Gilles Deleuze

Lore & Background

Gilles Deleuze was born into a middle-class family in Paris and lived there for most of his life. During World War II, he attended the Lycée Carnot and spent a year in khâgne at the Lycée Henri IV. His brother Georges, three years his senior, was arrested for participation in the French Resistance and died while in transit to a concentration camp. In 1944, Deleuze studied at the Sorbonne, where his teachers included Georges Canguilhem, Jean Hyppolite, Ferdinand Alquié, and Maurice de Gandillac. He passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1948 and taught at various lycées until 1957, when he took a position at the University of Paris. In 1953, he published his first monograph, Empiricism and Subjectivity, on David Hume. From 1960 to 1964, he held a research fellowship at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, publishing Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) and befriending Michel Foucault. From 1964 to 1969, he was a professor at the University of Lyon. In 1968, he defended his two DrE dissertations amid the May 68 demonstrations, later published as Difference and Repetition and Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. In 1969, he was appointed to the University of Paris VIII, where he taught until his retirement in 1987.

Reader's Guide

Deleuze's significance lies in his inversion of traditional metaphysics, arguing that difference, not identity, is fundamental. He claimed that all identities are effects of difference, and that pure difference is non-spatiotemporal, calling it 'the virtual.' His philosophy, which he termed 'transcendental empiricism,' holds that experience exceeds human concepts and forces the invention of new ways of thinking. Deleuze also adapted the medieval doctrine of univocity from John Duns Scotus, asserting that being is univocally difference. His work, both in monographs on other philosophers and in collaborative tomes with Guattari, has influenced a variety of disciplines across the humanities, including philosophy, art, and literary theory, as well as movements such as post-structuralism and postmodernism. A. W. Moore, citing Bernard Williams's criteria for a great thinker, ranks Deleuze among the 'greatest philosophers.'

Did You Know?

• Deleuze's brother Georges died while in transit to a concentration camp during the Nazi occupation of France.
• Deleuze developed tuberculosis in 1968 and underwent lung removal; he died by suicide on 4 November 1995.
• Before his death, Deleuze announced his intention to write a book entitled La Grandeur de Marx.
• He is buried in the cemetery of the village of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Gilles Deleuze (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher." — Gilles Deleuze "A leftist government doesn't exist because being on the left has nothing to do with governments." — Gilles Deleuze "from L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze: G comme Gauche (“Gilles Deleuze's Alphabet Book: Left-wing Politics”), 1988–1989." — Gilles Deleuze "There's no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons." — Gilles Deleuze