February 3, 1987

We have to try to give to this relationship of compossibility and incompossibility … a status at any price, and … what I was proposing to you is uniquely this: we start off from singularities. What are singularities? They are something that happens in the world. … So, by what right can we talk about singularity before speaking about the monad, that is, subjects that include singularities? … The world does not exist outside of monads; monads are only for one world or another. Monads are for the world. … When God creates, he has the world in view. So, I can speak of singularities that are constitutive of this world.

Seminar Introduction

In his introductory remarks to this annual seminar (on 28 October 1986), Deleuze stated that he would have liked to devote this seminar to the theme “What is philosophy?”, but that he “[didn’t] dare take it on” since “it’s such a sacred subject”. However, the seminar that he was undertaking on Leibniz and the Baroque instead “is nearly an introduction to ‘What is philosophy?’” Thus, the 1986-87 seminar has this dual reading, all the more significant in that, unknown to those listening to Deleuze (and perhaps to Deleuze himself), this would be the final seminar of his teaching career.

Deleuze planned the seminar in two segments: under the title “Leibniz as Baroque Philosopher,” he presented the initial operating concepts on Leibniz, notably on the fold. Circumstances during fall 1986 limited this segment to four sessions with an unexpected final session in the first meeting of 1987 (6 January). For the second segment, Deleuze chose the global title “Principles and Freedom”, a segment consisting of fifteen sessions lasting to the final one on 2 June.

English Translation

Edited
Mallarmé’s Le Livre: Not just a book, but The Book

 

Following the previous, hybrid class (half Deleuze and half invited lecturer, Marcel Maarek), this session marks the mid-point of the academic year and provides groundwork to develop discussion after the February semester break. The session begins in mid-sentence with Deleuze speaking prior to the actual start of class, and then he returns to the very definition of the Baroque, e.g., the monad without doors or windows, and also the importance of harmony for Leibniz on different levels, which he theorized as “pre-established harmony”. He also provides several complementary perspectives on “the fold,” notably Pierre Boulez’s composition Pli selon pli (Fold after Fold) as proof of the concept’s importance; Heidegger’s use of the term; and especially Mallarmé’s poetics of the fold and his project of The Book (Le Livre) that Deleuze links to the monad, compressing folds into an active unity, similar to Leibniz’s Combinatory. Then, following on Maarek’s presentation, Deleuze returns to the singularity, compossibility, moving on to divine creation, propositions of existence and propositions of essence, and to the concept of “the Best” in God’s choices, particularly Leibniz’s list of regions in God’s understanding.

Then, Deleuze makes the important turn toward the importance of the material body’s link to the individual’s clear expression, thus developing the distinction between two kinds of notions, individual notions of existence or monads, and simple notions of essence, or requisites, which offers an entry to the question of freedom in Leibniz. This question prepares the ground for considering the soul’s amplitude in exercising such freedom, that Deleuze briefly addresses here and to which he returns after the winter break. As more or fewer singularities in an event depend on one’s sharpness or dullness of perception, this theory of perception implies a differential conception through which perception relies on the condition of the singularities grasped and on the prolongation of these singularities along lines of ordinaries. Hence, the definition of individual relies on admitting to pre-individual singularities (a notion developed by Gilbert Simondon) and conceiving of the individual as a condensation of singularities, the monad as a concentration of the universe, a finite number since the monad expresses clearly only a small portion of the world.

Thus, with the monad constructed around what Leibniz calls primitive predicates of the monad, Deleuze suggests the possibility of creating one’s own list of singularities such as one might for Adam and his regions of clear expression. Deleuze provides examples from the amorous domain and also the study of philosophy and mathematics to display the complexity of Leibniz’s notion of compossible worlds and the problem of individuation. This description is complicated by the possibility of sin as part of a clear region and linked to the question of freedom. Drawing from two Leibniz texts, Deleuze shows that Leibniz emphasized the importance of motives, e.g., to leave or stay, possibly understood as weights on a scale, and of Leibniz’s two-part process for examining options. While one may well choose to be miserable, one will have done so according to the clear portion of the world one expresses, yet another solution is to bide one’s time, i.e., to allow the tiny solicitations their own transformations through the course of the day. Deleuze advises that one not regret what one has done at a moment due to the soul’s limited amplitude, but to regret only having such a limited amplitude itself, hence the need to increase that amplitude. This example of the café (in fact, the tavern) and its relation to free will return in the following session, appropriately titled “The Tavern”.

Gilles Deleuze

Seminar on Leibniz and the Baroque – Principles and Freedom

Lecture 9, 3 February 1987: Principles and Freedom (4) — Monads and Singularities

Translation and Transcription, Charles J. Stivale[1]

 

Part 1

… You see, I am speaking of the genus animal, species man, sub-species, umm, blond man … [Jump in the recording] This is even worse, but there, the translation is good, so for those who might be interested… [Deleuze does not complete the sentence]

Fine, so let’s continue. [A student speaks to Deleuze] Ah, the vacation. This is our last session of the semester, fortunately. [The student continues speaking] The return date – cut it out, you! [This seems to be addressed to the same student] [Pause] Ah, la, la… [Deleuze indicates a nearby student, possibly Hidenobu Suzuki next to him] Ah, he comes from a country that has no vacations. [Laughter]

The student [possibly Hidenobu Suzuki]: That’s the reason why I left it, you know?

Deleuze: … Ah yes, he left this country without vacations and where they kill off the elderly [Laughter] in order to attend a class with an old man who asks for nothing more than vacations! [Laughter]

Another student: I heard that “senior citizens” in Japan have been asked to leave for Spain…

Deleuze: Yes? Yes, yes, yes, they already want to put them on a far away island, and with a volcano, if possible. [Laughter] Awful. So yes, I wonder what you’ll be doing to me fairly soon. [Laughter] [Some inaudible comments to Deleuze from another student]

After these happy pleasantries, I am now saying that vacation starts this evening, as usual – it’s always after classes – so from February 3, from the third to, I don’t recall, to the 22, that is, class meets again on Tuesday, February 24? [A student: It’s February 24] So…

But during the vacation, you will have lots to do. For here is what’s happened: following the previous session in which I told you how much I was struck by Maarek’s presentation, there have been some developments, specifically that Isabelle Stengers, who couldn’t be here today, sent a letter to me in which she brings up quite a few things on the problems of prolongation, prolongation starting from a singularity, in which she attempts to distinguish several cases, and that seems very interesting to me. This suits me well because, in fact, we have only laid out the start of an outline of a theory of singularities. So, we haven’t finished this point; don’t even think that it’s done! We will need to pursue it, and this is something I insist on because I believe in the richness of a possibility of the concept of singularities, as a philosophical concept and no longer mathematical.

Notably, take note that this changes everything about this problem and about the notion of a universal, a notion that’s not friendly (sympathique). The notion of singularities is philosophically very important, so fine, this is a point that we will develop when we’re back from vacation. If Isabelle is here, we will especially come back to this because we will have made progress today, and will have an opportunity to create a kind of aggregate in the confrontation that I would like to make between Whitehead and Leibniz. That’s one point.

The other points that I asked several among you to take up, but this is not exclusive, the most… I mean, I have called on several among you when we require a kind of technical competence that I lack, or at least that I have less of than you – the second point that we will encounter with Whitehead and Leibniz will concern harmony, as I have indicated from the start. For once again… If you will, this year I’d like you to be sensitive to my effort, not at all because it’s a huge effort, but rather what’s special in it. What I mean is that all my work this year consists in saying that it’s still quite astonishing – I don’t at all pretend that this might be astonishing, that’s it’s only me who understands Leibniz; in that, let’s not exaggerate – but what seems astonishing to me are the obvious things that seem yet to be accomplished. So it’s almost on the level of tail end of a project, when someone says, oh well no, this [topic] isn’t worth it. So I was telling you that it’s still quite simply incomprehensible that there are many commentators on Leibniz who — to my knowledge, none – when they find themselves faced with the famous text about the monad with neither doors nor windows – none say, my God, it’s precisely the architectural module that constantly occurs in the Baroque.

And then, for harmony, I am saying the same thing. I am saying [that] Leibniz uses harmony on all sorts of levels, arithmetic, musical and architectural, among others. And to my knowledge, all the commentators speak about harmony that he theorized under the name “pre-established harmony”, about Leibniz creating a theory under the name “pre-established harmony”, but they do not seek to unify all of these domains of harmony under a philosophical concept, harmony in the sense of arithmetic, harmony in a musical sense, harmony… However, there is certainly something to be said on this, surely, a philosophical concept still to be formed. From this, I was saying to anyone who has a musical background that what I expect from them is to reflect deeply about these notions of harmony, starting with [Pause] the period or the musicians that might be called, correctly or incorrectly, Baroque musicians, and also about Baroque architects. Obviously, all this might open us to the Baroque in this way that architecture becomes a particular music. Fine, this is certainly not the same thing as in other periods or in other conceptions of architecture.

Finally, I remind you that all of our work this year starts from – here as well, this is why I am saying [that] we are astonished by things that nonetheless are… — started off from one thing as when I was saying, fine, yes, let’s try to define the Baroque, but let’s especially try not to make problems for ourselves that occur for some who’ve introduced preconceived questions. And those who introduce preconceived questions are those who say, oh, be careful, eh? A notion like the Baroque only has value in architecture, that is, the question of genre in which the concept of the Baroque would be adequate or valid. Or else, there are those who limit things to periods, when, at which moment, or limited to whatever country, and then based on such limitations, they go on to distinguish between Mannerism and the Baroque, sometimes the Baroque preceding Classicism, sometimes coming after Classicism, and then the Baroque of a particular region won’t be the Baroque of another region. Central European Baroque won’t be the same as Spanish, and at the extreme – the melancholy of those who, having written an important work on the Baroque, end up by telling themselves, my God, does the Baroque even exist? [Laughter]

So I was telling you that if we don’t want to get into all that — questions of dates, of genres — we have to have a definition that does not attempt to be essential, but that attempts to reach an operative activity. And this is why, from the start, I have told you that we mustn’t be worried. We are going to say that the Baroque is the fold when the fold goes to infinity. And I would say that there is Baroque in any genre whatever if I can justify the idea of a fold that goes to infinity. So, at least I have my criterion. My criterion does not presuppose anything, eh? You see, at that point, I can work around any question on genres or periods, and then I could limit my concept of Baroque or extend it depending on whether this operation of the fold going to infinity is verified or not verified.

