Introduction

Spinoza and the problem of expression

The reading of Spinoza that Gilles Deleuze presents in Expressionism in
Philosophy1 is both challenging and controversial: challenging from the point of
view of the complexity with which it engages the ideas of Spinoza; and
controversial from the point of view of the extent to which it serves to redeploy
Spinoza within the context of Deleuzes own philosophical project. While closely
examining his reading of Spinoza, the present work focuses on the more
controversial issue of Deleuzes Spinozism, or the way in which Deleuze redeploys
Spinoza, or the Spinozist concepts that he extracts from Spinozas philosophy, in
his project of constructing a philosophy of difference. Deleuzes Spinozism is
examined in relation to both Expressionism in Philosophy and Difference and
Repetition,2 and to the seminars that Deleuze gave on Spinoza.3 What is proposed
therefore is a Deleuzian reading of Expressionism in Philosophy that positions
itself within the trajectory of the development of Deleuzes philosophy.
Deleuzes reading of Spinoza is explicated within the context of contemporary
French Spinoza studies, particularly in relation to the work of Martial Gueroult and
Pierre Macherey. However, it is in relation to Hegels interpretation of Spinoza and
the position that Hegel assigns to Spinoza in both the dialectical progression of the
history of philosophy and the development of his dialectical logic that Deleuze
strategically redeploys Spinoza. The process of actualization determined by the
Hegelian dialectical logic in relation to the history of philosophy is determinately
linear and progressive, insofar as it is predominantly preoccupied with overcoming
moments of discontinuity, an example of which would be the system of the
philosophy of Spinoza, each of which is at the centre of the necessity of an
evolutionary process, which determines the continuation of history.4
1

Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza, trans. M. Joughin (New

York, 1992).
2
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. P. Patton (New York, 1994).
3
Gilles Deleuzes seminars on Spinoza, entitled sur Spinoza, given between 1971
and 1987 at the Universit Paris VIII Vincennes and Vincennes St-Denis, have been
published on the internet at URL <http://www.webdeleuze.com>.
4
Juliette Simont, Essai sur la quantit, la qualit, la relation chez Kant, Hegel,
Deleuze. Les fleurs noires de la logique philosophique (Paris, 1997), p. 230. Simont also
writes that the continuity of history is the form or the method of deciphering the actual

The Logic of Expression

In Spinoza et la mthode de Gueroult, when reviewing Gueroults twovolume study of Spinoza,5 Deleuze details those elements of Gueroults method of
engagement with Spinoza that he considers to have had a profound effect both on
contemporary Spinoza studies, and also on the role of the history of philosophy in
the contemporary practice of philosophy in general. He argues that Gueroult
renewed the history of philosophy by a structuralgenetic method, which he had
elaborated well before structuralism imposed itself in other domains. Such a
structure is defined by an order of reasons, the reasons being differential and
generative elements of the corresponding system, veritable philosophemes which
only exist in their relations with each other.6 Gueroults admirable book, he
continues, has a double importance, both from the point of view of the general
method that it puts to work, and from the point of view of his Spinozism, which
does not represent one application of this method among others but rather
constitutes the most adequate, the most saturated, the most exhaustive term or
object concluding the series on Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz. This book
founds the veritable scientific study of Spinozism.7
This characterization of the method of Gueroult actually outlines Deleuzes
own philosophical project in Expressionism in Philosophy. It is there that Deleuze
undertakes the project of renewing the history of philosophy in relation to Spinoza.
The structuralgenetic criteria that Deleuze deploys are determined according to a
logic of expression, which is elaborated in Difference and Repetition in relation to
the differential calculus as a logic of different/ciation. The differential and
generative elements of this logic exist solely in the differential relations that they
have with each other. Expressionism in Philosophy is also doubly important, not
only insofar as it too advocates the scientific study of Spinozism, in particular
Spinozas relation to mathematics and the differential calculus of Leibniz, but also
insofar as it is the final text of a series of works on figures in the history of
philosophy: Hume, Nietzsche, Bergson,8 which constitutes Deleuzes project of
renewing the history of philosophy by constructing an alternative lineage in the
history of philosophy. With this series of texts Deleuze proposes a new way of
reading the figures of the history of philosophy, neither as the possessors of a truth
whose reactualization is being attempted, nor as the objects of an infinite
deconstruction, nor as the occupants of a privileged enclave accessible only to

connections of the historians reading, the individuation of the systems of which is the
material or the discontinuous content (p. 231). All citations quoted from French language
texts are my translations, unless otherwise indicated.
5
Martial Gueroult, Spinoza (t. III, Paris, 196874).
6
Deleuze, Spinoza et la mthode gnrale de Gueroult, Revue de Mtaphysique et
de Morale, 74 (1969), p. 426.
7
Ibid., p. 437.
8
Deleuze later returns to this series with a text on Leibniz.

Spinoza and the problem of expression

the erudite historian, but as interlocutors directly implicated in the construction

and experimentation of new [modes] of thought.9
In The encounter with Spinoza, Macherey critiques Deleuzes reading of
Spinoza by questioning whether it is consistent with the original sense of the work
he purports to analyze, or does it rather misrepresent Spinozas philosophy.10
Macherey maintains that Deleuze attempts to introduce a new version of
Spinozism that [is] at variance, if not completely at odds, with the model of
demonstrative rationality explicitly adopted by Spinoza himself.11 Macherey is one
of the most respected of contemporary Spinoza scholars in France, whose fivevolume study of the Ethics, entitled Introduction lEthique de Spinoza,12
attempts, by extracting the persistent difficulties of Spinozism, to establish an
internal coherence to the system of the text. However, it is in relation to Hegels
interpretation of Spinoza that Macherey first distinguished himself as a Spinoza
scholar of repute. Chapter 1 examines his first major work on Spinoza, Hegel ou
Spinoza,13 which challenges the influence of Hegels reading of Spinoza by
stressing the degree to which Spinoza eludes the grasp of the Hegelian dialectical
progression of the history of philosophy. Macherey argues that Hegel provides a
defensive misreading of Spinoza, and that he had to misread him in order to
maintain his teleological subjective idealism. The suggestion being that Spinozas
philosophy represents, not a moment that can be simply sublated and subsumed
within the dialectical progression of the history of philosophy, but rather an
alternative point of view for the development of a philosophy that overcomes
Hegelian idealism.
Deleuze also considers Spinozas philosophy to resist the totalizing effects of
the dialectic. Indeed, Deleuze demonstrates, by means of Spinoza, that a more
complex philosophy antedates Hegels which cannot be supplanted by it. Spinoza
therefore becomes a significant figure in Deleuzes project of tracing an alternative
lineage in the history of philosophy, which, by distancing itself from Hegelian
idealism, culminates in the construction of a philosophy of difference. Rather than
attempting to determine the elements of Deleuze already in Hegel,14 or the
adequacy of the Hegelian elements in Deleuze,15 or elaborating a Deleuzian

Manola Antonioli, Deleuze et lhistoire de la philosophie (Paris, 1999), p. 10.

Pierre Macherey, The encounter with Spinoza, trans. M. Joughin, in Paul Patton
(ed.), Deleuze, A Critical Reader (Oxford and Cambridge, 1996), p. 142.
11
Ibid., p. 141.
12
Pierre Macherey, Introduction lEthique de Spinoza (t. IV, Paris, 199498).
13
Pierre Macherey, Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris, 1979).
14
Pierre Verstraten recognizes in the thought of Hegel an unexpected premonition
of that of Deleuze, see La question du negative chez Deleuze, Gilles Deleuze (Paris,
1998), p. 176.
15
Is Deleuzes Hegel perhaps too Kojvian? See Simont, p. 276.
10

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16

Hegel or a Hegelian Deleuze,17 or, on the contrary, claiming that no encounter is

possible,18 an alternative approach to the determination of the relation between
Deleuze and Hegel is to read their respective interpretations of Spinoza, and the
role that they each assign to Spinoza in the development of their respective
philosophical projects, together, alongside of each other, and also in direct relation
to each other. This strategy entails examining those points of convergence between
the elements of their respective interpretations of Spinoza, in order then to
determine what sets them radically apart. It is in the logic of the relations
established between the elements of their respective interpretations of Spinoza that
this radical difference is manifested, and it is by means of the determination of this
difference in logic between their respective interpretations of Spinoza that the
difference in the logic of their respective philosophical projects in general is
determined.
Spinozas role in this strategy is demonstrated in chapter 2 by differentiating
Deleuzes interpretation of the geometrical example of Spinozas Letter XII (on the
problem of the infinite) from that which Hegel presents in the Science of Logic.19
Both Hegel and Deleuze each position the geometrical example at different stages
in the early development of the differential calculus. By demonstrating the relation
between the differential point of view of the infinitesimal calculus and the
differential calculus of contemporary mathematics, it is argued in chapter 3 that
Deleuze effectively bypasses the methods of the differential calculus which Hegel
uses to support the development of the dialectical logic. By exploiting the
implications of the differential point of view of the infinitesimal calculus in his
interpretation of the physics of bodies in the second part of the Ethics, Deleuze is
able to read the system of the Ethics as a whole as determined according to the
logic of different/ciation. The explication of this reading strategy is what
constitutes the Deleuzian reading of Expressionism in Philosophy that is
undertaken in the present work. This strategy of reading the Ethics as determined
according to a logic of different/ciation marks not only the originality of Deleuzes
interpretation of Spinoza, but also one of the points where Deleuze can be
considered to depart from the Cartesian and Hegelian Spinoza familiar to scholars
16
Juliette Simont actually argues that Deleuzes Hegel is perhaps too Hegelian, a
terribly Hegelian Hegel, and proposes instead another Hegel, the other Hegel, who is
perhaps too Deleuzian, or is only possible when read across Deleuze (Ibid., p. 297).
17
Catherine Malabou, in Whos afraid of Hegelian Wolves? (Patton, Deleuze, A
Critical Reader), argues that doing justice to Deleuzes finely wrought thinking concerning
affirmation implies, in my opinion, affirming Hegels role in it (p. 136).
18
Manola Antonioli, in Deleuze et lhistoire de la philosophie, argues that with Hegel
no encounter is possible: the recourse to the negative and to contradiction is
irreconcilable with the affirmative presuppositions of the Deleuzian philosophy, there is
nothing to put together between Deleuze and Hegel (p. 80).
19
G.W.F. Hegel, Hegels Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (London, 1969), p. 251.

