Of fundamental importance to literary critics and philosophers, Difference and Repetition develops two central concepts -- pure difference and complex ...

In this extraordinary work Gilles Deleuze reflects on one of the figures of the past who has most influenced his own sweeping reconfiguration of the tasks of philosophy.

This paper argues that the transcendence (most obviously theological) has skewed much of Western thinking by forcing material complexity to be interpreted as the intervention of something immaterial. Contemporary terms in the anglophone world that can play this role are: intentionality (privatised teleology), representation and semantics. Deleuze launches a powerful critique of residually theological reasoning that has wide application in both philosophy and science. This critique converges with and deepens, perhaps surprisingly for a French philosopher, similar critiques that are being (...) offered today in evolutionary biology, cognitive science and robotics. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand the nature of happiness and the good life within the context of Buddhist philosophy. Buddhism is a pessimistic philosophy, but only in the sense that it insists that happiness, as we ordinarily conceive of it, is unattainable. It is optimistic insofar as it maintains that true happiness is humanly possible, but only if we see things as they really are and relinquish our desires. Yet, even if we would be happier as renunciants, would our lives (...) be better? To answer this question, we must understand the relationship between happiness and the good life. I argue that happiness is a complex psychological state involving affective, cognitive, and motivational components. Buddhist practice seeks to cultivate these different dimensions of happiness and in this way lay the foundation for living a good life. (shrink)