c o L c :n i a c N i v c n s i 1 v i n c s s

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New York Chichester, West Sussex
Foreword by Michael Hardt and index copyright zoo6 Columbia University Press
Preface and this translation The Athlone Press, 18
Originally published in France in 16z as Nietzsche et la philosophie
by Presses Universitaires de France
The publishers acknowledge the nancial assistance of the French Ministry of Culture and
Communication in the translation of this work.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deleuze, Gilles.
[Nietzsche et la philosophie. English]
Nietzsche and philosophy / Gilles Deleuze ; translated by Hugh Tomlinson ;
foreword by Michael Hardt.
p. cm. (European perspectives)
Includes index.
Translation of : Nietzsche et la philosophie.
i snN oz118;68 (cloth) i snN oz118;;6 (pbk.)
1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 18((1oo. i. Title. ii. Series.
n1;.b(1 zoo6
zooo(66
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
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i 1o 8 ; 6 ( z 1
Foreword
This book is, in my view, the best introduction to Deleuzes thought.
Many readers who pick up his later books or his collaborations with
Flix Guattari nd Deleuzes vocabulary difcult and obscure. This
is due, at least in part, to the fact that Deleuze takes for granted the
concepts he has worked out for himself in his earlier books and does
not repeat the process. In this interpretation of Nietzsche, then, writ-
ten relatively early in his career, readers can discover together with De-
leuze many of the concepts and philosophical positions that became
central to all of his later work.
The three most important concepts in this book are multiplicity,
becoming, and afrmationand indeed the three are intimately re-
lated. In Nietzsches concept of multiplicity Deleuze nds a notion of
difference that does not refer back to (and thus depend on) a primary
identity, a difference that can never be corralled into an ultimate unity.
Multiplicity is precisely this expanding, proliferating set of differences
that stand on their own, autonomous. At the most basic level, one
can recognize Nietzsches profound betrayal of the primacy of identity
and unity in his famous pronouncement that God is dead: there is no
identity from which all the differences of the world emanate, nor any
unity to which they fall back. Instead of any divine ordering principles
Nietzsche proposes the will to power as a perpetual motor that pro-
duces differences. What the will wills is difference. The will to power is
a machine of multiplicities.
The concept of becoming is in many respects simply an extension of
the notion of multiplicity, highlighting the temporal process, the pro-
duction of multiplicities. Deleuze and Nietzsche both, of course, are
here engaging one of the central problems of the history of philosophy:
the relation between being and becoming. They place the emphasis
on becoming to highlight the fact that being itself is an act of cre-
ation, and that creation can only be understood as the production of
differences, of multiplicities. Deleuze explores this proposition in the
x Nietzsche and Philosophy
greatest detail through his interpretation of Nietzsches doctrine of the
eternal return. It is a mistake to understand the eternal return as sim-
ply a repetition of the past, a return of the same. Nietzsches notion,
Deleuze explains, points in the opposite direction: It is not being that
returns, but rather the returning itself that constitutes being insofar as
it is afrmed of becoming and of that which passes. It is not some one
thing which returns but rather returning itself is the one thing which
is afrmed of diversity or multiplicity (48). What Deleuze is working
to develop, once again, is an autonomous conception of difference and
its constant proliferation in a creative process of becoming.
Finally, Deleuze nds an ethics and even a politics of multiplicity
and becoming in Nietzsches notion of afrmation. He begins with
Nietzsches typology of active and reactive forces. Active forces, like
becoming itself, are deemed superior because they are creative: they
produce differences, whereas reactive forces produce nothing. Reac-
tive forces only lead to ressentiment and bad conscience. Nietzsche
poses this as an ethical guide and a principle of selection: always seek
out the active forces in life and avoid the reactive ones. The typology
of active and reactive is then extended in Nietzsches distinction be-
tween afrmation and negation. Deleuze explains this distinction, for
example, in the contrast between master and slave mentalities. Both,
of course, involve afrmation and negation. The contrast dramatized
in these two Nietzschean categories, however, lies in the priority and
order given to afrmation and negation in each. The slave mentality
says, You are evil, therefore I am good, whereas the master mentality
says, I am good, therefore you are evil. The slave mentality, Deleuze
explains, is purely reactive. It needs to pass through two negations to
arrive at an afrmation: since you are evil and I am not you, there-
fore I am good. The master mentality, in contrast, is purely active.
Its afrmation of itself is autonomous and the negation of the other
merely secondary. This afrmation, I should emphasize, has nothing
to do with acceptance of or acquiescence to how things are, what is,
but rather purely an act of creation. This is indeed how Deleuze reads
the eternal return as an ethical principle of selection oriented toward
the future: whatever you will, will it in such a way that you also will
its eternal return (68). To complete the ethical proposition, then,
Deleuze links afrmative practices and their acts of creation to a life of
joy, which stands opposed to all the reactive forces and sad passions.
