Difference and repetition

On the 50th anniversary of the first edition, one of Gilles Deleuze's most important books returns to bookstores for Peace and Land.

Conceived as a doctoral thesis and originally published in 1968, Difference and Repetition shows how Gilles Deleuze's philosophical project elaborates a “geography” that distinguishes the space of a thought of representation (orthodox, metaphysical, moral, rational) from the space of a thought of difference (pluralist, ontological, ethical, tragic).

Inspired primarily by Nietzsche, Deleuze situates this work within the realm of a thought "without image," capable of conceiving a difference that is not subordinated to identity and a repetition that is not mechanical. To this end, he develops a philosophy of difference, in terms of a transcendental doctrine of faculties—which constitutes the core of Deleuzian philosophy.

Difference and Repetition is also the most rigorous realization of the procedure by which Deleuze relates philosophers, scientists, writers and artists who express an “untimely” style of thinking; a procedure in which the repetition of a thought – with the aim of using it as an instrument or operator – does not seek its identity, but the affirmation of its difference.