Four things Deleuze learned from Leibniz
pp. 25-45
in: Sjoerd van Tuinen, Niamh Mcdonnell (eds), Deleuze and the fold, Berlin, Springer, 2010Abstract
According to Deleuze's critique of the "regimes of representation' in Difference and Repetition, Leibniz belongs, with Hegel, in the category of philosophers who instead of overcoming representation made it infinite, hereby producing a "delirium' which "is only a pre-formed false delirium which poses no threat to the repose or serenity of the identical' (DR 50, 42–3, 88, 263–5). According to the same work however, there is still something about Leibniz which makes him superior to the German master of negativity: "the ground rumbles with greater power in the case of Leibniz […] the intoxicaton and giddiness are less feigned in his case, why obscurity is better understood and the Dionysian shores are closer' (ibid., 264, 49). It is this "Dionysian' Leibniz to whom Deleuze admits his indebtedness in the preface to the English edition of Expressionism in Philosophy (cf. EPS Preface). It is also the Leibniz that Deleuze refers to when, in Negotiations, he says: "Leibniz is fascinating because perhaps no other philosopher created so much. They're at first sight extremely odd notions, almost crazy' (N 154). Finally, and most importantly, it is the Leibniz that we encounter in The Fold.
