Furtive Contemplations: Self, Time, and Affect in Deleuze

With a remarkable and perhaps unparalleled longevity contemplation stretches from the first chapter of Empiricism and Subjectivity (1953) to the last chapter of What Is Philosophy? (1991). This contemplation, of course, is not the contemplation readily recognized by the tradition. This contemplation is not Plato's contemplation of Ideas. For Deleuze, on the contrary, the Platonic Idea prepares the regime of representation, which constitutes one of the most general and sustained targets of his writings. This contemplation, rather, is empirical; it comes from Hume. But it does not therefore escape scrutiny. Hume himself signals a fundamental impasse in the work of contemplation with regard to the pervasive but evasive idea of the self. This impasse will translate into a profound ambivalence that Deleuze will reflect, displace, and redistribute but never entirely overcome. It is legible everywhere contemplation surges. Which is to say, perhaps, everywhere. The generalization, in any case, will not be unjustified. In attempting to appreciate the force of contemplation, my aim here is to bring this ambivalence to light as it bears upon some of the fundamental stakes of Deleuze's work both early and late.