DOI: 10.4231/5exw-p129
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 20, 17 May 1983

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;Deleuze pursues discussion of the history of &ldquo;figures of thought&rdquo;, here explaining how the problem of such figures might, in fact, be considered as the problem of what is philosophy. After posing basic principles for thought in itself to think the possible (principles of identity, of non-contradiction, and of the excluded third) as well as to think the real (principles of causality and of finality), Deleuze emphasizes successive &ldquo;great moments&rdquo; in philosophy: Descartes and the importance of the Cogito; Leibniz&rsquo;s reformulation of the principle of identity; Kant&rsquo;s discovery of &ldquo;synthetic judgments&rdquo; (in contrast to Leibniz&rsquo;s &ldquo;analytic judgments&rdquo;), then post-Kantian philosophers&rsquo; definition of synthetic identity (Fichte and Schelling); and Hegel taking literally the principle of non-contradiction. Then distinguishing the dialectic of Ancient Greece with modern dialectics (the former as a struggle with tumult and chaos in order to invent a spiritual life with its own forms), Deleuze argues that this notion emerges in modern times through Romanticism (e.g., Novalis, H&ouml;lderlin) then in Expressionism, through the cry, providing some privileged examples. Then asking, what other paths might exist to reconcile thought and the &ldquo;existing&rdquo;, Deleuze describes &ldquo;either-or&rdquo; thought as the player&rsquo;s or gambler&rsquo;s thought. Deleuze here prepares the next session by indicating several examples: in cinema, Dreyer and Bresson; in philosophy, Pascal the Catholic, Kierkegaard the reformist, and Sartre the atheist (a philosophy of choice, with choice as occurring between different modes of existence); and in literature, the numerous choices of Proust&rsquo;s narrator, to which Deleuze links Pascal&rsquo;s text on the wager.&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;Deleuze poursuit la discussion de l&rsquo;histoire des &laquo; figures de la pens&eacute;e &raquo;, expliquant ici comment le probl&egrave;me de ces figures pourrait, en fait, &ecirc;tre consid&eacute;r&eacute; comme le probl&egrave;me de ce qu&rsquo;est la philosophie. Deleuze met l&rsquo;accent sur les &laquo; grands moments &raquo; successifs de la philosophie : Descartes et l&rsquo;importance du Cogito ; la reformulation par Leibniz du principe d&rsquo;identit&eacute; ; la d&eacute;couverte par Kant des &laquo; jugements synth&eacute;tiques &raquo; (par opposition aux &laquo; jugements analytiques &raquo; de Leibniz), puis la d&eacute;finition de l&rsquo;identit&eacute; synth&eacute;tique par les philosophes post-kantiens (Fichte et Schelling) ; et Hegel prenant au pied de la lettre le principe de non-contradiction. Se demandant ensuite quelles autres voies pourraient exister pour r&eacute;concilier la pens&eacute;e et l&rsquo;&laquo; existant &raquo;, Deleuze d&eacute;crit la pens&eacute;e &laquo; soit-ou &raquo; comme la pens&eacute;e du joueur. Deleuze pr&eacute;pare ici la s&eacute;ance suivante en indiquant plusieurs exemples : au cin&eacute;ma, Dreyer et Bresson ; en philosophie, Pascal le catholique, Kierkegaard le r&eacute;formiste, et Sartre l&rsquo;ath&eacute;e (une philosophie du choix, le choix s&rsquo;effectuant entre diff&eacute;rents modes d&rsquo;existence) ; et en litt&eacute;rature, les nombreux choix du narrateur de Proust, auxquels Deleuze rattache le texte de Pascal sur le pari.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 17 May 1983. This is lecture 20 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.