Politics and its Double: Deleuze and Political Ontology

Abstract

<p>The objective of this thesis is to intervene into the ongoing dispute surrounding the political import of Gilles Deleuze’s single-authored work, specifically <em>Difference and Repetition</em> and <em>The Logic of Sense</em>. This thesis presents an alternative explanation to the question of whether or not Deleuze’s philosophy is political. By situating the debate surrounding Deleuze’s political implications in the contemporary ontological turn in political theory, this thesis argues that Deleuze’s works can be considered to be political in the non-conventional sense of the term, that is, insofar as a conceptual distinction is made between <em>politics</em> and <em>the political</em>. I further argue that Deleuze’s univocal ontology influences a concept of <em>the political </em>that is immanent to his thought, and in this respect he can be said to present a <em>political ontology</em>. The reading of Deleuze’s political ontology addresses not only the common critiques of his philosophy as posed by thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Peter Hallward, and Slavoj Žižek, but also sheds light on the problematic relationship between philosophy and politics.</p>