p. 185)
This means that substance is not a substrate/something solid but an activity, a dynamic essencing (natura naturans). While Natura naturata = the produced (modes).
This reading is crucial to understand Deleuze’s inversion of the usual metaphysical hierarchy.
• Substance = pure infinite, eternal essence (its essence necessarily includes existence as causa sui)
• Attributes = expressions of essence, not the essence itself (hence univocity and parallelism/monism; cf. Chapter VI)
• Modes = the expressed, existence as the unfolding (explication) of essence, they are in their turn expressive. 'Whatever exists expresses the nature or essence of God in a certain and determinate way" (that is in a certain mode)' (quoting Ethics I.36, pp. 14-15)
Attributes do not emanate from substance (as in Plotinus, NeoPlatonism); they are not second-order effects or degradations of the One.
“The attributes are not emanations, but expressions.” (p. 182)
This distinction destroys any possibility of a Neoplatonic descent/degradation. There is no overflowing of unity (the One) into multiplicity (the Many), instead, substance is univocal: one essence expressed in many formally distinct ways.
The One is expressed in the Many, and the Many returns to the One as expressions of essence. For this reciprocal movement Deleuze uses Leibnizian terms as follows:
==> From One to Many = unfolding/explication
==> From Many to One is enfolding/enveloping.” (see introduction and first chapter)
This means attributes express essence and simultaneously 'attribute’ essence as belonging to substance. Expression is reciprocal.
This movement of unfolding (explication) and enfolding (envelopment) anticipates Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz in The Fold though I have not yet read that text, you already sense the direction it will take:
- Leibniz = the fold, the differential, the baroque
- Spinoza = expression, univocity, immanence.
See also Translator notes in preface!
Multi-PLI- city = PLI (French) in the middle means FOLD ==> link to impliquer, multiple, complicate, or in latin: implicare - and in english: envelope, imply, explicate, explicit ....
2. Formal Distinction, Not Numerical Distinction
As in Difference and Repetition Deleuze relies heavily on the medieval idea of a formal distinction (from Duns Scotus' Haecceitas). This allows real differences within substance without dividing substance numerically which otherwise should implicate a relationship in a representational model (larger, bigger, smaller, … than ... - relationships) and which contradicts with the vision of unique singularities.
Attributes express essence formally, not numerically.
“.. the really distinct attributes constitute the essence of an absolutely single substance.” (p. 182)
"Substance is not like a ONE from which there proceeds a paradoxical distinction; attributes are not emanations. The unity of substance and the distinction of attributes are correlates that together constitutes expression. The distinction of attributes is nothing but the qualitative composition of an ontologically single substance; ... Before all production there is thus distinction, but this distinction is also the composition of substance itself ...." ( P.182)
“Attributes are for Spinoza dynamic and active forms.” (p. 45)
“Each attribute expresses an essence, and attributes it to substance.” (p. 45)
==> short: "The unity of Substance and the distinction of Atrributes are correlates that together constitute Expression" (p. 182)
Singularity (substance) and multiplicity (modes) are correlates within expression taken as a whole.
Mode-production occurs through differentiation:
"The production of modes, it is true, take place through differentiation." (P.182-183)
Thus:
In contrast to Neoplatonism (emanantion) there is no Hierarchy anymore: difference can still exist, while keeping the equality of being.
Now we can make a link with immanence:
“A cause is immanent, on the other hand, when its effect is "immanate"in the cause, rather than emanating from it. What defines an immanent cause is that its effect is in it .." (P.172)
==> the many things can exist and are part of the One in such a way that their differences can continue to exist without subordinated to the one. There is no superior ONE.
