Out of This World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation

by Peter Hallward

Gilles Deleuze was one of the most influential French philosophers of the last century.This book aims to make sense of his fundamental project in the clearest possible terms, by engaging with the central idea that informs virtually all of his the equation of being and creativity. It explores the various ways in which, in order to affirm an unlimited creative power, Deleuze proceeds to dissolve whatever might restrict or mediate its expression, including the organisms, objects, representations, identities, and relations that this power generates along the way.

Rather than a theorist of material complexity or relational difference, Out of this World argues that Deleuze is better read as a spiritual and extra-worldly philosopher. His philosophy leaves little room for processes of social or historical transformation, and still less for political relations of conflict or solidarity.

Michel Foucault famously suggested that the 20th century would be known as ‘Deleuzian’; this sympathetic but uncompromising new critique suggests that our Deleuzian century may soon be coming to a close.

Genres: Philosophy

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2006

Reviews

[Taneli Viitahuhta · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had read only one book on Deleuze, and if it had been this, I had been lucky. Unfortunately, I have read many pop philosphy, art/sound etc. books that are Deleuzian, and they all shrink in shame next to Hallward's appreciative yet critical introduction to Deleuze. The book is a gem.

Best thing is that Hallward has an argument: Deleuze's philosophy is about creation, absolute creation, creation that is "out of this world", otherworldly, transcendent. Painstakingly Hallward puts the pieces in place, and at time it gets hard, or boring, or conceited, but that's philosophy, no way around it - and even when its only one of those things at a time, its philosophy at its best.

Remarkably little discussion here about the 20th century philosophy (except Bergson, but he is crucial, and Nietzsche, but he is 19th century). I think this is a great plus. The French philosophy gossip can get juicy (read François Dosse), but 17th century was always the stronghold of Deleuze, and paying due attention for the rationalists is an important step in getting a hold of Deleuze's "post-theophantic" conception, as well as his non-compromising destruction of every "modern" form of relation, mediation and communication in the way of absolute creation, absolute virtuality.

It is exactly Deleuze's radicalism that gets lost in the Fredric-Jameson-routine of "very much like Foucault in this respect, but maybe even more Althusserian than the early Blanchot, though not showing as much influence of Levi-Strauss, of course" etc etc. Deleuze is a freak of 20th century philosophy, and I enjoy his books largely because they really are dynamite, not because they have some sort of "rapport" with the others, or even with the outside.

But, as dynamite as Deleuze might be, the perspective he opens is much like Nietzsche's: assigned to blow away theoretical adversaries, it mainly works for this one purpose. As Hallward shows, Deleuze has serious conceptual shortcomings, that are quite attractive when viewed in isolation, but get troublesome with the real - reality or art or politics - weighing strategy against tactics, working in the open, trying to find the right balance. This is when the intensity that Deleuze is all about, can turn into a theoretical cul-de-sac, blind eye to "others", as well as to "self". Becoming, as Hallward forcefully shows, is not everything, because material, concrete and historical are always here, and all becoming must make its way through the real stuff.

[Remus Balint · Rating 5 out of 5]

exceptional non material reading of deleuze exceptional non material alternative in a hindering and unarguably unsalvagable actuality exceptional reminder to become imperceptible

[Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hallward's exegesis I find frequently illuminating, though it often hews a bit too closely to Deleuze's own argot and peculiar spin on all things metaphysical (a shortcoming I've found in secondary scholarship on Derrida, as well), making for occasional knots of prose as impenetrable as that of his subject. And one should also bear in mind this caveat: Hallward is an adherent of Alain Badiou's philosophy, which, though it bears some resemblance to Deleuze's, contains a markedly different sensibility. (Badiou elaborates these differences at length in his Deleuze: The Clamor of Being.)

