A Thousand Plateaus V, The State Apparatus and the War Machine, Lecture 9, 26 February 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>Following publication of <em>Anti-Oedipus</em> in 1972, Deleuze continues to develop the proliferation of concepts that his collaboration with Guattari had yielded. As part of this process of expanding concepts in order to produce the sequel of <em>Capitalism & Schizophrenia</em>, <em>A Thousand Plateaus</em>, this series of 13 lectures on “The State Apparatus and War Machines” constitutes the major seminar of 1979-80 and Deleuze’s penultimate consideration of these concepts. Deleuze first considers material begun during the previous year’s seminar, material corresponding to plateaus 12 (1227: Treatise on Nomadology – The War Machine), 13 (7000 B.C.: Apparatus of Capture), and 14 (1440: The Smooth and the Striated). [The final consideration of these concepts will take place in the May-June 1980 two-session seminar on “Anti-Oedipus and Other Reflections”.</p>

<p>In session 9, 26 February 1980, Deleuze defines the current session as a “parenthesis” for considering “what exactly is the axiomatic?” (cf. <em>A Thousand Plateaus,</em> plateau 13’s final section). He starts with the axiomatic as determining functional relations between any elements whatsoever, and he concludes that while the axiomatic is the functional relations that refer to models of realization, formalization is the formal relations which constitute models to be realized. In terms of the State apparatus, he hypothesizes that unlike the archaic State, the modern State has ceased to be a model to be realized, becoming instead a model of realization in relation to an axiomatic. Deleuze returns to the four categories (or problems) introduced at the end of the previous session (cf. <em>A Thousand Plateaus,</em> pp. 461-473), topical conjunctions between flows, generalized flow conjugations, and connections allowing flows to escape the axiomatic and putting them into vectors of flight. This discussion leads him to focus, first, on a Dutch school of mathematics, intuitionism or constructivism, that reacted against the axiomatic and calling for a calculus of problems. Then he traces three cases in the history of mathematics of this kind of duality (first, in Greek geometry, second, a double pathway from the 17<sup>th</sup> to the 19<sup>th</sup> century, regarding algebra and analytical geometry, third, formation of axiomatic power versus anti-axiomaticians). Deleuze associates the third category of connections to the calculus of problems and mathematics of the event, which attracts him particularly since this mathematics does not seek true or false, but sense or nonsense of the problem. Finally, returning to the question of the State and politics in terms of an axiomatic, he outlines four aspects of this intersection, Deleuze notes four problems linked to an axiomatic, first, the process of adding and withdrawing axioms at the level of capitalism; second, the axiomatic’s saturation; third, the status of models for realizing the axiomatic of capital; and, a fourth aspect to be considered at the next session.</p>

<p>This dataset includes four files: an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, the complete French transcription and English translation of the recorded lecture in odt format, and the original Web Deleuze 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.]</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>A la suite de la publication de <em>L’Anti-Œdipe</em> en 1972, Deleuze continue de développer la prolifération de concepts que sa collaboration avec Guattari avait fait naître. Dans le cadre de ce processus d’élargissement des concepts en vue de produire la suite de <em>Capitalisme et schizophrénie</em>, <em>Mille plateaux</em>, ce séminaire de 13 séance sur « L’appareil d’État et les machines de guerre » constitue le séminaire majeur de 1979-80 et l’avant-dernière réflexion de Deleuze sur ces concepts. La dernière réflexion aura lieu en mai-juin 1980, un mini-séminaire de deux séances sur « L’Anti-Œdipe et d’autres réflexions ».</p>

<p>Deleuze annonce que la séance consistera en une longue « parenthèse » afin d’aborder une question particulière : « quelle est l’axiomatique ? Le but de cette réflexion est de trouver une manière (dans une séance ultérieure) d’envisager la politique contemporaine en termes d’axiomatiques et de modèles de réalisation.</p>