The Nietzschean Temptation: Gilles Deleuze and the Exuberance of Philosophy Author(s): Mohamed Zayani Source: Comparative Literature

Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1999), pp. 320-340 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40247217 Accessed: 01/04/2010 12:00
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The Nietzschean Temptation: Gilles Deleuze and the Exuberanceof Philosophy

MOHAMED ZAYANI

In philosophy there are no correct ideas, just ideas. Gilles Deleuze, Dialogues Few books had a more enduring impact on poststructuralism than Gilles Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy.1For Deleuze, as for many of his contemporaries, Nietzsche was an emancipatory force which provided a way out of existentialism - and for that matter phenomenology - which prevailed in the 1950s (namely, the strong influence of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty) and a serious challenge to structuralism which was dominant in the 1960s and 70s (most notably in the anthropological writings of Claude Lvi-Strauss, the psychoanalytical seminars of Jacques Lacan, and the Marxist formulations of Louis Althusser).2 However, Deleuze 's rediscovery and reconstruction of Nietzsche did more than just free up the intellectual scene in France from dominant currents of thought; it contributed much to the shaking and tottering of the very foundations of the philosophical tradition within which contemporary thought as such has been firmly entrenched. Following the steps of Nietzsche, Deleuze questions a number of concepts that have long dominated Western thought and rationality such as universality, unity, transcendence, reality, innateness, apriorism, binary oppositions, and dichotomous thinking, to name but a few.3 Wresting philosophy from a perspective that divides and hierarchizes the world into such essentialist categories as good and evil, mind and body, form and content, and truth and error, Deleuze then diligently and persistently works toward developing a mode of thought which emphasizes difference and fragmentation and accentuates
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pluralism and multiplicity. The outcome of these critical endeavors is a radical philosophy of difference purged from negativity and conceived around a rhizomatic model in which superimposed fluxes (objects, signs, codes, flows, strata, territories, rhythms, etc.) operate within an unstable web of significations. In Nietzschean-Deleuzian exegesis, such concepts as static unity, subjectivity, being, and representation give way to difference, non-totalizable multiplicity, intensity, becoming, and production. It is hardly contestable that Nietzsche and Philosophy is marked by the oft-annoying exuberance - let alone eclecticism4 - of an unconventional thinker who is still fumbling his way into the maze of philosophy. Yet, even in this relatively early work (initially published in French in 1962), one can recognize an attempt, nebulous and jejune as it may be, to grapple with a new mode of thought - in fact, to forge a certain intellectual personality. Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche arguably does more than "make explicit implicit ideas, developing some of Nietzsche's ideas beyond what Nietzsche himself has done."5 Nietzsche and Philosophyis, in many ways, an attempt to systematize the thoughts of Nietzsche without compromising that which arguably distinguishes him the most- being the philosopher of the anti-system.6 The fact that Deleuze's Nietzsche is somewhat different from the Nietzsche we have known all along should probably go to the credit of Deleuze rather than to his detraction. Nietzsche and Philosophyis more of a flirtation with certain philosophical inquiries than a definitive and exhaustive account of Nietzsche's uvre. Deleuze uses Nietzsche's philosophy experimentally or, as Rda Bensmaa puts it, "stalkingly";7that is, in a way that enables him to formulate and develop his own philosophical positions and to chart new grounds of thought. To put this somewhat differently, Nietzsche is present throughout Deleuze's writings neither as a text nor as a grid, but as an impetus for developing a new and antipodal philosophy. A close examination of the evolution of Deleuze's thought will reveal that his subsequent writings are, in fact, inspired but by no means constrained by Nietzsche. What influenced Deleuze the most is Nietzsche's spirit rather than his doctrine, so much so that during successive periods, Nietzsche became more of an effect than a subject matter.8 Accordingly, what should be the focus of analysis and what is worth pursuing are those elements in Nietzsche's philosophy which Deleuze finds esoteringly inspiring and eccentrically empowering; in short, those tenets which he deems capable of unleashing the theoretical possibilities of philosophy. To that extent, this essay is as much about the Nietzschean Deleuze (what Nietzsche and Philosophy reveals about Deleuze) as it is about Deleuze's Nietzsche (what Deleuze tells us about Nietzsche).

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For Deleuze, the single most important target of Nietzsche's polemics is indisputably the specter of Hegelianism as a mode of thought which has molded the history of Western philosophy. In a letter, Deleuze venomously confides to Michel Cressole that what he detested the most is Hegelianism and dialectics9 and in Nietzsche and Philosophy,he maintains that what distinguishes Nietzsche's philosophy is its resolutely anti-dialectical character- its fundamental antagonism toward and its strong reaction against the dialectic tradition over which Hegel majestically presides: Anti-Hegelianism runs through Nietzsche's work as its cutting edge. . . . Hegelian themes are present in Nietzsche's work as the enemy against which it fights. . . . [T]here is no difficulty in identifying Nietzsche's enemy; it is the dialectic. . . . There is no possible compromise between Hegel and Nietzsche. Nietzsche's philosophy forms an absolute anti-dialectic and sets out to expose all the mystifications that find final refuge in the dialectic.10 (8, 162, 183, 195) What Nietzsche finds most objectionable in the dialectical tradition is the role that Hegel ascribes to the negative in a specific relation. Nietzsche's skepticism toward the dialectic is a skepticism toward a mode of thought which trusts in the power of the negative and makes it the motor of change. The temptation of the dialectician is to always establish antithesis everywhere where there are more delicate evaluations to be made and coordinations to be interpreted: "the dialectic proceeds by opposition, development of the opposition or contradiction and solution of the contradiction" (N&P 157). That is why any anatomy of dialectical thought is bound to yield the quasi-sacred triad of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis. Such as it is, dialectical thought is not only predictable but also nihilistic; it proceeds from affirmation, to negation, to the negation of affirmation: The being of Hegelian logic is merely 'thought' being, pure and empty, which affirms itself by passing into its own opposite. But this being was never different from its opposite, it never has to pass into what it already was. Hegelian being is pure and simple nothingness; and the becoming that this being forms with nothingness, that is to say with itself, is a perfectly nihilistic becoming; and affirmation passes through negation here because it is merely the affirmation of the negative and its products. (N&P 183)

