Immanence: Deleuze and Philosophy

223 Pages·2010·1.05 MB·English

by  Miguel de Beistegui

PLATEAUS • NEW DIRECTIONS IN DELEUZE STUDIES
Series Editors Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook
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Immanence – Deleuze and Philosophy identifies the original impetus and the t
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driving force behind Deleuze’s philosophy as a whole and the many concepts g
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it creates. It seeks to extract the inner consistency of Deleuze’s thought by i
returning to its source or to what, following Deleuze’s own vocabulary, it calls
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the event of that thought. M
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The source of Deleuzian thought, the book argues, is immanence. In six A
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chapters dealing with the status of thought itself, ontology, logic, ethics,
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and aesthetics, Miguel de Beistegui reveals the manner in which immanence N
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is realised in each and every one of those classical domains of philosophy. E
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Ultimately, he argues, immanence turns out to be an infinite task, and
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transcendence the opposition with which philosophy will always need to E
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reckon. E
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This book will be invaluable reading for those seeking to enhance their
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understanding of Deleuze’s philosophy. A
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Miguel de Beistegui is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. D
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Cover image: © hauhu/iStockphoto.com
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Edinburgh University Press barcode in
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22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF u
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www.euppublishing.com g
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3830 7
Immanence – Deleuze and Philosophy
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Plateaus – New Directions in Deleuze Studies
‘It’s not a matter of bringing all sorts of things together under a single
concept but rather of relating each concept to variables that explain its
mutations.’
Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations
Series Editors
Ian Buchanan, Cardiff University
Claire Colebrook, Penn State University
Editorial Advisory Board
Keith Ansell Pearson
Ronald Bogue
Constantin V. Boundas
Rosi Braidotti
Eugene Holland
Gregg Lambert
Dorothea Olkowski
Paul Patton
Daniel Smith
James Williams
Titles available in the series
Dorothea Olkowski, The Universal (In the Realm of the Sensible):
Beyond Continental Philosophy
Christian Kerslake, Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy:
From Kant to Deleuze
Jean-Clet Martin, Variations: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze,
translated by Constantin V. Boundas and Susan Dyrkton
Simone Bignall, Postcolonial Agency: Critique and Constructivism
Miguel de Beistegui, Immanence – Deleuze and Philosophy
Forthcoming Titles in the Series
Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature
Ronald Bogue, Deleuzian Fabulation and the Scars of History
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IMMANENCE –
DELEUZE AND PHILOSOPHY
2
Miguel de Beistegui
Edinburgh University Press
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© Miguel de Beistegui, 2010
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in Sabon
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 3830 7 (hardback)
The right of Miguel de Beistegui
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
List of Abbreviations vi
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Noology 5
2 Ontology I: Genesis 24
3 Ontology II: Cartography 47
4 Logic 77
5 Ethics 105
6 Aesthetics 160
Conclusion 192
Bibliography 196
Index 203
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List of Abbreviations
Works by Gilles Deleuze
C- 1 Cinéma- 1: L’Image- mouvement (Paris: Les Éditions
de Minuit, 1983). Trans. H. Tomlinson and B.
Habberjam, Cinema- 1: The Movement-I mage
(London: The Athlone Press, 1986).
C- 2 Cinéma-2 : L’Image- temps (Paris: Les Éditions de
Minuit, 1986). Trans. H. Tomlinson and R. Galeta,
Cinema- 2: The Time-I mage (London: The Athlone
Press, 1989).
DI L’Île déserte et autres texts, textes et entretiens
1953–1974 (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 2002).
Trans. M. Taormina, Desert Islands and Other Texts
(New York: Semiotext(e), 2003).
DR Différence et répétition (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1968). Trans. P. Patton, Difference and
Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994).
EPS Spinoza et le problème de l’expression (Paris: Les
Éditions de Minuit, 1969). Trans. M. Joughin,
Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (New York:
Zone Books, 1990).
FB Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation (Paris:
Éditions de la différence, 1981). Trans. D. Smith,
Francis Bacon: the Logic of Sensation (London:
Continuum, 2003).
KCP La Philosophie critique de Kant (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1963). Trans. H. Tomlinson
and B. Habberjam, Kant’s Critical Philosophy
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
LS Logique du Sens (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1969).
Trans. M. Lester with C. Stivale, The Logic of Sense
(London: The Athlone Press, 1990).
vi
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List of Abbreviations
N Pourparlers 1972–1990 (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit,
1990). Trans. M. Joughin, Negotiations 1972–1990
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
NP Nietzsche et la philosophie (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1962). Trans. H.
Tomlinson, Nietzsche and Philosophy (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983).
