Splintered Desire - tracing the Spinoza, Leibniz, and Deleuze Threesome
‘If it was not for the Monad, Spinoza would be right’ (Leibniz).
‘All that Spinozism needed to do for the univocal to become an object of pure affirmation was to make substance turn around the modes -- in other words, to realize univocity in the form of repetition in the eternal return.’ (Deleuze).
The idea behind this paper originates in the way that these two quotes echo one another. Both of them seem to suggest that in the end Spinoza fails because he cannot grasp fully the importance of this ‘being singular’. And yet of course it is not as simple as this for Deleuze given his avowed Spinoza-ism. Deleuze will then not merely echo Leibniz’s criticism of Spinoza - but will at the same time attempt a parallel critique of Leibniz. The aim of this critique being to show that Leibniz would have been right if only he had understood that all incompossible worlds did not in fact represent differing worlds, bur were rather part of one chaosmos; and hence God was not so much an external force choosing between these options – but was rather a process within the world. In short Leibniz would have been right if he had kept both the Monad and God within the immanent world: That is, if he had accepted at least this key element of Spinoza.
My case will then be, that in understanding Deleuze’s treatment of Leibniz it is always necessary to remember both Leibniz’s and Deleuze’s very different relationships with Spinoza – and it is the nature of these differing relations that informs certain key chapters in Deleuze’s book ‘the Fold ‘– in particular the ‘Incompossibility, individuality, liberty’, and ‘What is an event?’. My argument will then centre on the two key ways in which Leibniz thinks that he has surpassed Spinoza - namely in distinguishing between continuals and substances, and in the exact nature of desire. I will try to show that whilst Deleuze will readily accept much of Leibniz’s criticism of Spinoza at least on a superficial level, it is always the case, in the final analysis, that Deleuze will break with Leibniz in order to defend what he feels to be the key revelation of Spinoza – namely that both continuity and desire need to be understood as they occur within an immanence.
The paper will then naturally fall into three sections. Firstly I will attempt to identify the deep kinship that runs through all three philosophers – in particular highlighting their shared mistrust of understanding the world in terms of parts and wholes or in terms of continuities understood in themselves; and their common endeavour to contrast these abstractions with entities which can simply inhabit the middle of difference. Secondly I will carefully trace the nature of Leibniz’s break with Spinoza – and attempt to demonstrate how this break moved Leibniz’s own understanding of the world towards the transcendental and away from the immanent (a move which he repeatedly stresses). Finally I will examine both the nature and plausibility of Deleuze’s subsequent attempt to move Leibnizian concepts back towards the immanent and Spinoza. I will then conclude with a brief assessment of what is left of Spinoza once one has taken this Leibnizian detour – and exactly why this detour is then so important to Deleuze.