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Embeddedin this remarkable passageare a numberof intertwined critiques. The dialectic is, at its core, reactive in the sense that it is an exhaustedforce which does not have the strengthto affirmits difference, a force which does not act but only reacts to forces which dominate it. The cynicism of dialectics- the fact that affirmationis always already recoupedor negatedeven as it is adumbrated makesit a "falsecritique" (N&P 197). Even worse,dialectics is not a philosophyof production,but a sheer mechanism of inversion: "in questions of change and development, [the dialectic] conceives of nothing deeper than an abstractpermutationwherethe subjectbecomespredicateand the predicate,subject. But the one that is subject and what the predicateis have not changed" (N&P 157).11 Nietzsche'scritiqueof the pseudonessthat is inherent in dialectics is often tinged with another and no less importantcritique of what may be described, after James Brusseau, as "history'smost inclusive and UnderlyingNietzsche'sassaulton the dialectithought."12 imperializing cal tradition is a repudiationof privilegedorigins, in general, and a denunciation of Platonism, in particular.Broadly speaking, Nietzsche's critique of Plato's legacy "Is Plato's integrity beyond question?"13 is an attempt to sever the umbilical cord which has tightly attached philosophyto the classicalmodel of thought. In an interestingpassage,halfDeleuze articulatesthe nature of way through Nietzscheand Philosophy, Nietzsche'sdiscontent with the dialectic in termswhich contain an implicit critiqueof Platonism: Nietzsche'sworkis directedagainstthe dialectic for three reasons: sense because it does not know the nature of the it misinterprets forces which concretely appropriate phenomena;it misinterprets essence because it does not know the real element from which forces, their qualities and their relations derive; it misinterprets becauseit is content to workwith perchange and transformation mutationsof abstractand unrealterms. (N&P 158) Reducedto its core, Nietzsche'scritiqueunsettles three key assumptions that areconstitutive of Platonism:sense, essence, and change. By attacking the Platonic metaphysicsof essence and appearancewith its emphasis on an originalidentity,a transcendentaltruth,and a privilegedorigin, Nietzsche is also putting into questiondualisticor dichotomousthinking with all its heaviness and firmness i.e., the inadequaciesof Western to adopt a viewpoint which does not divert difference into philosophy For mere opposition.14 Deleuze, modernphilosophy cannot establish it-

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self without first overturning Platonism.15 This move involves, among other things, denying the primacy of the original over the reproduced, questioning the status of essence over appearance, undermining the privilege of model over copy, and reversing the preeminence of the thing itself over the simulacrum. It is interesting that while following the steps of Nietzsche, Deleuze creates new dualisms even as he puts into question traditional divisions and contraries. Central to his philosophy are such dualisms as deterritorialization and reterritorialization, decoding and recoding, being and becoming, paranoia and schizophrenia, molar and molecular, immanence and transcendence, to name but a few. What needs to be emphasized, however, is that even though Deleuze's thought is not void of dualities, these dualities - or, to use Armand Guilmette's neologism, "descontrairesen trompeA* il"16 are strategic and not logical; the oppositions that pervade his work are differential and not dialectical.17 In Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeshipin Philosophy, Michael Hardt provides a succinct distinction between these two types of opposition: Dialectical opposition is a restrained, partial attack that seeks to preserve and maintain* its enemy; it is a sort of low- intensity warfare that can be prolonged indefinitely in a Standing negation.* In effect, the dialectic pillages and reforms the essence of its predecessor through a partial critique. Therefore, the breaking with* that is a central tenet of the dialect can only be a partial rupture, preserving the continuity that characterizes the prefix 'post.' Nondialectical opposition, however, is that which operates a complete rupture with its opponent through an unrestrained, savage attack. The result of this profound opposition is a separation that prohibits the recuperation of relations. (52) Such as it is, Deleuze 's appropriation of binary concepts is highly idiosyncratic. His philosophy does not attempt to resolve dualistic oppositions within a grand and higher synthesis (as the Hegelian aufhebung promises to do); instead, it blurs the distinction between monism and In pluralism by making multiplicity the very symptom of unity.18 the words of Alan Schrift, Deleuze works within the framework of a certain kind of binarism, one that seeks not to dissolve but to multiply dualistic concepts. . . . Deleuze admits to using dualisms but only in order to challenge other dualisms. When binary concepts are employed, 'mental correctives are

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necessary' to undo those dualisms that one does not 'wish to construct but through which [one must] pass' as one moves beyond dualisms to the realization of a pluralist monism. One can use dualistic concepts, indeed their use may be necessary; but one must take care to avoid privileging and reifying these dualisms as absolute. And, at the same time, one must take care as well to remember both that these dualisms mark differences rather than oppositions and that their use is always strategic and provisional. (66-67) It is true that Deleuze is a monist, but he is no simple monist. Therein lies his achievement - his ability to envisage a polyvalent and, in many ways, deficient monism whereby differences proliferate not as the manifestation of inherently opposed states that can be traced back to a single origin or recouped within an original totality, but as self-perpetuating and self-proliferating differences. In "Theatrum Philosophicum," Foucault eloquently captures the originality of Deleuze 's thought: "The freeing of difference requires thought without contradiction, without dialectics, without negation; thought that accepts divergence; affirmative thought whose instrument is disjunction; thought of the multiple - of the nomadic and dispersed multiplicity that is not limited or confined by the conWhereas Hegelianism is guided by a movement strains of similarity."19 that veers toward a unifying synthesis and Platonism is grounded in a tradition that privileges origins and unities, Deleuze 's philosophy is driven by a jovial unleashing of dispersed multiplicities la Nietzsche. Unlike the dialectical and the Platonic traditions in which multiplicity is always recouped within a synthesizing unity and a higher order, in the neoNietzschean scheme of Deleuze, multiplicity is irreducible to unity.20 Deleuze's position on this point is uncompromising: "Opposition can be the law of the relation between abstract products, but difference is the only principle of genesis or production; a principle which produces opposition as mere appearance. Dialectic thrives on oppositions because it is unaware of far more subtle and subterranean differential mechanisms: topological displacements, typological variations" (N&P 157). The Janus-face of these formulations- and this may sound paradoxical- is that while polemically Nietzsche and Philosophyis a refutation of Hegelianism, methodologically, it is a validation of its negative foundations. To take this point to extremes, one may say that by substituting anti-Hegelianism for Hegelianism, Deleuze has done nothing more than trade myopia for hyperopia. In a line of criticism the premises of which are very much reminiscent of Harold Bloom's argument in The Anxiety of

