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Dialogues

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Gilles Deleuze examines his philosophical pluralism in a series of discussions with Claire Parnet. Conversational in tone, this is the most personable and accessible of all Deleuze's writings, in which he describes his own philosophical background, relationsbips and development, and some of the central themes of his work.

190 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

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About the author

Gilles Deleuze

260 books2,603 followers
Deleuze 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.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
Profile Image for Troy.
300 reviews189 followers
January 23, 2010
Finally! A totally readable Deleuze book. But even though this is the most readable Deleuze book I know (with the possible exception of Pure Immanence), it still took me a whole damn month to read 148 pages! 148 pages! In a month!

There's a little bit of all of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: A Thousand Plateaus in this book. But I want to talk about how this work effected me on a personal level, both because that is ultimately what Deleuze wants, and that also, to me, should be the end goal of philosophy: to change how we think, which should change how we understand and interact in the world, and maybe, just maybe, change the world.

But first you have to know that my interpretation of this is probably wrong, probably off-base, because I don't know as much as Deleuze, and a lot of time I'm not sure exactly what he's getting at, or sometimes even what he's saying, but that's ok, even according to Deleuze. I mean, he wants to get across his ideas, so he tries saying the same thing from tons of different angles, and unlike a lot of philosophers, uses a lot of examples, which includes various movies, lots of literature (not just Kafka and Proust, but H.P. Lovecraft and Carlos Castanada(!)), B&D/S&M, tattoos, Dylan lyrics, and all kinds of other stuff.

Ultimately, Deleuze is writing about changing the models we use to understand the world. Like many philosophers of the last century, he wants to move away from a metaphysics that believes in intrinsic properties. For example, there is no true "you," or "Capitalism," or "red." All are collectives. That is, "you" are not the same as you were a few seconds ago, or even a decade ago. On one level, all your cells are completely different every ten years (your bone cells live the longest, 10 years). On another level, you have changed because of your loves: significant others, best friends, new passions, favorite books and music and art and movies, etc. have changed who you are.

So he wants us to think of everything not as a discrete object, but as collectives that are still unique, but made up of other parts (for example, you are made of cells and past loves and obsessions and your gender/race/nationality, etc) but are still you, but the "you-ness" is more like "noon."

From there, he wants us to re-think desire. Desire is what happens when those discrete bodies (which, again, aren't really bodies, but are themselves collections of all kinds of things from cells to passions to ideas to whatever) collide. So let's say you've just found, like I've have, a new favorite author (for me it's Thomas Bernhard). For me, there's a before-Bernhard and an after-Bernhard. I now think and see the world differently- with Bernhard-colored glasses. But it's not one directional; not simply Bernhard-texts effecting me. I look for others who are fans of Bernhard, push Bernhard on friends I feel will be receptive. So I, in my small way, am changing what Bernhard means, by helping to create a Bernhard-community (consciously or not), and giving that Bernhard-community (consciously or not) my spin on things. Deleuze always uses the example of the wasp and the orchid. The wasp and the orchid both have their bizarre shapes because they have mutated in tandem; they have mutually evolved in their interpenetration of each other.

So keep that desire thing, and the thing about everything being collections in mind.

Here's a quote:
"Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language."

Deleuze is one with me in this. What we should do, if we're so inclined (and sometime even if we're not), is associate ourselves with the minorities in our culture, whatever they might be. We do this to break away from the stagnating dominant narrative, and in order to blaze new trails. There are dangers in this, obviously. One danger in breaking away with the dominant order is that it can lead us to an entanglement with death, suicide, despair, etc. Let's call this drive a "line of flight."

So now, to politics.

Obviously, there are other forces at play than the "line of flight." There's a force that is about encoding. On one simple level, this makes you a citizen of wherever you're from. On one good side, this creates stability, on another bad side, it creates mindless zombies who parrot whatever crap is being spouted by Fox News (tellingly, I can't think of a left wing equivalent). There are other forces which are about flight. I don't really understand the difference between the various lines of flight, but the basic shtick is that we, as individuals (and as groups of individuals), should go off on these lines and try to create the life we want to live here and now. Those little gesture can be important. Not to ignore the big gestures, but the way we live our life reflects back. Nothing is truly unconnected, and we should remember that. We are responsible for our society moving towards a type of fascism or evil, and are equally responsible for our society moving towards something we believe in.

There's more than that, and that end part is definitely my spin on the (very great) last chapter, but, well... there you go.

