DOI: 10.4231/sbge-cg65
title: Kant: Synthesis and Time, Lecture 1, 14 March 1978

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;In 1963, Deleuze published a tightly articulated book on Kant, &lt;em&gt;La philosophie critique de Kant &lt;/em&gt;(translated as &lt;em&gt;Kant&rsquo;s Critical Philosophy&lt;/em&gt;) that lays out (in the introduction) the &ldquo;transcendental method&rdquo;, then in three successive chapters, outlines the relations of the faculties as presented, respectively, in the &lt;em&gt;Critique of Pure Reason&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;Critique of Practical Reason, &lt;/em&gt;and the &lt;em&gt;Critique of Judgement, &lt;/em&gt;with a brief conclusion on &ldquo;les fins de la raison&rdquo;, the &ldquo;ends of reason&rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Years later, in &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;Ab&eacute;c&eacute;daire &lt;/em&gt;(&ldquo;K as in Kant&rdquo;), Deleuze describes his motivation for working on a philosopher with whom he had little in common: first, for Deleuze, Kant&rsquo;s writing constituted such a turning point in numerous ways and, second, he initiated something in philosophy that had never been advanced previously, a tribunal of reason and things being judged as a function of this tribunal. Deleuze argues that Kant&rsquo;s greatness is due to creating a whole undergirding in his works that makes Deleuze quite enthusiastic, while on top of the undergirding is a system of judgment that Deleuze says he would like to do away with, but without standing in judgment.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Let us also note that during the 1977-78 academic year, one possible topic for an oral explication in the national &lt;em&gt;agr&eacute;gation de philosophie&lt;/em&gt; examination was of a German language text by Kant (from the &lt;em&gt;Critique of Judgment,&lt;/em&gt; Introduction, &ldquo;Analytik des Sch&ouml;ne&rdquo;). Besides offering a mini-seminar on Spinoza earlier in the same academic year, perhaps Deleuze&rsquo;s choice for this brief seminar on Kant linked his students&rsquo; needs for the &lt;em&gt;agr&eacute;gation&lt;/em&gt; to his own interests.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In session 1, 14 March 1978, Deleuze starts by highlighting Kant&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Critique of Pure Reason&lt;/em&gt; and suggests that rather than attempting to understand this &ldquo;stifling philosophy&rdquo;, one should just get into the rhythm of Kant and his philosophy in order to reach the hidden architecture underneath. In introducing these sessions, Deleuze already insists on this fundamental definition of what constitutes philosophy, the creation of concepts that are no less creative than the works of a painter or a musician, and hence foreshadows the final work in collaboration with Guattari, What Is Philosophy? Deleuze concludes that Kant&rsquo;s construction of his system occurred to establish the correspondence of spatio-temporal determinations and conceptual determinations. Returning to the expression from Hamlet, &ldquo;time is out of joint&rdquo;, Deleuze expresses how time is no longer subordinated as the number of nature or the measure of movement (hence is &ldquo;out of joint&rdquo;), but rather becomes pure and empty time, with movement subordinated to it. Promising to consider this expression more fully in the next session, Deleuze proposes another, mysterious expression, from Kant&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Opus Postumum&lt;/em&gt;, regarding time as the form under which the subject affects itself. Kant thus leaves behind time understood as order of succession, rejecting the definition of time by any of its modes (duration or permanence, coexistence, and succession). As for space, for Kant, it is the pure form of exteriority, and thus time is the form of interiority, the affection of self by self&lt;em&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No recording of this session is available currently. This dataset includes three files: a revised French transcription and new English translation in odt format, and the original French transcript from WebDeleuze. [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;Dans la s&eacute;ance 1, le 14 mars 1978, Deleuze commence par mettre en &eacute;vidence la &lt;em&gt;Critique de la raison pure de Kant&lt;/em&gt; et sugg&egrave;re que plut&ocirc;t que de tenter de comprendre cette &laquo; philosophie &eacute;touffante &raquo;, il faut simplement entrer dans le rythme de Kant et de sa philosophie afin d&rsquo;atteindre l&rsquo;architecture cach&eacute;e en dessous. En introduisant ces s&eacute;ances, Deleuze insiste d&eacute;j&agrave; sur cette d&eacute;finition fondamentale de ce qui constitue la philosophie, la cr&eacute;ation de concepts qui ne sont pas moins cr&eacute;atifs que les &oelig;uvres d&rsquo;un peintre ou d&rsquo;un musicien, et il pr&eacute;figure ainsi l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre finale en collaboration avec Guattari, &lt;em&gt;Qu&rsquo;est-ce que la philosophie ?&lt;/em&gt; Deleuze conclut que la construction du syst&egrave;me de Kant s&rsquo;est produite pour &eacute;tablir la correspondance entre les d&eacute;terminations spatio-temporelles et les d&eacute;terminations conceptuelles. Revenant &agrave; l&rsquo;expression d&rsquo;Hamlet, &laquo; le temps est hors des gonds &raquo;, Deleuze consid&egrave;re comment le temps n&rsquo;est plus subordonn&eacute; au nombre de la nature ou &agrave; la mesure du mouvement (il est donc &laquo; hors des gonds &raquo;), mais devient plut&ocirc;t du temps pur et vide, le mouvement lui &eacute;tant subordonn&eacute;. Promettant de revenir plus longuement sur cette expression lors de la prochaine s&eacute;ance, Deleuze propose une autre expression, myst&eacute;rieuse, tir&eacute;e de l&rsquo;&lt;em&gt;Opus Postumum &lt;/em&gt;de Kant, qui consid&egrave;re le temps comme la forme sous laquelle le sujet s&rsquo;affecte lui-m&ecirc;me. Kant abandonne ainsi le temps entendu comme ordre de succession, rejetant la d&eacute;finition du temps selon ses divers modes (dur&eacute;e ou permanence, coexistence et succession). Quant &agrave; l&rsquo;espace, pour Kant, il est la forme pure de l&rsquo;ext&eacute;riorit&eacute;, et donc le temps est la forme de l&rsquo;int&eacute;riorit&eacute;, l&rsquo;affection de soi par soi.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Seminar with four sessions, presented by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the Vincennes University in March-April 1978, before continuing to develop work on the War Machine for A Thousand Plateaus.