STUD lA

PHENOMENOLOGICA
Romanian Journal for Phenomenology

Vol. II I 2012

•
HUMAN ITAS
BUC H ARE S T
 Cover
ANGELA ROTARU

© 2012 Romanian Socieyor Phenomenoloy

llRights Reseved
ISSN: 1582-5647 (print) I 2069-0061 (online)
ISBN 978-973-50-3738-3 (paperback) I 978-973-50- 3739-0 (electronic)

his volume was published with the support of CNCS-UEFISCDI,

Project PN-II-RU-TE-2010-156.
SDIAPENOENOLOGICAII (2012) 181-209

Body nd World
in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze1

Cory Shores
Universiy ofLeuven

bsrat: To compre Merleau-Ponty's and Deleuze's phenomenal bodies, I

irst examine how for Merleau-Ponty phenomena appear on the basis of three
levels of integration: 1) beween the parts of the world, 2) beween the prts
of the body, and 3) beween the body and its world. I contest that Deleuze's
attacks on phenomenology cn be seen as constructive critiques rather thn
as being expressions of an nti-phenomenologicl position. By building from
Deleuze's deinition of the phenomenon and from his more phenomenologi­
clly relevant writings, we ind that phenomena for him re given to the body
under exactly the opposite conditions as for Merleau-Ponty, namely that 1) the
world's diferences 2) appear to a disordered body that 3) comes into shock­
ing afective contact with its surroundings. I rgue that a Deleuzin theory of
bodily-given phenomena is better suited than Merleau-Ponty's model in the
task of accounting for the intensity of phenomenal appearings.
Kwors: Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology, Body, World.

I. Inroducion
s Joe Hughes obseves, there is "not much consensus in the current
critical literature when it comes to the question of Deleuze's relationship to
phenomenology."2 On the one hand, Deleuze is oten explicitly critical of
Husser!, Merleau-Ponty, nd phenomenology in generl, and many commen­
tators have regarded those critiques s expressing an anti-phenomenological
tendency in Deleuze's thinking.3 Other scholrs acknowledge the tensions

1 May I thank Rolnd Breeur, Ullrich Melle, nd Nicolas de Warren of the Husser! Archives

in Leuven for their contributions to this paper.

2 J. Hughes, Deleuze and the Geness ofRpresentaion, London: Continuum, 2008, p. 3.
3 See, for mple, M. Foucault, ''heamPhlosopim," n D. Bouchard (ed.), Lanuage,
Countr-Mmo, raice: Seeted ssays and Intviews, En ish ns. by D. Bouchrd nd S. Si­
mon, Ithaa: Cornell University Prss, 1 977, pp. 1 65-196; L. Lawlor, ''he End ofPhenomenol­
oy: xpressionism n Ddeze nd Merleau-Po," Coninntal Phiosopy viw 3 1 . 1 (1 998),
182 Cory Shores

beween Deleuze nd phenomenology whle also recogmzmg undmentl

compatibilities, s well s the ways that Deleuze's critiques fil to grsp the m­
biguities nd later development of Merleau-Ponty's thinking.4 Some scholrs
have gone so far s to suggest hat Deleze's ides cn be seen s a radicaliza­
tion of phenomenoloy.5 ccording to ln Beaulieu, Deleze thrived on his
conlictual relation with phenomenology. For Deleuze, phenomenoloy is an
enemy of sorts hat beneited hm like a riend, because it helped him advnce
his own ides.6 Or nalysis here, however, is interested not so much in what
ws the relationship of Deleuze's ides to phenomenolog; but more in what it

coud become when we treat his criticisms as constructive critiques. Might it be

possible to do phenomenology n a Delezen way? Miguel de Beistegui writes:
Hs phenomenology not chracterized itself throughout precisely as this abil­
ity to become and evolve? And is this not the historicl lesson of phenomenol­
ogy: that it is itself a low, with unpredictable bends nd meanderings, which,
whatever their intensity, in the end lways reinvent phenomenology[ . . . ]. [ . . . ]
there is no "letter" of phenomenology: no primordil word, no consecrated
text, no originary truth that one could betray: only an endless series of her­
esies, which is, at lest in philosophy, the only possible form of idelity, that is,
the idelity in and through genuine questioning.7