Go kick some ass.
Profile Image for Kamakana.
Author 2 books415 followers
March 2, 2022
210617: in this series of (edited) conversations there is an interesting defence/claim of essential 'empiricism', that seems to me to include the 'things themselves' of phenomenonology. basically, this is that thought should start with immediate experience and not abstraction, thought should be basic, not theory, not framework, not grand totalizing concepts of the 'One' or the 'Subject'- but some recognition that these are construction or 'lines of flight'... great intro from deleuze himself...
Deleuze
Nietzsche and Philosophy
What Is Philosophy?
Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts
Bergsonism
Bergson-Deleuze Encounters: Transcendental Experience and the Thought of the Virtual
Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception
Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy
Deleuze on Cinema
Profile Image for Perejfm.
30 reviews670 followers
December 2, 2025
Una auténtica barbaridad !!!! Creo que es muy buena aproximación a Deleuze por que trata un poco de todo, antipsiquiatría, política, etc. Y es una manera muy buena de acostúmbrate a su lengua propia: agencamiento, devenir, diferencia, haciedades, líneas de fuga, máquinas de guerra, .. 10/10 !!!
No sé cuál debería ser el siguiente suyo ? El antiedipo me da miedo!! estoy pensando en mil mesetas o diferencia y repetición
Profile Image for Alex Romero.
37 reviews2 followers
October 19, 2024
muy buen libro para introducirse a ciertas cosas de Deluze (lo recomiendo a los xavales)
Profile Image for Alex Lee.
953 reviews142 followers
October 23, 2020
This is book is a pleasure to read, and it follows completely from the fully developed aesthetics Deleuze developed. He repeats some of the same lessons from Anti-Oedipus (mostly). There are some interesting pontifications that seem to apply to things today, although none of it is a surprise from what Deleuze (and Guattari) wrote, although this book does round out some of their approaches, and it's always interesting/refreshing to get a different angle on the same subject matter.
Profile Image for Kareem Mohsen.
52 reviews23 followers
December 28, 2019
بداية قرأتي لفلسفة جيل دولوز كانت مع الكتاب ده، قرأته أكثر من مرة على فترات متقطعة أحيانا ومتصلة أحيانا أخرى، تخلل قرأتي له كذا كتاب لدولوز وعنه. أنا مدين لفلسفة دولوز بالكثير، وأقدر أقول أنه عامل أساسي في التغيير الراديكالي اللي بيحصل لتفكيري دايما
Profile Image for pablo!.
81 reviews11 followers
July 8, 2023
Ninguna review haría justicia a los diálogos. Haceros un favor y echadle un ojo (mil a poder ser). Es una de esas obras a las que sé que voy a volver una y otra vez porque hay tantísimas ideas a tantísimos niveles: la línea, la máquina de guerra, tartamudear en tu propia lengua, el papel de la crítica, EL DESEO, la línea (de esto no entiendo nada, por cierto) y, evidentemente, la crítica al modelo dual de pregunta y respuesta y a la propia entrevista
Profile Image for Cristina Chițu.
Author 3 books18 followers
May 24, 2020
Caci in masura in care cineva devine, ceea ce el devine se transforma la fel de mult ca el insusi. Devenirile nu sunt niste fenomene de imitatie sau de asimilare, ci de dubla capturare, de evolutie neparalela, de nunti intre doua regnuri. Nuntile sunt intotdeauna contra naturii. O nunta este opusul unui cuplu.

Justitia si justetea sunt niste idei proaste. Acestor idei trebuie sa le opunem formula lui Godard: nu o imagine justa, adevarata, ci, doar o imagine. La fel ca intr-un film sau ca intr-un cantec e si in filozofie: nu idei adevarate, ci idei pur si simplu. Idei si atat: asta inseamna intalnirea, devenirea, furtul si nuntile, acel ,,intre doi” al singuratatilor.

In fiecare dintre noi exista un fel de asceza, intreptata, in parte, impotriva noua insine.

Atatea taceri si atatea sinucideri de scriitori se explica, probabil, tocmai prin astfel de nunti contra naturii, prin astfel de participari impotriva naturii. A-ti trada regnul, a-ti trada sexul, a-ti trada clasa, majoritatea—ce alt motiv pentru a scrie? Si a trada scrisul insusi.

cu atat mai mare va parea opera cu cat viata va fi mai jalnica.

Nu scriem decat din iubire, orice scriere este o scrisoare de dragoste: Real-literatura. N-ar trebui sa murim decat din iubire, si nu din moarte tragica. N-ar trebui sa scriem decat prin aceasta moarte, sau n-ar trebui sa renuntam la scris, sau sa continuam sa scriem, decat prin aceasta iubire, sau si una, si alta in acelasi timp. Nu cunoastem carte de dragoste mai importanta decat Subteranele lui Kerouak. El nu se intreaba ,,Ce inseamna a scrie?” pentru ca are absoluta nevoie sa scrie, pentru ca se afla in imposibilitatea unei alte alegeri care constituie efectiv scrisul insusi, cu conditia ca, pentru el, scrisul sa fie deja o alta devenire, sau sa vina dintr-o alta devenire. Scrisul, mijloc pentru o viata mai mult decat personala, in loc ca viata sa fie un biet secret pentru un scris care nu s-ar avea ca scop decat pe sine insusi. Ah, nefericirea imaginarului si a simbolicului, realul fiind lasat intotdeauna pe altadata!

Relatiile exista la mijloc, si exista ca atare, au o existenta de sine statatoare. Aceasta exterioritate a relatiilor nu este un principiu, este un protest vital impotriva principiilor.

Necontenita tanguire universala pe marginea vietii: lipsa-de-fiinta care este viata...Degeaba spun unii ,,Hai sa dansam”, noi nu suntem, de fapt, fericiti.

Sa faci din corp o putere care sa nu poata fi redusa la organism, sa faci din gandire o putere care sa nu poata fi redusa la constiinta.

opusul unei morale a salvarii: a-ti invata sufletul sa-si traiasca viata, nu s-o salveze.

Liniile de fuga iau intorsaturi atat de urate pentru ca sunt reale, si in insasi realitatea lor. (...) Kleist, Virginia Woolf, Fitzgerald (...) heccitate a unei morti care nu mai este aceea a unei persoane, ci o degajare a unui eveniment pur, la momentul propriului sau plan. Dar, tocmai, planul de imanenta, planul de consistenta nu ne poate aduce nimic altceva decat o moarte relativ demna si lipsita de amaraciune? Nu pentru asta era facut! Chiar daca orice creatie se incheie cu propria ei distrugere, care o macina inca de la inceput, chiar faca intreaga muzica nu este decat o cautare a tacerii, ele nu pot fi judecate dupa sfarsitul sau dupa presupusul lor tel, deoarece acesta le depaseste in toate. Atunci cand sfarsesc in moarte, asta se intampla in virtutea unui pericol care le este propriu, nu ca urmare a unei destinatii care le-ar fi sortita.

