Gilles Deleuze refers to the representatives of continental philosophy, sometimes his work is attributed to poststructuralism. His philosophy occupies an important place in matters that relate to society, politics, creativity, subjectivity. Over the course of his life, he created and published many works, some of which were co-written, including with the psychoanalyst Guattari.
short biography
The French philosopher was born on January 18, 1925 in Paris. Gilles Deleuze was a representative of a middle-class family of conservative views. He spent most of his life in his hometown.
My father was an engineer and until 1930 the owner of a small enterprise. After its closure, he got a job at a factory that produced airships. Mother was a housewife.
The boy received education in a regular public school. In 1940, the father took the children to Normandy, but a year later they returned home, and Gilles entered the Lyceum Carnot. In occupied Paris, Gilles's brother, Georges, became involved in the Resistance. He was captured, and he soon died. The death of his brother, according to many biographers, influenced the worldview of a young man who moved away from his family, looking for himself in philosophy. After some time, his father died.
Sartre's work “Being and Nothing”, which saw the light in 1943, had a significant impact on the young man. He knew it from memory and could quote almost any part of it.
After graduating from the Lyceum, Gilles attended preparatory lectures in the lyceums of Henry the Fourth and Louis the Great. Having received insufficient points for the Higher School, he nevertheless entered the Sorbonne and received a scholarship. Since 1945, the student began to publish his own articles, which were saturated with Sartre's phenomenology.
Since 1948, Deleuze began working as a teacher of philosophy in the lyceums of Amiens, Orleans, Louis the Great. Since 1957, he began working at the Sorbonne, and since 1960 he received four-year paid leave for writing his works from the National Center for Scientific Research.
Then he taught at the University of Lyon, Vincennes, College de France, published his works, including in collaboration with other philosophers.
All his life, Deleuze was accompanied by health problems. At first he had asthma, after tuberculosis, then he underwent surgery to remove one lung, and by the end of his life the disease developed into lung cancer. The philosopher could not bear the impossibility of working on his works. And although he wanted to write much more, including a book about Marx, on November 4, 1995, he threw himself out of a window. He was buried in a cemetery in Limousin.
A family
In 1956, a friend introduced Gilles to Fanny Grangeuan. She worked as a translator. The young people got married in the estate of the parents of the bride, which was located in Limousin. After they moved to an apartment in Paris, which was part of the Grangeuan family legacy.
Two children were born in the marriage:
- in 1960, the son of Julien;
- in 1964, Emily's daughter.
The concept of a new vision of the world
The philosopher has long collaborated with the psychoanalyst Guattari. Together, they published several successful books, and also proposed their concept of a vision of the world. It got its name from the word nomad, which means nomad.
Gilles Deleuze's nomadology was characterized by a rejection of ideas that consisted of a rigid structure and determinism. The key symbol of the new concept was the rhizome, which resists the unchanging linear structures typical of European culture.
Main works
The philosopher began publishing his works since 1945. At first these were articles, and after moving with his wife to his own small apartment, he set about creating his first books. Throughout his life, in addition to books, he has published many articles, reviews, lectures, seminars, dissertations, and petitions.
Significant works:
- 1968 - the treatise "Difference and repetition";
- 1969 - the treatise "The logic of meaning";
- 1972 - joint work of "Anti-Oedipus";
- 1975 - joint work "Kafka";
- 1977 - Kant's Critical Philosophy;
- 1980 - collaboration “Thousand Plateaus”;
- 1983, 1985 - “Cinema”;
- 1988 - “Pleat: Leibniz and Baroque”;
- 1991 - collaboration “What is philosophy?”
This is only a small part of the works in which Gilles Deleuze reveals his philosophy. The "logic of meaning" was one of the first significant works of the thinker.
"The logic of meaning"
The book focuses on one of the most complex and at the same time traditional topics for philosophy: what is the meaning? The thinker relies on the work of Carroll, Freud, Nietzsche, as well as the Stoics. He is developing his original concept. The author connects the meaning with nonsense and events that are different from the metaphysical entities that were characteristic of traditional philosophy.
What does Gilles Deleuze understand the main principle of philosophy? The "logic of meaning", the brief content of which cannot be conveyed in a nutshell, answers this question. From the work it becomes clear that the main principle is to create concepts about what should only become an object, that is, which does not yet exist. In this case, the philosopher can become a "doctor of civilization."
How do readers of the same Russia perceive the work and Gilles Deleuze himself? The "logic of meaning", reviews of which are contradictory, cannot be a priori accepted by absolutely everyone. This is not pulp fiction, not an easy novel ... There are reviews of the townsfolk, from which it is clear that not everyone was able to accept the ideas of the thinker and abandoned their attempts at the beginning of the journey. The only thing I want to advise is to be patient and nothing more.
Among Russian critics, the philosophical work of Deleuze is mentioned by L. A. Markov with his work “Science and the Logic of Meaning” Deleuze. Also quite interesting is an article by A. S. Kravets entitled "Theory of the meaning of Deleuze: the pros and cons."
Anti-Oedipus
The project, which Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari were able to realize, was a success among readers. The book is the first volume of creation called "Capitalism and Schizophrenia." The second volume was published later and is called The Thousand Plateaus.
The first work included:
- production theory;
- the genealogy of capitalism, which relied on Nietzsche, Marx, Freud;
- criticism of Marxism in all its forms, including Freudomarxism.
Anti-Oedipus (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari) advocated the concept of power and the theory of subjectivity. The authors of the work were inspired by Kant, Marx, Nietzsche.
Ideological ties
Gilles Deleuze refers to a philosophy called Continental. It differs from analytic in that it places the issues under consideration in the context of history, using more synthetic terminology.
A number of researchers examined certain aspects of the Deleuze philosophy:
- V. Bergen studied creativity.
- F. Zurabishvili, D. Williams - event, time and power.
- D. Olkowski - representation.
- T. May - individuation and ethics.
The thinker did not discuss certain problems through controversy, but building his philosophy. In his understanding of philosophy, he was interested in the concepts of thinkers of the past, but not their philosophical systems.
How did Deleuze relate to famous pundits?
Hegel Gilles considered the thinker of identity, in his own words, he always remained a Marxist. At Marx, he especially liked the ideas of the outer boundary and limit. Although, in his own words, he read Marx superficially and selectively.
Impact on the present
Gilles Deleuze, whose books were a great success during his lifetime, became one of the most influential thinkers of the world in the new century. Deleuze is supported not only in matters of philosophy; representatives of the social and human sciences also refer to him. He is quoted in sociology, cultural studies, urban studies, film studies, literary criticism, geography and many other fields.
His works have gained worldwide recognition. Thus, in Japan, the creation of the Thousand Plateau was very popular, especially among architects and sociologists. The Anti-Oedipus book mentioned above has become popular in Brazil and Italy. In the UK, Deleuze's philosophy has become popular since the last decade of the twentieth century. A well-known philosopher in Russia.
Today, Deleuze is seen as one of the forerunners of speculative realism. His influence was experienced by many areas, for example, actor-network theory, postcolonialism, queer theory and many others.
Interesting Facts
From the time of his teaching at the Lyceum, Deleuze was used to dressing in a classic style. He always wore a hat, which became part of his image. On some photos you can see him in your favorite style.
Among the world community in different years this or that philosophy gained popularity. Gilles Deleuze and his concept also did not remain in the shadows. In 2007, he was put in twelfth place on the list of most cited authors among the humanities and social sciences. He was even ahead of such famous thinkers as Kant, Marx, Heidegger.
Deleuze loved cinema. Together with his family, he often went to the films of Fellini, Godard and other directors. Since 1974, the philosopher began to create articles about cinema. At the same time, he began to attend the informal film festival annually. At the same time, he did not like to participate in a conference on philosophy.
Collaboration with Felix Guattari has borne fruit. Together they wrote significant works. But the authors worked in completely different rhythms. Deleuze is disciplined, and Guattari was an anarchist in this regard.