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Influence and its corollary A Map of Misreading,namely that "there are no texts, but only relationships between texts,"21Michael Hardt points out the limited success of Deleuze's crusade on Hegel's philosophy and the deceptive autonomy of his own philosophy: "Deleuze often poses his project not only in the traditional language of Hegelianism but also in terms of typical Hegelian problems- the determination of being, the unity of the One and the Multiple, and so on. Paradoxically enough, in his effort to establish Hegel as a negative foundation for his thought, Deleuze may appear to be very Hegelian" (xi). The idea of a rupture from Hegelianism is self-defeating and even paradoxical because rupture as such is the very kernel of Hegelianism. In the words of Judith Butler, "references to a 'break' with Hegel are almost always impossible, if only because Hegel has made the very notion of 'breaking with' into the central tenet of his dialectic."22To put this somewhat differently, breaking away from Hegelianism is a negation that inadvertently does what it negates and, in the process, covertly legitimizes what it overtly denounces. Even in its most radical critique of Hegelianism, negation is only partial because the nature of the dialectic is such that the concept of a nondialectical negation is almost unthinkable.23 However, this critique loses much of its poignancy when consideran aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy which has been instrumental in ing the development of Deleuze's thought - affirmation: "When difference is read as opposition, it is deprived of the peculiar thickness in which its positivity is affirmed" (D&R 205 ).24To the extent that it does not thrive on oppositions but on the play of differences, Nietzsche's - and by extension Deleuze's- philosophy is first and foremost a philosophy of affirmation. Illustrating this point requires a long but justified digression about the third major front- the other two being dialectics and Platonism against which Nietzsche's polemics are directed: Christianism. Nietzsche's attack on the negative strain that is inherent in the dialectic is incisively embedded in an even more withering critique of Christianity. Deleuze understood this and sought to tease it out further. It is fitting here to point out, along with Mark Seem, that Anti-Oedipus is "a kind of a sequel to another similar venture, the attack on Christ, Christianity, and the herd in Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ^15In many ways, Deleuze's aversion of the dialectic emanates from Nietzsche's aversion of the kind of negativity that is symptomatic of Christian morality, not so much as a religious belief but as a pejorative philosophical attitude. In the same way the dialectical tradition exalts negation, the Christian ideology denies life: "negation has dominated our thought, our ways of feeling and evaluating" (N&P 177). In Twilight of Idols, Nietzsche goes as far as arguing

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that Christianity and life are at odds, if not mutually exclusive: "the church is hostile to life. . . . Life is at an end where the kingdom of God beInsofar as Christianity is based on the idea of redemption (after gins."26 all, Christ cannot achieve a union with God except through his own negation; i.e., through death), it is essentially negative: "For Christianity the fact of suffering in life means primarily that life is not just, that it is even essentially unjust, that it pays for an essential injustice by suffering, it is blameworthy because it suffers. The result of this is that life must be justified, that is to say redeemed of its injustice or saved. Saved by that suffering which a little while ago accused it: it must suffer since it is blameworthy" (N&P 15). In Nietzsche's view, Christianity is mankind's greatest misfortune because it has taken the side of everything that is feeble and weak. By spreading fear, implanting consciousness, and breeding conformity, Christianity thwarts the development of superior individuals.27Thus being erected on a seductive lie, Christianity perpetuates itself through a number of interconnected strategies.28Its starting point is the exaltation of a God who punishes and rewards. The ensuing idea of an afterlife pricks up one's consciousness, leaving one with the idea that good and evil are permanent and that conformity with the law is necessary. As morality starts permeating everything, the quest for truth (as given or as revealed) becomes the condition for salvation. Behind Nietzsche's famous proclamation that God is dead lies a conscious attempt to advocate and establish values which are not based on any supernatural sanction, and therefore values which do not diffuse the potential of the individual - his will to power- within the moral order imposed by Christianity and drain its vigor within apriori universal moral laws. Accordingly, Nietzsche intimates, through his fictive character Zarathustra, that the individual should not only renounce the values adumbrated by Christian morality, but also envisage a whole new aim for human life: "There is an old illusion which is called good and evil. So far the wheel of this illusion has revolved around soothsayers and stargazers.Once man believed in soothsayers and stargazers, and therefore believed: 'All is destiny: you ought to, for you must.' Then man again mistrusted all soothsayers and stargazers, and therefore believed: 'All is freedom: you can, for you will'."29 The affirmative strain that characterizes Zarathustra'sposition can be pointed out as early as The Birthof Tragedy,where Nietzsche attempts, at least philosophically, to counterpoise the hostility to life for which the Christian way of thinking is probably the most pointed manifestation. Morality, he writes, is nothing but a denial of life, and being such, it has to be opposed: "Thus happened that in those days, with this problem

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book, my vital instincts turned against ethics and founded a radical counterdoc trine, slanted esthetically, to oppose the Christian libel on life. But it still wanted a name. Being a philologist, that is to say a man of words, I christened it rather arbitrarily- for who can tell the real name of the Antichrist? - with the name of a Greek god, Dionysos."30Against the figure of Christ, Nietzsche sets the character of Dionysus; against the ressentiment of the devout Christian, he sets the aggression of the Dionysian thinker, harbinger of an affirmation that no negation can defile.31 Dionysus is presented as both an affirmative and affirming god. Rather than merely resolve pain in a higher and supra-personal pleasure, he affirmsand turns it into someone's pleasure. This explains why Dionysus does not dissolve into an original being or reabsorbs multiplicity into primeval depths, but is, instead, transformed into multiple affirmations. Dionysus is the god for whom life must be affirmed, but not justified or redeemed. In Twilightof Idols, Nietzsche presents the figure of Dionysus and the force of affirmation as two concepts that are inextricably woven: "Affirmation of life even in its strangest and sternest problems, the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the sacrifice of its highest types- that is what I called Dionysian" (121). Instead of opposition, Nietzsche celebrates difference; in lieu of a dialectical negation which thrives on opposition, he advocates an affirmation which feeds on difference: "Nietzsche's speculative teaching is as follows: becoming, multiplicity and chance do not contain any negation; difference is pure affirmation; return is the being of difference excluding the whole of the negative" (N&P 190). It should not overhastily be concluded, however, that Nietzsche's philosophy chases the negative altogether.32To do so, Deleuze explains, is to turn the philosophy of difference into "the discourse of beautiful souls" {D&R 207) in which differences co-exist peacefully or, even worse, to fall back on an antinomy that is sustained by an illusory choice between being (as full positivity and pure affirmation) and non-being (as being of the negative). Nietzsche's qualms are not with the negative as such. What distinguishes Nietzsche's and, as will become clear, Deleuze's thought is not the eradication of the element of negation - for affirmation is by no means fundamentally immune to negation - but the nature and role he envisages for the negative and, more specifically, the role he ascribes to negations as powers of affirming. As Deleuze sees it, Nietzsche's most valuable contribution lies in rethinking the relationship between negation and affirmation: "In Nietzsche the essential relation of one force to another is never conceived of as a negative element in the essence. In its relation with the other the force which makes itself obeyed does not