Critica si clinica: viata si fuga sunt acelasi lucru atunci cand au imbratisat linia de fuga care le transforma in piesele componente ale aceleasi masini de razboi. In aceste conditii, viata a incetat de mult sa mai fie personala, iar opera a incetat de mult sa mai fie literara sau textuala.
16 reviews
Read
March 5, 2025
I liked this, however I found it harder to digest than Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction even though Dialogues is much more conversational in tone. Skipped the last two chapters as they were going over my head but I'm keen to revisit the one on The Actual and The Virtual when I have the capacity.

I've REALLY enjoyed my little dive into Deleuze and looking forward to what comes next. There's just so many ideas here that it's hard to choose what to sink your teeth into.
Profile Image for Meike.
5 reviews1 follower
October 29, 2017
Deleuze and Parnet's "Dialogues" is a fascinating collection of intriguing thoughts, ideas and questions coming together. The blurring of lines between the two partners in dialogue makes it an especially interesting conversation. At times Deleuze truly reads like poetry, the sentences flowing and floating, like lines meeting and crossing, weaving into eachother like the threads of fabric. I found especially his notes on lines, geography of bodies, couplings, connections, the anorectic, and mechanisms of longing to be very insightful and beautifully described. The use of metaphor enables a particular visualization of Deleuze's philosophy which I though was quite amazing. An excellent read that allows for the escaping of thoughts whilst focussing on the letters on the pages.
Profile Image for albaro.
9 reviews
July 4, 2024
De repente me encanta poder vivir!!! Super relevante y me ha parecido muy buena aproximación a Deleuze pues apunta a muchos conceptos desarrollados en los demás textos.
Profile Image for isaac smith.
201 reviews58 followers
August 12, 2023
As with the notes on Nietzsche’s “Gay Science”, these notes are largely thanks to explanations by Dave Harris. What, you think I am intelligent enough to interpret this on my own?

Tl;dr
Whitehead's concrete empiricism, reveals novelty's conditions and education's theoretical-practical challenges. Empiricism extracts "non-pre-existent concepts" from irreducible multiplicities, reshaping diverse domains. The book rejects tradition, embracing rhizomatic growth. Deleuze's pragmatic empiricism pursues pluralistic monism, delving into personal change. Becomings embody style, transcending words. Reading fosters encounters, connections, and evolutions. Deterritorialized terms, influenced by Marx, Freud, Saussure, bridge with Guattari, challenging binaries. Assemblages unify inner-outer realms, empathetic writing counters detachment. Life emerges from madness, addiction; ritornellos celebrate tangible, experimentation triumphs, and affects shape interactions.

Stoics embrace uncertainty, navigating a complex world. Infinitive verbs signify limitless becomings. Autonomy emerges in events. Amor fati counters effectuation, embracing life's transitions. Stoics welcome death, cultivating love. English and Stoics share event perspectives. True novels use indefinites, proper names, connecting entities. Machines reshape culture, rejecting dichotomies. Kafka's world blends juridical utterances and machinic form. Psychoanalysis restricts desire, overcoding assemblages. Desire's essence assembles on an immanent plane, transcending history. Anorexia challenges norms, embodying shared regimes. Delirium explores pure signs and concrete assemblages. Capitalism encompasses diverse sign regimes.

Psychoanalysis struggles to grasp sign regimes fully. Assemblages, pragmatic shifts, and diverse languages within contexts highlight complexities. Abstract machines influence language, desire, and enunciation, spawning new languages. Pragmatics contextualize machinic systems, impacting sign regimes. Literary analysis benefits from regime exploration, promoting vitality. Haecceities individuate through immanence. War machine's trajectory risks abolition. Enmeshed differences entail tracing lines, recognizing risks.

Virtuality and actuality converge through actualization, linking with singularities on the immanent plane. Virtual circles blur distinctions, crystallization perpetually exchanges. Time varies, virtuality resides akin to the past. Crystallization dissolves boundaries. The actual references mutable circuits, forming crystalline states.

Notes
In the preface, Whitehead's definition of empiricism is highlighted as an approach that doesn't explain in an abstract manner but requires explanation itself. The emphasis shifts towards uncovering the conditions necessary for generating novelty rather than focusing solely on universals. The challenge lies in reconciling theory and practice in education, where the tension arises between theory as a universal abstraction and the complexities embedded in practical applications.

Empiricism is presented as a reversal of traditional methodology, commencing with the states of things and extracting "non-pre-existent concepts." These states of things are depicted as multiplicities, consisting of irreducible lines or dimensions that constitute every entity. These multiplicities possess points of convergence, centers, and foci, yet their growth remains limited. The primary emphasis is placed on the relationships interconnecting elements, reflecting inseparable connections.

Multiplicities are likened to rhizomes, exhibiting a growth pattern where lines diverge and bifurcate. The extraction of concepts aligns with the nature of multiplicities, involving the tracing and analysis of intertwined lines, connections, and focal points. The notion of becoming is interwoven within multiplicities, signifying processes of change and transformation rather than static unities or historical narratives. Becomings within multiplicities encompass subject-less individuations that resemble objects, existing empirically and rationally.