So you will tell me, but what does that mean in music, the fold that goes to infinity? Ok, I’m not saying that this would be a … Baroque musician, but it happens that [Pierre] Boulez writes Fold after Fold (Pli selon pli), and this is music, but he composes Fold after Fold – and I come to my third request for you – there are all kinds of authors. But I tell myself, if we discuss this idea, it’s funny, right? Because unexpected things arise that henceforth offer proof or ought to offer immense proof, specifically authors that have attached a fundamental importance to this strange notion of the fold, but suddenly we notice that there are a lot more of them than we had thought.

Also, in the second semester, we will have to confront Heidegger, for example, to deal with Heidegger. It’s well known that Heidegger ceaselessly invokes the fold and that, furthermore, the difference between being and the Be-ing (l’étant) is named “the fold”. Would Heidegger be Baroque? Well yes, but it’s not my fault; this isn’t arbitrary. If I call Baroque any author who folds and causes the fold to go to infinity, I can say, well yes, Heidegger is Baroque. Well yes, at least it moves me forward, saying he’s Baroque, it moves me forward. How does that move me forward? He’s Baroque, but a strange kind of Baroque perhaps; maybe we have to distinguish different kinds: this is a kind of Gothic Baroque, [Laughter] because the fold comes down hard, the fold is hard, it comes down hard. This is not the fold of inflection; it’s not Leibniz’s fold, but at least it would permit me to say – ah yes, you know, Heidegger knows Leibniz very well; he doesn’t speak about him too much – but that would permit me to say, perhaps he knows Leibniz even better than he seems to. Perhaps there is something there.[2] But it’s not Heidegger who interests me so much, but rather some among you could then, at the right moment, it would be their turn to talk; I’ll be talking very little about this. It’s for you to outline the second semester’s program.

But there is an author the affects me and moves me immensely, and it happens that while rereading him this semester, because I had a very vague idea. I told myself, but, but that works, and since there is someone here, Giorgio Passerone, who is working, for completely different reasons, who is encountering and is attached to this author, who is [Stéphane] Mallarmé.[3]  And I suddenly tell myself that, finally, this is strange. It’s not a matter of interpreting. I do not want to interpret Mallarmé at all. Oh leave aside all the interpretations you want; all are good, all are bad, but this is not interpretation, this is the operative act. And furthermore, Mallarmé considered himself as an operator. The word is found explicitly. He doesn’t consider himself an author, but an operator. So I tell myself, what is Mallarmé’s operation, the key operation? Open any Mallarmé text at all, I suggest this to you. Read or reread Mallarmé. You will constantly see the obsession with the fold, on several levels: a famous level, the fan (l’éventail). [Pause] I dare say that Mallarmé is the fan. And also, the fan is the fold par excellence. “The unanimous fold,” “the unanimous fold”, he says.[4]

And then what happens? What else is the fold? Oh, lots of things. Another thing that’s the fold is dust and ashes, inanity. Understand that this allows me to say, good, with Mallarmé, we aren’t going to start off from nothingness (le néant). That [le néant] belongs to the interpretations, but the fold is not an interpretation. It’s something that creates (qui fait). He lived draped in his shawl, Mallarmé; he also talks about the fold of lace, and then Madame Mallarmé, his wife, and then Mademoiselle Mallarmé, his daughter, owned fans to go out to the theater, eh? [Deleuze laughs] They don’t do that anymore. And Mallarmé wrote verses of poetry on their fans, of Madame and Mademoiselle Mallarmé, and then on the fans of all the friends of Madame and Mademoiselle. These [writings] were some sublime verses by Mallarmé. Fine. The fan folds open, and by folding, [Deleuze laughs] or rather by moving about, the fan causes to fall in a mirror, causes specks of dust to fall in a mirror that are like grains of matter. [Pause] Ashes in the fog, but ash and fog create folds.[5]

I have the fold of the fan, so here we have the fold chasing after each speck of dust and ash,[6] and the dust and ash fall back down under the wing of the fan, that creates folds, folds of dust, folds of fog. And perhaps sensitivity (le sensible) – this would be very interesting, since it might link back up with one of Leibniz’s ideas – perhaps that we only see sensitivity through folds of a perpetual fog, according to whether the fog creates and undoes its folds. And I jump to another of Mallarmé’s poems, Bruges,[7] the Belgian town, in which Bruges, in the early morning, [is] visible to the extent the fog allows the stone to appear, the “dilapidated” stone, he says, the “dilapidated” stone (pierre vétuste), that the fog uncovers, “fold after fold.”[8]  “Fold after fold” is an expression that Boulez borrows from Mallarmé’s poem on Bruges. Here I would… [Interruption in the recording] [18:34]

… toward the folds of dust. And these things, fine, no doubt, it’s ash, it’s through the ash, and the world of inanity; it’s the world of sensitivity, it’s the world of sensitivity that I see through the pleats of dust. This is just like saying it’s the world of the newspaper, the world of circumstances. And what is a newspaper? The folded thing par excellence. I’m not the one saying this. Each time that Mallarmé talks about the newspaper, he indicates that it’s what is folded. [Pause]

So I draw your attention toward this series of operations nonetheless, especially as they continue with him asking us, what is the inferiority of the newspaper in relation to the book? Both are folded. This is why the newspaper… Hence Mallarmé’s famous problem: when does literature start? Where does it start? Is the newspaper article literature? Are four lines of verse written on Mademoiselle Mallarmé’s fan literature or not? [Pause] And then? Well, what? What is the superiority? What is superior to the newspaper? The book, THE Book. Why must it be those who have never created a consistent book that are able to speak to us with so much force and authority and persuasion about the book, THE Book? And Mallarmé’s Book, how is… It exceeds the newspaper; he says so explicitly. He says, “the folding of the newspaper with the book goes beyond towards kinds of layering” (tassement), the cubic layering.[9] Think back to something that we’ve already proven, how inflection, that is, the fold goes beyond itself toward inclusion. The Book is inclusion; the newspaper is only the fold, but the fold included in The Book is the superior form. I would say, literally, The Book is the monad. [Pause]

 

That creates some things around this. So what is this idea? I would say that it’s not, it’s not, this idea… Understand, what does he… He sees, he lives things in that way, the fold of the fan that will distribute, like two poles, the folds of ashes and the fold of the newspaper, and the other pole, the fold of The Book that compresses itself in an active unity, The Book. [Pause] Reread Mallarmé from this perspective; I am certain that there is some research to be done, something to be found on the status of the fold and that, after all, there wouldn’t be… It’s possible that Mallarmé and Leibniz each will help us, help us to understand each other, and I was telling you that Leibniz, who never stopped writing through small tracts (opuscules) or who never stopped writing in newspapers, isn’t he also someone who, to a certain extent, is the author of the Book, with capital B, and the kind of book that would be a total book as Mallarmé desired it, but as Leibniz desired it as well, each time that he thinks about what he calls the Combinatory? Especially since, and I am trying to jump between each of them, especially since Mallarmé’s Book will be conceived as a kind of Combinatory since through all sorts of possible series, the interior leaves (feuillets) can be combined. Fine.

Do some research on this… So I am suggesting that some among you do research on the Mallarmé topic, that others do research on the topics of harmony in architecture and in music, that others do research on the level of mathematical functions and on the theory of singularities, even if that [Mallarmé] is hardly mathematical.

So we will continue on our path here, and you see what we gained at the last class thanks to Maarek. I am saying, so fine, we almost have to remain very, very modest and tell ourselves, let’s say as little as possible because Maarek was way too kind, you certainly noticed it; he absolutely did not want to make the slightest objection about my doubtful mathematical drawings. But he gave me a kind of benediction which is very precious to me – I ask for nothing more – which was of the kind, ok sure, you can say it that way. If I can say it that way mathematically, I ask for no more because what interests me, on the other hand, is what should be said philosophically. So even a little bit that can be said mathematically is adequate for it to be enough for me.

So I am summarizing the little bit that can be said that way mathematically. I was saying that we cannot stay put on this notion in which compossibility and incompossibility would be declared mysteries buried within God’s understanding. We must have a certain expression that would explain that non-sinner Adam no doubt is the opposite of sinner Adam, but that it’s not a contradiction in itself. That is, if you prefer, it’s not contradictory with the world in which Adam sinned; non-sinner Adam is not contradictory with the world in which Adam sinned. On the other hand, you recall, in 2 and 2 equal 5, here there is an absolute contradiction and that can be demonstrated by the absurd, whereas with non-sinner Adam, there is no contradiction. It’s simply incompossible with our world, that is, with the world in which Adam sinned.

And so my question – I am summarizing the bits we’ve acquired – was: so ok, we have to try to give to this relationship of compossibility and incompossibility, we have to try to give to it a status at any price, and even if Leibniz abandons us at that point, well then, we have to travel a bit along this path provided that it’s possible as a function of the whole of Leibniz. And what I was proposing to you is uniquely this: we start off from singularities. What are singularities? They are something that happens in the world. More precisely, what is it? We saw that this something that happens in the world is an inflection. I am saying that a singularity is a point of inflection. There you are. I am saying indeed that it’s the first sense of singularity, we shall see, and this is why Isabelle Stengers is correct in her letter to tell me that it’s a lot more complicated than that. But we shall see this. We are starting with what’s the simplest.