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deny the other or that which it is not, it affirms its own difference and enjoys this difference. The negative is not present in the essence as that from which force draws its activity: on the contrary it is a result of activity, of the existence of an active force and the affirmation of its difference" (N&P 8-9). In Nietzsche *soriginal formulations, the negative is a force or, more accurately, a relationship between forces that is characterized by its vitality and assertiveness. The negative is a product of existence itself. Negation is submitted to an affirmative and active end which strives to achieve more than mere equilibrium: "Affirmation constitutes becoming-active as the universal becoming of forces. Reactive forces are denied, all forces become active. The reversal of values and the establishment of active values are all operations which presuppose the transmutation of values, the conversion of the negative into affirmation" (N&P 176). From a Deleuzo-Nietzschean perspective, negation exists but never independently of affirmation. Thus, dissipated, the negative persists only as a consequence or as a reflection which reinforces and reproduces the affirmation of difference. Nietzsche calls the point of conversion of the negative and the moment when opposition ceases its labor and difference begins its play "transmutation." Freed from the shackles of dialectical thinking, negation ceases to be an autonomous power; it subsists but only as the shadow and powerless double of affirmation. Under the sway of affirmation, the negative is raised to its higher degree at the same time as it defeats itself. Read in light of these comments, the aforementioned assertion that Nietzsche substitutes the Dionysian "Yes" (the will to power) for the Hegelian "No" (the proclivity to negate) by setting the negativity of the positive against the positivity of the negative lends itself to a more nuanced understanding: Nietzsche's positive task consists in transvaluation which, as Deleuze takes pains to explain, is neither a change of values nor an abstract transposition, but a change and reversal in the element from which the value of values derives. In Nietzsche, one finds more than a simple desire to prioritize affirmation over negation. In fact, the power and continuous relevance of Nietzsche's philosophy consist in rethinking the relationship between the forces of negation and affirmation outside the prevailing dynamics of mere opposition. To think of affirmation as being opposed to negation is to place the negative within it. Opposition, Deleuze insists, is not only the relation of negation with affirmation but the essence of the negative as such. Conversely, affirmation is the enjoyment and play of its own difference. A true or radical reconsideration of the dialectical tradition does more than repudiate opposition and negate contradiction; it affirmspositivity by envisaging what Deleuze calls a "difference without negation" (D&R xx).33

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These observations lead us to what is arguably the culmination of Nietzsche's thought - the concept of the eternal return, which is laconically articulated and metaphorically encapsulated in Zarathustra's invitation to "behold a river that flows, winding and twisting, back to its source" (167). In Thus Spoke Zarathustra,Nietzsche introduces the concept of the eternal return most insistently and most explicitly through the longing animals who urge their friend, the convalescent Zarathustra, to wake up from his prolonged slumber and beg him not to die yet: "'your animals know well, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence .... Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselves too, and that we must have already existed an eternal number of times, and all things with us"' (220). Zarathustra's reply to the plea of the animals is also worth quoting at length because it provides valuable clues as to how to interpret the concept of the eternal return: "'Now I die and vanish . . . and all at once I am nothing. The soul is as mortal as the body. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs and will create me again. I myself belong to the causes of the eternal return, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent- not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I come back eternally to this same, self-same recurrence of all things'" (221). In this remarkable speech, Zarathustra subtly reveals the deceptive simplicity of the concept of the eternal return. The eternal return is far from being a theory of time; it does not designate a cycle or a refrain; it does not mean continuation, perpetuation, and prolongation. Such an understanding is inadequate because it cannot account for the kind of difference that animates recurrence: "Repetition is not content with multiplying instance of the same concept; it puts the concept outside itself and causes it to exist in so many instances hic et nunc" (D&R 271). What gets reproduced is nothing other than diversity and multiplicity.34What is at stake is not the coherence and unity of the same, but its difference and heterogeneity. That is why the expression eternal return must not be understood as return of the same. It is not the same that returns, but returning that is the same; it is not some one thing which returns, but rather returning itself is the one thing which is affirmed of diversity in multiplicity. To put this somewhat differently, identity in the eternal return does not describe the nature of that which returns but the fact of returning for that which differs. This is why the eternal return must be thought of as a synthesis of diversity and its reproduction, a synthesis of becoming and the being which is affirmed in becoming, a synthesis of double affirmation. Thus the eternal return itself does not depend on a principle of identity. It is not being that returns, but rather

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the returning itself that constitutes being insofar as it is affirmed of becoming and of that which passes.35Before they become subject to eternal return, things must be dispersed within difference and their prior-identity must be dissolved, which is tantamount to saying that eternal return resists the type of coherence bestowed by representation, whether it be the coherence of the subject which represents or the object that is being represented: Re-petition opposes re-presentation. . . . Repetition is the formless being of all differences, the formless power of the ground which carries every object to that extreme 'form' in which its representation comes undone. The ultimate of repetition is the disparate, which stands opposed to the identity of representation. Thus, the circle of eternal return, difference and repetition (which undoes that of the identical and the contradictory) is a tortuous circle in which Sameness is said only of that which differs. (D&R 57) I dwell at length on the concept of the eternal return because its impact on Deleuze extends well beyond Nietzsche and Philosophy.A close examination of Deleuze's theorizations about the nature and task of philosophy in the last book he co-authored with Flix Guattari, What is Philosophy?,will reveal that the creative process at the heart of philosophy is, in fact, modeled on Nietzsche's eternal return. To immerse oneself in philosophy, Deleuze argues, is not "to repeat" what the great philosophers said, but "to do what they did" ( WP 28). In the same way Nietzsche preaches a rvaluation of all values and advocates a setting in place of new values- a counterdoctrine, so to speak, which exalts the will to lifeDeleuze commits himself to a radical philosophy which is concerned with the invention of new modes of existence and the creation of new possibilities for life; i.e., a philosophy that can break away from the limits of representation. Deleuze is not the least shy about his indebtedness to Nietzsche: according to the Nietzschean verdict, you will know nothing through concepts unless you have first created them - that is, constructed them in an intuition specific to them: a field, a plane, and a ground that must not be confused with them but that shelters their seeds and the personae who cultivate them. Constructivism requires every creation to be a construction on a plane that gives it an autonomous existence. To create concepts is, at the very least, to make something.36 (WP 7)

