Gilles Deleuze's 'Nietzsche & Philosophy': The Preface

In this series of videos, we will highlight key themes from Gilles Deleuze's 1962 text 'Nietzsche & Philosophy'.

This video covers the preface addressed to the translator, Hugh Tomlinson. In this section of the text, Deleuze outlines some of the key themes which preside over his interpretation: Deleuze's novel approach to Nietzsche's "theory of forces", the will to power, and the eternal return. Also, Deleuze cites Nietzsche as a key figure in overturning the traditional or dogmatic "image of thought" of Western philosophy.

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[Spiritchaser]

This is Deleuze at his greatest clarity, and also the best "interpretation" of Nietzsche I've seen. It was Klossowski and the French who rehabilitated Nietzsche, leading Deleuze to give the most succinct and thorough account of Nietzsche's system of thought scattered across his many works. I think we can say that there is ONE Nietzsche after The Birth of Tragedy (the book where he outright turned his back against) - the Nietzsche as anti-Kant and anti-Schopenhauer, and for Deleuze, the anti-Hegel thinker. The influence of Nietzsche cannot be understated. In today's world where many analytic philosophers can pretend to be "pragmatists", Nietzsche had already demonstrated that there is a metaphysics of pragmatism. That Being and Doing are based on Becoming, not the other way round. In this regard I consider Nietzsche to be the greatest german thinker, even myself as a former Heidegger scholar and have studied phenomenology in undergrad, since his way of philosophizing weaves in ontology, epistemology, ethics into a cohesive whole and actually has a method behind the madness, much like Deleuze. There are the least problematic aspects to Nietzsche's philosophy when compared with Heidegger who actually had more presuppositions to a careful reader.

[sense_maker]

I hope you guys don’t wonder that you talk about Nietzsche too much. I’m absolutely loving it. Keep up the good work everyone.

[philosophemes]

Thanks for putting this together! I was just preparing to discuss this book! I'll keep going with the philosophy of technology and circle back later. Cheers!

[Spiritchaser]

Most importantly to me, Nietzsche's philosophy is a philosophy of lightness. In his many writings, Nietzsche would rebel against forces which weigh down the "spirit", be it the soul or judgement or essence or teleos or common sense or tradition. Instead of the dialectic, Nietzsche believes that the multiplicity of micro-desires/wills within us are what matter the most, and the need to ensure that this multiplicity is carried forward into the future. Hence, will-to-power is better understood as "wills of power", because power is the outcome of the confluence of micro-drives within us, some are mutually reinforcing (like the desire to sit here and type this reply, the desire to relax in my room, the desire to do philosophy, etc.) while others are repelling (like the desire to go to bed, the desire to have a walk outside, etc.). These desires in their differences are what constitute us, and operate below our conscious awareness (indeed we do not have free will/choice to pick and choose or make rational decisions but that all of these randomized and unpredictable micro-desires already reside in us at the same time whose effect is felt by us when mutually reinforcing drives cross into threshold of perception - EFFECTS over causes, in a sense we are beholden to forces rather than free agents). Nietzsche was an indeterminist at heart. And when Nietzsche talked about the perspectival interpretation of things he does not refer to the uniquely single/irreducible perspective of the individual/subject but to each and every perspective expressed by the multiplicity of drives). The Eternal Recurrence is then the affirmation, a choice that has to be made again and again rather than once and for all, of an active child-like forgetfulness - to allow the interplay of differences to return and let spontaneous desires give rise to the New in thought and life. Hence, what returns is not the Same - the same meaning fully-formed things and states of affairs (to embrace the vicissitudes of highs and lows of life), but the productive chaos behind that which allows the things/states of affairs to come about in the first place. The affirmation of difference itself.

[blyysm]

Pleasant to watch. The book is very gratifying and healthy in its air.

[solidaritytime]

I'm glad I subscribed!

Darn my ADHD brain! I need to go back and listen with my eyes closed; the gameplay was too visually compelling for monkey-me.

[athko]

great video but wow the gifs make it feel like a deleuzean baby sensory video