Spinoza and the problem of expression

working in the field of Spinoza studies by tracing an alternative lineage in the

history of philosophy between Spinozas ontology and the mathematics of Leibniz.

One of the recurring critiques of Deleuzes reading of Spinoza in Expressionism in

Philosophy is that the Deleuzian concepts inspired by Spinozist ideas are nowhere
to be found in the text of the Ethics. Macherey conducts his critique of
Expressionism in Philosophy in The encounter with Spinoza by disputing such
Deleuzian concepts, in particular the concept of joyful passive affections, which
is addressed in chapter 7, and the concept of expression, which is addressed in
chapter 10. In quality and quantity in the philosophy of Spinoza, Charles Ramond
disputes Deleuzes use of the concept of intensive quantity in Expressionism in
Philosophy. He argues that we can only be surprised to see Deleuze make the
notion of intensive quantity the foundation of his interpretation of Spinozas
theory of the essence of singular things, as if Spinoza had effectively supported
such a position. In relation to the concept of intensity and to that of intensive
parts Ramond argues that: According to Deleuze, Spinoza locates, by using the
notion of intensity, a long Scholastic tradition, of which only Scotism,
without more precision, is evoked; and that When Deleuze declares that, in
Spinoza, modal essences are intensive parts, he utters an assertion strictly
incomprehensible within the framework of Spinozism.20 However, these
Deleuzian concepts are, more often than not, considered and criticized for
themselves, independently of the context which supports their exposition because
of its extremely technical character. It is by means of these concepts in
Expressionism in Philosophy that Deleuze shifts the reading of the philosophy of
Spinoza onto an entirely different terrain. Rather than reading the philosophy of
Spinoza either solely in relation to Descartes, or simply as one stage in the
dialectical progression of the history of philosophy, Deleuze reads the philosophy
of Spinoza insofar as it contributes to the construction of an alternative lineage in
the history of philosophy, which features the work of Duns Scotus, in particular the
concept of formal distinction, the concept of the univocity of being and the concept
of individuality. Deleuze does not read Spinoza as a Scotist, but rather, by reading
Scotus alongside of Spinoza, he examines Spinozas reformulation of these Scotist
concepts in order to develop those aspects of Spinozas philosophy that are
specifically Anticartesian. The mechanism by means of which Deleuze does this is
elaborated in chapter 4. This Anticartesian reading of Spinoza provides the
framework for the development of a reading of Spinoza that challenges the
Hegelian concept of the dialectical progression of the history of philosophy. The
Deleuzian domain of engagement with Spinoza is determined therefore by
deterritorializing a fairly traditional reading of Spinoza from a particularly
20

201.

Charles Ramond, qualit et quantit dans la philosophie de Spinoza (Paris, 1995), p.

