Episode #125 - Gilles Deleuze Pt. 1 - What is Philosophy?
Gilles Deleuze Pt. 1 - What is Philosophy?
In this opening episode on Gilles Deleuze, the podcast traces the evolution of Western philosophy through the lens of postmodern critique, especially in how philosophy has historically aimed to define "truth" or "being" through increasingly refined systems. While structuralists and post-structuralists like Foucault and Derrida revealed the cultural and linguistic contingencies behind such efforts, Deleuze offers an alternative path—rather than deconstructing philosophy as a failed quest for objective truth, he reimagines it as a creative practice. For Deleuze, philosophy is not about discovering reality but inventing concepts to make sense of its chaos. Alongside Félix Guattari, he proposes that philosophy, like art and science, is one of the three central creative acts of human thought. In What is Philosophy?, they describe the process of philosophical creation as involving concepts, a “plane of immanence” (the groundwork that allows these concepts to emerge), and the “conceptual personae” who embody and express them. Rejecting transcendent ideals, Deleuze roots meaning in immanence and offers a model for thinking that is flexible, generative, and deeply tied to the question: How might one live?
Further Reading:
What Is Philosophy? by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1994)
Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction by Todd May (2005)
Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts edited by Charles J. Stivale (2005)
See the full transcript here.
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