PS Proust et les signes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1970). Trans. R. Howard, Proust and Signs
(London: The Athlone Press, 2000).
SPP Spinoza: Philosophie pratique (Paris: Minuit, 1981).
Trans. R. Hurley, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (San
Francisco: City Lights, 1988).
TRM Deux Régimes de fous, textes et entretiens
1975–1995 (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 2003).
Trans. A. Hodges and M. Taormina, Two Regimes
of Madness (New York: Semiotext(e), 2006).
Works by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
AO C apitalisme et schizophrénie tome 1: l’Anti-Œ dipe
(Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1972). Trans. R. Hurley,
M. Seem and H. Lane, Anti- Oedipus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia (London: The Athlone Press, 1984).
ATP Capitalisme et schizophrénie tome 2: Mille Plateaux
(Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980). Trans. B.
Massumi, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia (London: The Athlone Press, 1988).
K Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Les
Éditions de Minuit, 1975). Trans. D. Polan, Kafka:
Toward a Minor Literature (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1987).
WP Qu’est- ce que la philosophie? (Paris: Minuit, 1991).
Trans. G. Burchell and H. Tomlinson, What is
Philosophy? (London: Verso, 1994).
Work by Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet
Dialogues Dialogues (Paris: Flammarion, 1977). Trans.
H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam, Dialogues (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1987).
vii
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list of abbreviations
Works by Jacques Lacan
Écrits Écrits (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1966). Trans.
A. Sheridan, Écrits: A Selection (London: Tavistock,
1977).
Seminar I J. A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre I : Les écrits techniques de Freud 1953–1954
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1975).
Seminar II J. A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre II: Le moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans
la technique de la psychanalyse 1954–1955 (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 1978). Trans. S. Tomaselli, with
notes by J. Forrester, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan,
Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the
Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954–55 (New York
& London: Norton, 1991).
Seminar III J . A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre III: Les psychoses 1955–1956 (Paris: Éditions
du Seuil, 1981). Trans. and notes R. Grigg, The
Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses,
1955–56 (London: Routledge, 1993).
Seminar IV J . A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre IV: La relation d’objet: Les psychoses
1956–1957 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1994).
Seminar V J . A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre V: Les formations de l’inconscient 1957–1958
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1998).
Seminar VII J. A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre VII: L’Éthique de la psychanalyse (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 1986). Trans. and notes D. Porter,
The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book VII: The Ethics
of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960 (London: Routledge:
1992).
Seminar XI J. A. Miller, editor. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan,
Livre XI: Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de
la psychanalyse (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1975).
Trans. A. Sheridan, The Four Fundamentals of
Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 1981).
All abbreviations will be followed by the French and English
pagination.
viii
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Preface
This book follows from another, Truth and Genesis,1 which identi-
fi ed the Deleuzian enterprise, as it is formulated in Difference and
Repetition, with ontogenesis. Genesis, I argued, especially as exem-
plifi ed in contemporary science, is precisely the aspect of being that
Heidegger, in whose thought of the ontological difference the book
as a whole is anchored, failed to thematise. Genesis signals the pos-
sibility of a genuine compatibility between ontology and science. The
other key concept, truth, signalled the side or aspect of being that is
irreducible to genesis, the Open (or difference) as such, to which phil-
osophical thought, but also literature and art, respond. Truth and
Genesis ends with a claim regarding the compatibility, and even the
necessary link, between the two concepts, the two ‘ways’ of being,
or nature. With respect to Deleuze himself, and to the extent that,
from his thought as a whole, I had extracted only one of the ways
of being, I needed to fi nd out whether his ontology also contains ele-
ments that could relate to what, following Heidegger, I have called
truth, or whether such an ontology is entirely confi ned to the project
of ontogenesis. This book is the result of such a question. It claims
that Deleuze’s ontology indeed exceeds the boundaries of ontogen-
esis, and so confi rms the intuition that governed Truth and Genesis,
albeit with a different vocabulary. If I were to retain one concept to
designate that other way – a way that can give the appearance of an
absolute proximity with that of ontogenesis, yet one that involves a
different orientation, and a different temporality – it would be that
of becoming. At stake in such a concept is the possibility of expe-
riencing the transcendental fi eld of nature, being, or matter, itself,
that is, in its raw, pre-i ndividual state, and not, as in ontogenesis, of
identifying the real conditions of experience, or the phenomenality
of phenomena. In this book, then, the distinction shifts, from genesis
and truth, to genesis and becoming, in what amounts to an intra-
Deleuzian operation, and a further move into materialism, or, better
said perhaps, a further move away from any opposition between ide-
alism and materialism, or thought and being. To avoid the possible
ix
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