So there are singularities; I can give myself this. You notice – here I cannot insist enough; this is essential – I am not speaking about the monad. So by what right can we talk about singularity before speaking about the monad, that is, subjects that include singularities? It’s just that, as we saw, I am saying and I repeat that in my view, one can understand nothing about Leibniz, at least about his theory of existence, if we do not perpetually recall this principle: the world is primary in relation to the monads that express it. Leibniz’s text is absolutely indisputable: once again, God did not create sinner Adam; he created the world in which Adam sinned. Monads result from the world; they are not principles of the world.

Agreed, the world is included in monads, the world exists in monads, but monads exist for the world. The world does not exist outside of monads; it exists only within monads. On the other hand, monads are only for one world or another. Monads are for the world, we’ve seen this. I created my little drawing that showed this double proposition: the world exists only in monads, but at the same time, monads exist only for the world. I created the little drawing that authorizes me to speak of an anteriority of the world in relation to monads. When God creates, he has the world in its sights. So I can speak of singularities that are constitutive of this world. These are: the world is an infinite series of inflections; each inflection corresponds to a state of the world. Henceforth, I can very well say that the world is an infinite aggregate of singularities.

So what will come to define compossibility? We saw this: it’s when, in the prolongation of a singularity all the way to the neighborhood of another singularity, the series is convergent. Series, prolongation, what are these? In mathematics, there are two pairs of notions: singular which is opposed rigorously to regular, singular point, regular point; and another pair that is not entirely equivalent, remarkable that is opposed to ordinary. For the moment, I am identifying the two pairs for a simple reason: it’s that I believe that, philosophically, this is only at another level than we are now on – we’re not there yet — that I could make the distinction. I underscore this so that this stays in your mind for a future moment, the distinction that will have to be established. For the moment, I have no reason to do so since I am still on a level in which the singular and remarkable, on one hand, and regular and ordinary, on the other, can still be treated as synonymous.

So I am saying that the prolongation of a singularity into the neighborhood of another singularity occurs along a line of ordinaries or regulars. For example, look at the side of a square. Fine, you have A and B that are two vertices of the square. You treat the two vertices as singular points, and A is extended into the neighborhood of singularity B, that is, extends along a line of ordinaries, that line going from A to B. Not complicated.

So I am saying that singularities will be compossible… I’m adding to this, I can say three things, and here I am returning to the points very well outlined by Maarek in the previous class. I can say, you know, everything in the world is ordinary; everything is regular, as the professor of daily philosophy said in the novel by Leblanc.[10] Why? Because, ultimately, what is a singularity? It’s the coincidence of two ordinaries. I return to my example of the square: if you place yourself at the vertex B, you can say that [Pause] B as a singular point is the coincidence of the last ordinary on the line A-B and the first ordinary on the line B-C. So you see, in this sense, I can say that everything is ordinary. On the other hand, you recall the law of the world as infinite series: between two points, however close they may be to each other, I can always have a third point inserted through which an inflection passes. In this sense, I would say that everything is singular. There are only singularities. This will be two passages on the line; I can operate these two passages on the line, well, in the loose mathematics that I am proposing.[11] What I am creating here to defend myself from all mathematical criticism is a kind of axiomatic. Everyone can do what he wants provided that it has a definite result.

So then I can say — third proposition — I can say that everything is ordinary, I can say everything is singular, everything is remarkable, and then I can say, between my two passages at the extreme, as Maarek said, a singularity exists only as surrounded by a cloud of ordinaries, that is, it is able to be prolonged onto ordinary lines all the way to what? Well, not infinitely prolongable, at least the series is infinite, but it is able to be prolonged all the way to the neighborhood of another singularity which, as Maarek said quite correctly, would force me to define a neighborhood, but finally, we can’t do everything. No matter. But in an axiomatic, the relation of a singularity to another would pass through a definition of neighborhood. So here we are: I say two singularities are compossible when the series of development that goes from one into the neighborhood of the other, and from the other into the neighborhood of the first, is a convergent series. [Pause] There is incompossibility when the series is divergent, that is, when it does not pass through the same values. Fine. That’s not complicated; I mean there are no … mathematics, it’s propositions of… of definitions. So I would at least have a definition of the compossible and the incompossible.

Henceforth, you see God’s situation. I invite you take God’s place.

A student: [Inaudible comment]

Deleuze: What? Again? Well we just don’t get enough of taking God’s place. To create the world, God is faced with what? It is faced with possible worlds. [Pause] It finds itself faced with possible worlds, but that are not compossible with one another. You see, [God] is necessarily going to choose – this is how, according to Leibniz, creation is a choice – it is going to choose one possible world, but in this way, it will indeed be forced to exclude the worlds that are incompossible with the other one. This will be the principle of limitation; you see that compossibility and incompossibility are not at all something to which God submits. It’s simply the identity of the created with the limited. There is a fundamental limitation in creation that means: If God — in fact, understand this – if God could create all the worlds at the same time, well then – an outcome that makes Leibniz flinch with horror – why did he lay out this whole story of compossibility and incompossibility? In order not to be Spinozist. The terror of honest philosophers is to be Spinozist. [Laughter]

And Spinoza’s idea is quite simple: it’s that God necessarily creates the world, but for a Christian philosopher, this is irritating, God necessarily creating the world. It’s annoying because at that moment, creation is not creation. One has to say that he produces the world and that the world is a style of God (mode de Dieu), and that would mean that the world is necessary. For a Christian philosopher, this isn’t possible. But it’s very important for Leibniz to show that God cannot create the entire possible at once, that is, it cannot cause the entire possible to come into existence. Why? Because the possibles are caught up in relations of incompossibility. So, God must in fact choose one of these worlds. It brings into existence one of the compossible worlds.

What will the law be henceforth? Is [God] going to choose arbitrarily? Obviously not. I am summarizing a lot; I am going very fast. You know Leibniz’s answer: God chooses and brings into existence the best of possible worlds, the best of possible worlds. So while it might not seem so, Leibniz is no idiot. He knows that this world chosen by God is full of catastrophes, torture, innocent lives lost, etc. He will have to justify all that. But he tells us here, almost as a mathematician would, God chooses the best of possible worlds. I don’t know what the other incompossible worlds are that God didn’t choose. One must imagine them to be even worse. [Laughter] And what does that mean?

So this is where I was telling you – you must pay close attention here – he proposes to us the following schema in order to explain to us what God’s choice is. I add that the schema is not exact, and Leibniz knows this well since he calls on… He assumes a conception of space that is not his own.[12] He tells us: let us suppose that space were a receptacle. And, for Leibniz, space is no receptacle. Space is there, and God’s problem is going to be which world to choose, that is, to bring into space. [Pause] The answer is: it’s the world that will fill up a given space to the maximum. This is a pure metaphor; it’s to help us understand that space is not a receptacle. And then, that would imply that space is finite, and what does all that mean? Don’t give this any importance. Just try to understand it metaphorically.

There’s a receptacle; so well, all worlds are apt to populate their receptacles but at different degrees of filling in (remplissement). There is a single scheme (combinaison) that fills them to the maximum. Suppose that this space-receptacle were a game of chess, a chess board. Fine. I would say that at each moment of the game, you only have, or we suppose, we only have a single scheme such that the aggregate of pieces covers the maximum of squares, once it’s stated that – notice the variety introduced here – once it’s stated that each piece has – how to say this? – its power of action (puissance), its power of action to prolong itself into space according to a move (démarche) – for example, the Knight’s move is not the same as the Bishop’s move, which is not the same as the Queen’s, etc., etc. You have a scheme that allows you to fill the squares of the chessboard to the maximum. [Pause]

You will tell me that this gets complicated because there are two players, but taking the two players into account, there is a scheme that allows each, taking account of the other, to fill the maximum of squares. This is the scheme that God causes to come into existence, the best of possible worlds. That is, this means, as [Leibniz] said, the best of worlds is the one that has, that possesses the greatest quantity of reality or perfection, once it’s said that, philosophically, in the seventeenth century, reality and perfection are strictly synonymous. A perfection is something real. The real and the perfect are opposed not to the imperfect, but to the imaginary. So, the compossible scheme that God causes to come into existence will be the one that presents the greatest quantity of perfection.

Hence, the very odd distinction in Leibniz between the two wills of God: on the one hand, what he calls – this doesn’t come from him; these terms are found in theology, but with Leibniz, they take on a very special meaning – the wills or the antecedent will of God and the consequent will of God. The antecedent will of God is the movement through which or tendency by which each possible, whatever it is, everything that’s possible tends toward existence. Look at the text On the Radical Origin of Things where this thesis is developed. In God’s understanding, all the possibles, each possible tends toward existence. [Pause] This tendency toward existence, this tendency to pass… [Interruption of the recording] [47:26]

Part 2

… on all sorts of floors. I always come back to my idea of apartments. There are a lot of apartments in the understanding and the will of God. We must speak of God’s understanding by distinguishing the regions since — if you recall what we’ve already done a while ago – there’s a first region of God’s understanding that is defined by and that contains the absolutely Simples, the absolutely simple notions, that is, the pure Identicals, the infinite forms of which each one [Deleuze coughs violently] is identical to itself.[13]

Second region of God’s understanding, [Pause] the relations, [Pause] when notions enter into relations with one another, and this time, these are no longer the Identicals. These are the Definables which appeared to us to be another kind of inclusion.

Third region of God’s understanding: the requisites; this is indeed something else. I won’t go back over it. This was [material] in sessions we’ve already seen.

Fourth region: [Pause] singularities insofar as they all pass into existence. This sphere of divine understanding already calls upon the will to create a world under the form of antecedent will. Fifth region: the relations of compossibility and incompossibility resulting in only the best of schemes coming into existence under the action of consequent will. This is an understanding in five regions at least and a will in two regions at least. This is interesting because other philosophers spoke quite rapidly about God’s will and all that, but it’s fine, for Leibniz, these are multiplied. It’s not rendered complicated; it’s multiplied.

