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The Deleuze Reader
English (translation)Original French
- GenresPhilosophy
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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October 17, 2024
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF READINGS FROM THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER
Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was a French philosopher who wrote about literature, film, and fine art in addition to philosophy; he often co-wrote books with Félix Guattari.
The editor wrote in his Introduction, “With the selections included in this Reader, I have tried to trace a diagram zigzagging from one concept of Deleuze’ to another, without obliterating the outline of his own canvas… This Reader assumes a number of challenges: to bring to the center of our critical discussions Deleuze’s philosophical references to the nomadic itinerary of Ideas, always already at was with the sedentary ‘image of thought’; to highlight texts that could prevent misreadings … to distinguish the minor deconstructive practices of Deleuze from the dominant ‘restrained’ deconstruction of Derrida; to offer a sample of Deleuze’s writings on nomad arts in search of the aesthetic Idea that has no intuition adequate to it; and to sketch the diagram of the political dilations and contractions of the body without organs.”
He observes, “History is made only by those who oppose history (not by those who insert themselves into it, or ever reshape it). This is not done for provocation but happens because the punctual system they found ready-made, or themselves invented, must have allowed this operation: free the line and the diagonal, draw the line instead of plotting a point, produce an imperceptible diagonal instead of clinging to an even elaborated or reformed vertical or horizontal. When this is done it always goes down in history but never comes from it. History may try to break its ties to memory; it may make the schemas of memory more elaborate, superpose and shift coordinates, emphasize connections, or deepen breaks. The dividing line, however, is not there… There is no act of creation that is not transhistorical and does not come up from behind or proceed by way of a liberated line.” (Pg. 50)
He states, “By comparing the primary effects of the Other’s presence and those of his absence, we are in a position to say what the Other is. The error of philosophical theories is to reduce the Other sometimes to a particular object, and sometimes to another subject… But the Other is neither an object in the field of my perception nor a subject who perceives me: the Other is initially a structure of the perceptual field, without which the entire field could not function as it does. That this structure may be actualized by real characters, by variable subjects… does not prevent its preexistence, as the condition of organization in general, to the terms which actualize it in each organized perceptual field---yours and mine.” (Pg. 59)
He suggests, “The fact is that consciousness is by nature the locus of an illusion. Its nature is such that it registers effects, but it knows nothing of causes. The order of causes is defined by this: each body in extension, each idea or each mind in thought are constituted by the characteristic relations that subsume the parts of that body, the parts of that idea.” (Pg. 70)
He says, “there are always relations that enter into the composition in their particular order, according to the eternal laws of nature. There is no Good or Evil, but there is good and bad… The good is when a body directly compounds its relation with ours, and, with all or part of its power, increases ours.” (Pg. 73)
He says, “Psychoanalysis is entirely designed to prevent people from talking and to remove from them all conditions of true enunciation.” (Pg. 106)
He argues, “Historically, psychiatry does not seem to us to have been constituted around the notion of madness but, on the contrary, at the point where this notion proved difficult to apply. Psychiatry essentially ran up against the problem of cases of delirium where the intellectual faculty was intact… If the psychiatrist has a bad conscience, it is … because he is implicated in the dissolution of the notion of madness: he is accused of treating as insane certain people who are not exactly so, and of not seeing in time the madness of others who clearly are. Psychoanalysis slipped between these two poles, saying that we were at once all insane without seeming to be, but also that we seemed mad without being so.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “Psychoanalysis has ceased to be an experimental science in order to get hold of an axiomatic system. Psychoanalysis, index sui; no other truth than that which emerges from the operation that presupposes it; the couch has become the bottomless well, interminable in principle. Psychoanalysis has stopped being ‘in search of’ because it is now constitutive of truth… The psychoanalyst has become like the journalist: he creates the event.” (Pg. 111)
He notes, “The State is assuredly not the locus of liberty, nor the agent of a forced servitude or war capture. Should we then speak of ‘voluntary servitude’? … There is a machine enslavement, about which it could be said in each case that it presupposes itself, that it appears as preaccomplished; this machine enslavement is not more ‘voluntary’ than it is ‘forced.’” (Pg. 244)
This volume of writings is very broad, and would be an excellent introduction to the entire spectrum of Deleuze’s thought.
Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was a French philosopher who wrote about literature, film, and fine art in addition to philosophy; he often co-wrote books with Félix Guattari.
The editor wrote in his Introduction, “With the selections included in this Reader, I have tried to trace a diagram zigzagging from one concept of Deleuze’ to another, without obliterating the outline of his own canvas… This Reader assumes a number of challenges: to bring to the center of our critical discussions Deleuze’s philosophical references to the nomadic itinerary of Ideas, always already at was with the sedentary ‘image of thought’; to highlight texts that could prevent misreadings … to distinguish the minor deconstructive practices of Deleuze from the dominant ‘restrained’ deconstruction of Derrida; to offer a sample of Deleuze’s writings on nomad arts in search of the aesthetic Idea that has no intuition adequate to it; and to sketch the diagram of the political dilations and contractions of the body without organs.”
He observes, “History is made only by those who oppose history (not by those who insert themselves into it, or ever reshape it). This is not done for provocation but happens because the punctual system they found ready-made, or themselves invented, must have allowed this operation: free the line and the diagonal, draw the line instead of plotting a point, produce an imperceptible diagonal instead of clinging to an even elaborated or reformed vertical or horizontal. When this is done it always goes down in history but never comes from it. History may try to break its ties to memory; it may make the schemas of memory more elaborate, superpose and shift coordinates, emphasize connections, or deepen breaks. The dividing line, however, is not there… There is no act of creation that is not transhistorical and does not come up from behind or proceed by way of a liberated line.” (Pg. 50)
He states, “By comparing the primary effects of the Other’s presence and those of his absence, we are in a position to say what the Other is. The error of philosophical theories is to reduce the Other sometimes to a particular object, and sometimes to another subject… But the Other is neither an object in the field of my perception nor a subject who perceives me: the Other is initially a structure of the perceptual field, without which the entire field could not function as it does. That this structure may be actualized by real characters, by variable subjects… does not prevent its preexistence, as the condition of organization in general, to the terms which actualize it in each organized perceptual field---yours and mine.” (Pg. 59)
He suggests, “The fact is that consciousness is by nature the locus of an illusion. Its nature is such that it registers effects, but it knows nothing of causes. The order of causes is defined by this: each body in extension, each idea or each mind in thought are constituted by the characteristic relations that subsume the parts of that body, the parts of that idea.” (Pg. 70)
He says, “there are always relations that enter into the composition in their particular order, according to the eternal laws of nature. There is no Good or Evil, but there is good and bad… The good is when a body directly compounds its relation with ours, and, with all or part of its power, increases ours.” (Pg. 73)
He says, “Psychoanalysis is entirely designed to prevent people from talking and to remove from them all conditions of true enunciation.” (Pg. 106)
He argues, “Historically, psychiatry does not seem to us to have been constituted around the notion of madness but, on the contrary, at the point where this notion proved difficult to apply. Psychiatry essentially ran up against the problem of cases of delirium where the intellectual faculty was intact… If the psychiatrist has a bad conscience, it is … because he is implicated in the dissolution of the notion of madness: he is accused of treating as insane certain people who are not exactly so, and of not seeing in time the madness of others who clearly are. Psychoanalysis slipped between these two poles, saying that we were at once all insane without seeming to be, but also that we seemed mad without being so.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “Psychoanalysis has ceased to be an experimental science in order to get hold of an axiomatic system. Psychoanalysis, index sui; no other truth than that which emerges from the operation that presupposes it; the couch has become the bottomless well, interminable in principle. Psychoanalysis has stopped being ‘in search of’ because it is now constitutive of truth… The psychoanalyst has become like the journalist: he creates the event.” (Pg. 111)
He notes, “The State is assuredly not the locus of liberty, nor the agent of a forced servitude or war capture. Should we then speak of ‘voluntary servitude’? … There is a machine enslavement, about which it could be said in each case that it presupposes itself, that it appears as preaccomplished; this machine enslavement is not more ‘voluntary’ than it is ‘forced.’” (Pg. 244)
This volume of writings is very broad, and would be an excellent introduction to the entire spectrum of Deleuze’s thought.
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