We will place Deleuze's philosophy of the body without organs, then, in

stark contrast to Merleau-Ponty's integrationist model to show that Deleuze's

pp. 15-34; D. Okoski, Dee and theuin fpresnaio, Berkely: Uvesiy of Cifoia
Press, 1999;L. awlor, hinking throughrnchPhiosopy: heBeing of thesio, Bloomington:
Indiana UnivesiyPrss, 2003; D. Olkowski, "Phlosophy of Sure, Phlosophy of Event De­
lee's Criique ofPhenomenolo," ChmiIntion/13 (2011), pp. 193-216; nd . Monte­
bello, " Ddee, ne nti-phenomenoloie?" ChsmiIntaioall3 (2011), pp. 315-325.
4 See, or mple, C. Bons, "Trnslator's Inroducion: Ddee, Empicism, nd the Sug­
le for Subjeciit;" n G. Delee, Empiism andSujeiviy: n ssay onHumes heoy fHuan
Naure, English rns. by C. Bonds, New York: Columbia University Prss, 1991, pp. 1-19;
]. ynols nd J. Rofe, " Deleze nd Melau-Pony: mmnence, Univocity nd Phenomenol­
oy," joual f the Bish Soiy or Phnomnooy 37.3 (2006), pp. 229-251; H. Somers-Hll,
" Ddee nd Merleau-Pon: Astheis of Dfence," n C. Bons (e.), Deze: heIntive
eduio, London: Continum, 2009, pp. 123-130;]. Hughs, op. it.;]. Wmbacq, " Depth nd
me n Melau-Pony nd Deleze," ChmiInaioal13 (2011), pp. 327-348;]. Wmbacq,
" Maice Melau-Pony nd Gils Delee s Intepreters ofHeri Bergson," nA.Tieniecka
(d.), rascenenalm Ovune: FromAbsolue Powr of Cosiones unil theForcs of Comic
Archieonis aea Hssraa 108), Dorrecht: Springer, 2011, pp. 269-284; nd J. Wm­
bacq, " Maurice Merlau-Pon's Criicism on Bergso's hoy ofTne Seen hroh the Work of
Glls Delee," Sa Phnomnooica11 (2011), pp. 309-325.
5 See, for mple, C. Colebrook, Gilles Deze, London: Routledge, 2002; L. Byant,
Dfference and Givenness: Dezs ranscenental Empiicism and the Ontoloy of Immanence,
Evnston: Northwestern University Press, 2008.
6 A. Beaieu, GilesDeleuze et a phinominooie, Mons: Sils Maria, 2004.

7 M. de Beistegui, "Towrd a Phenomenology of Diference?" esearch in Phenomenoloy

30 (2000), p. 68.
 Body and ord in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 183

conception is better suited for explaining the intensities of phenomena. To do

this, we irst exmine how phenomena appear to Merleau-Ponty on account
of three coordinated levels of integrations, nmel, the integration beween
the parts of the world, the integration of our bcdy parts, and our bod's in­
tegration within its phenomenal world. hen parallel to each level we ind
contrary principles in our Deleuzin theory of the phenomenological body:
for Deleuze, phenomena would appear when our body, whose parts are work­
ing disjunctivel, detects incompatible diferences in a surrounding world that
is split of from it during a shocking encounter.

