DOI: 10.4231/c5np-ft12
title: Anti-Oedipus I: Logic of Flows, Lecture 1, 16 November 1971

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;During his first year at Vincennes, where Deleuze began in fall 1970, he taught two seminars, back-to-back in the same three-hour weekly sessions, one titled &ldquo;Logic and Desire&rdquo;, the other titled &ldquo;Spinoza&rsquo;s Logic&rdquo; (with no documents on either currently available). Hence, the first transcripts available correspond to Deleuze&rsquo;s second year at Vincennes as he continues to expand the concepts developed for &lt;em&gt;Anti-Oedipus &lt;/em&gt;(published in March 1972) but also with the long view of the second volume, &lt;em&gt;A Thousand Plateaus&lt;/em&gt;, in progress with F&eacute;lix Guattari. Focusing on this forthcoming book, Deleuze with Guattari develop only one text for publication corresponding directly to the seminar, their first jointly published essay titled &ldquo;La synth&egrave;se disjonctive&rdquo;, in the journal &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;Arc&lt;/em&gt; 43 (1970), an issued dedicated to Pierre Klossowski.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In session 1, 16 November 1971, Deleuze lays out material from &lt;em&gt;Anti-Oedipus &lt;/em&gt;chapter four, notably the grounds for the important tasks of schizo-analysis, in contrast to traditional psychoanalysis, and also returning to the positions developed in &ldquo;Introduction to Schizo-analysis&rdquo; (chapter 4). Deleuze connects capitalism directly to schizophrenia, both based on decoded and deterritorialized flows, their identity occurring at the level of the economic process, through a system of conjunction, deterriorializing flows and then tying together an identity. Responding to student questions, Deleuze explores the internal threats to society, the danger of flows decoding themselves, and he considers competing anthropological explanations of flows and their blockages and possible recourses for continued flows, including sorcery, all of which is swept away by the introduction of money with a new circuit of consumption given that capitalism no longer counts on any code. Deleuze also details the opposition posed by schizo-analysis to psychoanalysis&rsquo;s introduction of the triangular axiomatic by emphasizing dual dimensions of desire: desiring machines working within the unconscious with no reference to Oedipus or castration, and desire understood in terms of its socio-political investments rather than familial. Hence the three tasks of schizo-analysis: the first destructive task, countering the Oedipal and castrating structures; a first positive task, a functional analysis of desiring machines; and a second positive task, understanding the investment of desiring machines in the social machines.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No recording of this session is available currently. The original French transcript provided here, in Open Data Text (odt) format, is from the WeDeleuze site, also with the revised French transcription and new English translation in odt format. [WebDeleuze was founded by Richard Pinhas -- a student in Deleuze&#39;s seminars -- who, with the Deleuze family&#39;s support, developed transcripts and translations of many of the seminars.]&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;Lors de cette s&eacute;ance 1, le 16 novembre 1971, Deleuze avait d&eacute;j&agrave; pass&eacute; une ann&eacute;e universitaire (1970-71) &agrave; d&eacute;velopper les &eacute;l&eacute;ments cl&eacute;s qui appara&icirc;traient dans &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;Anti-&OElig;dipe&lt;/em&gt;, publi&eacute; au d&eacute;but de 1972. Deleuze pr&eacute;sente ici des &eacute;l&eacute;ments du chapitre quatre de &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;Anti&lt;/em&gt;&ndash;&lt;em&gt;&OElig;dipe, &lt;/em&gt;notamment les fondements des t&acirc;ches importantes de la schizo-analyse, par opposition &agrave; la psychanalyse traditionnelle, et en revenant &eacute;galement aux positions d&eacute;velopp&eacute;es dans &laquo; Introduction &agrave; la schizo-analyse &raquo; (chapitre 4) : une premi&egrave;re t&acirc;che destructrice, contrer les structures &oelig;dipiennes et castratrices ; une premi&egrave;re t&acirc;che positive, une analyse fonctionnelle des machines d&eacute;sirantes ; et une seconde t&acirc;che positive, comprendre l&rsquo;investissement des machines d&eacute;sirantes dans les machines sociales.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Seminar with only 9 sessions available, given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the Vincennes University, 1971-72. The first lecture available was presented on 16 November 1971.