So, if I summarize still, you recall, and I am going back and drawing conclusions about the great distinction of propositions of essence and propositions of existence. Both are under the regime of inclusion of the predicate in the subject.[14] You recall, the predicate is not an attribute; it’s an event. [Pause] The inclusion of a predicate in the subject is the sufficient reason. In what sense? Because inclusion gives the very reason of the predicate. If the predicate can be called “of the subject,” it’s because it is in the notion; it’s because it is included in the notion of the subject, that’s its sufficient reason. I can simply say for the moment that there is always sufficient reason, but in the propositions of essence, [Pause] identity acts as sufficient reason and is enough to act as sufficient reason. This comes down to saying what?

Here I hesitate again to use mathematical terms, but out of commodity I would say: we saw that we could not distinguish the two kinds of truths of essence and existence, the two types of propositions, by saying in the case of propositions of essence, [that] that the analysis is finite, and, in the case of propositions of existence, [that] the analysis is infinite. Why? Because the infinite is everywhere, that seemed to us a very, very poor interpretation. There are infinite series in any event. But I would say that in the propositions of essence, the series is – and here I will use also use a mathematical term, but open to… not very – I would say that it suffices for the series to be compact, as mathematicians say, that is, that between two terms, one might  always be able to insert others, a compact series, whereas on the level of propositions of existence, this is very different: the series is convergent or divergent. For me, this would be the great difference between the two types of propositions. [Pause]

Here we have a first point. In the end, I have organized, summarized a whole group of things. For those who have not yet understood entirely, we’ll have a chance to return to this when we create the graph of the aggregate of Leibniz’s principles.[15] Notably, as I open a parenthesis, you won’t be surprised that in Leibniz, there is a principle that he calls the “principle of the Best”, notably that God chooses the best of the worlds, “the best” meaning the one that presents the maximum quantity of reality. There will always be a principle of the Best, and we will see all that later.

So here I have come to the end of this story, or rather, this first kind of singularity that are the inflections. The singularities that are the inflections were states of the world as well. I was indeed saying, you see – and without this, everything in what I am saying would collapse – from a certain point of view, the singularities have to be primary in relation to individuals. [Pause] What are the singularities? These are not individuals; these are events. If I am to define an event, now I would say it’s quite simple: it’s the aggregate of singularities able to be prolonged. [Pause] That’s what the event is. That logic should be a logic of the event comes down to saying, well yes, logic is a logic of singularities or of singular points, in their relation with the ordinaries, in their relation with the regulars. And yet again, it’s always along a scale that the regular is regular; if on the subsequent scale, the lowest scale, you make an inflection pass through, the ordinary becomes singular. There are all the transformations that you would like to the extent that, at the outside, an event only includes singularities, but according to your perception; it’s according to your perception. According to the acuteness or dullness (la finesse ou la lourdeur) of your perception, there will be more or fewer singularities in an event. That will commit us already – no, I don’t mean immediately – but that will commit us to a theory of perception that is obviously going to be very, very strange, like everything emerging from Leibniz.

Understand, for example, a fly. First, these are not the same events. When I am in the same room as a fly, [Laughter] think about what is an event for the fly and what is an event for me. [Laughter] For example, a fly is an event for me, but I am not an event for the fly. [Laughter] What it grasps are other events of which I might be the cause. But it’s obvious that the evaluation of events cannot be the same since the fly and I, we are not in the neighborhood of the same singularities. To create a theory of perception implies an entire differential conception of perception in which living beings perceive under conditions of the singularities they grasp and prolongations of these singularities along lines of ordinaries. [Pause] Think about the path of the fly and the infinity of singularities that mark the inflections in the path of the fly at every instant.

So what is going to constitute a perception? There too lies a problem. We certainly could have expected that problem to drop down on us. It will be derived directly. In any case, for the moment, in my concern about going slowly and about not mixing up different problems too much, I say ok, you see, I come back to: singularities precede the individual. Why? Exactly like the world, from a certain point of view, pre-exists the monad. God creates the world; so now that the world exists only in monads, that’s something else. But God creates the world. Once again, it creates the world in which Adam sinned, and you see what that means: it creates this particular compossible. It creates the aggregate of the compossible. It creates the world in which Adam sinned; it doesn’t create the sinner Adam. It creates the sinner Adam because it chooses the world in which Adam sinned. But the singularity, the event, Adam’s sin, I can say, to some extent, pre-exists the individual Adam. There is an individual sinning Adam only because God chose the world that has sin for a singularity, and the sin is going to be included in Adam. But God had to choose this world and not Adam particularly. It chose the world in which Adam sinned.

Thus, and in all my definitions here of the singularity as being the element of the event, I have assumed nothing about the individual. [Pause] Hence, as I was saying, what is an individual? There is a single solution; yet again, I don’t believe that there is a satisfactory and even possible definition conceivable if we don’t admit to pre-individual singularities. There’s an important book – and here as well, [it’s] one that does not quote Leibniz, but it appears to me to be Leibnizian in inspiration – an important book on individuation, therefore, appeared a few years ago by [Gilbert] Simondon on individuation, speaking precisely about this notion, pre-individual singularities, that he studies from a point of view in physics, in mathematical physics.[16] So, we don’t need to take up Simondon’s topics here, since we have Leibniz’s that are quite adequate.[17]

If in fact there are pre-individual singularities as so many inflections and inflections of inflections constituting the states of the world, I can say [that] the individual results from this. What will that be, the individual? Once again, I’m saying tht the individual will be a condensation of singularities. [Pause] I am calling event an aggregate of singularities able to be prolonged and convergent; I am calling individual a condensation, concentration or accumulation of singularities. [Pause] Does that correspond to something literally in Leibniz? Yes. Response to Monsieur [Pierre] Bayle: “Each monad is a concentration of the universe.” And, once again, what is the universe? You must not forget that the universe is the infinite series of states, that is, inflections definable as singularities. An accumulation of singularities, a condensation of singularities, is a monad, that is, an individual subject.

However, that creates problems for us, even lots of problems for us. Here we must be very, very concrete. Finite or infinite? If I have defined the individual as a condensation of singularities, is it a question of a finite number or an infinite number of singularities? I myself respond: for a definition of the individual, I obviously answer: a finite number, a finite number of singularities. Why? This seems strange. One would expect… You recall perhaps what an individual is, what a monad is. A monad expresses the world, that is, it includes all compossible singularities. But – and this will be essential for our learning today, if we get there – but it expresses clearly only a small part of the world. And here we have such a beautiful idea, and in some ways, this is indeed how an individual is distinguished from another individual. [Pause] You see? So, myself, I express a whole world from its start to its end. We will see, these are things we have not yet seen, but the entire past, the entire future of the universe is included in the monad since I am a monad; I’m an individual notion. So, I express the whole world, only here we are, I only expression a portion, I only express clearly a finite portion, [Pause] the one that concerns me. Fine.[18]

And no doubt, I even express it differently, I express it… Even if you take… There are kinds of encroachment (des empiètements), and that’s why on this level you discover your constructions of convergent series. For example… But these will be secondary convergences and divergences, that is, which will be inside the same compossible world. I take two persons of the same generation. Me, I can say that I express among, in my region of clear expression, there’s the Spanish Civil War, Hitler, the Second World War. Ok. But already this has to be nuanced: I express the Spanish Civil War clearly, but much less clearly than someone who lived it and fought in it there. So there are degrees of clarity. [Pause] Fine. So, in a same generation, in your case, you don’t express clearly the Spanish Civil War. It’s not your fault. You can only express it either through family tradition or through hearsay, knowing someone who was in it, or by what Leibniz calls in a very lovely expression, through “blind knowledge”, when you have read books about the Spanish Civil War. This isn’t the same. For you certainly sense the small portion that I express clearly, the small portion of the world that I express clearly, that is linked to my body.

Oh yoo, yoo, yoo, yoo, I’d say. [Laughter] What did I just say here since we have never yet mentioned the “body”? And one must flip this around. It’s not because it concerns my body that I express it clearly. But I only have a body because I have my small, clear region of expression, and my body is simply what will be derived from this clear expression. This is because, as monad, as individual notion, I am expressing the entire world, but I only express clearly a small region of the universe since, henceforth, I have a body that is going to be the material condition through which I clearly express this region. And I would say, henceforth what I express clearly, the small portion that I express clearly, yes, here this concerns my body, my body being the material condition.

You see, each of us expresses a small region clearly, the one concerning one’s body, but that this concerns one’s body is a result – it’s not a principle since, once again, we don’t yet know at all what a body is. But we just know that – this is not surprising – that monades have bodies, that each individual has a body. Each individual has a body since it clearly expresses a region of the universe and since one’s body is the condition through which it expresses this region, once again, the condition being material. Caesar expresses the Rubicon; I too express the Rubicon, but I don’t express it at all distinctly or clearly, not at all. I express it like I express the infinite aggregate of the universe, yes, but Caesar, he expresses the Rubicon clearly insofar as he got his feet wet in the Rubicon. And no doubt, it’s not a matter of feet, [Laughter] but rather a matter of mind. Was he going to cross the Rubicon, that is, was he going to put his feet into the Rubicon? This is what we call the problem of voluntary events.

So, in fact, I am in the process of proposing to you a deduction on three levels. [Pause] I am going from bottom to top, and not from top to bottom. The final [bottom] level: I express clearly a part of the world, a finite part of the world, on the condition of having my body. [Pause] Above this: why [do] I have a body? One must not say that I express clearly because I have a body; one must say that I have a body because I express clearly a finite region of the universe. Henceforth, this finite region, I will express it, as Leibniz says, under the relation of my body, but one must especially not reverse the order of causality. It’s because you express clearly a small, finite region of the universe that you have a body. [Pause]

Notice what immensity of progress is opening before you! Your region of clear expression is finite. And once again, what is your task? To enlarge it as much as you can, to expand it the most you can. Here I mean, believe me, this is about translating into Leibnizian terms some extremely concrete problems, but as Leibniz states it, it’s very concrete: the best soul will be the one that will be capable of enlarging its region of clear expression. When I’m a child, I have a small clear expression. That is, it’s understood that each monad in the end has a reduced portion of clear expression, but hugely variable within certain limits.