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If in general the question about the nature of philosophy is complex enough, when posed by a philosopher like Deleuze and a psychotherapist like Guattari who distrust essences and disclaim permanent truths, it becomes an ambitious endeavor. For these two French thinkers, tarring with the question of "what is philosophy?" is both insistent and timely: "the time has come for us to ask what philosophy is. We had never stopped asking this question previously. . . . [T]he answer had not only to take note of the question, it had to determine its moment, its occasion and circumstances, its landscapes and personae, its conditions and unknowns" (WP 2). Having established the urgency of the question of what philosophy is and having pointed out the intricacies of the problem, Deleuze and Guattari then embark on what may be described as a negative dfini' tion of philosophy: We can at least see what philosophy is not: it is not contemplation, reflection, or communication. ... It is not contemplation, for contemplations are things themselves as seen in the creation of their specific concepts. It is not reflection, because no one needs philosophy to reflect on anything. . . . Nor does philosophy find any refuge in communication, which only works under the sway of opinions in order to create Consensus' and not concepts. (WP 6) Philosophy does not have an essence, nor does it deal with essences; rather the reverse. For a philosophical inquiry to be sound and rewarding, it has to shake the integrity of the essence, problematize the claim to a universal truth, shatter the belief in the sacrosanctity of a transcendental principle, question the idea of an inherent reality, and put to the test the possibility of reducing meaning to a stable structure. To do so is to move away from the Greek tradition which, according to the authors of What is y Philosophy? has sacrificed the extrinsic character of philosophy for an insistently intrinsic character: "With the creation of philosophy, the Greeks violently force the friend into a relationship that is no longer a relationship with an other but with an Entity, an Objectality, an EssencePlato's friend, but even more the friend of wisdom, of truth or the concept" (WP 3). With these observations, we are in a better position to apprehend the nature of the authors' dissatisfaction with a tentative definition of philosophy which they themselves venture at the beginning of their book, namely that philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts. No sooner do Deleuze and Guattari make this provisional proposition than they qualify it: "philosophy is not a simple art of forming,

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inventing, or fabricating concepts, because concepts are not necessarily forms, discoveries, or products. More rigorously, philosophy is the discipline that involves creating concepts" (WP 5). With Deleuze, philosophy loses its right to reflect on things. Philosophy is neither a reflection nor a mediation, but a process of production - a bringing-to-being, so to speak, in which the concept deterritorializes itself at the very moment it is created. This probably explains why Deleuze and Guattari's works teems mobile concepts"37 as nomadology, with such "intellectually lines of escape, assemblage, intensity, rhizome, bedeterritorialization, coming, machinism, plateaus, heterogeneous series, body without organs, and plane of immanence, to name but a few. What lies behind these fancy and complicated words is not a desire to be trendy, but the realization that a concept sometimes needs a new word to express it. As soon as there are concepts, Deleuze explains in Negotiations, there is a "genuine philosophy" (32). The object of philosophy, as a nomadic thought, is to create new concepts for problems which constantly change.38The primary task of philosophy is the creation of concepts which, in turn, can be properly known only through their own creation: "Concepts are not waiting for us ready-made, like heavenly bodies. There is no heaven for concepts. They must be invented, fabricated, or rather created and would be nothing without their creator's signature" (WP 5). By aligning itself with the creation of concepts - which are valued not for the truth they may yield, but for the effect they can create - philosophy becomes a matter of production rather than reflection. Therein lies Nietzsche's most enduring impact on the authors of What is Philosophy?:their innovt iveness does not lie in having forged a theoretical paradigm- i.e., a philosophy in the abstract sense of the term- but in having relocated the thrust philosophy within praxis. For them, meaning is not something to be uncovered, but produced; it has nothing to do with origins, but is instead a matter of production. From this vantage point, the starting point and guiding question of a philosophical inquiry is not "what does it mean?" but "how does it work?";just like desire, philosophy "represents nothing, but it produces. It means nothing, but it works. [It] makes its entry with the general collapse of the question 'What does it mean?'"39The shift that Deleuze and Guattari propose is an intellectual shift from a preoccupation with questions of significance and meaning to a concern with questions of function and use, from a pursuit of static principles and ordering realities to an interest in dynamic movements and immanent dynamics, from the configuration of resultants to the mapping of flows, from a representation of essences to an experimentation with events - in fact, an affirmation of events through

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the creation of concepts: "The task of philosophy when it creates concepts, entities, is always to extract an event from things and beings, to set up the new event: space, time, matter, thought, the possible as events" (WP 33). Philosophy is an alignment between creation and self-positing. The concept is not given, but created; it is not formed, but posits itself in itself. The concept is related to circumstances rather than essences; 40it is expressive and not referential, which is tantamount to saying that there are no simple ready-made apriori concepts. Every concept has components and is defined by the combinatorial possibilities of these components. The concept is a multiplicity in the sense that it has a becoming that involves its relationship with concepts situated on the same plane.41 Concepts link up with each other, support each other, and coordinate each other's movement. Every concept branches off toward other concepts that are differently composed but that can be connected to each other, and participate in a process of co-creation. The concept functions along a model of dissemination, bifurcation, and proliferation; it engenders polyvalence, asymmetry, heterogeneity, and dynamism, so much so that philosophy becomes a nomadology or, as Deleuze confides in a letter to Jean-Clet Martin, "a heterogenesis."42 University of Bahrain

NOTES
The author wishes to thank Samira Hassan and Salah El-Moncef for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions on a penultimate version of this essay. For easy reference, the following abbreviationsof Deleuze's (and Guattari's) works have been in used: (AO) Anti-Oedipus,(D&R) Differenceand Repetition, (EP) Expressionism Phiand (LS) The Logicof Sense, (N) Negotiations, losophy,(E&S) Empiricism Subjectivity, (N&P) Nietzscheand Philosophy, Plateaus,and (WP) Whatis Philoso(TP) A Thousand phy!. 1. NietzscheandPhilosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: ColumbiaUP, 1993). 2. Formore on the impact of Nietzsche on poststructuralism, least as perceived in at the United States, see Alan D. Schrift, Nietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogyof Poststructuralism (New York:Routledge, 1995) 6-7. It must be noted, however, that from the perspective of the French criticism of Deleuze, the latter's philosophy is a continuation- albeit with a difference of structuralism existentialism ratherthan and a radical break from it. Sartre (an atheist existentialist) is after all the disciple of Heidegger(a believing existentialist) who, in turn, was the most importantcommentator on Nietzsche. One can certainly argue that Nietzsche's interest in "existence,"as opposed to both Kant'sand Hegel'spreoccupationwith "being,"furroweda philosophical path that eventually led to existentialism. 3. Reflecting on his formative years, Deleuze writes: "At Liberation we were still strangely stuck in the history of philosophy. We simply plunged into Hegel, Husserl

