Anti-Oedipus III, Lecture 2, 14 January 1974

<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>With <em>Anti-Oedipus </em>published the previous year, this seminar clearly develops more consistently toward concepts in the different plateaus in <em>A Thousand Plateaus</em>, and corresponding to this academic year are several publications linked to this development: in late 1973, Deleuze and Guattari present another chapter, plateau 2 in <em>A Thousand Plateaus, </em>on Freud’s case of ‘The Wolf Man’, and several months later, they publish an essay on Kafka’s novel <em>The Castle,</em> developing a separate project that will result in <em>Kafka. Towards a Minor Literature.</em> Finally, with no available transcripts for academic year 1974-75, two more texts will be published during that missing year: material from another chapter which will become plateau 6 in <em>A Thousand Plateaus, </em>on the Body without Organs, and publication of <em>Kafka. Towards a Minor Literature</em> (1975).</p> <p>In session 2, 14 January 1974, Deleuze seems to introduce the session as a “terminological detour”, but he remains within the problem of statements, the detour concerning the nature of being and notions connected to the topic, i.e., equivocity, analogy, and univocity. He shifts the focus back to univocity as something strange and difficult to think about, introducing Duns Scotus’s views on univocal being, at the border of heresy, but maintaining being as physically analogical while metaphysically univocal. To get out of the analogical-univocal impasse Deleuze concludes, with Spinoza, that differences between beings consist in difference understood solely as degrees of power (<em>puissance</em>), and not distinguished by their form, genus, or species. To a student’s comment, Deleuze distinguishes Spinoza’s <em>puissance</em>, or potential energy, from Nietzsche’s concept of will to power. Deleuze concludes the session by tracing how <em>The Ethics</em> functions to undermine analogical representation, via an appearance of continuity which, in fact, is sequences of propositions, demonstrations, corollaries, and <em>scholia</em>, hence a secret mode of discontinuity.</p> <p>No recording of this session is available currently. This dataset includes three files: a revised French transcription and new English translation in odt format, and the original French transcript from WebDeleuze. [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> <p>--</p> <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>Dans la séance 2, le 14 janvier 1974, Deleuze semble introduire la séance comme un « détour terminologique », mais il reste dans le problème des énoncés, le détour concernant la nature de l’être et les notions liées au sujet, c’est-à-dire l’équivoque, l’analogie et l’univocité. Il ramène l’attention sur l’univocité comme quelque chose d’étrange et de difficile à penser, en introduisant les perspectives de Duns Scot sur l’être univoque, à la limite de l’hérésie, mais en maintenant l’être comme physiquement analogique tout en étant métaphysiquement univoque. Pour sortir de l’impasse analogique-univoque, Deleuze conclut, avec Spinoza, que les différences entre les êtres consistent en une différence comprise uniquement comme des degrés de puissance, et non distinguée par leur forme, leur genre ou leur espèce. En répondant à un commentaire d’un étudiant, Deleuze distingue le terme <em>puissance</em> de Spinoza, ou l’énergie potentielle, du concept de volonté de puissance de Nietzsche. Deleuze conclut la séance en retraçant comment l'<em>Éthique</em> de Spinoza fonctionne pour saper la représentation analogique, par une apparence de continuité qui, en fait, est constituée de séquences de propositions, de démonstrations, de corollaires et de scholies, donc d'un mode secret de discontinuité.</p>