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INTRODUCTION

Ronald Bogue

Assoc. R.I.P. | Revue internationale de philosophie

2007/3 - n241

pages 243 244

ISSN 0048-8143

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Pour citer cet article :

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Bogue Ronald, Introduction ,

Revue internationale de philosophie, 2007/3 n241, p. 243-244.

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Introduction

Ronald Bogue

The Invention of Possibilities of Life

In his seminal Nietzsche et la philosophie(1962) Deleuze remarked thatNietzsche conceived of philosophy as the invention of possibilities of life.

Not long before his death in 1995, Deleuze returned to this motif, embracing

the terms as his own, first in his final collaborative work with Flix Guattari,

Queest-ce que la philosophie(1991), and then in his last published book, the

collection of essays on literature and philosophy Critique et clinique(1993).

The essays in this volume are dedicated to the exploration of this theme.

Throughout his work, Deleuze repeatedly characterized philosophy as the

creation of concepts. As a painter creates in paint, so a philosopher creates inconcepts. His thought was no simple aestheticism, however, nor did he envision

some future fusion of philosophy and the arts. Philosophy has its own domain,

its own materials, processes and aims, and in Quest-ce que la philosophiehe

attempted a schematization of the relations among philosophy, the sciences,

and the arts, approaching each domain as a mode of thought, but seeing each as

a distinct activity with its own concerns. He recognized the repressive role the

history of philosophy has played within philosophy (you cannot speak without

citing Plato, Kant, Hegel ), but he had genuine respect and affection forphilosophers of the past hence his monographs on Hume (1953), Nietzsche

(1962), Kant (1963), Bergson (1966), Spinoza (1968 and 1981), and Leibniz

(1989). Yet even here, his emphasis was on creation, on discovering the genuine

problem within another philosopher and unfolding its potential for the genera-

tion of new concepts. Whether engaged in discussion of a technical point in

anothers philosophy, or deep in the delineation of an exuberantly neologistic

terminology, Deleuze consistently sought a means of activating from within

philosophy the possibilities for new modes of thought.The concept of life also emerged as an important concern in Deleuzes later

writings. Deleuze professed to be a vitalist, but his vitalism was focused on

the concept of a nonorganic life, a life that transcends the traditional distinc-

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Gilles Deleuze244

tions between mechanism and vitalism. The nonorganic life of things is at the

heart of his ontology, which develops a line of thought running from Spinoza

and Leibniz through Bergson and Whitehead, eventuating in a machinic

conception of nature as a generative force of novelty. The elaboration of this

concept is especially evident in his major collaborations with Guattari, first in the

universal desiring production ofLAnti-Oedipe(1972), then in the machinic

assemblages and mechanosphere ofMille plateaux(1980), and finally in

the Nature-Thought of Quest-ce que la philosophie?. Nonorganic life also

informs Deleuzes view of culture and politics, the single aim of philosophy, the

arts, and the sciences being that of inventing new modes of existence, in which

a nonorganic life makes possible the formation of a genuinely self-determining

collectivity. For Deleuze, the invention of possibilities of life entails the inven-

tion of a people to come, the creation of a new earth and a new people. This

political and cultural project, however, far from working in separation from or in

contrast to nature, arises from within the natural world as but one manifestation

of a general process of creation and exploration of possibilities.

Invention. Possibility. Life. Three fundamental themes in a philosopher whose

thought continues to engage us with its paradox, its rigor, and its promise.

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