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and Heidegger.We threw ourselves like puppiesinto a scholasticism worse than that of the Middle Ages. . . . So, after the Liberation,the history of philosophy tightened itself aroundus- without our realizing it- under the pretext of opening up a new future of thought. . . . The history of philosophy has alwaysbeen the agent of power in philosorole." See Gilles Deleuze and phy, and even in thought. It had played the represser's Claire Parnet, Dialogues,trans. Hugh Tomlinson and BarbaraHabberjam(New York: Columbia UP, 1987) 12-13. 4. Michael Hard has succinctly captured the peculiarity of Deleuze's approach: "Deleuzedoes not accept all of Nietzsche. ... If a philosopher presentsargumentswith which Deleuze might find fault, he does not critique them, but simply leaves them out of his discussion. . . . [However,]what Deleuze forfeits in comprehensiveness,he gains in in intensity of focus."See Michael Hardt, Gilles Deleuze:An Apprenticeship Philosophy (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993) xix. On the way Deleuze quilts his own thought into other philosophical systems,see also Philip Goodchild, GillesDeleuzeand theQuestionof Philosophy (Madison:FairleighDickinson UP, 1996) 18-19. On Deleuze's cautious use of Nietzsche, see Philippe Mengue, Gilles Deleuzeou le systmedu multiple (Paris:ditions Kim, 1995) 47-48. 5. See Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory:CriticalInterrogations (New York:Guilford P, 1991) 82. is 6. Nietzscheand Philosophy equally important because it diverged from what was until then the most important reading of Nietzsche in France- Charles Andler's Nietzsche:sa vie et sa pense(Paris:Gallimard, 1958)- a laboriousand patient reading of Nietzsche. Andler focuses on Nietzsche's life, his influences, and his thought. His study is, for the most part, an exposition of the thinkers that Nietzsche read, the ideas that influenced him, and the themes he developed throughout his writings. By comparison, Deleuze's study lacks the historical focus one finds in Andler; Nietzscheand is, Philosophy in many ways, a personal and more involved readingof Nietzsche. 7. See Rda Bensmaa, "Gilles Deleuze ou comment devenir un Stalker en 53 philosophie?"Lendemains (1989): 6. 8. The development of Deleuze's thought can be schematically divided into three periods:the early worksconsist in critical commentarieson majorfiguresin the history of philosophy. Even so, the history that Deleuze provides is idiosyncratic to say the least: "We dream sometimes of a history of philosophy that would list only the new concepts createdby a greatphilosopher his most essential and creative contribution." An and See Deleuze, Empiricism Subjectivity: Essayon Hume'sTheoryof HumanNature, trans. Constantin V. Boundas (New York:Columbia UP, 1991) ix. After flirting with the great, Deleuze reorients his thought toward more independent philosophical intrans.Paul Patton and quirieswhich culminate in two majorworks:Difference Repetition, (New York:ColumbiaUP, 1994) and The Logicof Sense,trans. MarkLesterand Charles Stivale, d. Constantin V. Boundas (New York:Columbia UP, 1990). The third phase is markedby a series of worksDeleuze co-authored with Flix Guattari. 9. See Negotiations:1972-1990, trans. Martin Joughin (New York:Columbia UP, 1995) 6. 10. It is worth quoting what may be describedas a preemptive argumentin Deleuze's Nietzscheand Philosophy against any apologetic reading:"Threeideas define the dialectic: the idea of a power of the negative as a theoretical principle manifested in opposition and contradiction;the idea that sufferingand sadnesshave value, the valorization of 'sad passions', as a practical principle manifested in splitting and tearing apart;the idea of positivity as a theoretical and practical productof negation itself. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole of Nietzsche's philosophy, in its polemical sense, is the attack on these three ideas" 195-96. 11. Deleuze's insistence on Nietzsche's categorical objection to, and adamant rejection of Hegelian philosophy has elicited severe criticism. To be objective, Deleuze's

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uncompromisingrejection of dialectics and his unambiguousposition toward Hegel and the whole "Hegelian epoch" not only lend themselves, but in fact invite such a 4 Nietzsche-Studien (1975), Daniel pointed criticism.In "TheHegel-NietzscheProblem," Breazealeargues that Deleuze's zeal to depict Nietzsche as an anti-Hegelian has distorted his reading of Nietzsche: "Deleuze places much too much emphasis upon the significance of Nietzsche's opposition to Hegel- an opposition which, it must be concluded, Deleuze has failed to make convincing" 162. For Breazeale,Deleuze'sNietzsche is all the more problematic because it stands on the shouldersof a straw man. To put this less bluntly, there is little or no basis for a rapprochementbetween Nietzsche and Hegel because the philosophies of these two thinkers are, in many ways, incompatible. In the words of Breazeale,Nietzscheand Philosophy problematic first and foremost is because of "Deleuze'sattempt to contrast the dialectician's emphasisupon struggleand conflict with a supposedlyincompatibleNietzschean ideal of playfulcreativity,forwhich 'struggleis never the active expression of forces nor the expression of an affirmative will to power'"(161). Such as it is, Deleuze'sphilosophy exaggeratesthe multiple in Nietzsche's thought as much as it reducesdifference in Hegel's thought, which is tantamount to saying that Deleuze'sphilosophy of difference is developed at the expense of an integral Hegelian difference. This is at least the objection that Catherine Malabou raisesagainstDeleuze in "Who'sAfraidof Hegelian Wolves?" Deleuze:A CriticalReader, ed. Paul Patton, (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996): "one wondersas much when confronted with a Hegel so uniform, so monochrome, a Hegel who plays the role of the detested domestic animal. . . . Doesn't Hegel become the 'bow-wow'of contemporaryphilosophers, the abhorredvictim of the pack of the thinkers of difference, that absolute enemy?"117. The extremity of Deleuze'sposition- his relentless crusadeagainst dialectics- becomes all the more noticeable when considered in the context of contemporary critical theories. While some critics and thinkers have attempted to rejuvenate the dialectical traditionby rethinking the dialectical closure Theodor Adorno'snegative dialectics is one such example- in Difference Repetition, and Deleuze deems dialectics in general unsalvageable and dismisses it altogether: "Historyprogressesnot by negation and the negation of negation, but by deciding problemsand affirmingdifferences" 268. On this point, see Pecora, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, Critical Theory,"New; German Critique 53 (1991): 113-26; for a critical perspective on Deleuze's antiHegelianism, see Lutz Ellrich, "Negativity and Difference: On Gilles Deleuze'sCriticism of Dialectics," ModernLanguage Notes 111 (1996): 463-87, and Henri Lefebvre,
The Survival of Capitalism: Reproductionof the Relations of Production, trans. Frank Bryant

(London: Allison & Busy, 1976) 32-34.