Empiricism assumes the role of a logic governing multiplicities, aiming to unveil these intricate structures across various domains such as Freud's work. The conventional meanings of terms undergo alterations within this framework, including the indefinite article, proper names, and infinitive verbs. Various fields, including Anglo-American literature, science, mathematics, physics, and politics, embrace the concept of multiplicities.

In the realm of social dynamics, rhizomes proliferate beneath arborescent apparatuses. The book itself takes on the form of a collection of reflections situated between "Anti-Oedipus" and "A Thousand Plateaus," with a structure resembling that of a rhizome. It abandons traditional notions of subject, beginning, and end, opting for a middle-ground approach.

The translator's introduction sheds light on the original format of the text, emerging from an interview-like dialogue that evolved into a rhizomatic war machine. Derived from Deleuze's Vincennes seminar, the work strives to rectify dualistic thinking and establish pluralism as a form of monism. Deleuze is portrayed as a pragmatic empiricist, a "constructive" pragmatist harnessing forces. In translation, the term 'precepts' is rendered as 'order words.'

The first chapter engages in a conversation that delves into the essence and purpose of communication, highlighting the challenge of self-expression to others. The dialogue explores the complexities of becoming and communication, focusing on problem-oriented discussions rather than conventional solutions. The significance of becoming is underscored in various contexts, from geographical orientations to philosophical and personal transformations. Examples like the wasp and orchid analogy illustrate the convergence of distinct entities in a single bloc of becoming.

Conversations outline becomings and their influence on personal change, involving subtle shifts and nuptials against established norms. The convergence of human and animal experiences reveals asymmetrical deterritorialization, and the relationship between bird song and Mozart's music signifies a-parallel evolution. Becomings are often imperceptible yet find expression in style, subtly contained within life. Word choice, while important, becomes less significant as mutual understanding transcends replaceable terms.

In the realm of conveying common entities, a unique vocabulary is essential, distinct from the vacuous language often found in journalism or hastily composed books meant for reviews. The act of reading is akin to experiencing music or films, and the sanctification of books is unnecessary; concepts within them resonate like sounds, colors, and images. This introduces the concept of "Pop Philosophy" and its characteristic style. Pop philosophy lacks depth in interpretation, and style functions as an enunciation assemblage, akin to stumbling through one's language. Stammering gives rise to forging a trajectory of escape, and even within a single language, bilingualism can awaken minor languages, much like translation.

Reading, seen as a form of translation, can lead to new usages even through mistranslations. The development of minoritarian-becoming becomes a vehicle for inventing novel forces or tools. Life encapsulates moments of awkwardness, stammering, and charm, the latter revealing people as intricate combinations that affirm life's vitality. Writing's purpose lies in showcasing life through these intricate combinations. The process of creation demands solitude, rejecting the notion of disciples or rigid schools. Yet, this solitude is inhabited by encounters, becomings, and nuptials, fostering unique connections and a-parallel evolutions.

Encounters encompass an element of appropriation, different from plagiarism, as they result in mutually asymmetrical creations. Recognition stands in contrast to encounters, and forming judgments should be avoided. Concepts like justice and correctness prove counterproductive. Rather than correcting ideas, they should be developed, creating conjunctions and linking diverse areas of thought. This is achieved through serendipitous or suggested encounters, requiring no expertise, just an openness to chance. These encounters extend beyond the intellectual, even encompassing encounters with people, as ideas are often inspired by others.

The encounter's impact resonates across various realms, such as the encounter with Lawrence's poems about tortoises or the encounter with Foucault, encompassing sounds, gestures, and ideas. The notion of identity is depicted as deserts inhabited by tribes, flora, and fauna, emphasizing a multifaceted existence. Deleuze's academic discontent is rooted in his disapproval of history of philosophy professors, especially Hyppolite. He critiques the persisting scholasticism post-Liberation, appreciating Sartre's alternative perspective.

Existentialism and phenomenology receive skepticism, save for Sartre. The history of philosophy is often linked with power, conformity, and repression, leading to an intimidating and inhibitory effect. The image of thought endorsed by the state hinders genuine intellectual exploration. The relationship between philosophy and the state is explored, with thought beyond the state's image denounced. Academic disciplines such as epistemology, Marxism, and psychoanalysis perpetuate this state-aligned thinking. The influence of Marx, Freud, and Saussure on language and thought is acknowledged, while a preference for those who defy tradition, like Hume, Bergson, and Spinoza, is evident. These preferred thinkers exhibit positive and affirmative inclinations.

Deleuze's encounter with Guattari marks a turning point, triggering transformative becomings. Guattari is viewed not merely as an individual, but as a phenomenon. His desert, figuratively populated by groups, friends, and becomings, expands the horizons of Deleuze's thought. Collaborative work with Guattari enables the amplification of this desert landscape, blurring the boundaries of authorship. This micro-political multiplicity boasts diverse interpretations, with Guattari's focus on black holes and Deleuze's on white walls and screens.

The concept of transmitting signals from black holes serves as a metaphorical means of overcoming creative barriers, while the juxtaposition of black holes on a white wall conjures a vivid image. The abstract machine's capacity to produce faces comes to fruition, with a political underpinning to the act of face production. The face overcodes the body and head, intricately tied to social functions. Deterritorialized terms are employed to reterritorialize the notion of the "face." The labor of intellectual exploration forges connections between ideas, transcending mere concatenation.

