DOI: 10.4231/4mnp-xx87
title: Foucault: Lecture 13, 25 February 1986

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 26-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to June 1986. In these lectures, Deleuze offers his interpretation and analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault&#39;s work. Examining the theoretical foundations and major themes of Foucault&#39;s philosophy, Deleuze dedicates several lectures to each of what he calls the &quot;three axes&quot; of Foucault&#39;s thought. This seminar coincides with the publication of Deleuze&#39;s book &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p style="margin:0in"&gt;After a month break, Deleuze recaps the previous discussion on Foucault&rsquo;s approach to power-knowledge relations, concluding that all the aspects detailed are linked together, power constituting a microphysics, fluid and evanescent relationships, the object of a strategy, a cartographic matter; knowledge constituting a macrophysics, stable relations, the object of stratification, an archival matter. But he also insists that this does not prevent a mutual presupposition between the two, with a primacy of power over knowledge, with the actualization of relations of forces or of power consisting in two simultaneous operations, and actualizing must also being differentiating following divergent pathways. This implicit chasm between the statable and the visible (Blanchot&rsquo;s &ldquo;non-relation&quot;), seeing and speaking as two fundamental lines of differentiation contrast with the two powers of force, the power of spontaneity and the power of receptivity, actualized in two differentiated forms. Deleuze then proceeds to consider, with Kant, the coadaptation between the form of spontaneity, the concept, and the form of receptivity, space-time, and translating this in terms of immanence in response to a student&rsquo;s question, Deleuze observes that power and knowledge are each in the other, and in this precise instance, the immanent cause will be a cause which the effect actualizes, i.e., integrates and differentiates at the same time. Responding to another student, Deleuze briefly considers a possible relationship between Foucault and Artaud, then turns to forms of exteriority, how this relates to the emission of singularities, and also responds regarding the dualism of dominating and being dominated, notably the &ldquo;open self&rdquo; and singularities as well as the outside (le Dehors) and forces, the thought of the Outside, as well as the Open (cf. Blanchot, Heidegger, Rilke and Bergson). He further maintains that the diagram plunges into the outside, that every diagram is a distribution of singularities that is incarnated in the formation, thus coming from the outside, a series of re-linkages where the givens are as if reset, a new roll of the dice. Deleuze traces the three stages of this process, and within the diagram, Deleuze notes strange, floating singularities uncovering three aspects, the power to affect, the power to be affected, and the power to resist. Deleuze indicates for consideration the primacy of resistance in relation to what it resists, and hence, in going beyond power, he reaches the terrible line of the outside (cf. Melville and Michaux), which implies the power to transform the diagram, leading Foucault&rsquo;s theme of the &ldquo;death of man&rdquo;, notably to the final chapter of &lt;i&gt;The Order of Things&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset for the new version includes four files, the translation and transcription of the session in Open Data Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; 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;&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 26 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; juin 1986. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze offre son interpr&eacute;tation et son analyse de l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre du philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Michel Foucault. En examinant les fondements th&eacute;oriques et les th&egrave;mes majeurs de la philosophie de Foucault, Deleuze consacre plusieurs conf&eacute;rences &agrave; chacun de ce qu&#39;il appelle les &laquo;trois axes&raquo; de la pens&eacute;e de Foucault. Ce s&eacute;minaire co&iuml;ncide avec la publication du livre de Deleuze &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;La conf&eacute;rence du 25 f&eacute;vrier 1986 d&eacute;bute par une r&eacute;capitulation des discussions pr&eacute;c&eacute;dentes sur les rapports pouvoir-savoir, le rapport et le non- rapport entre voir et parler, les rapports entre les forces et les pouvoirs de r&eacute;ceptivit&eacute; et spontan&eacute;it&eacute;. Les autres sujets de discussion comprennent: Kant et le sch&eacute;me de l&#39;imagination, le concept et l&#39;espace-temps; le po&egrave;te fran&ccedil;ais Comte de Lautr&eacute;amont; la cause efficiente ou transitive comme une cause qui a besoin de sortir de soi pour produire son effet; le christianisme et le cr&eacute;ationnisme; la cause &eacute;manative comme une cause dont l&#39;effet est ext&eacute;rieur mais qui n&#39;a pas besoin de sortir de lui-m&ecirc;me puisque son effet &eacute;mane de la cause; le philosophe n&eacute;oplatonicien du troisi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle Plotinus; la cause immanente comme une cause dont l&#39;effet reste dans la cause; Spinoza; &lt;em&gt;L&#39;Arch&eacute;ologie du savoir&lt;/em&gt; de Foucault; le statut de l&#39;audio-visuel, l&#39;intrication du voir-parler et les situations concr&egrave;tes; les formes d&#39;ext&eacute;riorit&eacute; chez Foucault, que toute forme est d&#39;ext&eacute;riorit&eacute;, et qu&#39;entre dire et voir il y a ext&eacute;riorit&eacute;; le dehors et les forces, la pens&eacute;e dehors et l&#39;ouvert; le po&egrave;te et romancier Boh&eacute;mien-Autrichien Rainer Maria Rilke; Blanchot; le philosophe allemand Martin Heidegger; Bergson; que tout diagramme vient de dehors comme une s&eacute;rie de r&eacute;-encha&icirc;nements, l&#39;&eacute;mission de coups de d&eacute;s; que le dehors est le lointain (absolu); le diagramme comme le dehors des formations historiques qui lui correspondent; que les singularit&eacute;s sont prises dans des rapports des forces au niveau du diagramme, elles sortent du dehors; les points de r&eacute;sistance et diagrammes; la ligne du dehors; et Foucault et le th&egrave;me de la mort de l&#39;Homme.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 25 February 1986. This is lecture 13 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.