Foreword xi
This linked sequence of conceptsmultiplicity, becoming, afrma-
tion, joynot only characterizes his reading of Nietzsche but also runs
throughout the various turns of Deleuzes work as a guiding thread.
That is why this book is an excellent introduction to Deleuzes thought.
Following this thread, a reader can successfully navigate through the
various labyrinthine passages.
This book is also, in my view, a brilliant analysis of and introduc-
tion to Nietzsches thought, but in a rather different way. Before con-
sidering the delity or accuracy of Deleuzes reading of Nietzsche,
however, one should rst note the French context of this book. Many
French philosophers of Deleuzes generationincluding Michel Fou-
cault, Pierre Klossowski, and Jacques Derridaturned to Nietzsche
in roughly the same period. They looked to him in part as a kind of
provocation, a lever to help pry them away from the French philo-
sophical establishment. What Nietzsche most importantly provided,
according to Deleuze, was a means of escape from Hegels dialec-
tical thinking, which was in some respects dominant in France at
the time. (Deleuze once remarked that his generation was character-
ized by a generalized anti-Hegelianism.) Nietzsche provided a cure
for the dialectic. There is no possible compromise, Deleuze writes,
between Hegel and Nietzsche. Nietzsches philosophy . . . forms an
absolute anti-dialectics (195). Indeed, this book is pervaded from
beginning to end by the confrontation with Hegel. Deleuzes primary
charge against dialectical thinking is that, despite its claims, dialectics
mysties and destroys difference and is thus incapable of recognizing
multiplicities. The dialectic pushes all differences to the extreme of
contradiction so that it then can subsume them back into a unity. Real
differences, according to Deleuze, are more subtle and nuanced than
dialectical oppositions, and they do not rely on any negative foun-
dation. On the basis of this proposition Deleuze can then contrast
the double negations of dialectical thinking with Nietzsches notion
of afrmation. Through this polemic against the dialectic Deleuze
was attempting to reverse the commonplace accepted by the French
philosophical establishment at the time whereby Hegels thought was
inextricably linked to progressive politics. Instead Deleuze celebrates
the political possibilities of Nietzsche, an unlikely source. Multiplicity,
becoming, and afrmation open the path toward a politics of differ-
ence. In this book, however, the content of that politics is only alluded
xii Nietzsche and Philosophy
to. Deleuzes politics of difference is really only elaborated in his later
work, especially his collaborations with Guattari.
How can we square, then, Deleuzes interpretation of Nietzsche
with the numerous other readings that emphasize Nietzsches aris-
tocratic nature, his anti-Semitism, his misogyny, and his reactionary
politics? Should we assume that Deleuze just uses Nietzsche strategi-
cally as a weapon to attack the French philosophical establishment
and that this book is nally more about Deleuze himself that it is
about Nietzsche? I do not think this is the case, but to understand
why, one has to consider Deleuzes innovative approach to reading the
history of philosophy. Many of Deleuzes books are monographs on
specic gures in the history of modern European philosophy, from
Spinoza and Leibniz to Hume, Kant, and Bergson. And a central goal
of his entire philosophical project is to reorient the canon to highlight
different traditions. When Deleuze approaches the work of a specic
philosopher, however, he does not claim to be comprehensive. He may
make no mention, for instance, of Bergsons Christianity or Spinozas
misogyny. He concentrates on what interests him most, what is ac-
tive and living in each philosopher. One might say, in this respect,
that Deleuze approaches each philosopher and the entire philosophi-
cal tradition selectively, taking what he wants and ignoring the rest. He
does not attempt, according to this view, to be true to the history of
philosophypresenting the real Hume or the real Leibnizbut rather
chooses from that history and puts it to use.
That gets us somewhat closer, but does not yet arrive at what really
characterizes Deleuzes method of interpretation, because in their own
way his readings are in fact quite faithful and precise. Although De-
leuze makes no pretense of being comprehensive, he does continually
claim to have isolated the core of a philosophers work. He will declare
condently and without qualication what is the essence of Spinozas
thought or what is Bergsons fundamental idea. Deleuzes selections,
then, must go to the heart of a philosophers thought and ignore or
discard what is not essential to it. This procedure, in fact, is not unlike
the principle of ethical selection contained in the doctrine of the eter-
nal return. Deleuze afrms the core of a philosophers thought beyond
the limitations of the particular thinker.
That is the sense in which I consider this book an excellent intro-
duction to Nietzsche. Deleuze disregards all of Nietzsches comments
on democracy and the masses and women that are full of ressenti-
Foreword xiii
ment, all of the reactive forces that reappear in the pages of Nietzsches
texts, and focuses only on the active, afrmative, and joyful passages.
He isolates the heart of Nietzsches work and carries it forward. In
this sense Deleuze is indeed true to Nietzsches thought, perhaps even
more so than Nietzsche himself was. He selectshe wills to return, one
might saythose elements of Nietzsches work that are most true to
Nietzsches thought. This is really the model that Deleuze proposes for
reading the history of philosophy.
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