Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy

Description

"In this book, author Philip Goodchild tries to uncover the image of thought used by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. He does so by focusing on the question, "What is philosophy?" posed implicitly throughout Deleuze's publications. Goodchild traces the development of a highly sophisticated, coherent, and rigorous practice of thought that underlies Deleuze's apparently flamboyant and anarchic discourse." "This question of philosophy is posed in the context of an awareness of the historical, social, and cultural conditioning of a plurality of rationalities that bring into question the value of the philosophical enterprise as a whole. Deleuze meets this problem by identifying something "unthought" and "unthinkable" that conditions the way in which people do in fact think, and by directing philosophy toward this as its transcendental field. Philosophy is no longer seen as an attempt to ascertain, evaluate, criticize, or interpret knowledge or meaning, but is seen as an exercise in creating concepts for use in the practical problems of life." "Ultimately, Deleuze's philosophy constructs an affirmative and interactive kind of social relation, which was embodied in his own intellectional relationship with Felix Guattari and which can form the basis for the organization of a new kind of society." "In conclusion, this book examines Deleuze's deepest metaphysical presuppositions and finds that, while a certain kind of materialism pervades Deleuze's thought, the practice of that thought also presupposes a kind of metaphysics of creative awareness, where planes, lines, and crystals are folded onto each other into a "fractal of philosophy." By rethinking the question of philosophy in Deleuze's thought, one can be led to open up a new meaning of life in terms of the "Transcendence" of this awareness to that which it conditions. The result is an escape from the dead ends of postmodern thought."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Similar books

• 

  Thinking through French Philosophy: The Being of the Question

  By Leonard Lawlor

  In Thinking through French Philosophy, Leonard Lawlor shows how the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty formed an important current in sustaining the development of structuralism and post-structuralism.

• 

  Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction

  By Todd May

  Hugh Tomlinson . New York : Columbia University Press , 1983 ( first published 1962 ) . “ Nomad Thought , ” tr . David Allison . From The New Nietzsche : Contemporary Styles of Interpretation . New York : Dell , 1977 ( essay first ...

• 

  Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy

  By Paola Marrati, Professor Paola Marrati

  What does it tell us about perceiving a world in images—indeed about our relation to the world? These are the central questions addressed in Paola Marrati's powerful and clear elucidation of Deleuze's philosophy of film.

• 

  Gilles Deleuze: The Intensive Reduction

  By Constantin V. Boundas

  Since Deleuze's death in 1994, the technical aspects of his philosophy have been largely neglected. These essays address that gap in the existing scholarship by focusing on his contribution to philosophy.

• 

  Deleuze and Guattari: An Introduction to the Politics of Desire

  By Philip Goodchild

  This accessible book examines critically the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, clarifying the ideas of these two notoriously difficult thinkers without over-simplifying them.

• 

  Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?

  By Jeffrey A Bell

  In their final collaborative work, Deleuze and Guattari set out to address the question, 'what is philosophy?

• 

  Gilles Deleuze and Metaphysics

  By Alain Beaulieu, Edward Kazarian, Julia Sushytska

  This collection examines an aspect of Gilles Deleuze’s thought that has largely been neglected; whether or not Deleuze was a metaphysician.

• 

  Deleuze and Philosophy

  By Constantin V. Boundas

  Three of the essays are by key French Deleuzians whose work is not widely available in translation. This enticing collection is essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze but in the history of philosophical ideas.

• 

  What Is Philosophy?

  By Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari

  Fresh anecdotes from the history of philosophy illuminate the book, along with engaging discussions of composers, painters, writers, and architects.

• 

  In Search of a New Image of Thought: Gilles Deleuze and Philosophical Expressionism

  By Gregg Lambert

  ... form of, 76, 77; interpreting, 97 copyist,129,130,131,133 cosmic memory, 208 Crane, Stephen, 89 crash, boom and, 149, ... 194 decalcomania, 56 difle'rance, 10,134,137,138,139,152 difference, 3, 14, 20, 120, 139, 149; con— INDEX 231 D.