Expressionism in Philosophy : Spinoza

In this remarkable work, Gilles Deleuze, the renowned French philosopher, reflects on one of the thinkers of the past who most influenced his own sweeping reconfiguration of the tasks of philosophy. For Deleuze, Spinoza, along with Nietzsche and Lucretius, conceived of philosophy as an enterprise of liberation and radical demystification. He locates in Spinoza “a set of affects, a kinetic determination, an impulse” and makes Spinoza into “an encounter, a passion.” Expressionism in Philosophy was the culmination of a series of monographic studies by Deleuze (on Hume, Bergson, Nietzsche, Proust, Kant, and Sacher-Masoch) and prepared the transition from these abstract treatments of historical schemes of experience to the nomadology of Capitalism and Schizophrenia ( Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , co-authored with Félix Guattari). Thus, Expressionism in Philosophy is both a pivotal reading of Spinoza’s work and a crucial text within the development of Deleuze’s thought. Cover Contents Translator's Preface Introduction: The Role and Importance of Expression Part One. The Triads of Substance Chapter I. Numerical and Real Distinction Chapter II. Attribute as Expression Chapter III. Attributes and Divine Names Chapter IV. The Absolute Chapter V. Power Part Two. Parallelism and Immanence Chapter VI. Expression and Idea Chapter VII. The Two Powers and the Idea of God Chapter VII. Expression and Idea Chapter IX. Inadequacy Chapter X. Spinoza Against Descartes Chapter XI. Immanence and the Historical Components of Expression Part Three. The Theory of Finite Modes Chapter XII. Modal Essence: The Passage from Infinite to Finite Chapter XIII. Modal Existence Chapter XIV. What Can a Body Do? Chapter XV. The Three Orders and the Problem of Evil Chapter XVI. The Ethical Vision of the World Chapter XVII. Common Notions Chapter XVIII. Toward the Third Kind of Knowledge Chapter IXX. Beatitude Conclusion: The Theory of Expression in Leibniz and Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy Appendix Notes Translator's Notes Index Index of Textual References

In this extraordinary work Gilles Deleuze, the most renowned living philosopher in France, reflects on one of the figures of the past who has most influenced his own sweeping reconfiguration of the tasks of philosophy.Deleuze's brilliant text shows how current definitions of philosophy do not apply to Spinoza: a solitary thinker (yet scandalous and hated), he conceived of philosophy as an enterprise of liberation and radical demystification much as did Leibniz or, later Nietzsche. Spinoza confronts the grand philosophical problems that are still current today: the comparative role of ontology (the theory of substance), of epistemology (the theory of ideas), and of political anthropology (the theory of modes, passions, and actions).The goal of this book is to determine the rapport among the univocity of Being in the theory of substance; the production of truth and the genesis of sense in the theory of ideas; and practical joy (or the elimination of the sad passions) and the selective organization of the passions in the theory of modes.

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