versedPlatonism(Albany: State U of New YorkP, 1998) 2. 13. See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmannand R. ]. Hollingdale, ed. Walter Kaufmann(New York:Vintage, 1968) 223. 14. My argumentso far has been that Deleuze has inherited the kind of discontent that marks Nietzsche's writings vis-~visboth Hegelianism and Platonism. I say this while being fully awareof Douglas Smith's caveat that Deleuze'scritiquesof Hegel and Plato are contradictorybecause the formeris groundedon the postulation of an essential positivity while the latter is based on the rejection of a privileged essence. See his Transvaluations: Nietzschein France, 1872-1972 (Oxford:Clarendon P, 1996) 140-84. 15. In Dialogues, Deleuze writes: "how can you think without having read Plato, Descartes, Kant and Heidegger, and so-and-so's book about them? . . . An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking" 13. It should not escape the readerthat Deleuze can prove to be soft in tone and even suspiciouslyuncritical. His genuine difference with and withering critique of Platonism notwithstanding, Deleuze is willing at times to bend Plato'sphilosophy if the need arises to solidify his positions or substantiate his claims. Thus, Plato

12. See James Brusseau, Isolated Experiences: Gilles Deleuze and the Solitudes of Re-

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who has been portrayedas the forerunnerof essentialist, transcendental philosophy suddenlybecomes an instructive though often elusive example of how the true philosopher must shun concepts that are not of his own creation: "philosophersmust distrust most those concepts they did not create themselves (Plato was fully awareof this, even though he taught the opposite). Plato said that Ideasmust be contemplated, but first of Plato teaches the opposite of what he does: all he had to create the concept of Idea he creates concepts but needs to set them up as representingthe uncreated that precedes them. He puts time into the concept, but it is a time that must be Anterior."See trans. Hugh Tomlinson and GraGilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari,Whatis Philosophy?, ham Burchell (New York:Columbia UP, 1994) 6. 16. See ArmandGuilmette, GillesDeleuzeet la modernit (Ottawa:ditionsdu Zphyr, 1984)31. 17. In "Nietzscheon the Edgeof Town:Deleuzeand Reflexivity," Nietzsche: Exceedingly
Aspects of ContemporaryNietzsche-Interpretation,eds. David Farrell Krell and David Wood

(London: Routledge, 1988), Hugh Tomlinson rightly points out that the "Deleuzian strategist aims to construct assemblagesthat will connect up multiple elements, that will work in different ways. Everyassemblageis alwaysmisleading, alwayson its way to becoming fixed and 'recoded,' to losing its force. Every assemblagealso, in a certain way, exemplifies the overall strategy. . . . All Deleuze's 'systems' can be regardedas Deleuze'sstrastrategicconstructions"(159). Equallyuseful in understanding temporary tegic construction is Nietzsche'semphasison mutation and change in The Willto Power: "That the state of equilibriumis never reached proves that it is not possible. But in an indefinite space it would have to have reached. Likewise in a spherical space. The Shape of space must be the cause of eternal movement, and ultimately of all 'imperfection.' That 'force' and 'rest,' 'remainingthe same,' contradict one another. The measure of force (as magnitude) as fixed, but its essence in flux. 'Timelessness'to be rejected. At any precise moment of a force, the absolute conditionality of a new distribution of all its forces is given: it cannot stand still. 'Change' belong to the essence, therefore also temporality:with this, however, the necessity of change has only been posited once more conceptually"(547). Deleuze arguesthat "multiplicityis the affirmationof 18. In Nietzscheand Philosophy, unity; becoming is the affirmationof being. The affirmationof becoming is becoming is itself being, the affirmationof multiplicity is itself one. Multiple affirmationis the way in which the one affirmsitself. 'The one is the many,unity is multiplicity'"(24). Such an emphasison multiplicity has been the subject of criticism. According to JamesWinchester, Nietzsche's Aesthetic Turn: Reading Nietzsche after Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida

(Albany: State U of New YorkP, 1994), Deleuze'sinterpretationof Nietzsche as a pluralist is overstated:"ForDeleuze, Nietzsche is a pluralist because he believes that the worldconsists of a networkof unstable, impermanent,forces locked in constant struggle with one another: Deleuze attempts to make Nietzsche into a consistent pluralist that is, he tries to show that all of Nietzsche'smetaphysical,moral,and aesthetic thought begins, in this vision of the world, as an unstable network of battling forces. Although for a time Nietzsche did attempt this, his philosophy, in particularhis analysis of human behavior, is not founded on this theory of forces"(72-73). Overall, Winchester maintains that although Nietzsche can be said to be a pluralist, he is far from being as dogmatically consistent a pluralist as Deleuze claims. Vincent Pecora concurs; in his opinion, Deleuze'sidealizationof Nietzsche'sphilosophyhas yielded a very limited view of the latter'scritique of late nineteenth century German philosophy and culture. See Nietzsche and Post-Structuralist 48 his "Deleuze's Thought,"SubStance (1986): 46-47. 19. See Foucault, Michel, "TheatrumPhilosophicum,"Language,Counter-Memory, Practice:SelectedEssays and Interviews,ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977) 185. This is also the essence of genealogy as Deleuze conceives it in Nietzscheand Philosophy: "genealogyis the art of difference or distinction" (56).

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20. Even though unity is not absent from Deleuze's thought, it never suppressesor vitiates multiplicity. There is an interaction between different terms, a combinations of various relationships, and an integration of disparateelements so much so that the and original duality,as BrianMassumiputs it in A User'sGuideto Capitalism Schizophrenia: Deviationsfrom Deleuze and Guattari (Cambridge:MIT UP, 1992), is "fractured into countless new dualities proliferatingin every direction, each encompassingclouds of heterogeneouselements without number"(15). This is preciselywhat makesDeleuze and Guattari'sthought a nomad thought- the ability to synthesize a multiplicity of elements without effacingtheir heterogeneityor hinderingtheir potential for rearrangement. 21. See Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (New York:Oxford UP, 1975) 4. 22. See JudithButler,Subjects Desire:Hegelian in France of Reflections Twentieth-Century (New York:Columbia UP 1987) 183-84. 23. For a commendable attempt to deal with this paradox in Deleuze'sthought, see Alexandre Zavadil, "Deleuzeou la mort en dtail," Lendemains (1989): 10-17. 53 24. In The Will to Power,Nietzsche asks frustratinglybut defiantly: "Why was there not affirmativephilosophy?"217. 25. See MarkSeem, "Introduction Anti-Oedipus" to Gilles Deleuzeand Flix Guattari, and trans.RobertHurley,MarkSeem, and Helen Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism Schizophrenia, R. Lane (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983) xvi. 26. See FriedrichNietzsche, Twilight IdolsandtheAnti-Christ, trans.R.J.Hollingdale of (New York:Penguin, 1968) 52-178. 27. In The Will to Power,Nietzsche writes: "Christianityconvinces the underprivileged of all kinds, it promises blessedness, advantage, privilege to the most insignificant and humble. . . . [It] growsup among outcasts and the condemned, among lepersof all kinds, 'sinners,' 'publicans,'prostitutes, the most stupid folk (the 'fishers'); it disdains the rich, the learned, the noble, the virtuous, the 'correct'"(123). 28. According to the author of The Will to Power, this holy lie entails momentous consequences: "what is the price of moral improvement?Unhinging of reason, reduction of all motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward);dependence upon a priestly guardianship,upon pedantic formalities which claim to express a divine will; the implanting of a 'conscience' which sets a false knowing in place of testing and experiment . . . in summa:the worst mutilation of man that can be imagined. . . . The concept of 'God' representsa turning awayfrom life, a critique of life, even a contempt for it; truth is transformedinto the priestly lie, the striving for truth into study of the scriptures,into a means of becoming a theologian" (91). 29. See FriedrichNietzsche, Thus SpokeZarathustra: Bookfor All and None, trans. A Walter Kaufmann(New York:Penguin, 1978) 201-02. 30. See FriedrichNietzsche, The Birthof Tragedy the Genealogyof Morals,trans. and FrancisGolffing (Garden City: Doubleday, 1956) 11. 31. In Nietzscheand Philosophy, Deleuze draws an even sharperdistinction between the two: "Dionysian mania is opposed to Christian mania; Dionysian intoxication to Christian intoxication; Dionysian laceration to Crucification; Dionysian resurrection to Christian resurrection;Dionysian transvaluation to Christian transubstantiation" (16). 32. In Differenceand Repetition,Deleuze points out that "there are certainly many dangers in invoking pure difference which have become independent of the negative and liberated from the identical. The greaterdanger is that of lapsing into the representations of a beautifulsoul: there are only reconcilable and federativedifferences,far removed from bloody struggles.The beautiful soul says: we are different, but not opposed"(xx). 33. To fully appreciatethis theoryof forces,one has emphasizethe fact that Nietzsche's philosophy is a reaction to Hegel only in a limited sense because what primarilydistin-