The approach outlined involves a method of "pick-up" characterized by stammering, multiplication, and the expansion of dimensions. It revolves around establishing relationships between deterritorialized ideas to form cohesive blocs, with a special focus on collaboration with Guattari for a new book. This method seeks to bridge the gap between their respective ideas, multiplying perspectives and breaking away from circular thinking, embracing polygons.

The questioning process is scrutinized, revealing how certain questions perpetuate servile and treacherous dualisms. Dualistic tendencies manifest within authors, interviewers and interviewees, and colloquium settings. These questions are crafted to elicit expected answers, constraining genuine understanding. Examples from television and psychoanalysis underscore the imposition of forced choices, where selective listening thrives within power structures. Psychoanalysts are depicted akin to modern-day priests, imposing meanings through binary divisions that generate power dynamics.

The importance of the "face" and its role in communication is examined, with the ordinary European face serving as a default model. Language, linguistics, and informatics are influenced by binary thinking, often tied to facial features and orders. Messages are designed for efficient order propagation, yet informatics can also be repressive, marked by shouts, silence, and stuttering.

A recurring theme in Deleuze's writing is the obstruction caused by the "image of thought." Geography, becoming, and gaps take precedence over history, challenging the suppression of thought imposed by the history of philosophy. "Images" are associated with normative organizational power, often regulated by tribunals or universal states. Deleuze's work introduces new thought images, questioning notions of "common sense" and exploring the discordance of faculties to resist closure and encourage encounters.

The contrast between rhizomes and trees symbolizes opposing structural paradigms, with trees representing arborescent power structures that repress predecessors. Academic schools are viewed as arborescent and are often entangled with marketing strategies, which carry implicit doubts about the concept of authorship. The persistence of author functions, even in cinema, is discussed, and the exploration of new production functions that transcend traditional authorship is advocated. Collective assemblages of enunciation and encounters foster creative populations, transcending formal debates and resisting media domestication.

Transformation, involution, and the dynamics of becoming are explored, highlighting the middle ground as essential. Authors' roles transform over time, devoid of a fixed past in the process of becoming. Involution is exemplified through simplicity and a restrained step, mirrored in Beckett's characters. The concept of masks concealing extra elements is applied to Deleuze and Guattari, akin to how rhizomes overflow and grow between themes in literature. The dynamic nature of middles, characterized by speed and charm, shapes successful old age and resonates with the art of writing.

Nomadism is juxtaposed with state apparatuses, with nomads embodying geography rather than history, emphasizing a fluid and unbounded perspective.

Nomads originated the concept of the war machine, countering state appropriation, and challenging the established code with multiplicity, thereby unsettling state apparatuses. The intricate nature and significance of speed are explored, particularly in the context of becoming, where speed elucidates the qualities of charm and style. This swiftness finds resonance in music, exemplified through vibrant dance rhythms. Nomadic thought emerges as a potent force that challenges the rigidity of state apparatuses.

Conversations are portrayed as a means to circumvent stagnation and reminiscence, fostering dynamic exchanges. Deleuze and Guattari, while contesting existing dualisms, inadvertently introduce new ones. Linguistics often operates within established binary frameworks, leading to a call for the subversion of these dualisms within the field. The focus is redirected towards the intricate relationships between elements, transcending mere numerical considerations. Dualisms can be unraveled through an exploration of concealed relationships, potentially resulting in chapters comprised of anonymous segments that form conversational threads.

The superiority of Anglo-American literature is underscored, signifying not just escape but an active flight and deterritorialization. Systems can be displaced, and the flight is likened to seeking a weapon, as expressed by Jackson. American literature's flight towards the frontier is contrasted with the structuralist inclination towards systematic thinking and closure. Flight's capacity to occur in a fixed place is highlighted, drawing on Toynbee's perspective on nomads. Maps are portrayed as representations of intensities, demonstrating the interplay between mental and corporeal geography. Critiques of Melville's literal voyage emphasize the constant need to rescue and correct the narrative trajectory, battling against reterritorialization. Anglo-American literature embraces the intermediate, favoring the expansive expanse of grass over the rigid structure of trees. The brain is metaphorically likened to a "particular nervous system" of grass, and characters, as perceived by Thomas Hardy, are intricate amalgamations of intensive sensations. Individuals are viewed as embodiments of unique chances, tracing lines of fate.

Flight is examined as delirium, a continuous act of escape that traverses intervals, undermining fixed powers. The concept of deterritorialization in relation to humankind turning away from the divine is drawn from examples in the Old Testament, highlighting its foundational role in English literature. Distinctions are drawn between traitors and tricksters, with Shakespeare's Richard III serving as an exemplar of becoming through treason. Ahab's treacherous pursuits are characterized as a manifestation of a whale-becoming. The concept of "the Anomalous" emerging at the frontier hints at processes of becoming. Writing is seen as a means to trace lines of flight, forging connections with minorities and shaping minorities. The notion of woman-becoming within writing extends beyond a gendered perspective, encompassing encounters between divergent domains and the deterritorialization of codes. Writers themselves undergo non-writer-becoming, marked by events that lead to silence or even self-destruction. To be a traitor, in this context, is to create, lose identity, and become an enigmatic entity. The ultimate aspiration of writing is to attain imperceptibility, breaking away from the conventional "white wall/black hole" framework and resisting the conformity imposed by signifiers. This journey culminates in a state of pure flux, devoid of phantasms, interpretations, or constraints. The line of flight assumes a role of emphasis on experimentation rather than being bound by illusions. It forms programs of life, fostering modification, betrayal, and exploration. This ethos stands in contrast to the laborious interpretations often found in French literature. Kleist, Kafka, and Castaneda serve as exemplars, developing life-enriching programs rather than conventional manifestos. The line of flight, in essence, generates life and actuality, eschewing mere artistic escapism. The contrast with French literature is palpable, as it tends to reduce life to personal and neurotic unity.