2. Phenomenal Interation

For Merleau-Ponty we never perceive qualities or other pts of perception

purely in themselves, but rather only in their integrated relation with other
qulities or parts. He hs s imagine a white patch on a homogeneous back­
ground. No matter what we re looking at, there wllalways be something sur­
rounding it. If in our example we are looking in he middle at a paticulr
point, we thereby sense it belonging together mong its neihboring prts, with
all these points belonging to the whole patch. Or if we see a prt of the patch
at the bound, we also thereby sense it belonging with the neighboring pats
of the patch but not with the adjacent points outside it in the background.8 So
already we see there is no such thing as a pury atomic perception. In fact, all
the nearby qualities re inluencing the way ny part of someting looks:

his red patch which I see on the carpet is red only in virtue of a shadow which
lies across it, its quality is apparent only in rdation to he play oflight upon it,
and hence s n element in a spatil coniguration. Moreover the colour cn
be said to be there only if it occupies an rea of a certain size, too small an rea
not being describable in these terms. 9

We are also misled into thinking that there is a "point-by-point" constant cor­
respondence between the prts of what we see and the parts of our "elemen­
tary perception."10 Certain optical illusions disprove this thesis.

Fig. 1 One prt of the Mller-Lyer illusion

8 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenominoloie de a perception, Paris: Gallimrd, 1 945, p. 9; Phenom­

enooy ofPercepion, English rns. by C. Smith, London: outledge, 1 962, pp. 34. Hence­
fonh abbreviated s P, with French/English page numbers.
9 P, p. 1 0/4.
10
P, p. 1 4/7.
1 84 Cory Shores

Consider for example the above portion of the Miller-Lyer optical illusion
[igure 1]. We see two equal lines. Now, view the remaining pieces [igure 2].

Fig. 2 nother prt of the Mller-Lyer illusion

hen we put them together [igure 3], we do not see them combined into
two equal lines with inverted arrow-ends.

Fig. 3 Miller-Lyer illusion

Rah�r, the horizontal lines now apper as bering iferent lengths, on account
of their integrated relations wih the ngled pieces. Hence, what we sense is not
the immediate efect of he prts making one-to-one impressions on us:

normal unctioning must be understood s a process of integration in which

the text of the external world is not so much copied s composed. nd if we
try to seize"sensation" within the perspective of the bodily phenomena which
pave the way to it, we ind [ . . ] a formation already bound up with a lrger
.

whole [ . ]. [ . . . ] the perceived, by its nature, admits of the ambiguous, the

. .

shiting, and is shaped by its comext.11

he integration of phenomenal parts has for Merleau-Ponty a certain phe­

nomenological structure, namely, the horizonl structure of our intentional
awareness. he red of the stain on the carpet has its particlar look on account
of the other qualities and objects expressing themselves in that appearance, for
example, the overlaying shadow that tinges the color. So when we see the red,
our minds are also made aware of the blanket of shade covering the area, even
if we are not explicitly aware of it. We will not be surprised when we look up
and see something blocking the light source. he red's particular shaded look
refers our mind to something not explicit in the perception. Our minds have
n awareness of it, but it is not in the forefront of our attention. s an implied
phenomenon, it hovers at the edges of our awareness, which could literally
be the perimeter of our ield of vision or just be a vague, indeterminate, nd

11
P, pp. 16/9, 18/11.
 Body and orld in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 185

ambiguous part of our intentional consciousness, residing in the background

of what our minds are currently attending to. It looms on the "horizon" of our
awareness. To see red, then, means that this red

announces something else which it does not include, that it exercises a cogni­
tive unction, and that its parts together mke up a whole to which each is re­
lated without leaving its place. Henceforth the red is no longer merely there, it
represents something for me, and what it represents is not possessed s a "real
part" of my perception, but only aimed at s an "intentional part".12

Because each elementary part of our perception "arouses the expectation of

more thn it contains," it is "therefore already charged with a meaning';13 it is
already indicating or suggesting some other phenomenon.
In fact, this horizonal integration of phenomenal objects is so involved
that to see one object from a given perspective is also to have on the horizon
of our awareness the way that object looks from the perspectives of every other
object facing it. Merleau-Ponty illustrates this efectively with the arm-shadow
in Rembrandt's De Nachwacht [igure 4] .14

Fig. 4 Rembrandt's De Nachtwacht (he Night ztch)15

Notice how the man in the foreground holds out his arm, which casts a shad­
ow on the man standing next to him [igures 5 and 6].

