INTRODUCTION

Ronald Bogue
Assoc. R.I.P. | Revue internationale de philosophie
2007/3 - n 241
pages 243 244

ISSN 0048-8143

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Introduction
Ronald Bogue

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In his seminal Nietzsche et la philosophie (1962) Deleuze remarked that

Nietzsche conceived of philosophy as the invention of possibilities of life.
Not long before his death in 1995, Deleuze returned to this motif, embracing
the terms as his own, first in his final collaborative work with Flix Guattari,
Queest-ce que la philosophie (1991), and then in his last published book, the
collection of essays on literature and philosophy Critique et clinique (1993).
The essays in this volume are dedicated to the exploration of this theme.
Throughout his work, Deleuze repeatedly characterized philosophy as the
creation of concepts. As a painter creates in paint, so a philosopher creates in
concepts. His thought was no simple aestheticism, however, nor did he envision
some future fusion of philosophy and the arts. Philosophy has its own domain,
its own materials, processes and aims, and in Quest-ce que la philosophie he
attempted a schematization of the relations among philosophy, the sciences,
and the arts, approaching each domain as a mode of thought, but seeing each as
a distinct activity with its own concerns. He recognized the repressive role the
history of philosophy has played within philosophy (you cannot speak without
citing Plato, Kant, Hegel ), but he had genuine respect and affection for
philosophers of the past hence his monographs on Hume (1953), Nietzsche
(1962), Kant (1963), Bergson (1966), Spinoza (1968 and 1981), and Leibniz
(1989). Yet even here, his emphasis was on creation, on discovering the genuine
problem within another philosopher and unfolding its potential for the generation of new concepts. Whether engaged in discussion of a technical point in
anothers philosophy, or deep in the delineation of an exuberantly neologistic
terminology, Deleuze consistently sought a means of activating from within
philosophy the possibilities for new modes of thought.
The concept of life also emerged as an important concern in Deleuzes later
writings. Deleuze professed to be a vitalist, but his vitalism was focused on
the concept of a nonorganic life, a life that transcends the traditional distinc-

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The Invention of Possibilities of Life

244

Gilles Deleuze

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Invention. Possibility. Life. Three fundamental themes in a philosopher whose

thought continues to engage us with its paradox, its rigor, and its promise.

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tions between mechanism and vitalism. The nonorganic life of things is at the
heart of his ontology, which develops a line of thought running from Spinoza
and Leibniz through Bergson and Whitehead, eventuating in a machinic
conception of nature as a generative force of novelty. The elaboration of this
concept is especially evident in his major collaborations with Guattari, first in the
universal desiring production of LAnti-Oedipe (1972), then in the machinic
assemblages and mechanosphere of Mille plateaux (1980), and finally in
the Nature-Thought of Quest-ce que la philosophie?. Nonorganic life also
informs Deleuzes view of culture and politics, the single aim of philosophy, the
arts, and the sciences being that of inventing new modes of existence, in which
a nonorganic life makes possible the formation of a genuinely self-determining
collectivity. For Deleuze, the invention of possibilities of life entails the invention of a people to come, the creation of a new earth and a new people. This
political and cultural project, however, far from working in separation from or in
contrast to nature, arises from within the natural world as but one manifestation
of a general process of creation and exploration of possibilities.