Deleuze’s Interpretation of Job as a Heroic Figure in the History of Rationality

Traditional rationality takes the form of thinking-as-representation. Motivated by the conviction that it is possible to articulate one true account of the real, the three theologians in the Book of Job employed concepts to reduce objects to categories of sameness. In his exposition of such thinking-as-representation, Deleuze demonstrates how the four elements of representation thinking subordinate difference to conceptual categories of identity, opposition, analogy, and resemblance. Deleuze considers Job to be a heroic figure in the history of thinking, for Job demonstrates that the subject has nothing to say in his own name, as long as the subject adheres to norms of representational thinking. Job’s disavowal of blame amounts to a transgression against traditional theology of his time. The figure of Job exemplifies the heroic potential that lies within this crisis of theological representation.