Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T17:25:50.258Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - “Existing Not as a Subject But as a Work of Art”: The Task of Ethics or Aesthetics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Nathan Jun
Affiliation:
Midwestern State University
Daniel Smith
Affiliation:
Purdue University
Get access

Summary

It's to do with abolishing ways of existing or, as Nietzsche put it, inventing new possibilities of life. Existing not as a subject but as a work of art – and this last phase presents thought as artistry.

(Deleuze 1995a: 95)

Deleuze endorsed repeatedly the well-known conviction of Michel Foucault and of Nietzsche that life had to be lived as a work of art. This raises the question whether the terms under which a life is led properly belong to ethics (this of course being the traditional or consensual position taken when it comes to answering the question “how should I lead my life?”). But to suggest that life be led as a work of art implies, palpably, that it is aesthetics, and not ethics, which superintends the question “how should I lead my life?” At one level the answer to this question can only be altogether commonplace and quite worn-out – of course the answer given depends on how “ethics” and “aesthetics” are defined! But at another level it certainly isn't trivial. If Deleuze had an ethics, then what kind of ethics is it, and is it an ethics with a depth and scope capable of superintending the question “how should I lead my life”? Or would this task be left to an aesthetics, and, if so, what kind of aesthetics did Deleuze have? Or are ethics and aesthetics related in such a way in Deleuze's thought that it is both ethics and aesthetics which oversee the terms of the question “how should I lead my life”? And if that is the case, then how does Deleuze conceive of the relation between ethics and aesthetics, and how do they function conjointly when dealing with the question of leading one’s life as a work of art?

Type
Chapter
Information
Deleuze and Ethics , pp. 142 - 153
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×