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Cartesian and Hegelian point of view, to that of a more Scotist and even Leibnizian
point of view, thereby determining an alternative lineage in the history of
philosophy.
Deleuze considers Spinozas Ethics to have given expression to the concept of
individuality, whose themes can be found scattered among several other authors of
the seventeenth century: for Deleuzes purposes most notably in the work of Duns
Scotus. In relation to the concept of individuality, the Hegelian categories of
quantity, quality and relation, which articulate differences in the distances or
dimensions of things (quantity), in their nature (quality), and in their order
(relation), are considered by Deleuze to be antedated by the three different
dimensions of the individual as presented by Spinoza, namely relation, power
(quantity), and mode (quality). The individual is characterized as relation insofar as
there is a composition of individuals in relation to one another, or amongst
themselves. In chapter 2 it is argued that the infinitesimal calculus puts into play a
certain type of relation for Deleuze the differential relation which is
characteristic of the compositional relations between individuals. The
characterization of the individual as power (potentia) indicates the individuals
capacity to compose new relations with other individuals. The concept of potentia,
which is translated by the concept of power as force or capacity, is different to that
of potestas, which is translated by power in the juridicopolitical sense of the
term,21 insofar as it expresses that which an individual body can do, and which is
verified by joy. Composition therefore refers not only to the characteristic relations
between individuals, but also to the capacity or potential to create these kinds of
relations, the mechanism of which is determined as operating according to the logic
of different/ciation, and is elaborated in chapter 3. The third dimension of the
individual is characterized as mode, which Deleuze considers to be expressive of
the Scotist concept of an intrinsic mode. Deleuzes characterization of the
intrinsic mode of an individual as the intensive part, or singular modal essence,
of an individual, or of its corresponding finite existing mode, is elaborated in
chapter 4. The mechanism by means of which intensive parts are distinguished not
only from one another, but also from the extensive parts corresponding to them, is
determined as operating according to the logic of different/ciation. The question of
how the intensive parts of different individuals are differentiated from one another
as more or less powerful is then investigated in chapter 5. Chapter 6 raises the
question of whether the power, or capacity, of an individual, which Deleuze
characterizes as its power to act, should be understood to be fixed or variable, and
21

Eugene Holland notes that Martial Gueroult, in his two-volume study of Spinoza, is
one of the first to demonstrate the importance of the distinction between potentia and
potestas in Spinoza (Holland, Spinoza and Marx, Cultural Logic, 2.1 (Fall, 1998), 29).
For a thorough examination of the social and political implications of this distinction in
relation to Spinoza see Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: the power of Spinozas
metaphysics and politics, trans. M. Hardt (Minneapolis, 1991).

Spinoza and the problem of expression

how such a power to act is implicated in the transformations of the characteristic

relations determinative of an individual. Deleuzes disputed distinction of passions
into joyful passive affections and sad passive affections is elaborated in chapter 7,
as is the manner by means of which joyful passive affections are pivotal in
determining the transition from inadequate ideas of the imagination to adequate
ideas of reason. Chapter 8 investigates in detail the mechanism by means of which
joyful passive affections are implicated in the dynamic changes or transformations
of the characteristic relations determinative of an individual by mapping the
mathematical concept of accumulation onto the ontological concept of the
accumulation of joyful passive affections, such that there are correspondences
without resemblance that are of a structuralgenetic nature22 between them, that
is, insofar as both are determined as operating according to the logic of
different/ciation.
The distinction between the duration of an individual, or of its finite modal
existence, and its eternity is investigated in chapter 9, where the thesis that
occupies the fifth part of the Ethics which deals with the relation between death and
the eternity of the soul according to the third kind of knowledge, and which is often
mistaken for a discussion advocating the immortality of the soul, is developed. That
which concerns the concept of eternity in the Ethics has interested scholars and
commentators since the earliest interpretations of Spinoza, which were used either
to reinforce piety by espousing ones opposition to Spinozas atheism, or, on the
contrary, and more rarely, to justify ones pantheism by defending Spinozism.23
These studies often took the form of demonstrating that the thesis on eternity in
part five was incoherent with that of the preceding parts of the Ethics, notably with
the principle of parallelism. This aspect of the Ethics is still widely disputed among
scholars working in the field of Spinoza studies. My contention is that Deleuzes
argument from powers, which is explicated in chapter 9 according to the logic of
different/ciation, demonstrates an alternative approach that allows a better
comprehension of the coherence between the different parts of the Ethics. The logic
of different/ciation is therefore determinative not only of the mechanism by means
of which joyful passive affections operate in Deleuzes reading of the Ethics, but it
is also the logic that is determinative of Deleuzes reading of the system of the
Ethics as a whole.

The project of the present work is to develop an understanding of Deleuzes

Spinoza by providing a Deleuzian reading of Expressionism in Philosophy, which
involves not only determining the mechanism of operation of the logic of
22

Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 184.

