Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought

“Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought” was a 15-lecture seminar given from November 1980 to March 1981. In the first semester teaching at the new location in St. Denis, after the destruction (by the Ministry of Education) of the Vincennes University campus, In this seminar, Deleuze revisits his examination of Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy. Deleuze previously published two books on Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (Spinoza et le problème de l’expression, 1968), and a brief manual, Spinoza. Textes choisis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), subsequently revised and republished as Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (Spinoza – Philosophie pratique, Paris: Minuit, 1981). The majority of these lectures were given the same year as the publication of the  latter title, and hence these sessions were clearly informed by the new editorial preparation. The Seminar included here provides a sixteenth session, from 1978, on the themes of affect and idea as well as “continuous variation” in which Deleuze addresses Spinoza.

Please note that these transcriptions and hence the translations have benefited immensely from the work undertaken by David Lapoujade in editing these sessions for publication as Sur Spinoza (Paris: Minuit, 2024).

The initial transcripts for this seminar were partially available initially on the WebDeleuze site, with the following sessions omitted entirely: in 1981, 6 January, 27 January, 3 February, 10 February, and 31 March, hence the translations here are entirely new for the Deleuze Seminars. An extra session is included on WebDeleuze, on the impossible date (in terms of Deleuze’s and the University’s schedule) of 21 December 1980, and its content actually consists of a segment of the 9 December session’s first part.

As for the ten other sessions, each has its own story of incompletion and hybrid development: some of the transcripts were developed for the Paris 8 “La Voix de Deleuze” site, and a number of them (partially available on WebDeleuze) are completed and then translated for the Deleuze Seminars siites. See each session’s notes for comments on the transcript and translation developments.