12
P, p. 20/13.
13 P, P· 9/4.
14M. Merleau-Pon, 'Tel et !'esprit," in C. Lefort (ed.), Euvres, Pris: Gllimrd, 2010,
p. 1599; "Eye and Mind," English trans. by C. Dallery, in]. M. Edie (ed.), he Primay of
Perception and Other Essay s, Evnston: Northwestern Universiy Press, p. 167. Henceforth ab­
breviated s OE, with French/English page numbers.
15 s image nd the following details: Rembrndt, De Nachwacht, Wneia Comons,
hp://commons. imedia.org/wki/File:Rembrandt_nighwatch_large.jpg,accessed1 4-Dec-2011.
 186 Cory Shores

is. 5 nd 6 Details from Rembrndt's De Nachwacht

We do not merely see his arm from just our perspective; we also see it s if we
were looking from his right side at the ngle of the light source, because the
shadow we see from our perspective presents to us the apperance of his rm
from the sun's perspective.
his illustration will help us grasp the sort of pnoptic vision we have even
rom our glance at one viepoint. Consider also when we stand beween a set
of railroad tracks and look down their straight extent into the distance. hey
seem to converge very fr of. But this tells us they must be still parallel all the
way in the distnce, because they would instead appear prallel rom here only
if they continually diverged s they progressed. In a way, seeing the conver­
gence is to indirectly stnd far down the tracks nd view them being parallel. 16
Yet, this means we are implicitly tking the perspective of horizonally implied
objects related to the one in focus:

every object is the mirror of ll others. hen I look at the lmp on my table,
I attribute to it [ . . ] the qualities [ . ]which the chimney, the walls, the table
. . .

can "see"; but back of my lamp is nothing but the face which it "shows" to
the chimney. I can therefore see an object in so fr s objects form a system
or a world, nd in so far as each one treats the others round it as spectators
of its hidden spects [ . . ].Any seeing of n object by me is instntaneously
.

reiterated among ll those objects in the world which re apprehended as co­

existent [ . . ] _17
.

Merleau-Ponty ofers anoher illustration to help us grasp just how thor­

oughly diferent phenomena re horizonally integrated. He has us consider
when we view the tiled loor at the bottom of a pool of water. We might think
that we are seeing the geometry of the tiles despite the wavy distortions that

IG
OE, P· 1624/187.
17 P, pp. 82-83/68.
 Body and Wold in vferleau-Pony and Deleuze 187

the water produces. Yet reall, the loor, as the appearance that it happens
to be, is seeable only because it is given to us through he rippling water. We
should not assume there is such a thing as an object seen in itsel£ ll things
are sensed in their intermeshment with everything else. Even the water we
mentioned is not contained only there in the pool. hen we raise our eyes
to he trees above the water, we see the webbed play of the water's relections.
The tree foliage has its particular appearance only because the water below it
"sends into it, upon it its active and living essence."18
Yet, because these horizonal objects are indeterminate and ambiguous, we
are motivated to turn our attention toward them, which then makes hem
determinate. To better understand this process, Merleau-Ponty refers us to the
way that children acquire the abiliy to perceive distinct colors. At irst, hey
can only distinguish colored things from non-colored things. hen, they dif­
ferentiate warm and cool shades of colored regions. Finally, they can discern
diferent colors. he psychologist mistkenly thinks that the child originally
perceived the diferent speciic colors in their determinacy, except the child
was merely unaware of the colors' identities. So according to this psychologicl
interpretation, children irst can see he redness of he red, with its diference
to the blueness of blue, but they just have not yet learned the corresponing
names and concepts for the color. Merleau-Ponty says hat instead he colors
were originally seen in an indeterminate form, and only gradually does the child
come to constitute hem distinctl. In other words, he child sees diferent colors
but not so much the distinctions between them, although these diferences hng
implicitly on the horizon of her awareness.19 here re relations, then, beween
the colors hat re seen, alhough they apper only implicitl. So, when children
early on see neihboring things bering diferent colors, they have a vaue sense
that the visual apperances difer in some signiicnt way. ter later learning
how to detect the diferences beween he colors, they then see them determi­
nately nd uniquely. Because the colors began indeterminately, their becoming a
determinate appearance was merely on the horizon of the child's awareness. We
might here notice nother sort of horizon. he determinate forms were there
inirectly in he beginning stage. Yet, heir arrival to the cild's consciousness is
pening; in a wa, it hangs on a sort of temporal horizon too, being at he edge
of the grsp of he present intentions.
he parts of our phenomenl world are given so pre-integrated that even
when he world suddenly appears to us quite diferently than the moment
before, in a way we were already anticipating the alteration.20 He depicts a
scene to illustrate. We walk along a shoreline. Before us is a ship run aground
in the beach. Behind it is a forest, and he ship's masts blend in with the trees,
preventing us from initilly noticing them as belonging to the ship. Yet, here