There is no degradation (emanation, neoplatonism) or a difference with a ideal form and is copies (platonism)
3. Modes as Expressive Actualizations "Substance expresses itself to itself" (P.185)
“Substance re-expresses itself, attributes in their turn express themselves in modes.” (p. 185)
“All modes are thus expressive, as are the ideas corresponding to these modes.” (pp. 185–186)
“God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence.” (p. 193, quoting Ethics I.25, probably the essence of Deleuze's Thinking of Univocity)
4. Common Notions, Adequate Ideas, and how to get access to the Third Kind of Knowledge
Common notions are nor the essence itself nor abstract representations: they are the relations (representations) through which essence is grasped from the point of view of finite human minds.
We must pass through common notions to reach the idea of the third kind.
The Three Kinds of Knowledge
1. Imagination – inadequate ideas
2. Reason – common notions → adequate ideas
3. Intuition – direct grasp of singular essences/ highest form of reason
Common notions and adequate ideas
• Common notions belong to the second kind of knowledge (reason).
• Adequate ideas increase our power of action.
• They are recognized through joyful active affects.
Active joy differs from passive joy:
• Passive joy: an external increase of power without understanding.
• Active joy: an increase of power produced by adequate understanding.
==> 1/ As human we are condemned to the first kind of knowledge = Imagination which leads to inadequate ideas (and Sadness)
==> 2/ Common notions are linked to second form of knowledge (reason): adequate ideas increase our power of action (and Joy)
==> How can we detect them? by the affect of joyful passion (Active Affection)
• we experience a joyful passion
• because joy = increase in power (‘an active joy always follow from what we understand’, cf. P.286)
• and adequate ideas are active, not passive
• as we make connections, there is an accumulation of ideas: " a mind that forms an adequate idea is the adequate cause of the ideas that follow from it (Ethics, III.3)
• As a result: passion disappears
Note: Joyfull passion - Active Joy is not the same as Passive Joy which is produced by an object that agrees with us, and whose power increases our power of action, but of which we do not have (yet) an adequate idea in us. They only agree with reason. Active joy, however, arises from the formation of adequate ideas themselves.
==> How do we arrive at Adequate ideas? By Common Notions: see Chapter 17.
Adequate ideas: "An adequate idea is just an idea that expresses its cause" (P. 133), it must ‘explicate' that essence, it is an expressive idea (cf. 133)
With common notions we are talking here about resemblances, common properties as part of the second kind of knowledge: analogy, similarity or community as composition.
" ... common notions are ideas that are formally explained by our power of thinking and that, materially, express the idea of GOD as their efficient cause. ... they necessarily "involve" God's essence. "(P. 279, refering to Ethics, II.45)
"... When we form a common notion our soul is said "to use reason": we come into the possession of our power of action and understanding, we become reasonable beings. ". 3. A common notion is our first adequate idea. But whatever it be, it leads us directly to another adequate idea"... (P. 280)
"An adequate idea is expressive, and what it expresses is the essence of GOD. Any common notion gives us direct knowledge of God's eternal infinite essence ..." (p. 280)
(we are not speaking about general properties /predicates or adjectives)
==> this "expressed essence" is the key to understanding Deleuze’s concept of Univocity/Difference/transcendental empirism.
We could consider common notions as something still belonging to representational thinking, preconceived concepts,etc. but this could leads to inadequate ideas and passions (first type of knowledge). These common notions belong to the 'body' or to all bodies in the case of the most universal notions..... but that is here not the case:
" we come into our power of action on the level of the "least universal": we accumulate passive joys, finding in them an opportunity to form common notions, from which flow active joys ....There is a whole learning process involved in common notions ..." (P. 288)
Spinoza 's very universal ideas are: the ideas of extension, movement and rest since they apply to all existing bodies. (cf. P.296)
"For a common notion is an adequate idea; an adequate idea is an idea that is expressive; and what it expressed is God's very essence. The relation of the idea of God to common notions is thus one of expression. Common notions express God as the source of all constitutive relations of things ... they do so "accompanied by the idea of God." (P. 297)
==> Common notions are not the ESSENCE itself but are a consequence of it, the common notions are just a bridge.
