Deleuze. An Apprenticeship in Philosophy

The key to understanding Deleuze's complete body of work.

"A coherent and systematic reading of a philosopher who has consistently courted the incoherent and systematic. What we must avoid are encounters with those who cultivate sad passions (the men of ressentiment in the Nietzschean formulation); and we must increase our power to compose new relationships with compatible bodies with whom we share a common notion. Hardt's exceptional book is one such joyful encounter." -Times Literary Supplement

"An excellent book. The project of Gilles Deleuze is to situate Deleuze squarely in the camp of those who seek to deepen and transform our philsophical understanding and political situation. Hardt seems to me to be directly on target." -Substance

"Both for its object and its method of study, here is a work that will mark the future of the field of Deleuzian studies." -Eric Alliez, Critique

"Hardt's reading of Deleuze is complex and precise. He follows the intricacies of the argument and of the shifting positions with considerable skill, thus providing us with a study not only of the Deleuzian way of doing philosophy, but of Deleuzian reading-of the selectivity of its targets, of its agonistic approach to philosophy, through indirect attack on one main opponent. Reading Hardt reading Deleuze reading, we can understand, for instance, why Deleuze's exposition usually takes the form not of a dialectic but of a correlation, of a system of differences." -Radical Philosophy

"In this work, Hardt offers a stimulating account of the development of Deleuze's though through a reading of his early texts." -International Studies in Philosophy

"How can we forget the dialectic? How an we affirm a constitutive ontology? Through its efforts to respond to these questions, Gilles Deleuze's philosophical apprenticeship presents the Bildungsroman of any contemporary philosophy that wants to break away from the destiny of modernity. Michael Hardt unravels the guiding thread of this philosophy of the future." -Antonio Negri

"Hardt's interpretations are exceptionally well-grounded in the history of philosophical discourse, a discourse he exercises with discipline and rare insight. As the only major work on Deleuze in English, this book will undoubtedly set the standard for any future study of one of France's most important thinkers-and it is a very high standard, indeed." -Peggy Kamuf

Michael Hardt is assistant professor of literature at Duke University. His books include Labor of Dionysus, and Radical Thought in Italy.
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Hegel and Foundations of Poststructuralism ix
Preliminary Remark The Early Deleuze: Some Methodological Principles xvii
Bergsonian Ontology: The Positive Movement of Being
1 (25)
Determination and Efficient Difference

Multiplicity in the Passage from Quality to Quantity

The Positive Emanation of Being

The Being of Becoming and the Organization of the Actual

Remark: Deleuze and Interpretation

Nietzschean Ethics: From Efficient Power to an Ethics of Affirmation
26 (30)
The Paradox of Enemies

The Transcendental Method and the Partial Critique

Remark: Deleuze's Selection of the ``Impersonal'' Nietzsche

Slave Logic and Efficient Power

Remark: The Resurgence of Negativity

Slave Labor and the Insurrectional Critique

Remark: The Will to Workers' Power and the Social Synthesis

The Being of Becoming: The Ethical Synthesis of the Efficient Will

The Total Critique as the Foundation of Being

Remark: The End of Deleuze's Anti-Hegelianism

Pathos and Joy: Toward a Practice of Affirmative Being

Spinozian Practice: Affirmation and Joy
56 (56)
Speculation

Substance and the Real Distinction: Singularity

Expressive Attributes and the Formal Distinction: Univocity

Remark: Ontological Speculation

The Powers of Being

Ontological Expression

The Interpretation of the Attributes: Problems of a Materialist Ontology

Remark: Speculative Production and Theoretical Practice

Combatting the Privileges of Thought

Remark: From Forschung to Darstellung

Power

The True and the Adequate

What a Body Can Do

Practice

Common Notions: The Assemblages of Composable Being

The Constitution of Reason

Remark: Theoretical Practice and Practical Constitution

The Art of Organization: Toward a Political Assemblage

Conclusion: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy
112 (11)
Ontology

Affirmation

Practice

Constitution

Notes 123 (10)
Works Cited 133 (4)
Index 137