18
OE, p. 1616/182.
1 9 P, p. 38/29-30.
20
P, p. 23/15.
188 Cory Shores

will come a moment when we feel that the look of some of the trees is on the
verge of ltering. Before even seeing the masts as distinct from the forest, we
felt some sort of tension in their appearance, just as "a storm is imminent
in storm clouds."21 Even when originally mistken, we still perceived all the
distinguishing qualities of the masts, and they told us indirectly they were
not trees. So from the beginning we had a "vague expectation" that there was
something more to be understood in the appearance of the forest:

he unity of the object is based on the foreshadowing of an imminent order

which is about to spring upon us a reply to the questions merely latent in
the landscape. It solves a problem set only in the form of a vague feeling of
uneasiness, it organizes elements which up to that moment did not belong to
the sme universe and which, for that reason,[ . . ] could not be associated.22
.

So whenever the phenomenl composition of our world changes, it is be­

cause we turn our attention to some detail that alters the way we conigure
the whole. We were motivated to turn our attention in the direction of other
phenomenal parts; so in the case of the ship and forest, at the edges of our
awareness we sensed some details that told us there was something question­
able about certain trees. Only ateward did we learn that these details were
indications that the trees were relly ship masts instead. So in other words,
even though we might have these dramatic experiences where the phenom­
enl world around us radically rearranges before our eyes, it does not involve
a complete incoherence from one moment to the next; the new, altered world
was somehow still there on the horizon of our awareness, if only as the sugges­
tion that there is more to be seen. In fact, it is only because it was there on the
horizon that we were motivated to discover it. his holds as well in Merleau­
Pony's account of children's acquisition of color sense. Once they learn how
to discern diferent colors from one another, there is "a change of the structure
of consciousness, the establishment of a new dimension of experience, the
setting forth of an a priori. "23 So, children lose the ability to see colors in that
indeterminate way they appeared in early childhood. It would seem then that
they ind themselves in a new world that is incoherent with the prior one now
hovering marginally in their retentionl consciousness, from back when they
were only able to see colors indeterminately. Yet, when we come to these de­
terminations that change the structures of our awareness, they begin as hori­
zons giving us preformed "new regions in the total world."24 It is true that ater
their acquisition, the older structures are destroyed. However, this process is
one of bringing out something already implicit in the previous structures of

21
P, p. 24/ 1 7.
22
P, p. 25/ 1 7.
23 P, p. 38/30.
24 Ibid.
 Body and orld in Mer!eau-Pony and De!euze 189

consciousness. So, rather than suggesting 1 incoherence in the objects and in

our consciousness, it instead attests to their continuous sel-unity:

