Actions and Abstractions: Deleuzian Lines of Flight

Deleuze, Tarde, and Molecular Politics

The provided text is an excerpt from a scholarly paper by Julius Telivuo, titled "Deleuze, Tarde and Molecular Politics," which discusses the political and social ontology in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, focusing on the concept of micropolitics. The author explains that Deleuze, along with Félix Guattari, rejects traditional views of community and instead uses a microscopic perspective to analyze the socio-political sphere, prioritizing concrete, non-conscious social processes over molar representations like class or gender. A significant portion of the paper is dedicated to discussing the influence of Gabriel Tarde’s microsociology, which emphasizes social phenomena as the result of individual-level processes like imitation, opposition, and invention. Ultimately, the paper argues for understanding communality through immanent, pre-individual processes (molecular flows), contrasting them with the static, conscious, and representational molar structures while also introducing the concept of a line of flight as the potential for radical change.

Deleuze: Political Economy, Materialistic Dialectics, and Speculative Philosophy

This Deep Dive examines a collection of interpretations of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy, aiming to reveal its revolutionary potential beyond common perceptions. It addresses how Deleuze's ideas have been both embraced and critiqued by various contemporary intellectual movements, including Marxist traditions and speculative philosophy. The articles within this collection explore the political significance of Deleuze's thought, his renewal of political economy, and the complex relationship between his philosophy and materialistic dialectics. Ultimately, the issue seeks to reclaim Deleuze's legacy from interpretations that might reduce it to either a cynical justification of the status quo or a mystical escape from reality.

Introducing Deleuzian Political Theory

This deep dive examines a book review from borderlands e-journal that focuses on Nathan Widder's "Political Theory after Deleuze," a work praised for its accessible introduction to Gilles Deleuze's political philosophy. The review highlights Widder's comprehensive treatment of Deleuze's key concepts, including micropolitics, the ontology of difference, and the revolutionary capacity of desire. It acknowledges that Widder contextualizes Deleuze by referencing other thinkers, but emphasizes the book's strength in spotlighting Deleuze's unique contributions. Ultimately, the review commends Widder for providing both a specialized guide to Deleuzian politics and a general introduction to political theory.

Deleuze's Philosophy of Difference: A Review

This is a Deep Dive of a paper that offers two distinct reviews of academic books in the field of philosophy and literary criticism. The first, a review by Bican Polat, examines Jeffrey A. Bell's "Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos: Gilles Deleuze and the Philosophy of Difference," which explores Deleuze's concept of difference in relation to Western metaphysics, particularly comparing it to the ideas of Heidegger and Derrida. The second, a review by Tarek R. Dika, analyzes "Psyche: Inventions of the Other," a collection of essays that provides a portrait of Derrida's philosophical, literary, and ethico-political concerns, including his stance on apartheid and essays on figures like Barthes and Freud. Both reviews engage with complex philosophical concepts and their interconnections.

Review of Daniel W. Smith's Essays on Deleuze

This Deep Dive examines a a review essay by Kenneth Noe from the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, published in 2013. It focuses on Daniel W. Smith's book, "Essays on Deleuze" (2012), which collects Smith's extensive work on the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Noe's review highlights Smith's significant contributions to Deleuze studies, particularly how Smith interprets Deleuze's philosophy as a direct response to Kant and post-Kantian critical philosophy. The essay explores themes such as Deleuze's engagement with the history of philosophy, his philosophical system, key Deleuzian concepts, and his relation to contemporary philosophy. A central focus of the review is Smith's examination of Deleuze's theory of time and concepts, emphasizing how Deleuze reimagines the nature of thought and experience through passive syntheses to allow for the production of novelty.