Leibniz and the Baroque, Lecture 7, 20 January 1987

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

<p>Moving beyond the Baroque house previously developed, Deleuze expands the concepts of inclusion, singularity, event, while also developing the concepts of the compossible and incompossible, firmly linked to mathematical reflections. Addressing singularities mathematically as a line of ordinary points, Deleuze follows Adam’s successive singularities as a convergent series or path with common values and claims God’s method of tossing out one event and the next, leads to a divergent event (e.g., Adam resisting temptation) becoming incompossible with the first set of singular events, constituting another world. Deleuze links divergent series to mathematical theories developed by Karl Weierstrass’s method of analytical prolongation, but returning to Leibniz’s monads, no two of which includes the same clear and distinct portion, the real definition of the individual is a condensation of pre-individual singularities able to be prolonged as convergent, with incompossibilities perhaps implicated in mathematics at the level of convergent and divergent series. Following a ten-minute one-sided conversation (due to audio limitations) between Deleuze and a mathematician colleague (later identified as Marcel Maarek) regarding links between compossibility and incompossibility and singularities more generally, Deleuze asks him to speak at 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>Visant toujours la maison baroque développée précédemment, Deleuze élargit les concepts d’inclusion, de singularité, d’événement, tout en développant également les concepts de compossible et d’incompossible, fermement liés à des réflexions mathématiques. Deleuze relie les séries divergentes aux théories mathématiques développées par la méthode de prolongation analytique de Karl Weierstrass, mais aussi en revenant aux monades de Leibniz. Suite à une conversation unilatérale de dix minutes (en raison de limitations audio) entre Deleuze et un collègue mathématicien (identifié plus tard comme Marcel Maarek) concernant les liens entre compossibilité et incompossibilité et les singularités plus généralement, Deleuze lui demande de prendre la parole lors de la prochaine séance.</p>