It is precisely by overthrowing data that the act of anention is related to previ­

ous acts, and the unity of consciousness is thus built up step by step through a
"transition-synthesis". he miracle of consciousness consists in its bringing to
light, through attention, phenomena which re-establish the unity of the object
in a new dimension at the very moment when they destroy it.25

3. Synaesthetic Interation

ll implicitly and explicitly perceived phenomenal objects of our world,

then, are like threads woven together through the integrating "fabric" of our
body.26 It gives the world a certain density or "thicness," just as the tissues
of our muscles or our skin are intermeshed so as to produce the thickness of
our lesh. Moreover, perception, Merleau-Ponty thinks, must always involve
an intermxing of ll our senses. n object is then "an organism of colours,
smells, sounds and tactile appearances which symbolize, modiY and accord
with each other according to the laws of a real logic [...]."27 he diferent sense
qualities of the object are organically interwined, because from the begin­
ning, our body's sense organs integrate their unctioning to such a degree that
we can ind no sense-datum that is not conditioned by the others. It is not
merely that one sense helps the others; rather, the impressions of one sense
are found implicitly within the others, and all our impressions re intertwined
with our bodily motions. When Merleau-Ponty contracts his foot, for exam­
ple, he can see this motion in his mind even when wearing his shoes.28 We lso
never actually see how our body looks when we walk, but we will recognize
our gait visully when we see it ilmed or if we watch it in our shadow. 29 So,
our bodily integration was already there from the beginning:

I do not trnslate the "data of touc'' "into the language of seein'' or vice versa-I
do not bring togeher one by one the pas of my body; s trnslation nd this
uication re performed once and for llin me: they re my bod, itsel£30

nother way to articulate this sense-integration is that all sense-data are syn­
aesthetic. He has us consider patients who lost the ability to visualy perceive
color qualities. Even without this capacity, they were still able mny times to

25 P, p. 39/30.
26
P, p. 272/23 5.
27 P, p. 48/38.
28 P, p. 174/149.
29 Ibid.
30 P, p. 175/ 1 50.
190 Cor y Shores

determine the colors shining upon them, on account of how it was perceived
in its mixture with the other senses. hey might for exmple know it is yellow
when their body responds as if feeling something stinging it; one patient said,
"I clenched my teeth, and so I know that it is yellow."31 Of course even when
we do visually perceive color qulities, we also sense them in these other ways
as well. It is not that we irst see red and then our body responds by enlivening
itself; rather, just as soon as we see red, our body is enlivened at the same time,
because seeing red is pardy a tactile sensation felt throughout our bodies. 32
"Synaesthetic perception is the rule," he writes, nd

the senses intercommunicate by opening on to the structure of the thing. One

sees the hardness and brittleness of glass, and when, with a tinkling sound, it
breaks, this sound is conveyed by the visible glass. One sees the springiness of
steel, the ductility of red-hot steel, the hardness of a plane blade, the sotness
of shavings.33

He has us consider that although we have two eyeblls with each one giving us
diferent streams of visual data, we still have a uniied view of one phenomenal
world. He thinks that the visul quality of sounds and audible properties of
colors come about through the same sort of synthesis of sense-data. Because
ll our senses are pre-integrated in this way, he says that their unity is an 'a
prioi truth."34 Our body is "not a collection of adjacent organs, but a syner­
getic system"; their unctions re lllinked together in our actions.35

4. Immersive and Sym pathetic Interations with the orld

hen a child reaches out for something, from the beginning she feels her­
self a part of the world around her, because on that basis she knows that her
body could move mong the things around her and take them into her grasp.
Our integration with the world, then, is evident from the way our senses al­
low our body to immediately move around and interact with all the other
parts of the world.36 In fact, we even take up the objects around us and make
them extensions of our own sensibility. Merleau-Ponty's famous exmple is
the blind man wlking with a stick. hen irst beginning to use it, he might
feel the stick making contact with his hand. Yet ter a while, it becomes as
though the end of the stick is his new point of contact wih the objects round
him. He no longer feels the contact between his hand and the stick but instead