When we say about someone, “oh, what he could have done, what couldn’t he have done? He wasted himself.” What does it mean when it’s said generally that children are better than adults? Because with children, there’s generally still a bit of hope. [Laughter] With children, you understand, there’s still… It’s not always true; there are children about whom we sense that things won’t be going well, fine, [Laughter] and that their little clear regions, well, they won’t manage to expand. [Laughter] But really, yes they will, their little portion of the universe is going to be enlarged, but when one says about an adult, “he could really have made more of himself, he could have done better,” as is said, “yes, he could have done better,” that means [that] he didn’t enlarge at all….

There are people, there are people of a very mature age that have kept, well, the portion of clear expression of a five-year-old. We call them “feeble” (débiles). [Laughter] They have a tiny clear region. So with them, one must look for it, eh? And if one speaks to them about — I don’t know — the Spanish Civil War, if one says Hitler to them, if one says racism to them, no, that doesn’t concern them, that doesn’t concern them. This means – it’s as if they were Leibnizians – they would say, oh, excuse me, no, that’s not in my clear region, it’s not in what I express clearly. [Laughter] Sense that there’s a whole problem here, eh? Is it enough to say that God made me like [that]? Did God made me a cretin? [Laughter] Or is it suitable to say, oh monad – because we must call people monads – tell me, monad over there, you still could have enlarged your clear region.

So that’s the second [level]. See, the body’s story results from that. But still a final point: we must not believe that I am individual because I have a small, clear region since my having a clear region in my expression of the universe is my nominal definition. Tell me what you express clearly and who does not intersect with anything that another individual expresses clearly. See why Leibniz is able to say [that] there are no two similar individuals although every individual expresses the universe and the same universe. And when he says this is not from the same point of view – we have seen all this –, that means [that] two individuals do not have the same clear region of expression.

And I ask, why? Just as I was climbing upward from having a body to having a region of clear expression, where does this region of clear expression come from? That is, what would be the real definition of the individual since having a region of clear expression, is this only a nominal definition?[19] Well, I’ve got it. — We are really moving forward. What a relief! — The real definition of the individual is a condensation of singularities. This is because I am… Because each me is a condensation of singularities [Pause] and a finite number of singularities, it expresses a clear portion of the universe, a finite portion of the universe, the one in which its singularities are incarnated in events. [Pause] So that is my final definition of the individual, a condensing of pre-individual singularities. [Pause]

But that is going to throw us back into problems; here I don’t want to weary you too much, so I will simply list them. Henceforth we have to conceive that a monad is constructed around a small number of singularities. This is what Leibniz sometimes calls primitive predicates of the monad. So I was telling you, fine, for Adam … So, of course, I can hear well. You must not create difficulties for me where there aren’t any. Of course, this little number of finite singularities can be deployed to infinity. That doesn’t prevent it from composing a finite region of the universe. So here, on this point, just give me a break, no difficulties.

And I was saying, Adam, you take… Let’s make a list! For everyone, I was saying, make your list, and let all this be useful in some way for your life. Make your graph (table)… [Pause] Leibniz thinks in terms of graphs; these aren’t windows. If there are no windows, it’s because there are graphs in Leibniz. The monad is without doors or windows, but it has a lot of graphs, [Laughter] necessarily. It’s on graphs that the entire Combinatory is inscribed, the Combinatory. So, you make your graph of singularities. I was saying Adam, fine: first man, that’s an Adam singularity. It’s a primitive predicate. Living in a garden, a second primitive predicate, a second singularity; having a woman created from his rib, a third singularity; fourth singularity, in the world chosen by God, that is, in the best of worlds, he sins. This is an event, and it’s a singularity. I would say that this belongs to and circumscribes the clear region expressed by Adam who nonetheless expresses the entire world; that is, it expresses both what will happen to Caesar and what will happen to Christ, but he expresses this obscurely and in a muddled way. What does this mean, obscurely and muddled? That will come later; right now, it’s impossible to say. Fine.

So you have to do likewise. What are your own singularities, both inside and outside? Well… But I can make a list of my own. So I would have to… oh, but overall, these can always by multiplied to infinity, but… For example, if some among you still have some, oh, everything depends on their importance. Perhaps you again sense the arrival of the remarkable and the not remarkable. I mean, when the individual condenses singularities, at that moment, the singularities take on a remarkable aspect.[20] What’s remarkable in your life? There are lives that are believed to be magnificent and yet there is nothing remarkable. There are lives that are extremely monotonous and that are very, very remarkable. There are lives disturbed by truly insane vacuums, and these are lives of banality itself. Beware of the notion of the remarkable. It’s not enough to go traveling to the islands to achieve the remarkable. It’s not enough to take grand trips to reach the remarkable. You can travel the whole world and more than the worlds and around the world, etc., and your clear portion of the universe stays as limited as a horse’s, [Laughter] an iron horse, with its [inaudible due to the laughter]. On the other hand, on the other hand, you can just stay put and achieve a zone, a clear portion of expression that will be fantastic. But this is not a law either. There are some that move about and enormously extend their portion. There’s no law. Each time it’s up to you to see what has worked and what hasn’t for you, when you cause the remarkable and the important to emerge, if only for you.

I’ll say some very simple things, so let’s move on to the amorous domain. Fine, a great love, what do you want? Of course, it’s remarkable. The remarkable doesn’t mean… beware of Leibniz’s pseudo-optimism. That means that even if not turning out well, [Laughter] it can be remarkable. For people who don’t know how to love, normally this isn’t all that brilliant, people who don’t know how to love. They are missing a sense. Generally, they think they are clever. As Nietzsche said, they wink. Winking means love, but not making it. But some people to whom no one makes love, you know, there are some people with a certain weakness, eh? It’s not necessarily due to malice that no one makes love to them. It’s because they’re jerks, that’s all, eh? [Laughter] So make your graph, the missed opportunities, all those things I have passed by… [Pause]

You know, when you want to do philosophy, you notice quickly, and it’s also true about the rest, that true/false are expressions devoid of meaning, and that this isn’t how things happen, and that what happens in events of though isn’t true/false, but rather the remarkable or the ordinary, important or non-important. And it’s even true for the sciences. You can create axiomatics all you like, if you just have enough technical ability. You create as magnificent an axiomatic as you like, [Deleuze laughs] the question isn’t of seeing if it’s true or false. The question is to see if it has the least bit of interest. And this is how mathematicians speak. If you are a sufficiently good mathematician, you can create some theorems, you can invent them. And you won’t be told it’s false; you’ll be told, sir, this is strictly of no interest.

So you can always argue, but you understand, this is why arguments are so useless, so useless, so it’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of time because how do you intend to argue about the important and the non-important, the remarkable or the ordinary? You understand, when a teacher corrects an essay, … I remember my time teaching in a high school (lycée); I’ve corrected essays (dissertations). Well, I never found myself faced with anything false, or so rarely that it was a stretch to write down “false”, [Laughter] do you see? If someone said, Aristotle is a disciple of Descartes, there I would write down “false”. [Laughter] I’d be pleased, but that didn’t happen to me. That doesn’t happen. What happens? What happens is that one reads tons of papers that have neither importance nor interest. Explaining to someone that what they’ve written is without interest, on one hand, is insolent so one shouldn’t do it, and moreover, one has to be very sure of oneself. I myself don’t know at all if something has no interest. I tell myself, I see no interest here, there’s little of interest, but perhaps it will take on interest in three years when the author will have enlarged his or her region. But what do you want to say? What do you want to say?

So… or else in an argument, it’s wonderful: you don’t have the same region of expression; you aren’t in the same domain. So obviously, one can argue to infinity, but it’s a waste of time. That [process] disperses fog into the other’s domain and vice versa. It’s not worth it. It’s so difficult just thinking alone that when one has to do it with several people, you know, that’s not just nothing. So there are magnificent cases, in fact, in which there are interferences, in which there’s a convergent series inside the world. Two guys – I’ve lived this, so, and I’m still living this, but I’m not the only one. Working with someone, that means it’s two very different regions, but they have… they have – how to say it – a common zone, and starting from this common zone, that’s going to irradiate into both of them, and these are extremely complex cases that everyone who has worked in common… That’s what team work is.  But at that point, you realize that it’s not about arguing. One doesn’t argue; one never argues, never. There are only imbeciles that argue, or else if it’s a matter of spending an hour over a drink, ok, let’s go argue for a bit. [Laughter] But in any case, that has nothing to do with any activity that we could call, from close up or from afar, doing philosophy. This has to do with what people call opinion, of the kind “do you think that God exists”? etc. But in the end, that has no interest, and above all, no importance. That’s what I’d like you to sense.

