Learning outcomes

Students will be able to comprehend one among the last "systematic" books of philosophical thought, "Difference and repetition" by Gilles Deleuze

Program

Gilles Deleuze described his speculative thesis as a "Transcendental empiricism", a proper philosophical cyborg that deserves to be investigated on its consistency. "Difference and Repetition", published in 1968 is book most "systematic" book by Deleuze and the one, which is most clear and structured about his thought. In some ways, everything that Deleuze published after, is nothing but an articulation of the structures of thought, which are presented in this book for the first time. "Difference and Repetition" takes a close analysis of the metaphysical tradition of philosophy, from Plato to Hegel, in which the thought of Nietzsche, Bergson and Freud is used as a crowbar to open the closed doors of “identity” and proposes a new understanding of "difference": a "difference" which is not a defective experience of "identity" and whose possibilities don’t rest on "judgment" and "law". But in this book Deleuze also discusses the basis of Structuralism, which dominated the French philosophical scene. The Deleuzian concepts of "virtuality" and "Idea" function as resurrection of "structure" from its ashes: a "fragmented" and nomadic structure that, in order to be understood, must produce Being an unprecedented "image of thought" and a new philosophy.

Examination Methods

Paper to be discussed during the oral exam.

Teaching materials e documents

•   Bergson, Disordine e nulla   (pdf, it, 35 KB, 1/15/17)
•   Merleau-Ponty, Fenomenologia della percezione   (pdf, it, 48 KB, 12/5/16)
•   Nietzsche, Genealogia della morale   (pdf, it, 35 KB, 12/2/16)
•   Nietzsche, La forza   (pdf, it, 151 KB, 1/15/17)
•   Platone e Kant sul tempo   (pdf, it, 149 KB, 12/18/16)