==> As such we can only grasp Nature/God's Essence in the "expression" of the individual Modi/things.
"And God is himself free of passions: he feels no passive joy, nor any active joy of the type that presupposes a passive joy." (p. 297 refering to Ethics V 17 -1 9)
==> 3/ How this brings us to the third kind of knowledge - the leap?
This points toward the third kind of knowledge/intuition in which:
• we do not know a mode through concepts/representations
• but we intuit its singular essence as an expression of the divine essence
• "Common no longer means more general, that is applicable to several existing modes, or to all existing modes ... Common means UNIVOCAL". (p. 300)
• "... Ideas of the second kind are defined by their general function: they apply to existing modes and gives us knowledge of the composition of the relations ... Ideas of the third kind are defined by their singular nature; they represent God's essence and give us knowledge of particular essences as these are contained in God himself ... We begin by forming common notions that express God's essence"(P.300-301)
• "An essence does, it is true, express itself in a relation, but it is not the same as that relation. "(P.312)
• "In itself the essence is a degree of power or intensity, an intensive part." (P.312)
• "If an idea in God expresses the essence of this or that body, it is because God is the cause of essences; it follows that an essence is necessarily conceived through its cause" (p. 312)
"Real knowledge is discovered to be a kind of expression: which is to say both that the representative content of ideas is left behind for an immanent one, which is truly expressive, ..." (p.326)
This closes the loop between Deleuze's concept of univocality, the horizontal (no hierarchy) plane of immanence, singularity, and of course Difference and Repetition..... and this can also be linked with Deleuze’s transcendental empirism.
I see also a link to link with Iain Hamilton Grant using Deleuze en Schelling and Plato's Timaeus for whom the world is not constructed as a copy of forms, rather Forms are invisible structures, a generative principle, an ordering/causal framework of immanent natural laws (i.e the VIRTUAL in Deleuzian terms)
Thus : adequate ideas connect ethics with ontology: to understand is to participate in the expressive nature of substance.
This is the meaning of sub specie aeternitatis, which Deleuze explicates beautifully. See next.
5. Sub Specie Aeternitatis: Expression Under the Form of Eternity
See translator notes p. 404:
in French: "Sous l'espèce de l'éternité"==> species can be translated in a technical (subdivison of genus) or in an informal way (viewpoint)
In old Dutch translations it is translated as "gedaante", species are rendered by 'vertoning'/repraesentamen/representation
For Dutch speakers:
the word "express" in older Dutch translations has various synonyms: uytdrukken, uytbeelden, vertoonen — all echo the idea of expression. (see page 15)
To express is In French = s'exprimer: this is a reflexive verb and means: what (actively) expresses itself or what is (passively) expressed. (see translater notes p.404)
Deleuze says that to see 'sub specie aeternitatis' is:
• not to contemplate a transcendent realm
• but to perceive the expressive order of substance directly in the singular
• We think as God thinks (cf. p. 308)
This is a moment where Deleuze clearly prepares the vocabulary of Difference and Repetition:
• the singular
• the difference
• the expressive
• the virtual
• the actual
To know something under the species of eternity is to grasp the virtual essence that actualizes itself in its determinate modal reality.
It is a systematic reconstruction of the Spinozist system around a single guiding idea: EXPRESSION (or UNIVOCITY as Univocity can only be expressed!). And as a Philosophy of pure Affirmation (p.60)
Although Deleuze’s book is highly technical, especially in its treatment of Scholastic distinctions, it offers a powerful lens through which to understand Spinoza as a philosopher of univocity, immanence, and expression.
Probably this is a one sentence conclusion: “Real knowledge is discovered to be a kind of expresssion, which is to say both that the representative content of ideas is left behind for an immanent one, which is truly expressive, …” p.326
How can we understand UNIVOCITY? This is well explained in the first chapters.
Substance (infinite essence) expresses itself in its attributes but Substance is not the expression of this essence itself (it only expresses!)
