What is Philosophy? (French: Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?) is a 1991 book by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. The two had met shortly after May 1968 when they were in their forties and collaborated most notably on Capitalism & Schizophrenia (Volume 1: Anti-Oedipus (1972); Volume 2: A Thousand Plateaus 1980) and Kafka: Towards a Minority Literature (1975). In this, the last book they co-signed, philosophy, science, and art are treated as three modes of thought.[1]
Deleuze commented in a letter to one of his translators that his purpose in writing What is Philosophy? was to address "the problem of absolute immanence" and to explain why he considered Baruch Spinoza the "prince of philosophers."[2]What is Philosophy? is concerned with, among the concepts that the book explores, the plane of immanence, conceptual personae, geophilosophy, functives, prospects, affects, percepts and chaos, as well as concepts in themselves understood as basic components of philosophy.
In a review of the translation of François Dosse's biography of Deleuze & Guattari, Adam Shatz writes that while it was Deleuze alone who wrote their final collaboration, the ideas of his longtime friend were still very much present in this "uncharacteristically sombre and subdued[,]" but "lyrical" book.[3] Mathias Schönher holds that What is Philosophy? is Deleuze and Guattari's last book jointly written. As evidence he cites the drafts and working notes from the Guattari Collection at the archives of the Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives (IMEC).[4]
Brody credited Deleuze and Guattari with "singular insights" into the nature of philosophy and the distinction between it and other disciplines, but believed that because of the way the book was written it was unclear whether their conclusions were correct or their views were fully intelligible.[5]
Academic receptionedit
What is Philosophy? was reviewed by M. R. Loudon in the British Journal of Educational Studies.[9] Other discussions include those by Stephen Arnott in Philosophy Today,[10] Isabelle Stengers in Angelaki,[11] Vikki Bell in Theory, Culture & Society,[12] Hanneke Grottenboer in Oxford Art Journal,[13] Daniel W. Smith in Parallax,[14] Ted Striphas in Text and Performance Quarterly,[15] David R. Cole in Educational Philosophy & Theory,[16] Henning Schmidgen in Theory, Culture & Society,[17] and Mathias Schönher in Theory, Culture & Society.[18]
Stuhr, writing in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, described the book as important, highly original, and challenging. He praised Deleuze and Guattari's discussions of the nature of concepts and the relationship of philosophy to science and art.[19] Plotnitsky defended the book against criticism from Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont in Paragraph.[20] Smith wrote that Deleuze and Guattari's definition of philosophy was famous.[14] Schmidgen argued that philosophy and science did not have such clearly distinct purposes as Deleuze and Guattari maintained.[17]
Criticismedit
In a chapter of Fashionable Nonsense, Sokal and Bricmont object to the use of scientific terms such as "chaos" in meaningless or misleading ways. They list a number of occurrences of what they deem to be "pseudo-scientific language".[21]
Alliez, Éric (2004). Signature of the World: 'What is Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy?. London: Continuum. ISBN 9780826456212.
Bell, Jeffrey (2016). Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy? A Critical Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748692538.
Butler, Rex (2015). Deleuze and Guattari's 'What is Philosophy?': A Reader's Guide. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781847065872.
Deleuze, Gilles; Joughin, Martin (1990). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. New York: Zone Books. ISBN 0-942299-51-5.
Gasché, Rodolphe (2014). Geophilosophy: On Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's What Is Philosophy?. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-2972-6.
Book Chapters
Sokal, Alan; Bricmont, Jean (1999). "Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari". Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science. New York: Picador. pp. 154–168. ISBN 0-312-20407-8.
Journals
Arnott, Stephen (1999). "In the shadow of chaos". Philosophy Today. 43 (1). – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Bell, Vikki (2008). "The Burden of Sensation and the Ethics of Form: Watching Capturing the Friedmans". Theory, Culture & Society. 25 (3). doi:10.1177/0263276408090659. S2CID 143907009. – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Brody, Leon H. (1994). "Book reviews: Arts & humanities". Library Journal. 119 (7). – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Cole, David R. (2015). "Educational non-philosophy". Educational Philosophy & Theory. 47 (10): 1009–1022. doi:10.1080/00131857.2015.1036827. S2CID 143171189. – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Grottenboer, Hanneke (2011). "The Pensive Image: On Thought in Jan van Huysum's Still Life Paintings". Oxford Art Journal. 34 (1). – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Plotnitsky, Arkady (2006). "Chaosmologies: Quantum Field Theory, Chaos and Thought in Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?". Paragraph. 29 (2): 40–56. doi:10.3366/prg.2006.0017. S2CID 143221959. – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Rajchman, John (1994). "Bookforum". Artforum. 32 (10). – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Schmidgen, Henning (2015). "Cerebral Drawings between Art and Science: On Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Concepts". Theory, Culture & Society. 32 (7–8): 123–149. doi:10.1177/0263276415616681. S2CID 147388145. – via EBSCO (subscription required)
Schönher, Mathias (2019). "Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Nature: System and Method in What is Philosophy?". Theory, Culture & Society. 36 (7–8): 89–107. doi:10.1177/0263276418820954. S2CID 150222414.
Schönher, Mathias (2020). "The Late Masterwork of Gilles Deleuze: Linking Style to Method in What Is Philosophy?". Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences. 29 (1): 25–63. doi:10.1215/10418385-8241901.
Shatz, Adam (2010). "Desire Was Everywhere". London Review of Books. 32 (24). ISBN 978-0-231-14560-2. review of François Dosse, trad. Deborah Glassman, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Intersecting Lives, Columbia
Smith, Daniel W. (2012). "On the Nature of Concepts". Parallax. 18 (1): 62–73. doi:10.1080/13534645.2012.632976. S2CID 146175816.
Smith, Daniel; Protevi, John (2018). "Gilles Deleuze". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. First published in Summer 2008