In response to my sending him an earlier exposition of my “philosophy of spirit,” Deleuze’s reply included:
Votre lettre ... témoigne d’une force philosophique qui est la vôtre, celle-ci apparait déjà dans l’originalité de votre découpage: plan d’immanence, ligne de transcendance, volume-cristal. Bien sûr, je ne pense pas que l’on puisse réintroduire la transcendance comme vous le faites et au sens où vous le faites. Vous avez en général tendance à relativiser des notions comme immanence, ou chaos, qui ne vivent qu d’absolu. J’ai donc une grande différence avec vous, qui ne m’empêche pas de reconnaitre votre nature et votre culture profoundément philosophiques et l’interêt de votre pensée. Votre pensée a donc besoin de se détacher tout à fait de moi, pour aller plus directement là où vous voulez. Je pense être “matérialiste” autant que vous, “spiritualiste.”
Your letter ... shows your own philosophical force which already appears in the originality of your conceptual division: plane of immanence, line of transcendence, volume-crystal. Of course, I don’t think that one can reintroduce transcendence as you have done and in the sense in which you have done. You have a general tendency to relativize notions like immanence or chaos which only come to life when absolute. I therefore have a great difference from you which does not prevent me from recognizing your profoundly philosophical nature and culture and the interest of your thought. Your thought therefore needs to separate itself completely from me to go more directly where you want. I regard myself as “materialist” as opposed to you who are “spiritualist.” (February 1993)
Deleuze therefore sees, as I do, a great difference between my philosophy of spirit and his own work. For this reason, I avoid an exposition of mine here except insofar as it has a bearing on the question of philosophy in Deleuze’s thought. I have addressed Deleuze’s critical remarks throughout this study as a whole by examining the way immanence and chaos are produced within his thought, and exploring the relation between these two forms of the absolute.
— Philip Goodchild, Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy (London: Associated University Presses, 1996), p. 124.