What I've taken from Hallward's study is the relationship of an individual — a discrete, singular entity — to the conditions of her existence is much like that of a character in a shoot-'em-up video game. I haven't played a video game in many years, but I recall that often the character under my control would have some sort of vitality or "life" meter above his head, which was indicate to me, the force behind his actions, how much more injury he can sustain before dying. This life meter is something that represents the video game character's state of well-being — a measure of what is otherwise dynamic of conditioning, constitutive forces — and is something the character cannot directly perceive about himself. Only I, the game player situated outside the field of the game's immediate action, enjoys this view on the character I control. That which the life-meter indicates, i.e., the imperceptible roil of vital forces that at any moment are dwindling or surging, is, however, no less essential to him that his observable features and condition.

According to Deleuze, we are in a similar state. Everything about us we take to be solid and substantial dissolves into the refulgent flare and shimmer of determinant forces, which, rather than lying beyond us in some realm of the transcendent or Ideal, "hover" above us in a manner roughly analogous to the life-meter above the video-game character of my example. Deleuze therefore declares philosophy's task as widening, if not as opening altogether, channels of intuition that can put us in touch with these hovering forces, immanent to us but no where perceivable by us, which occupy what Deleuze terms "the virtual."

This is all I can confidently speak to at the moment, but I'm reasonably certain I'm beginning to master Deleuze's thought

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Against the received reading of Deleuze as a materialist, Hallward perceptively traces Deleuze's affinity with theophanic spiritualism, from Neo-Platonism to the tradition of Ishraqi illumination. Deleuze's thought breaks with any logic of representation, affirming instead a self-expression of the cosmos. To achieve this aim, Deleuze consistently repeats the injunction to demolish ourselves. This cannot be reduced to a simple destruction of the self; Hallward's Deleuze is a thinker of careful undoing of the self, of sobriety that constructs new affective possibilties. In an interesting section, Hallward distinguishes Deleuze's deterritorialization from Benjamin's mortification and Weil's decreation, emphasizing that unlike these thinkers Deleuze is "indifferent to the passion of the shameful creature."

Deleuze instead skews closer to what could be called a theophoric position where "man fulfils his essential function... to express God, to be a theophore, a vehicle of God." This vehicular conception, for Hallward, is an effect of Deleuze's

"isolation of a singular principle of individuation or differentiation, a virtual, aleatory and indefinite 'object = x'. This absolute object is what 'distributes series, displaces them relatively, makes them communicate with each other'. It is a sort of object-event. Deleuze's examples of such an object include Miller's non-identical zero, Levi-Strauss's mana, Foucault's empty place of representation, Sollers' blind-spot."

The object = x, "this instance of pure self-displacement," is the ideal vehicle for theophanic creation, an empty place through which God can self-create.

Hallward's study remains quite sympathetic to Deleuze until the conclusion, which pulls no punches. Hallward objects to Deleuze's non-relational theory, arguing that this rules out any meaningful concept of conflict or solidarity as it reduces these relations to externalities. Deleuze's thought cannot comprehend situations of constrained freedom, and as a result he is unable to think strategically. The political dimension of Deleuze's thought, structured as it is by stark dualisms (state/war machine), "amounts to little more than utopian distraction."

[Knecht René · Rating 5 out of 5]

The architecture of Deleuze’s theory of virtual genesis, quasi-causality, and Spinoza’s natura naturans/naturata is a remarkably well-constructed whole. Compressing such ideas into a book of only 164 pages is, in itself, a titanic achievement.

Out of This World by Peter Hallward is therefore far from an easy read, but it remains an impressive project: one that seeks to follow Deleuze’s philosophy rigorously within its own logic. I first encountered it through Žižek, who in several of his works - notably Less Than Nothing and Organs Without Bodies (the introduction to the later edition) - refers to Hallward’s analysis. One does not have to fully endorse Deleuze in order to appreciate him. As Hallward himself insists in his conclusion: “Before you disagree with a work that is worthy of disagreement, you have to admire it and rediscover the problems that it poses.” (p. 159)

Deleuze does not use categories of German Idealism such as negativity, dialectical materialism, Aufhebung, or even the death drive. Instead, he takes a different path, one deeply inspired by Spinoza and Bergson. From this foundation he develops concepts such as the Body without Organs, the (positive) immanent virtual field of differentiation, and most decisively: the virtual as a primordial totality.

