DOI: 10.4231/3r4k-rs69
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 4, 07 December 1982

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;&ldquo;Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time&rdquo; was a 23-lecture seminar given from November 1982 to June 1983. This seminar revisits many of the main themes from the previous year&rsquo;s seminar (&quot;Cinema 1: The Movement-Image&quot;), and Deleuze commences the year by explaining that whereas he usually changes topics from one year to the next, he feels compelled to continue with the current topic and, in fact, to undertake a process of &ldquo;philosophy in the manner of cows, rumination&hellip; I want entirely and truly to repeat myself, to start over by repeating myself.&rdquo; Hence, the 1982-83 Seminar consists in once again taking up Bergson&rsquo;s theses on perception, but now with greater emphasis on the aspects of classification of images and signs drawn from C.S. Peirce. This allows Deleuze to continue the shift from considering the movement-image, that dominated early 20th century cinema, toward a greater understanding of the post-World War II emphasis on the time-image.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After answering questions from students and then reviewing the six types of images previously outlined, Deleuze draws upon Bergson again to continue the classification process, but then suggests that with Bergson&rsquo;s usefulness now over, the focus will be Peirce&rsquo;s theory of signs, notably the three categories in Peirce&rsquo;s system (Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness and their intersection with images and signs). Commencing with Secondness (the coupling of force-resistance or action-reaction), Deleuze introduces at once the problem of individuation and the category of the real and then, regarding Firstness, he establishes its characteristics and links it to the affection-image and pure affect. Also emphasizing the importance of the event as concept, Deleuze links these categories to Blanchot and P&eacute;guy, with Thirdness remaining to be linked to these first two categories in the next session.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, the complete French transcription and English translation in Open Document (odt) format, and the original Paris 8 French transcript.&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; Cin&eacute;ma: de la classification des signes et le temps &raquo; a &eacute;t&eacute; un s&eacute;minaire de 23 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; de novembre 1982 &agrave; juin 1983. Ce s&eacute;minaire a repris certains des th&egrave;mes principaux du s&eacute;minaire de l&#39;ann&eacute;e pr&eacute;c&eacute;dente (&laquo; L&rsquo;image-mouvement, Leҫons bergsoniennes sur le cin&eacute;ma &raquo;), et en offre d&#39;autres consid&eacute;rations. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze examine le cin&eacute;ma et la philosophie bergsonienne vis-&agrave;-vis d&#39;une gamme de philosophes, des modernes aux existentialistes. Deleuze discute &eacute;galement de nombreux artistes et &eacute;crivains qui apparaissent dans les autres s&eacute;minaires sue le cin&eacute;ma.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Apr&egrave;s avoir r&eacute;pondu aux questions des &eacute;tudiants et avoir pass&eacute; en revue les six types d&rsquo;images pr&eacute;c&eacute;demment d&eacute;crits, Deleuze s&rsquo;appuie &agrave; nouveau sur Bergson pour poursuivre le processus de classification, mais sugg&egrave;re ensuite que l&rsquo;utilit&eacute; de Bergson &eacute;tant d&eacute;sormais d&eacute;pass&eacute;e, l&rsquo;accent sera mis sur la th&eacute;orie des signes de Peirce, notamment sur les trois cat&eacute;gories du syst&egrave;me de Peirce (la Prim&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;, la Second&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; et la Tierc&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; et leur intersection avec les images et les signes). En commen&ccedil;ant par la Second&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; (le couplage force-r&eacute;sistance ou action-r&eacute;action), Deleuze introduit d&rsquo;embl&eacute;e le probl&egrave;me de l&rsquo;individuation et la cat&eacute;gorie du r&eacute;el, puis, concernant la Prim&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;, il &eacute;tablit ses caract&eacute;ristiques et la relie &agrave; l&rsquo;image-affection et &agrave; l&rsquo;affect pur. Soulignant &eacute;galement l&rsquo;importance de l&rsquo;&eacute;v&eacute;nement comme concept, Deleuze relie ces cat&eacute;gories &agrave; Blanchot et &agrave; P&eacute;guy, la Tierc&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; restant &agrave; &ecirc;tre reli&eacute; aux deux premi&egrave;res cat&eacute;gories lors de la prochaine s&eacute;ance.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 07 December 1982. This is lecture 4 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.