DOI: 10.4231/r28p-b577
title: Leibniz and the Baroque, Lecture 14, 7 April 1987

description: &lt;p&gt;A series of lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8. This fourteenth lecture is organized within a 20-lecture seminar that Deleuze taught between October 1986 and June 1987, presented on April 7, 1987.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This session is an extended review after a three-week break, Deleuze recalling the &ldquo;unusual vision&rdquo; of the event seen in the comparison of Leibniz and Whitehead, i.e., everything is event, and Deleuze proposes to discuss the &ldquo;spiritual event&rdquo;, i.e., for Leibniz, the event having actual existence only in the monad that expresses the world, the event&rsquo;s spiritual dimension. The other dimension is the event&rsquo;s actualization of a soul and realization of a body, which brings Deleuze to the question for the seminar&rsquo;s third part, what does it mean to have a body? Deleuze then addresses Leibniz&rsquo;s new theory of substance, focusing first on ancient Greece, structures of opposition in Aristotle that found the theme of difference, then to Plotinus, then to the Middle Ages and Gothic thought&rsquo;s great profusion and questions of distinction, to which Deleuze relates work by Saint Thomas and Duns Scotus, clearly favoring the latter. Deleuze indicates that he has asked several participants familiar with music to speak on the problem of harmony (the topic in the special final session, June 2, 1987), and that at the next session, he will sum up the presentation on substance in Leibniz as this relates to the additional topic of understanding philosophy.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes one .mp3 audio file of the original recorded lecture and the complete French transcription and English translation in odt format.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Il s&rsquo;agit d&rsquo;une r&eacute;capitulation apr&egrave;s une pause de trois semaines, Deleuze rappellant la &laquo; vision inhabituelle &raquo; de l&rsquo;&eacute;v&eacute;nement que l&rsquo;on retrouve dans la comparaison entre Leibniz et Whitehead : tout est &eacute;v&eacute;nement. Il propose de discuter de l&rsquo;&laquo; &eacute;v&eacute;nement spirituel &raquo;, c&rsquo;est-&agrave;-dire, pour Leibniz, l&rsquo;&eacute;v&eacute;nement n&rsquo;ayant d&rsquo;existence r&eacute;elle que dans la monade qui exprime le monde, la dimension spirituelle de l&rsquo;&eacute;v&eacute;nement. L&rsquo;autre dimension est l&rsquo;actualisation d&rsquo;une &acirc;me et la r&eacute;alisation d&rsquo;un corps par l&rsquo;&eacute;v&eacute;nement, ce qui am&egrave;ne Deleuze &agrave; se demander, pour la troisi&egrave;me partie du s&eacute;minaire, ce que signifie avoir un corps. Deleuze aborde ensuite la nouvelle th&eacute;orie de la substance de Leibniz, en regardant d&rsquo;abord la Gr&egrave;ce antique, les structures d&rsquo;opposition chez Aristote qui ont trouv&eacute; le th&egrave;me de la diff&eacute;rence, puis Plotin, puis le Moyen &Acirc;ge et la grande profusion de la pens&eacute;e gothique et les questions de distinction, dont Deleuze fait r&eacute;f&eacute;rence aux travaux de saint Thomas et de Duns Scot, en privil&eacute;giant clairement ce dernier.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Seminar of 20 sessions given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at Paris 8-St. Denis University, October 28, 1986, to June 2, 1987, Deleuze’s final seminar in his career. This fourteenth session was presented on April 7, 1987.