So, on this point, what happens? We still are faced with a lot of problems. It’s that… Take two monads, two individual subjects. They can have a small number of singularities in common. [Pause] So, will this be the same individual, or won’t it be the same individual? And then, here’s what drops down on our heads: by what right do you name two individuals Adam, the one who sinned, the first man who sinned in a particular compossible world, and the one who wouldn’t have sinned although he might be the first man, so he deserves the name Adam because he’s the first man and he lives in the garden? On this point, one of the two sins, the other doesn’t sin. Why name them both Adam? Do I have the right to name them both Adam?[21] In his correspondence [with Leibniz], Arnauld doesn’t let up on Leibniz and says: but what is that about? Why are you calling him Adam, even the one that didn’t sin in the other world, within the other world that was possible? You see, this is a bit of a problem. Or Sextus, in the text of the Theodicy that I read to you, that has a Sextus staying in Rome and taking power; and there’s another Sextus who heads off to Corinth; and another Sextus who goes off to cultivate his garden; three Sextuses, but by what right do they deserve the same proper name?[22]

One must suggest this; here’s what I’d like to say: I mean that Leibniz, when he thinks about the problem of individuation – [To a student close to him] Oh, I’m going to hurry up, ok? These are details, you’ll see; refer to the Arnauld-Leibniz correspondence – first, when he thinks about the problem of individuation, Leibniz doesn’t seem to follow the path I’m suggesting. I’m telling you this so that you won’t get angry with me, for he seems to pose an entirely different problem. He says, “So, however far you went in specification,” that is, in the determination of smaller and smaller species, “however far you went in specification, you will never reach the individual.” Individuation is not a specification, even ultimate. “However far you went in specification, you will always have within the species, however small it might be, an infinity of at least possible individuals.” You see, [this is] the irreducibility of the individual to specification, that we express by saying the individual isn’t a final species, or in Latin, the individual is not ultima species. Understand? [Pause]

It’s said that St. Thomas – ok, fine – it’s said that St. Thomas made an exception for angels, [Laughter] for angels. You understand immediately why: angels have a glorious body, that is, that are not subject to the accidents of matter. So, for angels, the individual has to be the ultima species; their final species has to be simultaneously their individual. All that’s interesting, eh?  [Pause] And Leibniz writes this text with great joy. But you see? Well then, for me, this is everyone. We are all angels. If you push specification far enough, you reach the individual. In other words, the individual is the infima species. [Pause]

I am completing this so you might appreciate what’s completely new in this idea by Leibniz, the individual as infima species, the individual as final species. If you continue the specification to infinity, you will reach the individual. Individuation is a specification continuing to infinity. In order for you to understand what’s deeply new in such a thesis, I say, here you are, a whole current of philosophy exists named Nominalism. Nominalism is those people saying that there are only individuals and that concepts are only words, words that, of course, have their rules of usage. But what exists only exists in individuals or particular things. Concepts are words, and the problem of logic is the rules of usage in words. You see? A Nominalism of this sort perfectly existed – it still abounds today – perfectly existed in Leibniz’s era. For example, you find elements of it in works by a very great philosopher named Hobbes.

And so, and so, and so, Leibniz would say the same thing in part; he’d say, of course, only individuals exist, but understand – and here, Leibniz’s thought is very, very strong – this doesn’t make him a Nominalist, because Leibniz’s idea is that if there are only individuals as Nominalists say quite well, it’s for a reason opposite the one that Nominalists believe in, specifically it’s because concepts are words. It’s because concepts have the power to go to infinity, that is, to be specified all the way to infinity. In other words, it’s by reason of the power (puissance) of the concept that there are only individuals. [Pause] Here we have enough to make Hegel gasp with jealousy, [Laughter] and besides, he never came close to discovering such a truth. It’s by virtue of the concept’s strength that the concept goes all the way to the individual that the individual is the concept. We saw this with the individual notion, with Leibniz’s idea of individual notion.

But suddenly, I am pointing out to you – and with this, I am taking a bit of a risk – it’s only apparently that Leibniz speaks of genus and species. In fact, the individual is not an infinitely continued specification. The true line – and we will see why – Leibniz’s true line, once again, is the individual as condensation of singularities. [Pause] He does not speak of genus and then species, and then species and then infinitely continued specification that would go all the way to the individual. He speaks of pre-individual singularities and defines the individual as a condensing of singularities, as a condensation of singularities, and once more, of singularities able to be prolonged following convergent series. I would say, in this sense – you should understand what this means – I would say [that] singularities are the requisites of the individual, once it’s stated that, for Leibniz, every thing has requisites, that is, conditions. The individual’s requisites – this is also a misunderstanding to avoid – the individual’s requisites are not genera or species; they are singularities. Ah if you understand that, you understand everything.

But that will explain to you suddenly why Leibniz invokes genera and species for I then ask, what is a genus and a species? Where does that come from? Here I am taking a little risk, but this ought to work out fine. It has to work out. Assume that these singularities are condensed within an individual with one condition, we have seen, of being able to be prolonged following convergent series, of being prolonged into the neighborhood of each other following convergent series. There we have the concrete operation that will make the concentration possible. Assume now that through an abstraction of the mind, you considered singularities separated from one another. You cut them off from their prolongation. At that moment, I would say the singularities become indefinite. Instead of saying Adam who sinned lives in a particular garden, you are going to abstract a singularity by cutting it off from its prolongation. You are going to undertake, if you will, a surgery of singularities. You extract a singularity in order to consider it in itself. At that moment, it becomes an indefinite singularity, A garden. [Pause] Fine, at that moment, it’s a genus. When you cut off the requisites from their prolongation, when you cut off singularities from their convergent series, you only have indefinite singularities that, henceforth, present themselves as general concepts. This is the operation that will allow you to say AN Adam, an Adam in A garden, is common to this world in which a particular Adam sins and to that other world in which Adam does not sin, and the same word “Adam” will be used in the sense of AN Adam. [Pause] You see, I would say that this would allow – this would be great — from the point of view of a logic of the proper name, that would allow conditions to be set according to which a proper name can be preceded by an indefinite article. That would be beautiful, and we would have the entirety of Leibniz’s theory of individuation. Good.

I’m finishing… I’m finishing, I’m finishing. And well, what problems remain for us? If I returned to the entirety of what we’ve done over many, many sessions, you will recall that on the level of propositions of essence, propositions of the mathematical type, we have undertaken all sorts of considerations from the Identical on to definitions, and on to requisites, and we said [that] the task of propositions of essence is to set the requisites of a domain. And then, we took propositions of existence, and we saw the inclusion in the monads, that is, we saw individual notions, whereas on the other side, we saw so-called simple notions, either the absolutely simple notion, the Identicals, or the relatively simple notion, the Requisites.

With propositions of existence, we discover another type of notion, individual notions. First question: where does the junction of the two domains occur? Answer: on the level of Requisites. The singularity belongs to the domain of existence, but it is precisely the requisite of the individual. [Pause] So, if there is also an angled linkage of propositions of essence with propositions of existence, it’s through the notion of the Requisite, when the Requisite, the individual’s Requisite, that is, is a singularity, a pre-individual singularity. I can say that – and here I think this [Deleuze hesitates] is relative, it’s quite important for Leibniz’s philosophy – I assume that both domains of essences and existences are prolonged continuously by the requisites. You go from requisite to requisite all the way to the requisites constituted by the singularities.

There you have how [this] would be articulated… And a second problem. What remains for us? Here we have a problem for the future. We remain in a tête-à-tête, a prodigious tête-à-tête between two kinds of notions, individual notions of existence or monads, and simple notions of essence, specifically Identicals or Requisites. The relation of one and the other, the relation of the individual notion with simple notions, is called reflection. It belongs to the monad to reflect and, by reflecting, to think of simple notions, the monad being an individual notion. But thinking of simple notions is not simply thinking about them; it’s to create Combinatories, to complete graphs, etc. It’s to undertake science. On what condition? On the condition that the monad is lifted up to a clear region of expression sufficiently large for it to encompass what a simple notion means.

And animals don’t know what a simple notion is. Their region of clear expression is so tiny, so tiny, and lots of people among humans have no idea and will never enter into this tête-à-tête. So this will be our task: what is the relation designated by the reflection between individual notions and simple notions? There is one solution that we must exclude, although this comes from, I believe, one of the greatest commentators on Leibniz. Gueroult suggested that in this extremely complicated problem about which Leibniz’s texts are extremely rare, we could say that in the depth of each monad, in the depth of each individual notion, there’s a simple notion.[23] I for one think that Gueroult absolutely did not himself believe in this solution that, in the end… fine, it’s no matter. In any case, for us, we see why it’s impossible since we have placed something else in the depth of each monad. We have placed in the depth of each monad a determinate or determinable number of singularities. And simple notions are not singularities. They are Identicals. So this solution is not feasible.

So another answer to this problem that I lean toward more is that there is a relation between individual notions and simple notions to the extent that simple notions organize requisites of domains [Pause] and that the individual begins with its own requisites that are the singularities. Therefore, there is continuous development that causes us to pass from simple notions to individual notions and causes us to pass in the following way: there’s an individual notion when the requisites are singularities. [Pause] And fine, we’ve covered a great bit!

But then, what emerges here? A problem obviously. This is in all your minds! It’s on all your lips! Fine, all that is very well, but then what? Monads that contain the world and God chose the world in which Adam sinned, and the sin is included in Adam since Adam expresses the world, and the sin is his clear region, can someone be so badly constituted to have in his clear region something as evil as sin? And furthermore, are we free? What does that mean? If there is inclusion of the predicate in the subject, if crossing the Rubicon is included in Caesar, if sin is included in the individual notion of Adam — although you might tell me, of course, in this compossible world, not another — the fact is that in this world, God caused sin to pass into existence as a predicate encompassed in the monad Adam; crossing the Rubicon is encompassed in the monad Caesar. As Leibniz says, if he hadn’t crossed the Rubicon, that would have been another Caesar. Fine, that is, we would return to our hypothesis of the indefinite proper name: but that Caesar, he had to cross the Rubicon. And that Adam, he had to sin. You yourself, you had to undertake all the horrors that you’ve committed [Laughter] and me, [I had to do] all the good works that I’ve never cease pursuing. [Laughter] This is an example; you can correct it for yourself. [Laughter] And well, yes, what is that? What is that?