For an account of the multiple conflicting readings of Spinozas early interpreters
see Frederick C. Beiser, The fate of reason: German philosophy from Kant to Fichte
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987).
23

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different/ciation in Expressionism in Philosophy, but also involves positioning

Deleuzes Spinoza, and the logic with which it is explicated, within the context of
the development of Deleuzes wider philosophical project. Such a Deleuzian
reading of Expressionism in Philosophy is therefore important for the
determination of the way in which Spinoza becomes for Deleuze a significant
figure in his project of tracing an alternative lineage in the history of philosophy,
and serves well to situate Expressionism in Philosophy within the context of
Deleuzes project of constructing a philosophy of difference. The context of this
dual Deleuzian project is explicated in chapter 10 in relation to Deleuzes other
major text from the same period, Difference and Repetition.
It is in Difference and Repetition, in relation to the Scotist concept of the
univocity of being, that Deleuze specifically positions Spinoza as a significant
figure in the project of tracing an alternative lineage in the history of philosophy.
He argues that there are three principal moments in the history of the
philosophical elaboration of the univocity of being,24 which he locates
respectively in the work of Scotus, Spinoza and Nietzsche. My argument in chapter
10 is that this alternative lineage in the history of philosophy only makes sense in
relation to the demands of a concept of temporality that is determined according to
the logic of different/ciation.
In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze claims that philosophy is the discipline that
involves creating concepts.25 The manner by means of which concepts are created
is determined by the encounters between the concepts belonging to philosophies of
the past which generate the problems of which the new concepts are the solution.
The concepts of philosophies of the past, to which Deleuze refers, are determined
in relation to the history of philosophy and include, for example, the Scotist
concept of univocity, the Spinozist concept of Substance as immanent cause, and
the Nietzschean concept of the eternal return. It is by means of the encounters
between these concepts (of the past) that, on the one hand, new concepts are
created, and that, on the other hand, the problem, onto which each of these
concepts (of the past) is grafted, is generated. The determination of these concepts
(of the past) and of the manner by means of which the encounters between them
create new concepts and generate problems is explicated in chapter 10 according to
the logic of different/ciation.
The concept of expression and the concept of intensity are two other concepts
whose explication is pivotal in determining the manner by means of which Deleuze
reads the Ethics in Expressionism in Philosophy. What is expression? And what is
the relation between Spinozas Ethics and the concept of expression explicated by
Deleuze in Expressionism in Philosophy? These questions are addressed in chapter
10 where I contend that it is in relation to the concept of expression that the logic
24

Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 39.

Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, trans. H. Tomlinson and G.
Burchell (New York, 1994), p. 5.
25

Spinoza and the problem of expression

of different/ciation is explicated in the text of Expressionism in Philosophy as a

logic of expression. It is according to the logic of expression that the Spinozist
concept of Substance as immanent cause and the Nietzschean concept of the
eternal return are problematized in relation to one another in Difference and
Repetition, thereby creating the Deleuzian concept of intensity. It is by means of
the development of the problematic relation between the Deleuzian concept of
intensity, which is determined according to the logic of expression, and the concept
of intensity determined rather by the Hegelian dialectical logic, that the logic of
expression is determined as an alternative to the Hegelian dialectical logic. Insofar
as the logic of expression is determined as the logic according to which the
philosophy of difference is constructed, it functions not only as an alternative to
the Hegelian dialectical logic, but it is also determined as the logic according to
which the philosophy of difference functions as an alternative to the dialectical
philosophy determined by the Hegelian dialectical logic. Deleuzes reading of
Spinoza in Expressionism in Philosophy therefore redeploys Spinoza in relation to
an alternative lineage in the history of philosophy in order to mobilize his
philosophy of difference as an alternative to the dialectical philosophy determined
by the Hegelian dialectical logic.
While acknowledging some of the problematical elements of Deleuzes
challenging interpretation of Spinoza, the central focus of the work remains an
examination of the manner by means of which Spinoza is mobilized by Deleuze in
his project of constructing a philosophy of difference. The reading of Deleuzes
philosophy that is presented in the present work is therefore resolutely partial.
Neither the implications of Deleuzes Spinozism for understanding his other works,
nor the extent to which these are influenced by his Spinozism is treated in any great
detail. Indeed when certain of these texts are nevertheless referred to, it is solely in
order to better determine the schema of problematization associated with the
development of the logic of expression in Expressionism in Philosophy, or serves
merely to suggest the implications of such a development for Deleuzes subsequent
works. As for the latter, rather than suggesting in detail the full range of potential
implications, that which is suggested is solely the manner by means of which these
implications are determined, that is, that they too are determinable according to the
logic of expression. For example, the present work concludes by suggesting the
implications of the logic of expression for determining an understanding of the
relation between, what Deleuze and Guattari refer to in What is Philosophy? as, a
philosophys plane of immanence, and the concepts created by this philosophy that
are distributed over this plane.