31 P, p. 244/211.
32 P, p. 245/211 .
33 P, p. 265/229.
34 P, p. 255/221 .
35 P, p. 270/234.
36 OE, p. 1594/162.
 Body and ord in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 191

between the stick and the ground or other things his stick is "feeling."37 We
are inherently gered to be organically integrated with the objective world
around us. he blind person's awareness wants and tries to extend into its sur­
rounding world. We use telephones to extend our voices and ears into distant
places. Our gaze, Merleau-Pony writes, is anlogous to the blind man's stick:
like his cane, our vision feels out the world in an interrogative way, ranging
over objects and dwelling on them. his is "the organic relationship between
subject and world, the active transcendence of consciousness, the momentum
which carries it into a thing and into a world by means of its organs and
instruments."38
Our body's immersion in the world is evident as well in its sympathetic
relationships with it. Consider how when we her a sound, part of our ear ap­
paratus vibrates at the same frequency, in sympathy with the air's vibrations.
It is as though there were a place of crossing-over beween the world and our
body: "In the same way I give ear, or look, in the expectation of a sensation,
and suddenly the sensible takes possession of my ear or my gze, and I sur­
render a part of my body, even my whole body, to this particular manner of
vibrating and illing space known as blue or red."39 He also has us think of the
holy sacrament of communion. he bread is not only something sensible. s
well, it is believed that when we ingest it, it communicates into us the "real
presence of God." Sensation is like his too. We are not only given an impres­
sion of the world around us, but enter into communion with the world by
means of the sympahetic relation of that sensation.40 hen our hands are
about to feel something smooth, they take up a certain "degree," "rate," and
"direction of movement" appropriate for feeling that ind of surface, instead
of the sorts of motion and readiness needed to feel something roughY he
smooth thing called out to our hands to tell them how it needed to be felt, so
that even before making physical contact, the smooth thing in a sense placed
itself upon our hands. So, we cannot say that we are the toucher performing
the action, and the smooth thing is something passive receiving our action.
he smooth object acts on us just as much as we act on it. he thing we sense
begins as a "vague beckoning" whose call to us allows us to "synchronize" with
it.42 We "interrogate" the object "according to its own wishes," which places us
into a "pre-established harmon'' and "kinship" with it, an a piori sort of pre­
condition of organic integration with the world, necessary for us being able

37 P, p. 1 77/ 1 52.
38 P, p. 1781 1 52-1 53.
39 P, p. 245/2 12.
40 P, pp. 245-246/2 12.
4 1 M. Merleau-Pont, Le visible et !'invisible, in C. Lefort (ed.), Euvres, Pris: Gllimrd,
20 1 0, p. 1 759; he Vsibe and theInvsible, C. Lefort (ed.), English trns. by A. Lingis, Evan­
ston: Northwestern University Press, 1 9 86, p. 1 33. Henceforth abbreviated s I, with French/
English page numbers.
42 P, p. 248/2 1 4.
192 Cory Shores

to sense the things around us.43 Our hands can "[open] upon a tactile world"
when we are feeling the world from within them, but this also requires that
our hands remain accessible to being lready touched by the outside world,
which informs them how to go about their touching. In this way, there is a
"crisscrossing" of the touching and the tangible. By opening themselves up in
this way, our hands incorporate themselves into the world they feel out; "the
two systems are applied upon one another, s the two halves of an orange":44
hus a sensible datum which is on the point of being felt sets a kind of mud­
dled problem for my body to solve. I must ind the attitude which will provide
it with the means of becoming determinate, of showing up as blue; I must ind
the reply to a question which is obscurely expressed.45

So, we might think of ourselves togeher with the world we perceive s being
of one lesh. here is an intimacy beween us "s close as beween he sea and
the strand,"46 whle yet we re still somehow partly our own selves; we do not
dissipate into he lesh just because we are so much a part of it. Objects, he says,
do not begin s selfsme tings which we s seers come to view ater we begin
opening our attention to them. Instead we nd the objects are involved in an
intimac; s if "the gaze itself envelops them, clothes them with its own lesh."47