==> Or: This infinite essence is not visible/representational as such; Substance expresses itself in /via the attributes (Attributes are the Expression of the Essence but not the Essence itself!) and finally attributes express themselves in modes (Multiplicity)
==> These expressions form the architecture of an immanent ontology that resists both representational thought and transcendence. This provides a key for understanding Deleuze's Difference and Repetition and his ontology of the virtual /actual/plane of immanence.
Note : the concept of attributes are not used in Difference and Repetition but it is not necessary to understand the concept of UNIVOCITY as such.
----------------------------------------------------
Some personal notes:
1. Substance as Pure Essence: Expression Before Existence
From the very beginning, Deleuze insists that substance is pure essence = pure expressing, that is, natura naturans. As he writes:
“Substance, first of all, expresses itself in itself.” (p. 185)
This means that substance is not a substrate/something solid but an activity, a dynamic essencing (natura naturans). While Natura naturata = the produced (modes).
This reading is crucial to understand Deleuze’s inversion of the usual metaphysical hierarchy.
• Substance = pure infinite, eternal essence (its essence necessarily includes existence as causa sui)
• Attributes = expressions of essence, not the essence itself (hence univocity and parallelism/monism; cf. Chapter VI)
• Modes = the expressed, existence as the unfolding (explication) of essence, they are in their turn expressive. 'Whatever exists expresses the nature or essence of God in a certain and determinate way" (that is in a certain mode)' (quoting Ethics I.36, pp. 14-15)
Attributes do not emanate from substance (as in Plotinus, NeoPlatonism); they are not second-order effects or degradations of the One.
“The attributes are not emanations, but expressions.” (p. 182)
This distinction destroys any possibility of a Neoplatonic descent/degradation. There is no overflowing of unity (the One) into multiplicity (the Many), instead, substance is univocal: one essence expressed in many formally distinct ways.
The One is expressed in the Many, and the Many returns to the One as expressions of essence. For this reciprocal movement Deleuze uses Leibnizian terms as follows:
==> From One to Many = unfolding/explication
==> From Many to One is enfolding/enveloping.” (see introduction and first chapter)
This means attributes express essence and simultaneously 'attribute’ essence as belonging to substance. Expression is reciprocal.
This movement of unfolding (explication) and enfolding (envelopment) anticipates Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz in The Fold though I have not yet read that text, you already sense the direction it will take:
- Leibniz = the fold, the differential, the baroque
- Spinoza = expression, univocity, immanence.
See also Translator notes in preface!
Multi-PLI- city = PLI (French) in the middle means FOLD ==> link to impliquer, multiple, complicate, or in latin: implicare - and in english: envelope, imply, explicate, explicit ....
2. Formal Distinction, Not Numerical Distinction
As in Difference and Repetition Deleuze relies heavily on the medieval idea of a formal distinction (from Duns Scotus' Haecceitas). This allows real differences within substance without dividing substance numerically which otherwise should implicate a relationship in a representational model (larger, bigger, smaller, … than ... - relationships) and which contradicts with the vision of unique singularities.
Attributes express essence formally, not numerically.
“.. the really distinct attributes constitute the essence of an absolutely single substance.” (p. 182)
"Substance is not like a ONE from which there proceeds a paradoxical distinction; attributes are not emanations. The unity of substance and the distinction of attributes are correlates that together constitutes expression. The distinction of attributes is nothing but the qualitative composition of an ontologically single substance; ... Before all production there is thus distinction, but this distinction is also the composition of substance itself ...." ( P.182)
“Attributes are for Spinoza dynamic and active forms.” (p. 45)
“Each attribute expresses an essence, and attributes it to substance.” (p. 45)
==> short: "The unity of Substance and the distinction of Atrributes are correlates that together constitute Expression" (p. 182)
Singularity (substance) and multiplicity (modes) are correlates within expression taken as a whole.