Writing strives for a form of power beyond the personal, liberating itself from conventional boundaries.

Continued...
https://uncertaintysedge.substack.com...
Profile Image for heyyonicki.
510 reviews
April 11, 2023
Assez corsé à mon niveau, mais tout de même fascinant. Deuleuze et Parnet écrivent chacun·e leurs tours quelques pages sur cinq sujets qui leur permettent de revenir sur les grands concepts de l'œuvre de Deleuze (et Guattari). J'ai été quelques fois assez perdu dans certains passages qui m'ont semblé vraiment abstraits et bourrés de notions que je ne comprenais pas dans ce contexte, mais cela ne dure jamais trop longtemps alors ça va.
Profile Image for Dario.
40 reviews30 followers
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October 29, 2019
A conversation is never between two people but rather between a multitude, a peoples; a whole geography of regions, territories and movements. So it becomes that the point of a question, properly speaking, is to get out of the question. The only useful questions serve as stimuli: stimuli to movements and becomings, lines of flight and of action; and best be clear: there is no history in becomings, only geography, nomadism. Nomads know nothing of 'history', or even 'future', everything is played out in the present-becoming. Memories themselves do not belong to the realm of the past; the unconscious has nothing to do with childhood memories, but it does have something to do with a child-becoming: a double capture and a-parallel evolution that sees each drawn in to the regimes of signs of one another. 

Is there a certain combination of flows, intensities and affects that would make the horse bare its teeth and little Hans show his peepee? There are infinite bodies without organs and likewise an infinitude of concrete assemblages that are constantly being actualised, but there are nonetheless specific bodies without organs, marked by specific regimes of signs that do trace a broken line through world-history and become actualised in concrete assemblages. Regimes of signs are constituted by particular populations on a body without organs; they demarcate certain becomings, transitions, gradients, combinations of flows, emissions and absorptions of particles. Anorexia is a regime of signs, but so is bureaucracy and even capitalism. Sadism and masochism: these regimes attest to the proper use of the proper noun; Felix Guattari does not designate a global person or subject but rather something that is happening; Parkinson's disease is another example, even when the name used is that of the diagnoser of the symptoms.

Desire has nothing to do with subjects or even objects; "there is no subject unless there is repression". Desire is the set of passive syntheses, the immanent field of flows of energy and bodies. It is the Will to Power, a will to life that vitalises all life, but that also goes beyond even this: that interpenetrates organic and non-organic phenomena to create an entire plane of immanence. The plane is not pre-existent, it is created. We must each of us construct with meticulous prudence our own immanent fields of desire. Desire is not spontaneist but rather constructivist; we must bring forth desire into the world. It is not about pleasure or even sexuality, these flows are already always in combination with other flows. Where there is ascesis there is flourishing desire.

We must be the most prudent of experimenters, we the multiple. How do we carry ourselves along lines of flight without destroying ourselves in the process? Why are the deaths of so many visionaries so tragic? Virginia Woolf's suicide, Fitzgerald's alcoholism (Nietzsche's breakdown and isolation?). The destructive tendency of nomadism will always come up against the self-preservation of the state; all war-wachines have their victims. We must have the prudence of men of the line, the thoughtfulness and organised flight of experimenters.

There is no desire for revolution, or even for power, to oppress or be oppressed. There is only revolutionary desire, desire that exerts power or that submits to it, desire that oppresses or that constitutes its own oppression. All collectives, whether individual or group, already contain these lines of desire crossing each other, encountering each other and getting entangled. There is no dualism, properly speaking, between the transcendent plane of organisation and the plane of immanence: all collectives are constituted by these entangled lines and planes in their nature as living multiplicities. A so-called desire for revolution is already fabricated after-the-fact, already victim to the traps of the state, already transcendentalised. Again, this doesn't mean that desire is spontaneist: the plane of desire and the regimes of signs must be organised, intimately experimented with and upon, schizoanalysed and micro-politicised.
10.6k reviews34 followers
October 16, 2024
A SERIES OF SEMI-DIALOGUES WITH THE FRENCH LITERARY 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. Claire Parnet is a philosopher and reporter in France who conducted these interviews.

Deleuze wrote in the Preface to the English edition of this 1977 book, “This book… aims to highlight the existence and actions of multiplicities in very different domains… It seemed to us that the great project of English and American literature was to get close to such multiplicities: it is in this literature that the question ‘What is it to write?’ has undoubtedly received the answer which is closest to life itself… This book is made up of such a collection of musings on the formations of the unconscious, on literary, scientific and political formulations… the first plan for a conversation between two people, in which one asked questions and the other replied, no longer had any value…”

The first chapter begins, “It is very hard to ‘explain oneself’---an interview, a dialogue, a conversation. Most of the time, when someone asks me a question, even one which relates to me, I see that, strictly, I don’t have anything to say… Even reflection, whether it’s alone, or between two or more, is not enough. Above all, not reflection. Objections are even worse. Every time someone puts an objection to me, I want to say: ‘OK, OK, let’s go on to something else.’ Objections have never contributed anything. It’s the same when I am asked a general question. The aim is not to answer questions, it’s to get out, to get out of it.” (Pg. 1)