But what I would like to say, if you aren’t too tired, what I’d like to say is that Leibniz appears to me to be one of the most extraordinary philosophers of freedom, and that nonetheless, this seems to have begun poorly. Inclusion – understand — inclusion of the predicate in the individual subject seems to completely forbid liberty to the extent that liberty seems suppressed by Leibniz even more than by Spinoza, about whom [Leibniz] stated that [Spinoza] suppressed it.[24]

So well, what’s going to happen in Leibniz when he agrees to consider this, for he is so very clever, you know, for he spends his time saying, but I’m going to speak to you about the problem of freedom, I’m going to show you how I am saving it? And we realize with astonishment that [while] he’s in the process of speaking to us, he seems to be talking to us about our freedom, that is, something of great interest for us, whereas, he’s spending his time speaking to us of God’s freedom. So, one wants to say, ok fine, were God to be free, that would already create problems for us. Is God free, and in what sense is it free? You see why. God was free because God chooses between the worlds both of which are compossible, but they are incompossible with one another. So, we say, well yes then, it’s subject to the laws of incompossibility. No, because the laws of incompossibility, it’s [God’s] the one who created them! So that works out well for God. It’s not so complicated, God’s freedom. But how about ours ?! In what sense is Caesar free to cross the Rubicon? In what sense is Sextus free to rape Lucretia? There we have a real problem.

And to my knowledge, there’s an enormous number of texts by Leibniz on freedom, but there are very few that don’t discuss God’s freedom. He tells us a very simple thing: Leibniz tells us, you understand that, 2 and 2 not to make 4 would be impossible. And in other words, it’s necessary for 2 and 2 to make 4. But were Adam to sin – here’s the vocabulary; I am trying to set the terminology – but that Adam sins or Sextus rapes Lucretia or Caesar crosses the Rubicon, that’s not necessary, only it’s certain and assured. [Laughter] So he says – you must pay attention – it’s not a mathematical necessity; it’s a moral certitude. See why [this is] a moral certitude since it’s the best of possible worlds, but from which I retain [that] it’s certain that Adam sins, has sinned, and will sin. Before the sin, it’s certain that Adam would sin. It’s certain that… Is it enough to say, does distinguishing certitude and necessity suffice in order to assure freedom? In my view, at first glance, that suffices to save God’s freedom. That doesn’t suffice to save our freedom. And yet, I am telling you [that] Leibniz is without doubt the philosopher who created such an extraordinary philosophy of freedom that it’s fully satisfying for all of us, but there as well, it seems to me, it hasn’t been, it hasn’t been seen.

And I see only two fundamental texts on… in which he doesn’t pull back: the first is the fifth letter to Clarke – Clarke was an English disciple of Newton – there was an extremely uncomfortable exchange of letters between Clarke and Leibniz, very tense, because there was such a settling of scores between Newton and Leibniz, very, very tense. But it’s in the final letter from Leibniz to Clarke that Leibniz tells us himself some extraordinary things about freedom.[25] And on the other hand, another longer text, New Essays on Human Understanding, book 2, chapter 21, that belongs to the greatest texts, … these two texts belong to the greatest texts of the philosophy on human freedom. Fine.

So, at this point, I direct a question to you: I myself would like to begin. If you are no longer able, there’s not point then, no point. If you aren’t able to, those who are unable can leave without… I told you, you put me in such a state that I cannot release you and cannot give you a break. There we are. So, those who’ve had enough, they can leave, and those who have questions to ask on what we’ve done today, they can stay. Ehhhh… or else, then, I just continue, I can start on freedom if you feel lively enough mentally. Excuse me for proceeding this way. Who would like to continue on freedom?… Yes, you still can, this won’t last long. That way, I will pick this up again after vacation. [Pause]

Well, I’m going to tell you, [Pause] I’m going to tell you, Leibniz tells us two things, in my view. This is very simple: everything rests on an astonishing psychology of the motive (motif), of the motive. When Leibniz wonders, but what precisely is a motive?[26] A motive, a motive for acting, what is a motive? He’s going to tell us two things in the letters to Clarke, in the fifth letter to Clarke.[27] Why? Because when we compare motives, for example, you see, do I leave or do I stay? Do I leave or do I stay? Do I cross the Rubicon or do I not cross it? Do I, Sextus, take power or do I not seize it? Or else, do I call my loved one or do I not call? That’s a problem, eh? Or else, do I go out to the movies or not go out at all? I am multiplying, but… cases.

And well, and well, and well, when you consider motives like scales, like weights on a scale, the mind will go to the strong side where you discovered the weights. It’s simply that you don’t sense this immediately. With a perfect set of scales, we’d say in fact that artificial conditions are required: the plate has to be well balanced, all that. To follow the metaphor, resetting everything from zero would be needed, all that. We’d have to… Ok, fine. So when you do that, it’s obvious that you are objectifying the motives. You make of the motive an objective representation as if the motive was something existing outside the mind and that the mind represented for itself.

In other words, the first error regarding the problem of freedom is an operation that we always observe consisting of objectifying the motive, as if the motive were some thing, any thing at all, a distinct representation of the soul whereas the motive purely and simply is an act of the soul and there is no motive and soul. There is the soul that projects itself in a motive. This is very close to a phenomenology; it’s a phenomenology of the motive. Here you have the first illusion not to hold onto, not to entertain.

A second illusion: when you compare motives to weights and you have – I don’t know what; I don’t know what I’m saying – and you’ve objectified them, you complete that with a second error, specifically you must divide them, in fact, since you must invoke the motives in order to choose a specific motive. What [Leibniz] says there is very, very intelligent. You have to distinguish the motive, on one hand, and on the other, the inclinations, he says, the inclinations that cause you to prefer one particular motive to another. So therefore, you both objectify the motive and, having lost subjectivity, you divide it into an objective motive and a subjective inclination. [Pause]

There’s the dual critique. From this point, he’s going to relate his vision, his splendid vision of the motive. It’s five in the evening; no, it’s seven minutes to noon, and I tell myself, well hey, I’d really like to go to the café, and you see my drama: it’s the two motives, so one could believe them to be weights on a scale: do I continue working on my course, or do I go to the café?[28] I say this all the more lightly since I never go to cafés anymore, [Laughter] so don’t think that this is a living example. It’s an abstract example. Or else, some among you that are here, do I stay or do I leave? Fine.

So, Leibniz says, if you objectify the motive, first, you are going to believe that you are considering for the first time – admire this! – that you are considering for the first time your two motives: go to the café, stay home and work. Good. And then, you leave off for a moment; you give yourself some time for reflection, and then you return to your two motives. When you have objectified your two motives, you have the impression that they haven’t changed, eh? You simply tell yourself that reflection is going to help you discover something hidden that you hadn’t seen the first time in the motive. In other words, you provide yourself with the following presentation: [Deleuze goes to the board, away from the microphone, creating certain audio difficulties] A and B, thus your objectified motives. There you are, and the first operation, you consider them closely. The second operation, you’ve had enough; [Laughter] you move on to something else, you reset your mind, and then you come back to your motives, and because you’ve objectified them, you think that they haven’t changed, eh, [Deleuze sits back down] that this is still A and B. And notice that this is required as a function of your screwed-up linear schema. [Pause] But that’s not it at all.

So what’s the truth here? [Pause; Deleuze returns to the board] The truth is that, between the first deliberation and the second one, some time passes by, and the motives have been completely caught up in time, such that your true schema is what? First deliberation [Deleuze draws on the board], A, B; second deliberation, A prime, B prime. [Deleuze sits back down] From your first deliberation to your second deliberation, A has become A prime, B has become B prime. In other words, your motives have endured, and by enduring, they have changed. What have I done? What difference is there between my two schemas? I’d say that I have a linear schema and I have a curvilinear schema. I don’t need to make you notice that my second schema is an inflection. [Pause] Leibniz will confirm this by saying, the soul is inclined without being necessitated.[29] But “inclined”, how do we not savor this word that we’ve seen following us from the start with our tales of the inflection? Inclination (inclinaison) of the soul or its preference (inclination), this is the inflection that it traverses in so-called voluntary events. Hence, my two motives haven’t at all remained immobile. They have followed the inflection.

Let’s pass on to the other aspect that will completely confirm this, and then we will have finished. No more than movers (mobiles) [or] motives (motifs) remained identical to themselves from one deliberation to another, no more did they divide into objective motive and inclination since inclination was the very movement of the motive. And what is this movement of this motive? Well, this is obvious. It’s that a motive is not abstract. I made it abstract at first after having considered it as an object independent from the soul. First error. But I also made it abstract because I cut it off completely, and from what? I’d say, from the cloud surrounding it. Are you rediscovering this topic, the extent to which this is entirely coherent? You already sense that the motive is a singularity which, like any singularity, is surrounded by a cloud according to which it’s going to be able to be prolonged or not.

What is this cloud? I’d really like to go to the café. Fine. But, wanting to go to the café is an abstraction. But Leibniz does, … he’s very, very concrete in what he says. You know, he says, wanting to go to a café – to the inn (auberge), they’d say back then… But consider the case of an alcoholic. We just have to see that it’s not simply about alcohol; it’s an entire dusting (poudroiement), an entire dust [layer] of tiny things: the odor of that place I like, if I am… — this is an alcoholic speaking – the pals he will find there, the noise at the café, the café’s noise that’s without equal, that resembles no other noise, an entire infinite aggregate of tiny solicitations, such that if you don’t take them into account when you speak about an alcoholic, it would be better not to speak at all. One must not say, hey listen, just keep yourself from drinking, ok? [Laughter] It’s not at all about drinking a glass; it’s… People, they don’t understand a thing. It’s a world, it’s a world.

And this world, one cannot live one’s there except that the alcoholic who likes it. He lives in this café noise. He lives in that dust in which we walk, half vomit, half spit, half cigarette butts, ashes and fog, and the folds of these ashes and this fog, all that, the voices through the folds, he notices his glass, [saying] ah yes, right. [Laughter] But drinking at home, that’s something completely different. It’s another case, drinking at home. That has no relation with the alcoholic at the café, no relation. And then necessarily, everything depends on the cafés he frequents; there are the local whores there, how are you doing, and all that, it’s great, it’s… One feels… In the end, one feels taken in by a welcoming humanity. Fine, you understand?

