Leibniz and the Baroque, Lecture 17, May 12, 1987

<p>A series of lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8. This seventeenth lecture is organized within a 20-lecture seminar that Deleuze taught between October 1986 and June 1987, presented on May 12, 1987.</p>

<p>Having moved into the concept of substance in the previous session, Deleuze devotes much of the session to reviewing the previous consideration of the concept of substance, thus preparing the important linkage with reflection on “having a body”. Recalling the session on point of view (18 November 1986), Deleuze insists that, despite their linkage, having a body means something different than having a point of view, and with Leibniz’s statement, “I thought I was in port, and I found myself thrown back into the open sea”, Deleuze introduces a new problem of the body, returning to the logical criterion of substance. He then poses the question, why do bodies exist, i.e., why the fact of clearly expressing a tiny region results in one having a body? Despite answering that this limitation is the requirement for extension and resistance, i.e., through the body, Deleuze is peppered with question about Leibniz’s example of boats in the current, creating a 27-minute back-and-forth with students. Deleuze eventually shifts the focus back to Leibniz’s physical criterion of substance, and claiming that Descartes cannot account for the genesis of movement in extension, Leibniz suggests that just as spiritual substance presented to us active primitive force, passive primitive force or limitation, so too bodies present to us active derivative force and passive force of limitation, i.e., delimitation of receptivity of the body to movements that it receives. Thus, to conclude Deleuze recalls that having a body is the only way through which the requirement of extension and resistance can be realized, not just as a spontaneous unity of change and as a limitation, but as a third requisite, to which Deleuze will turn in the next session.</p>

<p>This dataset includes one .mp3 audio file of the original recorded lecture and the complete French transcription and English translation in odt format.</p>

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<p>Les Séminaires de Deleuze 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>Deleuze consacre une grande partie de la séance à revoir la réflexion précédente sur le concept de substance, préparant ainsi le lien important avec la réflexion sur « avoir un corps ». Pour conclure, Deleuze rappelle qu'avoir un corps est la seule façon par laquelle l'exigence d'extension et de résistance peut être réalisée, non seulement comme unité spontanée de changement et comme limitation, mais comme troisième exigence, vers laquelle Deleuze se tournera dans la prochaine séance.</p>