DOI: 10.4231/v8q1-va29
title: Leibniz and the Baroque, Lecture 15, 28 April 1987

description: &lt;p&gt;A series of lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8. This fifteenth lecture is organized within a 20-lecture seminar that Deleuze taught between October 1986 and June 1987, presented on April 28, 1987.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Deleuze takes the opportunity to outline an early version of his study on the very important question, &ldquo;What is philosophy?&rdquo;, and then to begin to address a final point for the course&rsquo;s second part, the notion of substance. Deleuze links the meaning of the Whitehead-Leibniz comparison to the philosophical enterprise, notably the statement &ldquo;everything is event&rdquo; since, for Whitehead, the components of the event are capable of making us understand its different domains and their relations. Deleuze then returns to the comparative study of the notion of substance, turning to the Greek use of the term in Aristotle as something concrete, &ldquo;that which is&rdquo; or &ldquo;Be-ing&rdquo; (&lt;em&gt;l&rsquo;&eacute;tant&lt;/em&gt;), then jumping to Descartes and on to Leibniz. Deleuze examines the sense of &ldquo;distinct&rdquo; in Descartes who seeks to define each substance through an attribute belonging to it properly and positively, and he provides a logic of distinction with three types (abstraction, modal distinction, real distinction). Deleuze suggests in closing it is on Descartes theory of distinction that Leibniz&rsquo;s polemic with him will explode.&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;Deleuze saisit l&rsquo;occasion d&rsquo;esquisser une premi&egrave;re version de son &eacute;tude sur la question tr&egrave;s importante &laquo; Qu&rsquo;est-ce que la philosophie ? &raquo;, puis de commencer &agrave; aborder un dernier point de la deuxi&egrave;me partie du cours, la notion de substance. Deleuze rappelle qu&rsquo;&agrave; l&rsquo;essentialisme commun &agrave; Aristote et &agrave; Descartes, Leibniz oppose un &laquo; mani&eacute;risme &raquo;, et il ajoute un commentaire sur la manie des oppositions dans la pens&eacute;e antique pour souligner la grande innovation du XVIIe si&egrave;cle consistant &agrave; r&eacute;duire les oppositions &agrave; une simple limitation, en substituant &agrave; la th&eacute;orie des contraires une logique de pure distinction. Deleuze sugg&egrave;re en conclusion que c&rsquo;est sur la th&eacute;orie de la distinction de Descartes que la pol&eacute;mique de Leibniz avec lui va &eacute;clater.&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 fifteenth session was presented on April 28, 1987.