Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy of History

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Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy of History constructs, problematizes and defends a Deleuzian philosophy of history. Drawing on Deleuze's philosophy of time, it identifies key ideas and suggestions related to the philosophy of history from Deleuze and Guattari's major writings - including the seminal contemporary texts Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaux, Difference and Repetiton and The Logic of Sense.

The book covers the following themes: the role of dates in historical chronology; historical causality; historical origins; the character of historical events; and the diagnosis of such actual historical events as the rise of capitalism in Europe. This text is a groundbreaking, valuable and original contribution to the scholarship on Deleuze and Guattari, and contemporary Continental philosophy as a whole.

Reviews

"We knew there was a philosophy of time in Deleuze; now Lampert's indispensable work reveals his philosophy of history as well, and guides us through its forbidding complexities with unparalleled lucidity. This book not only expands our conception of Deleuze, it positions him in a wholly different place in our philosophical firmament." -Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies, Duke University
mention- The Chronicle of Higher Education/ October 27, 2006
"With this book Jay Lampert has new standards of clarity and rigour by which future studies of Deleuze will need to be appraised. It is among the very best studies of his work published to date...This is a brilliant and major study that can be strongly recommended to anyone interested in Deleuze's project and in questions concerning history. In fact, I cannot recommend it strongly enough." -Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick, UK -- Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick, UK
"History, traditionally construed, constitutes the occurrence of events through time. Often, these events are thought to play out in a linear fashion and to exert causal pressure...this interpretive process can be engaged in by historiansand by philosophers, whose philosophies of history may function in sync with the hastily-sketched picture of history just offered, or may reject it in favor of some alternative. As Jay Lampert indicates in his difficult and fascinating book, Deleuze and Guattari opt for the latter approach...In all fairness (and as Lampert seems to suggest), concerns regarding truth' are no doubt best left at the front door, insofar as our aim is to fully grasp what Deleuze and Guattari are saying. Though, even if such a point be granted, we are still left wondering, with respect to historical becoming and future innovation: who (or what) is it that determines whether reactivity has been overcomewhether the future has been actively realized That this is a difficult question to answer does not detract from the overall merits of Lampert's highly engaging work." -Mike Hinds, Philosophy in Review

Author Bio

Jay Lampert is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.