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August 24, 2005
Difference and Repetition: Overview
Translation of Maquerelle du Vrai, 12 June 2005 - Text by Guillaume Destivère
We will seek here to give a sense of the general argument of Difference and Repetition in so far as one might already perceive it in browsing the detailed table of contents. Many thanks to the readers who shared their remarks and commentaries with me.
Introduction: Repetition and Difference
Repetition is the problem of existence. The problem of existence, the problem of the tragic, of what merits existence, etc. must be posed within the framework of a philosophy of repetition. The three thinkers of existence as repetition or of repetition as terrible alienation and as the highest deliverance are: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and, a little later, Péguy. If Deleuze poses the question of grace or salvation, he does so under the sign of repetition in these authors (the protestant, the atheist, and the catholic).
There are three major orders in which we encounter repetition: language, nature, freedom. In connection with words, with plants and animals, and with man, art and history.
Repetition is existence, against all generalities (a theme which Kierkegaard had already developed, against Hegel; Hegel is still Deleuze's principal adversary in this book). This is why Deleuze will carefully distinguish repetition from generality, according to three aspects. According to conducts (Sartre's method): the conducts of repetition are not those of generality. According to the law: scientific or natural law (the method of Comte, for existence) or moral law (the method of Kant for existence) only concern generality within the orders of nature and liberty; whereas "if repetition is possible, it is by virtue of a miracle rather than of the law". According to the concept (the vulgarised Leibnizian method): nominal concepts (Tournier: the repetition of twins), natural concepts (Kant: symmetrical objects), concepts of freedom (Freud: the pleasure principle and the death drive).
The vulgarised leibnizianism brilliantly outlined by Deleuze is of the greatest importance. We see already articulated in it a philosophy of difference (logic and ontology of difference in Leibniz -" essence) and a system of repetitions (in words, nature, and freedom -" existence). This provisional philosophy of difference proves itself insufficient for the thinking of repetition.
As we will see, the Introduction (Repetition and Difference, in that order) leads from the problem of existence (as system of repetitions, a philosophy of repetition) to the problem of logic and ontology (to these two: philosophy of difference) which will allow the thinking of true repetitions within existence.
We should not be fooled by the modest flavour of the Foreword. It is not a question only of capturing a "zeitgeist" ("The subject treated herein is manifestly in the air"), but of that which is worthy of being lived, that which merits existence: a repetition which saves, or good repetitions against all bad habits.
Chapter 1: Difference in itself
Chapter 2: Repetition for itself
We are concerned here with the two concepts that appear on the cover, with the two lines of research that are mentioned in the Foreword. If this puts one in mind of Sartre's in-itself and for-itself (which take their names from Hegel), one wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but Deleuze explores these lines in a way very different from that of Sartre.
The first line of research consists of purifying difference, the second has amongst its results to re-dress repetition. Strip Peter to dress Paul. Wrest difference from the primacy of identity; discover in repetition, even the most material of repetitions, even the most naked, a hidden repetition, like an ipseity. We cannot think of anything better than this couplet identity/ipseity to describe in few words the operation of these two lines of research. Deleuze himself says "subjectivity" rather than "ipseity". It seems to us that it is "sameness" which is being meticulously distinguished here.
These are the presuppositions, the postulates which are the basis of the Long Error (a Long Error which has as its consequence today the inhibition to our thinking true repetitions). One might reproach this "(dogmatic) image of thought" with what Heidegger calls "metaphysics", with what Nietzsche calls "Platonism". To escape from metaphysics, to overturn Platonism. (Deleuze often likes to reclaim the word 'metaphysics' for his philosophy; and he will come to say that we must preserve much of Platonism, even in overturning it). Here, Deleuze doesn't use these words. He uses his own words, he poses the problem outside the Heidegerrian hermeneutical framework, within a framework
other than that of Nietzschean genealogy. For his "empiricism", the Long Error concerns "the image of thought".
Chapter 4: Ideal Synthesis of Difference
Chapter 5: Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible
Now, Deleuze gives an exposition of his philosophy of difference. It is indissociable from a method, a movement, which he calls the "method of dramatisation" and which he presented to the Société Française de la Philosophie just a small time before DR was published.
Of course, these two chapters, which say in detail how Deleuze proposes to liberate philosophy from the Long Error, are the most important in the book. They are also the most difficult. We find in the foreword this phrase, which seems to us to be the key to his whole project: "Empiricism is the mysticism of the concept, and its mathematism". Chapter 4 concerns itself with this "mathematism" of the Idea (as ideal-differential), chapter 5 with the "mysticism" of intensities (as the sensible diversity of an expanded Experience).
Conclusion: Difference and Repetition
In the Introduction, the attractive vulgarised Leibnizianism proposed by Deleuze as a provisional doctrine of difference was shown to be insufficient to think true repetitions. In this conclusion it is a question of showing that the philosophy of difference developed in chapters 4 and 5 is equal to the task. We can even hope to learn in it more about those repetitions which save (if the guiding thread constituted by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Péguy does not break - if the suspended Ariadne is not dead!)
Posted by robin at August 24, 2005 09:14 AM