He states, “When you work, you are necessarily in absolute solitude. You cannot have disciples or be part of a school. The only work is moonlighting and is clandestine. But it is an extremely populous solitude. Populated not only with dreams, phantasms or plans, but with encounters. An encounter is perhaps the same thing as a becoming, or nuptials. It is from the depth of this solitude that you can make any encounter whatsoever…” (Pg. 6)

He recalls, “I was taught by two professors… We simply plunged into Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger; we threw ourselves… into a scholasticism worse than that of the Middle Ages. Fortunately there was Sartre. Sartre was our Outside, he was really the breath of fresh air from the backyard… Among all the Sorbonne’s probabilities, it was his unique combination which gave us the strength to tolerate the new restoration of order. And Sartre has never stopped being that, not a model, a method or an example, but a little fresh air… an intellectual who singularly changed the situation of the intellectual. It is idiotic to wonder whether Sartre was the beginning or the end of something. Like all creative things and people, he is in the middle, he grows from the middle.” (Pg. 12)

He observes, “Philosophy is shot through with the project of becoming the official language of a Pure State. The exercise of thought thus conforms to the goals of the real State, to the dominant meanings and to the requirements of the established order… Everything which belongs to a thought without image… is crushed and denounced as a nuisance.” (Pg. 13-14)

He reveals, “My encounter with Félix Guitarri changed a lot of things. Félix already had a long history of political involvement and of psychiatric work. He was not a philosopher by training, but he had a philosopher-becoming all the more for this, and many other becomings too. He never stopped. Few people have given me the impression as he did of moving at each movement; not changing, but moving in his entirety with the aid of a gesture he was making, of a word which he was saying, of a vocal sound, like a kaleidoscope forming a new combination every time.” (Pg. 16)

He observes, “In reality writing does not have its end in itself, precisely because life is not something personal. Or rather, the aim of writing is to carry life to the state of a non-personal power. In doing this it renounces any claim to territory… Why does one write? Because it is not a case of writing… To write has no other function: to be a flux which combines with other fluxes---all the minority-becomings of the world.” (Pg. 50)

He states, “There are no fluctuations of language, only regimes of signs which simultaneously combine fluxes of expression and fluxes of content, determining assemblages of desire in the latter, and assemblages of enunciation in the former, each caught up in the other. Language is never the only flux of expression; and a flux of expression is never on its own, but always related to fluxes of content determined by the regime of signs.” (Pg. 116-117)

He summarizes, “There is no general prescription. We have done with all globalizing concepts. Even concepts are hecceities, events. What is interesting about concepts like desire, or machine, or assemblage is that they only have value in their variables, and in the maximum or variables which they allow. We are not for concepts as big as hollow teeth, THE law, THE master, THE rebel. We are not here to keep the tally of the dead and the victims of history, the martyrdom of the Gulags, and to draw the conclusion that ‘The revolution is impossible, but we thinkers must think the impossible since the impossible only exists through our thought!’ It seems to us that there would never have been the tiniest Gulag if the victims had kept up the same discourse as those who weep over them today.” (Pg. 144-145)

This is a stimulating a provocative series of discussions with Deleuze, and will be of interest both to those “new” to Deleuze, and those who are seriously studying him.
Profile Image for Alexand.
220 reviews8 followers
July 7, 2024
كنت أقول ان الفكرة هي علاقات لكن الفكرة هي خطوط تحصر الأنسان في الثنائيات و تفتح من خلاله نثائيات جديدة , الوجود - العدم
العدم- معنى الحياة , معنى الحياة _الشر تستمر العلاقات في توليد المستمر تبدا الاشياء في جسيمات صغيرة لا تولد فعل لكنه تدخل في علاقات مستمرة حتى تصبح صيرورة متحركة لا تنفك عن بعض و تصبح داخل حقل التوليد المستمر حتى خلق وقته المفهوم الذي يشل حركة الصيرورة داخل اللغة لكن من نبدا شرح المفهوم حتى تجري الصيرورة من جديد و تسعيد حركته بصورة مستمرة , في الدال و المدلول هناك نقط خطير في التأويل اصبح التأويل
قاتل للمدلول و هناء ينتقد علم النفس بتحديد حيث قتل اللغة فصبح المدلول يستحيل ان يصاب الي من الطبيب النفسي اصبح الطبيب سلطة للمدلول فشرحك للحلم للطبيب النفسي انك حلمت موزة كرمز سوف يحوله الطبيب للقضيب و عندما تحلم بالاله سوف يحوله الطبيب الي مدلول الاب , فتجد ان الطبيب يستمر في السيطرة على المدول اللغوي و بالتالي الي كيف تفكير بالضبط و يحجب تفكيرك الذاتي و لغتك و تصبح لغتك مشكوك فيه فقط الطبيب هو الان يلعب دور الكاهن يستطيع ان يفسر المدلول تم استبدال المدلول و قطع العلاقة مع الدال يسمح لك الطبيب بالدال و لكنك تعرف ان الدال بدون معن قول ما تريد من الكلمات فيها لا تعني شيء من الاساس فقط عندما تذهب للطبيب تفكك الدال و تعرف المدلول اخيرا و ماذا يعني تفكيرك هو طبعا لا اتفق بالكامل مثل علم النفس السلوكي هو لا يتحكم بالمدلول بل هو اغرب للفكرة الخطية بحيث يكشف العلاقات فقط و يخرج من العلاقات المرضية مثل حياة او موت الي ذات و حرية مثلا

