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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Deleuze and ethics « Previous | |Next »
January 23, 2007

Daniel Smith has an article on Deleuze, ethics and desire in Parrhesia. It explore the nature of an immanent ethics, examines two sets of texts from Nietzsche and Leibniz to flesh out some of the details of an immanent ethics, and has some comments on the nature of desire and some of the themes of Anti-Oedipus.

What then is an immanent ethics? How does it differ from morality or a non immanent ethics?

Smith says that:

Deleuze has often drawn a distinction between “ethics” and “morality”—a distinction that has traditionally been drawn to distinguish modes of reflection that place greater emphasis, respectively, on the good life (such as Stoicism) or on the moral law (such as Kantianism). Deleuze, however, uses the term “morality” to define, in very general terms, any set of “constraining” rules, such as a moral code, that consists in judging actions and intentions by relating them to transcendent or universal values ... What he calls “ethics” is, on the contrary, a set of “facilitative” [facultative] rules that evaluates what we do, say, and think according to the immanent mode of existence that it implies. One says or does this, thinks or feels that: what mode of existence does it imply? “

Deleuze argues that this immanent approach to the question of ethics was developed most fully, in the history of philosophy, by Spinoza and Nietzsche, whom Deleuze has often identified as his own philosophical precursors.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:14 PM |