DELEUZE’S CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATION BETWEEN POST-STRUCTURALISM AND SPECULATIVE REALISM
DELEUZE’S CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATION BETWEEN POST-STRUCTURALISM AND SPECULATIVE REALISM

Summary/Abstract: Gilles Deleuze’s thought is uniquely placed at the interface of post-structuralism and the speculative/ontological turn which marked the humanities in general and continental philosophy in particular at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On the one hand, Deleuze shares with his post-structuralist contemporaries the commitment to Nietzsche’s project of overturning Platonism and the critique of representation. On the other hand, while post-structuralism for the most part unfolded under the aegis of Heidegger’s pronouncements on the end of philosophy and the overcoming of metaphysics, for Deleuze the critique of representation constitutes the necessary condition for the reaffirmation of philosophy’s rights to metaphysical speculation. In this respect, Deleuze can be regarded as an important predecessor to the speculative/ontological turn. Therefore an engagement with Deleuze’s thought presents an opportunity to better understand the current conjuncture in the humanities. This paper presents an account of Deleuze’s critique of representation by tracing his argument against representation and in favour of intuitive knowledge and speculative metaphysics through a close reading of a few select and particularly revealing places in Deleuze’s early writings. The conclusion then places this discussion of Deleuze’s thought in the context of the recent turn in the humanities and continental philosophy away from post-structuralism and towards speculative realism.

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