Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:00:05.704Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

3 - Difference, repetition

from PART I - PHILOSOPHIES

Melissa McMahon
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Charles J. Stivale
Affiliation:
Wayne State University, Detroit
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Deleuze's notions of difference and repetition are developed within a project that has both a negative and a positive component. The negative or “critical” aspect is the argument that philosophy, in its very conception, has laboured under a “transcendental illusion”, which systematically subordinates the concepts of difference and repetition to that of identity, mostly within what Deleuze calls the “regime of representation”. The illusion is “transcendental” (the term comes from Kant) in so far as it is not simply an historical accident that can be corrected with the right information, but forms a necessary and inevitable part of the operation of thought, and thus requires a perpetual work of critique. Part of Deleuze's project consists in diagnosing this illusion, and showing how it falsifies the “true” movement of thought. In this movement, difference and repetition, in and for themselves, would be appreciated as the ultimate elements and agents of a thought “of the future”: not a historical future, but the future as the essential object of a vital and liberated philosophy, implicit even in philosophies of the past.

The positive component of Deleuze's project can already be glimpsed here, if only by default.

Type
Chapter
Information
Gilles Deleuze
Key Concepts
, pp. 44 - 54
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
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 no-reply@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
×