The virtual is nothing other than pure difference: an infinite variation without causality, perceptible only as difference itself.
The virtual pure past is not measurable or observable, but functions solely as difference. Here, an intriguing link emerges with Fichte’s Tat-Handlung - the causa sui, the “I that posits itself in itself” - as an authentic act (passage à l’acte), a founding gesture that retroactively creates its own precursor (the quasi-cause). Freedom, in this sense, is always retroactive.

Dark Precursor: “This virtual object or precursor conceals itself and its functioning in the actual field or series that it differs. Its own invisible path becomes visible only in reverse …” (p. 49)

“A creating is an effect that becomes irreducible to its cause.” (p. 41)

At this point Deleuze comes close to themes that we also encounter in Žižek and Lacan: the objet petit a, the death drive, that element which always divides itself and never coincides with itself: a thought traceable back to Heraclitus and echoed in Beckett, Schelling (Vanishing Mediator), .... (which you can read in Žižek's works).

This trajectory leads to Deleuze’s notion of Univocity: the ultimate coincidence of signifier and signified. No longer is there any distinction between for-itself and in-itself; the subject itself disappears and becomes asubjective, a Body without Organs.

The central question for Deleuze is: how can we once again become a CREATIVE field of immanence, a Body without Organs?==> His answer is deterritorialisation/ Counter - Actualisation.

This includes the logic of creative subtraction (resonant with Badiou) and the question of how one might become anorganic, asignificant, unlived, larval. In short: how can one divest oneself of the subject in order to become asubjective?

==> The abstract line here functions as a concept of non-division, of taking no place in space, dissolving boundaries without limit.

==> Or, in Deleuze’s famous contrast, as the rhizome against the tree (a form of tendential disembodiment).

==> The figure of the nomad is particularly compelling: the virtual nomad is not bound to land or symbolic order, has no place in history, and emerges from nowhere. “… the nomads have no history; they have only a geography.” (p. 101)

==> or the symbole of the Rhizome in contrast to the Tree (tendential disembodiment).

==> For readers familiar with Hegelian, Žižekian, or Lacanian contexts, this resonates with notions of drive, subjective destitution, and radical self-abolition (COGITO, the ZERO-Level of subjectivity).

==> For Deleuze, all of this falls under the heading of deterritorialisation.

These metaphors are what make Deleuze so fascinating.

What makes Hallward’s book especially valuable is that it has enriched my own understanding of Hegel and Žižek. The parallels and contrasts – which Deleuze himself would almost certainly deny – nevertheless open a space for greater depth. They point toward that eternal idea which continually resurfaces/resurrects (as a 'Difference and Repetition'): the very core of Deleuze’s thought.

Of course, Out of This World remains dense – it is not a book one can skim. Yet unlike some academic philosophical texts that verge on the unreadable, Hallward’s study remains accessible, provided one approaches it through slow, deliberate reading.

I was fortunate to have some prior background through Žižek, especially his Organs Without Bodies, which I still regard as a masterpiece. That preparation allowed me to follow Hallward more closely.

In the end, Out of This World is a true enrichment for my bookshelf: a work to which I will return. Deleuze himself remains unfortunately notoriously difficult, but Hallward offers an invaluable alternative: a study rich with quotations and references that invite the reader back to the original texts.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear concise explanation of Deleuze - something that Deleuze often lacked in his own writings was clarity, and Hallward sorts out many key concepts. But overall it is basically a condensation of the Deleuzian oeuvre. It is a time saving research tool that condenses many books into one which is handy at times, but should not replace the quite arduous task of actually poring over Difference and Repetition, Anti-Oedipus, The Logic of Sense, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? (not to mention the 'buggering' books on Bergson, Kant, Nietzsche, Spinoza, etc.) - good starting point on a much longer journey.

[Cary Aurand · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't finished reading this, but so far I'm liking it. Hallward's writing is exceptionally readable, and he very cleanly presents and analyzes Deleuze's work. I've heard he kind of shanks the ending, but when this is done, I'm definitely going to finish reading it.