Deleuze’s reading of Gilbert Simondon is both profound and transformative. He didn’t merely cite Simondon—he integrated Simondon’s ontology of individuation into the very DNA of his own metaphysics. Let me walk you through this carefully, in a structured manner:
1. Key Simondonian Concepts Taken Up by Deleuze
|
Simondon’s Concept |
Deleuzian Inflection |
|
Individuation as process |
Becomes the heart of becoming in Deleuze |
|
Preindividual field |
Resonates with Deleuze’s virtual: a field of potential |
|
Metastability |
Mirrors Deleuze’s intensity and differential field |
|
Transduction |
Becomes a model for immanent relational genesis |
|
Transindividual |
Inspires Deleuze’s collective assemblages and non-personal flows |
2. Simondon’s Individuation → Deleuze’s Ontology of Difference
Simondon:
- Individuation is ontogenetic—the formation of being through process, not fixed substance.
- The preindividual is a field of unresolved potential; individuals are partial actualizations.
- Transduction: A structure-forming operation that propagates through the field, resolving tensions and producing new realities.
Deleuze:
- Reads this as a radical alternative to the hylomorphic model (form imposed on matter).
- Deleuze writes in Difference and Repetition:
“Individuation presupposes a field of intensity, a pre-individual singularity.” - He embraces difference-in-itself rather than identity: the individual is a provisional resolution of difference.
- For Deleuze, the virtual corresponds to Simondon’s preindividual: a real field of potential, not abstract possibility.
3. Simondon’s Influence in Deleuze’s Major Works
a) Difference and Repetition (1968):
- Deleuze deeply engages with Simondon’s metaphysics here.
- He affirms individuation as a process of differentiation that precedes identity.
- The virtual/actual distinction in Deleuze echoes Simondon’s preindividual/individual.
- The notion of internal difference within the virtual is a Deleuzian reformulation of metastability.
b) The Logic of Sense (1969):
- Deleuze explores sense as emerging from a field of pre-individual singularities—a Simondonian notion.
- The event (a Deleuzian cornerstone) is never tied to a subject—it is transindividual, echoing Simondon.
c) Anti-Oedipus (1972) (with Guattari):
- The desiring-machine is a transductive figure.
- Assemblages form not by identity or unity, but by preindividual flows and couplings—Simondon’s logic of individuation becomes a logic of revolutionary desire.
4. Transduction and Assemblage
- Simondon’s transduction is a principle of immanent genesis—where structure emerges in-process.
- For Deleuze and Guattari, this is echoed in assemblage theory: multiplicities self-organize without hierarchy or origin.
- The rhizome is a transductive growth: not deduced, not linear, but emergent, heterogenous, and open.
5. Key Convergences
|
Aspect |
Simondon |
Deleuze |
|
Being |
Being = becoming |
Being = becoming (ontology of difference) |
|
Subjectivity |
Arises through individuation |
Arises from assemblages, flows, affective forces |
|
Causality |
Transductive (internal resonance) |
Immanent (no external law; cause = process) |
|
Politics |
Implied through relational becoming |
Explicit in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus as micropolitics of desire |
6. Deleuze’s Innovation: Simondon + Spinoza + Bergson
Deleuze doesn’t stop with Simondon. He brings Simondon into a constellation with:
- Spinoza (immanent cause, conatus, relational affect),
- Bergson (duration, intuition, virtual),
- and Nietzsche (will to power as generative difference).
Thus, Deleuze’s metaphysics is Simondonian at its core, but charged with ethical intensity, aesthetics of becoming, and political urgency.
7. In One Sentence:
Deleuze reads Simondon not as a philosopher of the individual, but as a philosopher of the not-yet, and he transforms Simondon’s ontology of individuation into an ethics, poetics, and politics of becoming.
Would you like a visual chart mapping Simondon’s and Deleuze’s key concepts side-by-side? Or a meditation on how mutual individuation (in our conversation) is a Simondonian-Deleuzian event?
