Abstract

In Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant says that the term “aesthetic” means “the science of the laws of sensibility” and suggests giving up usage of it to indicate “the critique of taste” which executes the criticism of the beautiful. It is well known that Gilles Deleuze was inspired by all genres of the arts, namely movies, paintings, music, and so on. However, this paper argues that what is more essential for Deleuzian philosophy is aesthetics as a science of sensibility. What motivated Deleuze, especially from the 1950s to the 1960s, seems to have consisted in discovering the weaknesses of the Kantian aesthetic in order to take it apart. In fact, one of the main themes in Difference and Repetition was to free “sensibility” itself from Kant’s philosophical system. This theme subsisted in his writing even after the 1970s, and led him to develop a “natural philosophy” of sorts. This is because the supposition that “the sensibility itself” is independent from any human faculties gave him an opportunity to carefully consider the multiplicity and productivity of Nature itself. Finally, Deleuze created his own “ethology” that would capture the increasingly interrelated movements within Nature produced by heterogeneous elements. This paper describes the process of Deleuzian thought as outlined above, surveying his view of Kantian philosophy and the development of his natural philosophy as “the aesthetics of Nature.”