Gilles Deleuze belongs to the representatives of continental philosophy, sometimes his works are attributed to post-structuralism. His philosophy occupies an important place in matters that relate to society, politics, creativity, subjectivity. During his life he created and published many works, some of which were co-authored, including with the psychoanalyst Guattari.
Short biography
The French philosopher was born on January 18, 1925 in Paris. Gilles Deleuze was from a conservative middle class family. He spent most of his life in his hometown.
Father was an engineer and until 1930 the owner of a small business. After its closure, he got a job at a factory that produced airships. Mother was a housewife.
The boy received his education in an ordinary public school. In 1940, the father took the children to Normandy, but a year later they returned home, and Gilles entered the Lycée Carnot. In occupied Paris, Gilles' brother, Georges, became involved in the Resistance. He was captured and soon died. The death of a brother, according to many biographers, influenced the worldviewa young man who moved away from his family, looking for himself in philosophy. Some time later, my father also died.
The young man was greatly influenced by Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", which was released in 1943. He knew it by heart and could quote almost any part of it.
After graduating from the Lyceum, Gilles listened to preparatory lectures at 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. From 1945, the student began to publish his own articles, which were imbued with Sartre's phenomenology.
Since 1948, Deleuze began to work as a teacher of philosophy in the lyceums of Amiens, Orleans, Louis the Great. From 1957 he began to work at the Sorbonne, and from 1960 he received a four-year paid leave to write his works from the National Center for Scientific Research.
Then he taught at the University of Lyon, Vincennes, the College de France, published his works, including in collaboration with other philosophers.
Deleuze's entire life was accompanied by he alth problems. First he had asthma, then tuberculosis, then he underwent surgery to remove one lung, and towards the end of his life the disease developed into lung cancer. The philosopher could not bear the inability to work on his works. And although he wanted to write about more, including a book about Marx, on November 4, 1995, he jumped out of the window. He was buried in the cemetery in Limousin.
Family
In 1956, a friend introduced Gilles to Fanny Grandjouan. She worked as a translator. The young people got married inthe estate of the bride's parents, which was located in Limousin. They then moved into an apartment in Paris that was part of the Grandjouan family inheritance.
The marriage produced two children:
- in 1960 son Julien;
- daughter Emily in 1964.
The concept of a new vision of the world
The philosopher collaborated with the psychoanalyst Guattari for a long time. Together they published several successful books, and also proposed their own concept of seeing the world. It got its name from the word "nomad", which means "nomad".
The nomadology of Gilles Deleuze was characterized by the rejection of ideas that were rigid structure and determinism. The key symbol of the new concept was the rhizome, which opposes the unchanging linear structures typical of European culture.
Main works
The philosopher has been 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 published many articles, reviews, lectures, seminars, dissertations, petitions.
Significant Works:
- 1968 - Treatise "Distinction and Repetition";
- 1969 - treatise "The Logic of Meaning";
- 1972 Anti-Oedipus Collaboration;
- 1975 - joint work "Kafka";
- 1977 - "Kant's Critical Philosophy";
- 1980 - joint work "Thousand Plateaus";
- 1983, 1985 -"Cinema";
- 1988 - The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque;
- 1991 - joint work "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 difficult yet traditional topics for philosophy: what is meaning? The thinker relies on the work of Carroll, Freud, Nietzsche, as well as the Stoics. He develops his original concept. The author associates 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 summary 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, what does not yet exist. In this case, the philosopher can become a "doctor of civilization."
How do the readers of the same Russia and Gilles Deleuze himself perceive the work? The "logic of meaning", reviews of which are contradictory, cannot be accepted a priori by absolutely everyone. This is not pulp fiction, not an easy novel … There are reviews of the inhabitants, from which it is clear that not everyone was able to perceive the ideas of the thinker and gave up their attempts at the beginning of the journey. The only thing I would like to advise is to be patient and nothing more.
Among Russia's critics about the philosophicalDeleuze's work is mentioned by L. A. Markov with his work "Science and Deleuze's Logic of Meaning". Also quite interesting is the article by A. S. Kravets en titled "Deleuze's Theory of Meaning: Pros and Cons".
Anti-Oedipus
The project that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari were able to bring to life was a success among readers. The book is the first volume of a creation called Capitalism and Schizophrenia. The second volume was published later and is called A Thousand Plateaus.
The first piece included:
- production theory;
- genealogy of capitalism, which relied on Nietzsche, Marx, Freud;
- criticism of Marxism in all its forms, including Freudo-Marxism.
"Anti-Oedipus" (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari) spoke with the concept of power and the theory of subjectivity. The authors of the work were inspired by Kant, Marx, Nietzsche.
Ideological connections
Gilles Deleuze refers to a philosophy called continental. It differs from the analytical one in that it places the issues at hand in the context of history, using more synthetic terminology.
A number of researchers considered certain aspects of Deleuze's philosophy:
- B. Bergen studied creativity.
- F. Zurabishvili, D. Williams - event, time and power.
- D. Olkowski - representation.
- T. Mei - individuation and ethics.
The thinker discussed certain problems not through polemics, but by building his own philosophy. In his understanding of philosophy, he was interested inconcepts of the thinkers of the past, but not their philosophical systems.
How did Deleuze feel about famous pundits?
Hegel Gilles considered the thinker of identity, in his own words, he always remained a Marxist. With Marx, he especially liked the ideas of the outer limit and the limit. Although, according to him, he read Marx superficially and selectively.
Influence on modernity
Gilles Deleuze, whose books were a great success during his lifetime, has become one of the world's most influential thinkers in the new century. Deleuze is relied upon not only in matters of philosophy, but also by representatives of the social and human sciences. He is quoted in sociology, cultural studies, urban studies, film studies, literary criticism, geography and many other fields.
His works are recognized all over the world. So, in Japan, the creation of the “Thousand Plateaus” gained great popularity, especially among architects and sociologists. The Anti-Oedipus book mentioned above became popular in Brazil and Italy. In Britain, Deleuze's philosophy became popular starting in the last decade of the twentieth century. The philosopher is also known in Russia.
Today Deleuze is regarded as one of the forerunners of speculative realism. Many areas have been influenced by him, such as actor-network theory, post-colonialism, queer theory and many others.
Interesting facts
Since histeaching at the Lyceum, Deleuze used to dress in a classic style. He always wore a hat, which became part of his image. In some photos you can see him in his favorite style.
Among the world community in different years one or another philosophy gained popularity. Gilles Deleuze and his concept also did not remain in the shadows. In 2007, he was ranked twelfth in the list of most cited authors in the humanities and social sciences. He outstripped even such famous thinkers as Kant, Marx, Heidegger.
Deleuz loved cinema. Together with his family, he often went to the films of Fellini, Godard and other directors. Since 1974, the philosopher began to write articles about cinema. At the same time, he began to attend an informal film festival every year. At the same time, he did not like to participate in a conference on philosophy.
Co-authorship 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.
