Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide

by James Williams

Overview

A revised, expanded and fully up-to-date critical introduction to Deleuze's most important work of philosophyBy critically analysing Deleuze's methods, principles and arguments, James Williams helps readers to engage with the revolutionary core of Deleuze's philosophy and take up positions for or against its most innovative and controversial ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748668816
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2013
Series:	Critical Introductions and Guides
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James Williams is Professor of European Philosophy at the University of Dundee

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	vii
	Acknowledgements	viii
Chapter 1	Introduction	1
	Deleuze's masterwork	1
	Deleuzian principles	4
	Virtual and actual	7
	Difference and repetition	11
	Passive syntheses	13
	Dialectics	17
	Reading Difference and Repetition	22
Chapter 2	Outside Repetition, Generality and Laws	25
	The simulacrum	25
	Repetition and generality	31
	Repetition and law	34
	Repetition and concepts	37
	Tragedy	44
	Freud and masks	46
	Signs and the essence of repetition	49
Chapter 3	Difference	55
	Difference in itself	55
	Aristotle	59
	Deleuze's ontology	63
	Hegel and Leibniz	69
	Difference as experiment and experience	75
	Plato	79
Chapter 4	Repetition	84
	Repetition for itself	84
	First synthesis of time	86
	Second synthesis of time	93
	Third synthesis of time	98
	Freud and passive syntheses	106
Chapter 5	Against Common Sense	111
	The image of thought	111
	Good will	114
	Kant, Descartes and recognition	117
	Representation	120
	Error and illusion	124
	Propositions and sense	126
	Questions	129
	Dialectics, problems and Ideas	131
	Learning	135
Chapter 6	What is an Idea?	138
	The problem of determination	138
	Ideas as multiplicities	143
	The Necessity of Ideas	150
	How to act	157
	Determination and groundlessness	161
Chapter 7	What is Reality?	165
	Science and significance	165
	Explanation	168
	Depth and space	171
	Intensity	178
	The individual	185
	Individuals and species	189
Chapter 8	Conclusion: Beyond the Self	197
	Reality	197
	The self and the subject	202
	Others	206
	Bibliography	211
	Index	215

What People are Saying About This

Keith Ansell Pearson

Williams succeeds in making Deleuze intelligible...he has performed an invaluable service both to existing readers of Deleuze and to new readers keen to expose themselves to certain vital possibilities of contemporary philosophy and theory in general. This will be the definitive guide to Deleuze's text for many years to come.

— Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick

John Protevi

A major event in Deleuze scholarship.

— John Protevi, Louisiana State University

Keith Ansell-Pearson

Williams succeeds in making Deleuze intelligible...he has performed an invaluable service both to existing readers of Deleuze and to new readers keen to expose themselves to certain vital possibilities of contemporary philosophy and theory in general. This will be the definitive guide to Deleuze's text for many years to come.

Editorial Reviews

This book is a turning point for those interested in Deleuze that will mean that writing on Deleuze will never be the same ... Williams has produced an exemplary reading of what he rightly calls "one of the great philosophical works of the twentieth century" ... This book deserves to be called a major event in Deleuze scholarship.

Poststructural and Radical Politics Newsletter - Iain MacKenzie

It is a mark of quality that Williams's book helps the reader to grasp firmly some of the most difficult questions that arise on reading Difference and Repetition… [The book] is written in an accessible style and takes a bold and clear interpretative stand in response to the two challenges of illustrating Deleuze's philosophy in relation to our lives and of explaining some of his technical innovations in a critical manner... The book will certainly motivate any reader to study Deleuze.

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology - Isabella Palin

James Williams succeeds in making Deleuze intelligible … he has performed an invaluable service both to existing readers of Deleuze and to new readers keen to expose themselves to certain vital possibilities of contemporary philosophy and theory in general. This will be the definitive guide to Deleuze’s text for many years to come.

Keith Ansell Pearson

There is no doubt that James Williams's book is a significant contribution to Deleuze scholarship. Williams balances his evident passion for Deleuze with a clear, yet erudite exposition of Deleuzian principles and concerns. The result is a guide to Deleuze's "masterwork" that is accessible and indeed encouraging to advanced students and to philosophers new to Deleuze, yet which can constitute a valuable aid to research for more committed readers of Deleuze.

Journal of Nietzsche Studies

A major event in Deleuze scholarship.

John Protevi

The task Williams appears to have set himself and a task he seems to have succeeded in is to present Deleuze's work philosophically, warts and all. What this does is enable new readers to approach a key text in modern European philosophy in such a way that they are aware of both the strengths and weakenesses of that work and the opportunities for future engagement with Deleuze.

Philosophical Quarterly

The task Williams appears to have set himself and a task he seems to have succeeded in is to present Deleuze's work philosophically, warts and all. What this does is enable new readers to approach a key text in modern European philosophy in such a way that they are aware of both the strengths and weakenesses of that work and the opportunities for future engagement with Deleuze.

From the Publisher

This book is a turning point for those interested in Deleuze that will mean that writing on Deleuze will never be thesame...Williams has produced an exemplary reading of what he rightly calls 'one of the great philosophical works of thetwentieth century'...This book deserves to be called a major event in Deleuze scholarship.

— Iain MacKenzie

Poststructural & Radical Politics Newsletter

It is a mark of quality that Williams's book helps the reader to grasp firmly some of the most difficult questions that arise onreading Difference and Repetition...[The book] is written in an accessible style and takes a bold and clear interpretativestand in response to the two challenges of illustrating Deleuze's philosophy in relation to our lives and of explaining some of histechnical innovations in a critical manner...The book will certainly motivate any reader to study Deleuze.

— Isabella Palin

The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology