Summary |
Gilles
Deleuze (1925-1995) studied at the Sorbonne and taught at various lycées before holding professorships at the University
of Lyon (1964-1969) and the University of Paris VIII at Vincennes (1969-1987). Throughout
his career, Deleuze sustained a profound engagement with the history of
philosophy, publishing monographs on Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche
and Bergson, in addition to his original philosophical work on a variety of topics
including metaphysics, ethics, science, language, politics and psychoanalysis,
as well as literature, cinema and painting. Nonetheless, Deleuze once called
himself a “pure metaphysician,” and this characterization becomes apparent
through some common themes that range across his diverse body of work: immanence
(as opposed to transcendence), emergence and becoming (as opposed to
persistence and being), and difference (as opposed to identity). Scholarship on
Deleuze is rapidly growing and his increasing influence extends far beyond
philosophy. |