The volume "Deleuze and Philosophy" positions Deleuze not merely as a subject _of_ philosophy, but as a catalyst for thinking differently, often exploring what lies _outside_ traditional philosophical boundaries. The title itself, "Deleuze and Philosophy," suggests a conjunction, not a simple identification, highlighting what is at stake in connecting Deleuze's name with the discipline. It questions philosophy's established identity and its relationship to the pre-philosophical and extra-philosophical, seeing philosophy as something that constantly moves outside, opening onto the cosmos and becoming-chaosmos. The book doesn't aim to provide a single, fixed image of Deleuzian thought or serve a "regressive cause" of making a singular "Delezian event" happen. Instead, it presents a multiplicity of voices and styles, testifying to Deleuze's ongoing influence across various domains. **Key Themes and Ideas to Explore:** 1. **Deleuze's Unconventional Approach to Philosophy:** - Deleuze wasn't a student _of_ philosophy in a conventional sense, yet he was always philosophical. His approach is characterized by a critical task rooted in the 'outside' – thinking out of time for the sake of time, becoming something other than what history dictates. - His work involves "engineering differences" and subjecting his thought-experiments to the infinite play of difference and repetition. It's a risky undertaking aligned with an "excessive logic of the 'outside'". - He uses the history of philosophy excessively, freeing thinkers like Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Nietzsche from fixed identities and subjecting them to double or multiple readings. The aim isn't just to criticize deficiencies but to discharge blockages and erect new functions, viewing critique as something to be synthetically engineered for future openings. 2. **Difference and Repetition:** - A central focus is Deleuze's philosophy of difference and repetition, often contrasted with philosophies of representation and identity. - Difference, for Deleuze, isn't simply a negative lack or opposition but is "in itself". It's understood unilaterally in relation to zero, leading to a substantial multiplicity of divergent series. Every phenomenon refers to a difference as its sufficient reason. - Repetition, in this context, isn't mere mechanical reproduction but is a "terrible power" found in forces and dynamic lines that bypass organized bodies and established characters. Authentic repetition becomes impossible when philosophy is rendered powerless. The event of repetition operates against established Law. 3. **The Virtual and the Actual:** - A crucial distinction Deleuze makes, particularly in relation to Spinoza and evolution, is between the virtual and the actual, contrasting them with the possible and the real. - The possible is seen as pre-formed and ready-made, with the real simply adding existence through a process of realization governed by resemblance and limitation, leading to no real difference or invention. - The virtual, however, is defined by difference and divergence. Actualization of the virtual is a process of creative evolution, requiring positive acts and the creation of new lines of actualization; the actual does not resemble the virtual. The virtual is without form, but it is determinate and structured in a way that resists standard forms. 4. **Immanence and the Plane of Immanence:** - Immanence is a pervasive theme in Deleuze's work, heavily influenced by Spinoza's conception of nature. - A plane of immanence is constructed experimentally through composing powers and entering into different relations. It has no supplementary, transcendent dimension; the process of composition is apprehended within what it gives. - This emphasis on immanence is often linked to an "anti-juridical" tendency, opposing traditions that posit individual forces, mediation by external power, and resolution of antagonism through that power. Instead, Deleuze explores how agreements and compositions of powers can emerge immanently. 5. **Machinic Thinking and Assemblages:** - Deleuze and Guattari introduce "machinism" into philosophy, viewing machines not just as mechanical devices but as composed of matter and engineering, where matter is engineered by matter itself. Thinking itself can be mechanized and become machinic. - Machinic thought is plastic and responsive to the unknown, differing from traditional philosophical approaches focused on representation. It involves meshing philosophical concepts with other elements "flusher with the real". - Assemblages are key in Deleuze's thought, describing how heterogeneous elements (including concepts, matter, social practices, technics) connect and function transversally, producing lines of production and becoming. 6. **Philosophical Biology and Evolution:** - This is a significant area explored in the volume, examining Deleuze's unique perspective on life and evolution. - Deleuze challenges standard "evolutionism," whether biological or historical, arguing against models based on external causality, linear progress, or pre-formed possibilities. - He aligns with ideas of "creative evolution" and "internal difference," moving beyond Darwinian and Lamarckian models. Life is understood in terms of movement and invention, not just the forms it produces. - Concepts like "viroid life" and "viral empiricism" are used to explore non-linear evolution and the functioning of complex systems, challenging anthropomorphic and speciesist assumptions. - While engaging with biology, some essays note a tension or "avoidance of Darwin" in Deleuze's privileging of distribution (like in Spinoza) over selection (as in Darwinian natural selection), sometimes seen as sentimentalizing nature. The process of embryogenesis and morphogenesis, focusing on morphogenetic movements and the creation of peculiar space/time, is highlighted as an area aligning with Deleuze's thinking on difference and challenging core Darwinian tenets. 7. **Engagement with Key Philosophers:** - The volume explores Deleuze's readings of canonical figures, showing how he transforms them. - His reading of **Kant** is seen as insistently positive, focusing on discharging blockages and engineering critique rather than just criticizing deficiencies. Deleuze identifies problems within Kant, such as the "schizophrenized subject" and the pure form of time, which become foundational for his own thought. - His relation to **Spinoza** is central, focusing on the theme of immanence, composition, and the "anti-juridical" conception of agency. The practical and experimental dimension of Spinoza's "common notions"—ideas of composition formed through good encounters and active joy—is highlighted as a key to understanding becoming-active and collective agency. - **Nietzsche** is presented as an exception to post-Kantian metaphysics, praised for his "nomad thought" and his marshaling of active forces against reactive ones. Deleuze engages with Nietzsche's eternal return as a principle of selection. 8. **Politics and the Social:** - Deleuze's thought has significant implications for understanding politics and social arrangements. - The "politics of becoming" is explored, often in relation to "machinic life" and confronting the problem of selecting between different forms of deterritorialization (e.g., creative vs. cancerous). - Concepts like "deterritorialization" and "reterritorialization" are central to analyzing capitalism and the State, seeing capitalism as living off its contradictions rather than being overcome by them. - "Schizoanalysis" (developed with Guattari) is presented as a way to illuminate productive forces within capitalism and critique established structures and identities, including traditional psychoanalysis (the critique of Oedipus) and notions of the human and social. It emphasizes thinking at the "molecular" or "minor" level of organization and composition. 9. **Art and Catastrophe:** - Deleuze's views on art are explored through themes like "catastrophism". - Looking at artists like Turner, Deleuze sees how catastrophe can become actual in art, leading to new experiences. - Art, like philosophy and science, is involved in composing alternative worlds and tapping into the virtual processes of becoming. This involves showing that the current world isn't the only possibility and placing value on the powers that form rather than just the final forms. - Art is linked to "machinic thinking" and going beyond representation. 10. **Challenging Traditional Philosophical Frameworks:** - Deleuze's work consistently challenges fundamental philosophical distinctions and presuppositions, such as mind/body, reason/passion, subject/object, form/matter, universal/particular, theory/practice, and the idea of a fixed origin or foundation. - He advocates for a "superior empiricism" that involves the insane creation of concepts and experiments, questioning what thought is capable of. - His "geometry of sufficient reason" moves beyond Euclidean or merely conceptual geometry, rooting problems in their conditions rather than relying on ready-made concepts or models. **Further Ideas to Explore:** Engaging with this material invites exploration into how Deleuze's concepts (difference, repetition, becoming, virtuality, immanence, machinic thinking, assemblage) can be applied or extended. How do these concepts function across seemingly disparate fields like philosophy, biology, politics, and art? How does Deleuze's positive, experimental approach to critique differ from other forms of philosophical criticism? What are the risks and challenges inherent in his thought, particularly concerning the critique of anthropocentrism or the notion of selection? The volume serves as a prompt to think with Deleuze, pushing thought to travel "outside" established territories and explore new lines of connection and production. It reminds us that "we simply do not know what a philosopher can do".