“It is character that most matters, not talent or understanding, as so many have imagined.” Schelling

I just finished rereading this wonderful book, and I’m reminded of how deeply it has informed my understanding of Spinoza. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

When I read the first few pages of Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, I had a strong feeling that it was going to change my life. I’ve only had this experience a few times. What’s a book that did that for you?

“We can pass to other phases of being only by bridges or crossroads that lead to other concepts.” Deleuze and Guattari

I just finished writing about What Is Philosophy? for Deleuze and Polytheism. In addition to Deleuze and Guattari’s overt mentions of gods in that text, I found many implicit, but distinct, resonances with concepts from Deleuze’s earlier texts explicitly interwoven with the gods.

“Spinoza is very polite.” Deleuze

“As AI systems become increasingly imbued with the question of thinking, they also reveal the alien—that is the denaturalised—condition of the subject.” Luciana Parisi (2019)

“The list of conceptual personae is never closed and for that reason plays an important role in the evolution or transformations of philosophy.” Deleuze and Guattari

“The alien subject of AI exposes the capacity of the medium to elaborate a transcendental dimension beyond a given set of programmed instructions.” Luciana Parisi

“There is no Good or Evil, but there is good and bad.” Deleuze

“Signs and symbols are probes of futurity engaged in building the invisible architecture of the present.” Luciana Parisi

“Here the full meaning of the philosopher’s solitude becomes apparent. For he cannot integrate into any milieu; he is not suited to any of them.” Deleuze

It’s been seven years since my Deleuzean adventure began. I read all his works over the first few years and have returned to them many times since. The more I revisit them, the more I love them. They’re a gift to the world.

“Algorithms are no longer or are not simply instructions to be performed, but have become performing entities.” Luciana Parisi

“To re-enchant the world through technologies of consciousness means necessarily to revisit the role of spirit in the organization of the economy.” Bernard Stiegler

‘All games mask other games. Because almost no game is ruled by its own rules alone. And no game pursues a clear, univocal and direct aim’ Kostas Axelos, The Game of the World

“The individuals in antiquity were freer, because their aims were nearer and easier to achieve. Modern man, on the other hand, is crossed everywhere by infinity.” Nietzsche

“The essence of creation is differentiation.” Jung

“The cosmic force was already present in the material.” Deleuze and Guattari

“The pervasive extension of algorithmic logic has now become attuned to alien regions of perception and cognition.” Luciana Parisi