Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Time: A Critical Introduction and Guide

217 Pages·2011·1.256 MB·English

by  James Williams

gilles deleuze’s
philosophy of time

a critical introduction and guide
James Williams
Gilles Deleuze’s
Philosophy of Time
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Gilles Deleuze’s
Philosophy of Time
A Critical Introduction
and Guide
JAMES WILLIAMS
Edinburgh University Press
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© James Williams, 2011
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13pt Monotype Baskerville
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 3853 6 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 3854 3 (paperback)
The right of James Williams
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
1 Introduction 1
Why Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of time? 1
The do’s and don’ts of time travel 7
The critical power of Deleuze’s philosophy of time 16
2 The fi rst synthesis of time 21
The living present 21
Synthesis and method in the fi rst synthesis of time 30
Of pebbles and their habits 38
The passing present 45
3 The second synthesis of time 51
A time within which time passes 51
The deduction of the pure past 59
Destiny and freedom 68
How to save all the past for us? 75
4 The third synthesis of time 79
From Descartes to Kant 79
Back to Plato 84
The pure and empty form of time 86
History, repetition and the symbolic image 95
Past and present as dimensions of the future 102
Transcendental dogmatism? 106
5 Time and eternal return 113
Only difference returns and never the same 113
Eternal return and death 118
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Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Time
Series and eternal return 124
Disparity and difference in eternal return 130
6 Time in Logic of Sense 134
Of wounds and time 134
How much, how and where? 138
Time and the surface between depths and heights 145
From principles to acts 154
7 Conclusion: the place of fi lm in Deleuze’s philosophy
of time 159
Endnotes 165
Bibliography 194
Index 202
vi
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities Scotland
for support for research on Gilles Deleuze in Paris and Bordeaux.
Dundee University supported this book through research leave and
support for my postgraduates through successive PhD scholarship
schemes, alongside grants from the Arts and Humanities Research
Council and the Overseas Research Students Award Scheme. The
School of Humanities provided conference travel grants for many
Deleuze conferences and workshops. Once again, this work ben-
efi ted greatly from research with my current and past PhD students
working on Deleuze and French philosophy across many fi elds
(Paul Barlow, Yannis Chatzantonis, Tim Flanagan, Carrie Giunta,
Jenny Kermally, Andrew Mcdonald, Neil Mcginness, Stefanos
Pavlakis, Aude Pichon, Fabio Presutti, Brian Smith and Dominic
Smith). The projects run by the students on my philosophy of
time and Deleuze modules at Dundee have greatly infl uenced this
work; I am grateful to all of them. I taught at successive Deleuze
camps at Cardiff and Cologne, as well as at the Melbourne School
of Continental Philosophy, in the years preparing for this book.
The intensity of enquiry and the desire to share discoveries among
all teachers and participants at these events shaped my thinking
and renewed my enthusiasm for Deleuze, allowing this book to be
much better than it might have been. Of course, if it is still much
worse than others might reasonably expect, that is entirely my fault.
There are many other blameless individuals whose thoughts, works,
conversations and critical comments helped this work; here are but
some of them: Jack Reynolds, John Mullarkey, Beth Lord, Keith
Ansell Pearson, Rachel Jones, Patricia Pisters, Roger Young, Guy
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Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Time
Callan, Lily Forrester, Jon Roffe, Jeff Bell, Ian Buchanan, Nicholas
Davey, Nicholas Blincoe, Johanna Oksala, Mike Wheeler, Levi
Bryant, John Protevi, Giuseppe Bianco, Andrew Benjamin, Miguel
de Beistegui, Dan Smith, Amanda Montgomery, John Drummond,
Carol Macdonald. Finally, and not only because you dared me, this
one’s also for you love . . .
viii
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Abbreviations
In the text, references to Difference and Repetition are given in the
form (DRf, page reference) for the French edition and (DRe, page
reference) for the English translation. References to Logic of Sense
are given as (LoSf, page reference) for the French edition and
(LoSe, page reference) for the English edition. Many translations
are my own or are substantially modifi ed so there are more refer-
ences to the French editions; however, there are frequent cross-
references to the English editions in order to allow for easy tracking
and checking of the texts.
ix
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