Mode-production occurs through differentiation:
"The production of modes, it is true, take place through differentiation." (P.182-183)
Thus:
In contrast to Neoplatonism (emanantion) there is no Hierarchy anymore: difference can still exist, while keeping the equality of being.
Now we can make a link with immanence:
“A cause is immanent, on the other hand, when its effect is "immanate"in the cause, rather than emanating from it. What defines an immanent cause is that its effect is in it .." (P.172)
==> the many things can exist and are part of the One in such a way that their differences can continue to exist without subordinated to the one. There is no superior ONE.
There is no degradation (emanation, neoplatonism) or a difference with a ideal form and is copies (platonism)
3. Modes as Expressive Actualizations "Substance expresses itself to itself" (P.185)
“Substance re-expresses itself, attributes in their turn express themselves in modes.” (p. 185)
“All modes are thus expressive, as are the ideas corresponding to these modes.” (pp. 185–186)
“God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence.” (p. 193, quoting Ethics I.25, probably the essence of Deleuze's Thinking of Univocity)
4. Common Notions, Adequate Ideas, and how to get access to the Third Kind of Knowledge
Common notions are nor the essence itself nor abstract representations: they are the relations (representations) through which essence is grasped from the point of view of finite human minds.
We must pass through common notions to reach the idea of the third kind.
The Three Kinds of Knowledge
1. Imagination – inadequate ideas
2. Reason – common notions → adequate ideas
3. Intuition – direct grasp of singular essences/ highest form of reason
Common notions and adequate ideas
• Common notions belong to the second kind of knowledge (reason).
• Adequate ideas increase our power of action.
• They are recognized through joyful active affects.
Active joy differs from passive joy:
• Passive joy: an external increase of power without understanding.
• Active joy: an increase of power produced by adequate understanding.
==> 1/ As human we are condemned to the first kind of knowledge = Imagination which leads to inadequate ideas (and Sadness)
==> 2/ Common notions are linked to second form of knowledge (reason): adequate ideas increase our power of action (and Joy)
==> How can we detect them? by the affect of joyful passion (Active Affection)
• we experience a joyful passion
• because joy = increase in power (‘an active joy always follow from what we understand’, cf. P.286)
• and adequate ideas are active, not passive
• as we make connections, there is an accumulation of ideas: " a mind that forms an adequate idea is the adequate cause of the ideas that follow from it (Ethics, III.3)
• As a result: passion disappears
Note: Joyfull passion - Active Joy is not the same as Passive Joy which is produced by an object that agrees with us, and whose power increases our power of action, but of which we do not have (yet) an adequate idea in us. They only agree with reason. Active joy, however, arises from the formation of adequate ideas themselves.
==> How do we arrive at Adequate ideas? By Common Notions: see Chapter 17.
Adequate ideas: "An adequate idea is just an idea that expresses its cause" (P. 133), it must ‘explicate' that essence, it is an expressive idea (cf. 133)
With common notions we are talking here about resemblances, common properties as part of the second kind of knowledge: analogy, similarity or community as composition.
" ... common notions are ideas that are formally explained by our power of thinking and that, materially, express the idea of GOD as their efficient cause. ... they necessarily "involve" God's essence. "(P. 279, refering to Ethics, II.45)
"... When we form a common notion our soul is said "to use reason": we come into the possession of our power of action and understanding, we become reasonable beings. ". 3. A common notion is our first adequate idea. But whatever it be, it leads us directly to another adequate idea"... (P. 280)
"An adequate idea is expressive, and what it expresses is the essence of GOD. Any common notion gives us direct knowledge of God's eternal infinite essence ..." (p. 280)
(we are not speaking about general properties /predicates or adjectives)
==> this "expressed essence" is the key to understanding Deleuze’s concept of Univocity/Difference/transcendental empirism.