Profile Image for Guilherme Smee.
Author 27 books189 followers
March 31, 2020
"Os dois aspectos do tempo, imagem atual do presente que passa e a imagem
virtual do passado que se conserva, se distinguem na atualização, tendo, ao
mesmo tempo, um limite inassinalável, mas se permutam na cristalização,
até se tornarem indiscerníveis, cada um tomando emprestado o papel do
outro.
A relação do atual e do virtual constitui sempre um circuito, mas de
duas maneiras: ora o atual remete a virtuais como a outras coisas em vastos
circuitos, onde o virtual se atualiza, ora o atual remete ao virtual como a seu
próprio virtual, nos menores circuitos onde o virtual cristaliza com o atual.
O plano de imanência contém, a um só tempo, a atualização como relação
do virtual com outros termos, e mesmo o atual como termo com o qual o
virtual se permuta. Em todos os casos, a relação do atual e do virtual não é a
que se pode estabelecer entre dois atuais. Os atuais implicam indivíduos já
constituídos, e determinações por pontos ordinários, enquanto a relação do
atual e do virtual forma uma individuação em ato ou uma singularização
por pontos notáveis a serem determinados em cada caso".
Profile Image for sadeleuze.
150 reviews24 followers
October 21, 2022
I think this book is pretty accessible, there's a little bit of his other books in it too.

I appreciate how he uses a lot of various examples to get across his ideas. Deleuze is writing about changing the models we use to understand the world, moving away from a sort or metaphysics that believes in intrinsic properties. There's no true you or capitalism, they're all collectives. You aren't 'the same' as you were a few seconds ago. Everything is a unique collective made up of other parts (you're made of your interests, cells...) but you are still 'you'.

Therefore, we should rethink desire. Desire is what happens when those discrete 'bodies' (a collection of a bunch of different things) collide.
Deleuze uses the example of the wasp and the orchid, saying they both have these weird shapes because they have mutually evolved in their interpenetration of each other.

Then there's the line of flight but also the force encoding. It creates stability but also a form of alienation.

We are responsible for our society moving towards a type of fascism or evil, and are equally responsible for our society moving towards something we believe in.
Profile Image for Molsa Roja(s).
833 reviews29 followers
September 2, 2023
Extraordinari! Desenes de pàgines d'apunts! Aquest semidiàleg o diàleg simulat entre Deleuze i Parnet és fantàstic. Parlant de gran quantitat de temes -tècnica,societat, desig, literatura,existència,lingüística-, Deleuze aconsegueix fer emergir la seva impressionant col·lecció de conceptes: multiplicitats i agenciaments, el devenir, els nòmades i les màquines de guerra, les màquines binàries i les abstractes, les línies de fuga i els segments, el rizoma i l'arborescència. Els trobo tots excepcionals, d'una profunditat de pensament abismal que capacita al lector per a reconèixer una realitat paral·lela, fins ara amagada sota una muntanya de segments, de convencions imposades subreptíciament per aquesta màquina abstracta que ens limita i delimita. L'obra de Deleuze és un monument a la llibertat que emociona.
Profile Image for Daniel Rainer.
51 reviews4 followers
August 4, 2021
"The more you create your own regime of signs, the less you will be a person or a subject, the more you will be a 'collective' that meets other collectives, that combines or interconnects with others, reactivating, inventing, bringing to the future, bringing about non-personal individuations."

Dialogues reads like an abridged or condensed version of A Thousand Plateaus—which was published two years later. For readers intimidated by the conceptual density of ATP, Dialogues could well serve as a companion, guide, or even as an alternative.
Profile Image for gabi.
54 reviews7 followers
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July 5, 2022
«En lugar de apostar por la eterna imposibilidad de la revolución y por el retorno fascista de una máquina de guerra en general, ¿por qué no pensar que un nuevo tipo de revolución está deviniendo posible, y que todo tipo de máquinas mutantes, vivientes, hacen guerras, se conjugan y trazan un plano de consistencia que mina el plano de organización del Mundo y de los Estados? Porque, repitámoslo una vez más, ni el mundo y sus Estados son dueños de su plan, ni los revolucionarios están condenados a la deformación del suyo.»
9 reviews
December 2, 2025
Volgensmij heb ik met Deleuze & Guattari wel iets te pakken, logisch, cool, en is mega interessant, alleen wel super abstract. Dit was zo'n soort lees sessie waarbij je begrijpt wat je leest maar niet meer begrijpt wat je gelezen hebt. Hopelijk het begin van deze taal leren lezen/schrijven! Assemblage Urbanismmmm

Eigenlijk is het gewoon 5 sterren alleen was ik niet in staat om genoeg te begrijpen om dat recht te hebben :)
Profile Image for Pablo.
Author 20 books95 followers
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February 22, 2020
Excelente introducción al pensamiento de Deleuze desde una tensión compartida y, como muy bien vio Luna Miguel, cada intervención de Claire Parnet es mejor que la de su contrincante: más lúcida, más incisiva. En especial, me gustó la idea de las novelas de Thomas Hardy como motor de intensidades
Profile Image for Xinyi.
52 reviews
August 28, 2025
close read "A Conversation" and "Many Politics"// interesting ideas to me are being in stammerer in one's own language, [fin] as both an end and an aim, not determining but passing and inhabiting (possibly that was where Berlant got the inspiration), and becoming as distinguished from the embryo
Profile Image for Elliot.
64 reviews
December 4, 2025
Beaucoup plus hors sol que pourparlers, plus flou. Le format dialogue fonctionne mal, et l’entre-deux entre posture surplombante et vulgarisatrice donne un ton manquant de clarté. Le rejet de la dialectique est aussi plus marqué
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