Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation: Dialectics of Negation and Difference

by Henry Somers-Hall

Overview

Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation provides a critical account of the key connections between twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and nineteenth-century German idealist G. W. F. Hegel. While Hegel has been recognized as one of the key targets of Deleuze's philosophical writing, Henry Somers-Hall shows how Deleuze's antipathy to Hegel has its roots in a problem the two thinkers both try to address: getting beyond a philosophy of judgment and the restrictions of Kant's transcendental idealism. By tracing the development of their attempts to address this problem, Somers-Hall offers an interpretation of the sweep of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, providing a series of analyses of key moments in the history of thought, including the logics of Aristotle and Russell, Kant's own philosophy of judgment, and the philosophy of Bergson. He also develops a novel interpretation of Deleuze's philosophy of difference, and situates his philosophy in relation to the broader post-Kantian tradition. In addition to Deleuze's relation to Hegel, the book makes important contributions to the study of Deleuze's philosophy of mathematics, as well as to the study of several underappreciated areas of Hegel's own philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438440101
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	02/14/2012
Series:	SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	305
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Henry Somers-Hall is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. He is the cotranslator (with Alistair Welchman, Mergen Reglitz, and Nick Midgley) of Salomon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART ONE: THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION

1. Deleuze and Transcendental Epiricism

Introduction
Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason
Sartre and The Transcendence of the Ego
Deleuze and The Logic of Sense
Conclusion

2. Difference and Identity

Introduction
Aristotle
The Genus and Equivocity in Aristotle
Change and the Individual
Aquinas
Symbolic Logic
Preliminary Conclusions
Hegel and Aristotle
Zeno
Conclusion

PART TWO: RESPONSES TO REPRESENTATION

3. Bergsonism

Introduction
Bergson’s Account of Kant and Classical Logic
Bergson’s Method of Intuition
Bergson and the Two Kinds of Multiplicity
Conclusion

4. The Virtual and the Actual

Introduction
The Two Multiplicities
Depth in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty
Deleuze and the Structure of the Problem
Bergson on Ravaisson
Conclusion

5. Infinite Thought

Introduction
Kant and Hegel
The Metaphysical Deduction and Metaphysics
From Being to Essence
The Essential and the Inessential
The Structure of Reflection
The Determinations of Reflection
The Speculative Proposition
The Concept of Essence in Aristotle and Hegel
Conclusion

PART THREE: BEYOND REPRESENTATION

6. Hegel and Deleuze on Ontology and the Calculus

Introduction
The Calculus
Hegel and the Calculus
Berkeley and the Foundations of the Calculus
Deleuze and the Calculus
Hegel and Deleuze
The Kantian Antinomies
Conclusion

7. Force, Difference, and Opposition

Introduction
Force and the Understanding
The Inverted World
Deleuze and the Inverted World
The One and the Many
Conclusion

8. Hegel, Deleuze, and the Structure of the Organism

Introduction
The Philosophy of Nature
Hegel and Evolution
Hegel’s Account of the Structure of the Organism
Hegel, Cuvier, and Comparative Anatomy
Deleuze, Geoffroy, and Transcendental Anatomy
Teratology and Teleology
Contingency in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature
Conclusion

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Leonard Lawlor

This is the most comprehensive and philosophically interesting analysis of the Deleuze-Hegel relation. Somers-Hall has assembled a remarkable amount of material that is quite diverse—from the problems of representation, judgment, and calculus to those of force and evolution—and his interpretations are masterful. This book will have a significant impact on the way we think about the development of twentieth-century philosophy. (Leonard Lawlor, Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University)

Daniel W. Smith

Somers-Hall's book is a profound engagement with both Deleuze and Hegel, and it provides a much-needed antidote to interpretations that all-too-quickly characterize Deleuze as anti-Hegelian. (Daniel W. Smith, coeditor of Gilles Deleuze: Image and Text)

Editorial Reviews

...the most informed discussion on the philosophical relationship between Hegel and Deleuze published until now ... In this sense, it constitutes a must-read for any scholar researching on post-structuralism and the critique of representation.— symploke

"Neither simply disdainful of Hegel, nor wholly convinced by Deleuze, in this rich, wide-ranging volume, Henry Somers-Hall offers what is assuredly the most comprehensive and important treatment of their varied and complex relations to date ... a rewarding and recommended read for anyone interested in the ongoing development of Continental philosophy."— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"This is the most comprehensive and philosophically interesting analysis of the Deleuze-Hegel relation. Somers-Hall has assembled a remarkable amount of material that is quite diverse-from the problems of representation, judgment, and calculus to those of force and evolution-and his interpretations are masterful. This book will have a significant impact on the way we think about the development of twentieth-century philosophy."— Leonard Lawlor, Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University

"Somers-Hall's book is a profound engagement with both Deleuze and Hegel, and it provides a much-needed antidote to interpretations that all-too-quickly characterize Deleuze as anti-Hegelian."— Daniel W. Smith, coeditor of Gilles Deleuze: Image and Text

From the Publisher