And what does that mean? Well, you are going to complete it yourself. It’s not difficult. At each deliberation, I not only have my changing motives that do not stay like weights on the scale, but onto which an entire dusting of tiny solicitations congeals, from both sides, in fact, from both sides. At each deliberation, what increases? The amplitude, I’d say, the amplitude of the inflection, that’s what changes, the amplitude of the inflection.

What is it to be free? It’s pushing your motives all the way to the maximum amplitude of which you are capable, that is, to cause them to conglomerate or coagulate the maximum of tiny solicitations passing under your nose. That’s what it is to feed your decision to the point of deciding when… what? When the act you choose expresses your full soul, at the maximum of its amplitude. And if you choose the miserable activity of going to drink a glass at the café, while turning your back on philosophy, what must we say? We must say that, with all your soul, you’ve chosen to be miserable; [Laughter] we have to say that you’ve chosen according to the clear portion of the world that you express. There you are. And if you say, no, no, I am staying in to read Leibniz [Laughter] – you must not believe that this is an abstraction. An abstraction has never had the least chance when faced by something concrete; this is equally concrete — it’s that your soul has a sufficient amplitude so that – call it motive B, reading Leibniz – so that on the side of plan B, this amplitude will be maximum whereas, on the side of plan A, the amplitude will not at all fill up your soul.

So, it’s a matter of your soul. Adam sins, yes; Sextus gets drunk; or else, I don’t know, someone goes and gets drunk. The act is free, but to what extent? To the extent that it expresses the entire amplitude of the soul at the moment he commits the act. So you can always regret that, at that moment, your region – as this happens a lot – what’s awful is when… These are daily variations. There’s an hour, for example, there’s an hour in which the greatest of philosophers tells himself, ah, if I were to go meet Julot at the café to discuss things for a bit. Fine. There are moments in which his soul has this tiny amplitude, and that expresses his soul. At that moment, he must go to the café; “must” is sad to say, but… [Laughter; pause] since it’s the act that expresses the amplitude of his soul at that moment.

Or else then, there’s another solution fortunately. No, he doesn’t have to. It’s probable he’ll go to the café, but he doesn’t have to, he doesn’t have to. He only has to bide his time (gagner du temps). He only has to bide some time since all these desires animated by the tiny solicitations of which we aren’t even conscious – you sense this: these are unconscious solicitations that crisscross us from everywhere, the memory, no, not the memory, the noise that I like, the kind of noise that I like, all that – well then, that changes greatly according to the stage of the day. For example, alcohol, drugs, all that filth, it’s like at certain hours of the day, there are certain hours that are especially difficult. If you manage to pass beyond that moment – I’m not saying this for every case, but for alcohol, its periodic character is particularly clear – if you manage to bide your time, one has to bide time with oneself.

We have such bad faith, we are so wretched (crapuleux) that we have to play tricks, right? We have to play tricks with our soul. If you gain a bit of time, good, that will cause your soul to open itself toward the other amplitude in the meantime, and where there isn’t the same problem. You’ll say, oh right, it’s too late; I should have gone out earlier. This method is infallible. Whatever the object is of your decision to be taken, apply this method of the soul’s amplitude. Never regret what you’ve done at a moment when your soul’s amplitude was particularly limited. You’ll get over it (Tant pis). Regret only not having an adequate amplitude of the soul. Work to increase the amplitude of your soul in whatever way you can. I don’t at all say that it’s only philosophy that succeeds, but it’s certain that, for example… [Interruption of the recording] [142:24]

… a null amplitude, even in cafés, even in the cafés that I just described, there are strange things, and in a certain manner, there arise strange moments of generosity and understanding, and almost sometimes beauty; other times, no… no. All that, all that, it’s up to you to lead your life, but manage yourself or lead it in the manner of Leibniz.

And on that note, go on out to the café, [Pause] and I will return to this after vacation since perhaps you’ve heard me: have you been struck by this, that another philosopher has taken up some themes extremely close [to these], and yet people don’t usually connect them, and that other philosopher is Bergson, in his theory of freedom?

Good… Oo là là.. What time is it? … [Various noises; a student asks a question about motives and movers (mobiles)] Leibniz says them, but they come down to the same thing, these are motive and inclination. Movers are still in the order of the motive, whereas the motive is in the order of inclination, if you will; it’s tiny perceptions and motives that Leibniz distinguishes, whereas movers, that … [End of the recording] [2:24:04]

N

otes

[1] Following the hybrid class of 27 January (half Deleuze and half invited lecturer from mathematics, Marcel Maarek), this session marks the mid-point of the academic year and provides groundwork to develop discussion after the February semester break. The session begins in mid-sentence with Deleuze speaking prior to the actual start of class.

[2] For a reference to Heidegger in this context, see The Fold (University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 30; Le Pli (Minuit, 1988), p. 42.

[3] On Mallarmé and the fold, see The Fold, pp. 30-31; Le Pli, pp. 43-44.

[4] Deleuze refers here to the poem “Un autre éventail de Mademoiselle Mallarmé”.

[5] Deleuze refers obliquely to the poem, “L’Azur”, “The Azure”, and the verse: “Oh, fogs, arise! Pour your monotonous ashes down”.

[6] Deleuze refers here to the poem, “Éventail de Madame Mallarmé”.

[7] Reference to the poem “Remémoration d’amis belges”.

[8] In fact, Mallarmé says “la pierre veuve” (the widowed stone), but uses the word “vétuste” to describe the atmosphere.

[9] Le pliage du journal avec le livre se dépasse vers le tassement”: this citation is not an exact quotation; see the prose text “Divagations”, particularly, “The Book, Spiritual Instrument”, in Stéphane Mallarmé. Selected poetry and prose, trans. Mary Ann Caws (New York: New Directions, 1982).

[10] Deleuze refers here to the novel by Maurice Leblanc, La vie extravagante de Balthazar (Balthazar’s Extravagant Life), that he considered during the 27 January 1987 seminar. See also The Fold, pp. 62-63; Le Pli, pp. 83-84.

[11] On this apparent paradox between ordinaries and singularities, see The Fold, pp. 60-61; Le Pli, p. 81.

[12] On Leibniz’s position on space-time in contrast to that of the receptacle, see The Fold, p. 66-67; Le Pli, pp. 89-90.

[13] See The Fold, pp. 49-50; Le Pli, pp. 65-66, and the discussion of sufficient reason in the sessions on 13 January and especially 20 January 1987.

[14] See chapter 4 of The Fold, on sufficient reason and the discussions of these points during the sessions on 13 January and 20 January 1987.

[15] See in chapter 4, The Fold, p. 57; Le Pli, p. 77.

[16] Deleuze published a book review in 1966 on Simondon’s book, L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Paris: PUF, 1964); see Desert Islands and Other Texts (New York: Semiotext(e) 2004), pp. 186-189; L’île déserte et d’autres textes (Paris, Minuit 2002), pp. 120-124. The complete version of Simondon’s text will be published as L’Individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information (Grenoble: Millon, 2005), translated as Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, trans. Taylor Adkins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020). See also the Painting seminar, session 5, 12 March 1981, for Simondon on the distinction of molding and modulating.

[17] On the definition of the individual and the individual notion, see The Fold, pp. 63-64; Le Pli, pp. 86-89.

[18] For several developments on the expression of clear regions, see The Fold, pp. 25, 50, and especially 60; Le Pli, pp. 35, 67, and especially 80.

[19] On this distinction of definitions, see The Fold, p. 63; Le Pli, pp. 84-85.

[20] On the remarkable and the ordinary, see The Fold, pp. 91-92; Le Pli, pp. 121-122.

[21] On this question, and then on individuation and nominalism, see The Fold, pp. 64-65; Le Pli, pp. 85-87.

[22] On the Sextus story, see The Fold, pp. 60-62; Le Pli, pp. 82-83, and the discussion in the 27 January 1987 session.

[23] On Martial Gueroult, see The Fold, p. 63 and the index; Le Pli, p. 85.

[24] Deleuze makes the same comparison in The Fold, p. 69; Le Pli, pp. 93-94.

[25] By referring below to the foundation of a psychology and a phenomenology of motives, Deleuze cites the two texts indicated here, in The Fold, p. 152, note 5; Le Pli, p. 94.

[26] On motives, see The Fold, p. 69; Le Pli, pp. 94-95.

[27] Deleuze returns to the topic of motive and to this letter to Clarke in the following session, on 24 February 1987.

[28] Deleuze examines this choice and the errors that threaten it in chapter 5, The Fold, pp. 70-71; Le Pli, pp. 94-96, and continues this discussion in subsequent session, 24 February 1987.

[29] Deleuze cites this statement from Leibniz’s text, Discourse on Metaphysics, paragraph 30, in The Fold, p. 70; Le Pli, p. 95.

 

Notes

For archival purposes, the French transcript and English translation of this seminar were made for the first time in August 2019 based on access to the BNF recordings made at the Deleuze lectures by Hidenobu Suzuki. Additional review of the transcript and text occurred in November 2019, with more additions and a revised description completed in September 2023 and updated in February-March 2024.

Lectures in this Seminar

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Reading Date: October 28, 1986
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Reading Date: November 4, 1986
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Reading Date: November 18, 1986
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Reading Date: December 16, 1986
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Reading Date: January 6, 1987
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Reading Date: January 13, 1987
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Reading Date: January 20, 1987
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Reading Date: January 27, 1987
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Reading Date: February 3, 1987
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Reading Date: February 24, 1987
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Reading Date: March 3, 1987
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Reading Date: March 10, 1987
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Reading Date: March 17, 1987
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Reading Date: April 7, 1987
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Reading Date: April 28, 1987
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Reading Date: May 5, 1987
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Reading Date: May 12, 1987
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Reading Date: May 19, 1987
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Reading Date: May 26, 1987
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Reading Date: June 2, 1987
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