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guishes Nietzsche and Hegel is not a pointed antagonismbut the point of departurefor each of them. Hegel's view that history has a reason that was alienated, and consequently has to be dis-alienated, owes much to the Christian tradition. The idea of "negation" is arguablyan extension of the idea of "evil." For Nietzsche, negation is the motor of history and the instrumentof its progress;i.e., it is that which moves history forwardand enables reason to prevail at the end. As for Nietzsche, he acknowledges the existence of evil but refusesto suppressit. Forhim, forces are caught in a perpetual dis-equilibriumand a generative disarrayabout which negation cannot do much. Accordingly,he accepts life with its Good and evil, with its Dionysian and Appollonian sides- whence the overman:he who accepts the eternal returnincluding the returnof pain, of evil, of death, of the Dionysian laceration, etc. overtones of Deleuze'stheory.Saussure 's 34. One cannot help detecting the Saussurian concept of language as a system of differences is an assault against the metaphysicsof presence which dominated Western philosophy. Such a critique entails the relocation of signification from the world of things to the world of words.Fromthe perspective of Saussure,the signifier does not relate to an anterior truth. Signs owe their capacity to signify to their difference from each other within the larger network of signs which constitutes the signifying system. Behind Deleuze's interpretation of Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal return of the same as a return of the different, one can sense a 's conscious attempt to appropriatethe Saussurianprinciple of difference. Saussure influence notwithstanding, it would be wrongto conceive of Deleuze as a structuralist.In fact, Deleuze's appropriationof the concept of difference is distinct from that of the As structuralists. DerekTayloraptly points out, "whatsets Deleuze apartfromthe structuralist 'orthodoxy' (in other words, what defines him as a 'post-structuralist')is his translation of this fairly static principle of difference into a more dynamic idea of 'becrudely as the coming'. . . . Deleuze'sconcept of difference could thus be summarized 's fusion of Saussure first principle ('the arbitrarynature of the sign') with Nietzsche's aversion of the concepts of metaphysicalTruth, the subject and the ego." See Derek eds. HermeneuticsandPostmodernism, , Genealogy,"Merleau-Ponty, Taylor,"Phantasmic Thomas W. Bushand Shawn Gallagher(Albany: State U of New YorkP, 1992) 152-53. 35. In a subsequentbut less known workentitled Nietzsche (Paris:PressesUniversitaires de France, 1965), Deleuze explains: "Lemme ne revient pas, c'est le revenirseulement qui est le mme de ce qui devient" ["thesame does not return;it is returningthat it the same of that which returns"](36). Equally worth quoting is Deleuze's observation in about the eternal formlessnessof the return:"Eternalreturn Differenceand Repetition cannot mean the returnof the Identical because it presupposesa world (that of the will to power) in which all pervious identities have been abolished and dissolved. Returning is being, but only the being of becoming. The eternal return does not bring back the same, but returningconstitutes the only Same of that which becomes. Returningis the becoming-identicalof becoming itself. Returningis thus the only identity, but identity as a secondarypower;the identity of difference, the identical which belongs to the difference, or returnsaround the difference. Such an identity, producedby difference, is determined as 'repetition.' Repetition in the eternal return, therefore, consists in conceiving the same on the basis of the different" (41). For an additional engaging discussion of the concept of the eternal return, see Walter Kaufmann,Nietzsche:PhiAntichrist(Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1956) 266-86. Psychologist, losopher, Deleuze observes that Nietzsche laid down the task 36. In Nietzscheand Philosophy, must no longer accept concepts as a gift, of philosophy when he wrote, *[p]hilosophers nor merely purifyand polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing. Hitherto one has generally trusted one's concepts as if they were a wonderfuldowry from some sort of wonderland,'but trust must be replaced by distrust"(5-6).

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37. See Gilles Deleuze, "Mediators," trans. Martin Joughin, Incorporations,eds. Jonathan Craryand SanfordKwinter (New York:Zone, 1992) 282. Deleuze observes that "concepts, with their zones of and Repetition, 38. In Difference presence, should intervene to resolve local situations. They themselves change along with problems"(xx). and 39. See Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari,Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley,MarkSeem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis:U of Minnesota P, Plateaus:Capitalism Schizophrenia, and trans. Brian Massumi 1983) 109. In A Thousand (Minneapolis:U of Minnesota P, 1987), Deleuze and Guattaridescribethe dynamicsof desire in comparableterms:"Desireis never an undifferentiatedinstinctual energy,but itself results form a highly developed, engineered set up rich in interactions, a whole supple segmentaritythat processesmolecularenergies"(215). 40. Philosophy,as Deleuze puts it in an interview with Didier Eribon,in Negotiations, is "an open system"(30). Deleuze observesthat he sees philosophy as "a logic of multiplici41. In Negotiations, ties" (147). la 42. See Gilles Deleuze, "Lettre-Prface," Jean-Clet Martin, Variations: philosophie de Gilles Deleuze(Paris:ditions Payot, 1993) 7.