We could consider common notions as something still belonging to representational thinking, preconceived concepts,etc. but this could leads to inadequate ideas and passions (first type of knowledge). These common notions belong to the 'body' or to all bodies in the case of the most universal notions..... but that is here not the case:
" we come into our power of action on the level of the "least universal": we accumulate passive joys, finding in them an opportunity to form common notions, from which flow active joys ....There is a whole learning process involved in common notions ..." (P. 288)
Spinoza 's very universal ideas are: the ideas of extension, movement and rest since they apply to all existing bodies. (cf. P.296)
"For a common notion is an adequate idea; an adequate idea is an idea that is expressive; and what it expressed is God's very essence. The relation of the idea of God to common notions is thus one of expression. Common notions express God as the source of all constitutive relations of things ... they do so "accompanied by the idea of God." (P. 297)
==> Common notions are not the ESSENCE itself but are a consequence of it, the common notions are just a bridge.
==> As such we can only grasp Nature/God's Essence in the "expression" of the individual Modi/things.
"And God is himself free of passions: he feels no passive joy, nor any active joy of the type that presupposes a passive joy." (p. 297 refering to Ethics V 17 -1 9)
==> 3/ How this brings us to the third kind of knowledge - the leap?
This points toward the third kind of knowledge/intuition in which:
• we do not know a mode through concepts/representations
• but we intuit its singular essence as an expression of the divine essence
• "Common no longer means more general, that is applicable to several existing modes, or to all existing modes ... Common means UNIVOCAL". (p. 300)
• "... Ideas of the second kind are defined by their general function: they apply to existing modes and gives us knowledge of the composition of the relations ... Ideas of the third kind are defined by their singular nature; they represent God's essence and give us knowledge of particular essences as these are contained in God himself ... We begin by forming common notions that express God's essence"(P.300-301)
• "An essence does, it is true, express itself in a relation, but it is not the same as that relation. "(P.312)
• "In itself the essence is a degree of power or intensity, an intensive part." (P.312)
• "If an idea in God expresses the essence of this or that body, it is because God is the cause of essences; it follows that an essence is necessarily conceived through its cause" (p. 312)
"Real knowledge is discovered to be a kind of expression: which is to say both that the representative content of ideas is left behind for an immanent one, which is truly expressive, ..." (p.326)
This closes the loop between Deleuze's concept of univocality, the horizontal (no hierarchy) plane of immanence, singularity, and of course Difference and Repetition..... and this can also be linked with Deleuze’s transcendental empirism.
I see also a link to link with Iain Hamilton Grant using Deleuze en Schelling and Plato's Timaeus for whom the world is not constructed as a copy of forms, rather Forms are invisible structures, a generative principle, an ordering/causal framework of immanent natural laws (i.e the VIRTUAL in Deleuzian terms)
Thus : adequate ideas connect ethics with ontology: to understand is to participate in the expressive nature of substance.
This is the meaning of sub specie aeternitatis, which Deleuze explicates beautifully. See next.
5. Sub Specie Aeternitatis: Expression Under the Form of Eternity
See translator notes p. 404:
in French: "Sous l'espèce de l'éternité"==> species can be translated in a technical (subdivison of genus) or in an informal way (viewpoint)
In old Dutch translations it is translated as "gedaante", species are rendered by 'vertoning'/repraesentamen/representation
For Dutch speakers:
the word "express" in older Dutch translations has various synonyms: uytdrukken, uytbeelden, vertoonen — all echo the idea of expression. (see page 15)
To express is In French = s'exprimer: this is a reflexive verb and means: what (actively) expresses itself or what is (passively) expressed. (see translater notes p.404)
Deleuze says that to see 'sub specie aeternitatis' is:
• not to contemplate a transcendent realm
• but to perceive the expressive order of substance directly in the singular
• We think as God thinks (cf. p. 308)
This is a moment where Deleuze clearly prepares the vocabulary of Difference and Repetition:
• the singular
• the difference
• the expressive
• the virtual
• the actual
To know something under the species of eternity is to grasp the virtual essence that actualizes itself in its determinate modal reality.
