Leibniz - Philosophy and the Creation of Concepts, Lecture 5, 20 May 1980

<p><em>The Deleuze Seminars</em> is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.</p>

<p>At the start of the 26 February 1980 seminar, Deleuze explains, “some of you asked me to do something that would be a kind of presentation on a very great philosopher, one that is very difficult, named Leibniz. So, I could do so unless there are any… if you have subjects or problems connected to your own research, we could see. … This depends greatly on you, a certain number of whom have been working with me for… a long time, a lot of years, and all that we’ve done for four or five years, I think are some very different things, but these are things focusing on some of the same notions. So, it could be very useful again to take up certain notions that we have worked on over several years…. So anything is possible; it’s up to you, but as of now, or in a coming meeting, I will do something on Leibniz… a special request.”</p>

<p>This brief seminar clearly predates publication of his 1988 book on Leibniz, <em>The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque</em>, by 6 years, as well as the twenty-session seminar undertaken in 1986-87.</p>

<p>The fifth and final introductory lecture on Leibniz's philosophy, in which Deleuze considers what does the Leibniz-Kant opposition mean? Is this an opposition?  What are the conditions of these propositions? He proposes to organize four propositions, two for Leibniz, two for Kant, and to comment on them as a function of Deleuze's real project, which is the question of what concepts in philosophy are. Deleuze closes with two points, first, regarding what it would mean to be Leibnizian today, and also reviews Kant’s radically new directions: the thinking or finite ego conditions and founds the phenomenal apparition appearing in space and time. Deleuze closes with a reference to Paul Klee’s <i>Theory of Modern Art</i> in which he speaks of admiring painters of previous eras, for example, Cézanne who went in search of “the motif”, not reproducing. So, in relation to Leibniz and Kant, today’s interest is not infinite analysis nor finite synthesis, but something else, perhaps synthesizing as in synthetic thought in a new sense, toward something else.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p>This dataset includes a .mp3 audio file of the original recorded lecture alongside the complete French transcription and English translation in odt format, and the original WebDeleuze French transcription. [WebDeleuze was founded by Richard Pinhas -- a student in Deleuze's seminars -- who, with the Deleuze family's support, developed transcripts and translations of many of the seminars including the Leibniz 1980 sessions.]</p>

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<p><em>Les Séminaires de Deleuze</em> sont une collection d'enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents complémentaires des conférences que le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze a donné lors de sa carrière à l'Université de Paris 8.</p>

<p>Une série de séminaires qui était donnée par le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze à l’Université de Paris 8. Ce cours est organisé dans un séminaire de 5 conférences (qui dure environ 11 heures) que Deleuze a enseigné d’avril 1980 à mai 1980.</p>

<p>La cinquième et dernière séance d’introduction sur la philosophie de Leibniz, où Deleuze considère : qu’est-ce qui signifie l’opposition Leibniz-Kant ? Est-ce que c’est une opposition ? Qu’est-ce que c’est que les conditions de ces propositions ? Il propose de regrouper quatre propositions, deux pour Leibniz, deux pour Kant, et de commenter en fonction de ce regroupement à la lumière de ce qu’il appelle son vrai projet, qu’est-ce que c’est que les concepts en philosophie ?</p>