December 8, 2025
Voto basso in quanto è stata per me una lettura faticosa e lenta, spesso con passaggi e analisi che non ho avuto la volontà di leggere con la dovuta attenzione e studiare.
pag.40 _______________________________
___________________________________
FROM BOOK: Baruch Spinoza e l'Olanda del Seicento (Steven Nadler)
pag.40 _______________________________
È sorprendente la facilità con la quale si è diffusa la convinzione che i profeti sapessero tutto ciò che è accessibile all'umano intelletto: e benché alcuni passi della Scrittura ci dicano nel modo più chiaro che i profeti ignorano certe cose, si preferisce dichiarare di on riuscire a comprendere questi passi, piuttosto di riconoscere che i profeti hanno ignorato qualcosa, oppure ci si sforza di modificare a tal segno le parole della Scrittura da far dire ad essa quel che proprio non vuol dire.
___________________________________
FROM BOOK: Baruch Spinoza e l'Olanda del Seicento (Steven Nadler)
October 30, 2023
This Spanish language edition, produced in Buenos Aires, is the faithful translation of two of Deleuze's seminars: the complete 1980 5 session on Leibniz, from mid April to mid May, and part of the last Deleuze seminar, on Leibniz and the Baroque, with 10 of the total 20 sessions included in that seminar (see deleuze.cla.purdue.edu for the complete listing.
For the 1980 sessions, the translations of the 5 sessions are fairly complete. As for the 10 sessions included here from 86-87, the editors truncate the 27 Jan 1987 session significantly, first by dropping Deleuze’s description of Leblanc’s novel, and then completely eliminating the intervention on singularities by Marek, Deleuze’s colleague in the math dept.; all the others are fairly well translated except for occasional closing comments. However, the final two sessions deserve attention: the 17 May 1987 session omits the opening minute with Richard Pinhas’s brief intervention, and then just as occurs in the transcript from WebDeleuze, this translation ends just shy of minute 92, thus omitting 42 minutes from the end of the session. As for the 24 May session, only brief exchanges are omitted, but it would seem that this is the seminar's final session, which is not the case since Deleuze has a working session on 2 June with presentations by musicologists on the theme of harmony
For the 1980 sessions, the translations of the 5 sessions are fairly complete. As for the 10 sessions included here from 86-87, the editors truncate the 27 Jan 1987 session significantly, first by dropping Deleuze’s description of Leblanc’s novel, and then completely eliminating the intervention on singularities by Marek, Deleuze’s colleague in the math dept.; all the others are fairly well translated except for occasional closing comments. However, the final two sessions deserve attention: the 17 May 1987 session omits the opening minute with Richard Pinhas’s brief intervention, and then just as occurs in the transcript from WebDeleuze, this translation ends just shy of minute 92, thus omitting 42 minutes from the end of the session. As for the 24 May session, only brief exchanges are omitted, but it would seem that this is the seminar's final session, which is not the case since Deleuze has a working session on 2 June with presentations by musicologists on the theme of harmony
July 3, 2021
This is such a brilliant book that shares a lot with Deleuze's book on Nietzsche, although this seems to stand up more as an objective piece of historical philosophical scholarship.
November 20, 2025
this book made me religious
December 22, 2025
Da ganas de devorarse y perderse en los laberintos leibnizianos con la cual, cumple el cometido propuesto para este seminario. Uno de los más disfrutables de Deleuze sin lugar a dudas
September 23, 2008
This is Delueze's interpretation of Spinoza's major work Ethics. Of interest to Deleuze are the questions what does the body do and how do actions determine emotions.
July 24, 2010
How many times can I see God referred to in first person singular - as "He" ... otherwise Deleuze is great, as usual.
February 27, 2019
“no one has yet determined what the body can do” (Spinoza 1959:87).
The capacity of a body is never defined by a body alone but is always aided by a field or context of force relations. Secondly, this is not yet knowing of the body, is still prevalent 330 years after Spinoza composed ethics. Affect, the potential to 'affect' others' potential: lives in the body’s capacity to affect and be affected. Affect is understood as a form of thinking, but often is indirect and non-reflective (Thrift 2008). The intensive capacities of a body to affect (through an affection) and be affected (as a result of modifications). There are at least five different attempts to engage with affect as diffuse intensities, however this work will focus on Gilles Deleuze’s reworkings of Spinoza understanding engagement with nonrepresentational theory spotlighted the term ‘affectus’ in Spinoza’s work, showcased through the quote “The ethical question falls then, in Spinoza, into two parts: How can we come to produce active affections? But first of all: How can we come to experience a maximum of joyful passions?” (Deleuze 1990).
During the time of Spinoza’s writing, affect was considered an alternative to emotion or feeling. This was the key principle that phenomenology was based on, however this presupposes a shared model of experience, it is thus intentional and subject based. It misses the inhuman or nonhuman experience such as the experience of animals, nonorganic life, and even future experiences for which in this model there is no appropriate image. Spinoza describes the affectus as both body and thought, as the modifications of the body by which power and action of the body increases or diminishes, and the idea of these modifications (ethics III). Therefore, affect increases the capacity for the body and the mind to act, and therefore detaches the emotions from responses and inserts them into actions as the “affections of substance” (Thrift 2008: 178). The production of ‘affections’ has enabled social sciences to distinguish between affects and emotion and feeling, and through this fracture can be described as impersonal or pre-personal, as they do not necessarily belong to subjects inhabiting but can be between spaces and interpreted subjects and interpreted objects (Gregory et al. 2009). Deleuze (1990) argues through his reading of Spinoza, that no one can know the affects one is fully capable of, and therefore he argues that you do not know beforehand what you are good and capable of, and what the body and mind can do, and therefore affects are “the non-human becomings of man”.
The capacity of a body is never defined by a body alone but is always aided by a field or context of force relations. Secondly, this is not yet knowing of the body, is still prevalent 330 years after Spinoza composed ethics. Affect, the potential to 'affect' others' potential: lives in the body’s capacity to affect and be affected. Affect is understood as a form of thinking, but often is indirect and non-reflective (Thrift 2008). The intensive capacities of a body to affect (through an affection) and be affected (as a result of modifications). There are at least five different attempts to engage with affect as diffuse intensities, however this work will focus on Gilles Deleuze’s reworkings of Spinoza understanding engagement with nonrepresentational theory spotlighted the term ‘affectus’ in Spinoza’s work, showcased through the quote “The ethical question falls then, in Spinoza, into two parts: How can we come to produce active affections? But first of all: How can we come to experience a maximum of joyful passions?” (Deleuze 1990).
During the time of Spinoza’s writing, affect was considered an alternative to emotion or feeling. This was the key principle that phenomenology was based on, however this presupposes a shared model of experience, it is thus intentional and subject based. It misses the inhuman or nonhuman experience such as the experience of animals, nonorganic life, and even future experiences for which in this model there is no appropriate image. Spinoza describes the affectus as both body and thought, as the modifications of the body by which power and action of the body increases or diminishes, and the idea of these modifications (ethics III). Therefore, affect increases the capacity for the body and the mind to act, and therefore detaches the emotions from responses and inserts them into actions as the “affections of substance” (Thrift 2008: 178). The production of ‘affections’ has enabled social sciences to distinguish between affects and emotion and feeling, and through this fracture can be described as impersonal or pre-personal, as they do not necessarily belong to subjects inhabiting but can be between spaces and interpreted subjects and interpreted objects (Gregory et al. 2009). Deleuze (1990) argues through his reading of Spinoza, that no one can know the affects one is fully capable of, and therefore he argues that you do not know beforehand what you are good and capable of, and what the body and mind can do, and therefore affects are “the non-human becomings of man”.
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