5. Dferentias in the Phenomenal orld

In Dference and Repetiion, Deleuze characterizes phenomenl appearanc­

es as involving pure diferential relations that present to our awareness some
sort of a sign. To explain hese passages, we will irst look at how Deleuze reads
Leibniz's micro-perceptions as being ininitely small sub-phenomena that are
describable in clculus terms s diferential relations. Leibniz writes:

when we perceive colors or odors, we are perceiving nothing else but igures
and movements, but igures and movements so smll, so varied, and in such
great number, that our minds are not capable in their present states of consid­
ering them singly and distinctl. s a consequence we are not aware hat our
perceptions are composed of ininitesimally small perceptions of igures nd
movements. For example, when we thoroughly mix very ine yellow and blue
powders, we perceive green; we are not aware that what we in fact perceive is
only yellow and blue, very inely mxed.48

43 I, p. 1 759/ 1 33.
4 Ibid.
45 P, p. 248/2 1 4.
46 I, p. 1 756/ 1 30-1 3 1 .
47I, p. 1 757/ 1 3 1 .
48 G . W Leibniz, "Meditationes d e Coitione, Veritate e t Ideis," i n C. I. Gerhrdt (ed.), Die
phiosophschn Schitn von Goied ilhelm Leibnz, voL , Berlin: Georg Olms, 1965, p. 426;
 Body and ord in kfereau-Pony and Deleuze 193

Deleuze combines this notion of ininitesimally small perceptions with

the vnishing ininitesimals in Leibniz's diferential calculus, and he illustrates
with Leibniz's tringle demonstration.49

Fig. 7 Leibniz' triangle demonstration of vanishing vlues50

Leibniz describes a geometrical igure with two triangles. sharing a com­

mon diagonal line [igure 7]. s this line moves to the right, one triangle
increases while the other decreases. Yet, the sides of both tringles remain
proportional, so the ratio of the larger one lways inicates the ratio of the
smaller one. his holds even s the smller tringle's sides diminish to the in­
initely small. hey have vnished, but their diferentil relation remains, stll
discernible in the larger triangle. 51

"lections on Knowlege, Tuth, nd Ids," nMonowy and Othr Phiwsophicalssay s, Enish

rs. by . Screcker nd A M. Sreer, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merll, 1965, p. 10.

49 G. Deleuze, Seminr 22/04/1980, English trans. by C. Stivale, http:l/ww.webdeleze.

com, accessed 14-Dec-2011.
5 0 G. . Leibniz, MathemascheSchiten, vol. 4: Briwechsel zwschenLeibniz, allis, zi­
non, uido Grandi, Zendini, Hemann und Freihen von schinhaus, C. I. Gerhrdt (ed.),
Hlle: H. . Schmidt, 1859; image taken rom the pdf available at rchive.org, http:l/ww.
archive.orgldetlsl1eibnizensmathe02leibgoog, accessed 14-Dec-2011.
51 G. . Leibniz, "Justiication du clcl des ininitesimales par celuy de l'algebre ordi­
naire," in C. I. Gerhrdt (ed.), Mathmasche Schen, voL 4: Biwechsel zwschen Leibniz,
als, zinon, uido Grandi, Zendini, Hemann undFreihrn von schinhas, Hldesheim:
Olms, 1971, pp. 104-106; "Justiication of the Ininitesimal Calclus by hat of Orinay Al­
gebra," in L. E. Loeker (ed.), PhiwsophicalPapers andLeters, English trans. by L. E. Loemker,
Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1965, pp. 545-546.
 194 Cory Shores

C� ---. >+/ .__ .

/b..
___

ig. 8 he vnishing ratio remains displayed in the larger triangle

So according to Deleuze's reading, when we perceive green, we are really

noticing the diferential relations beween ininitely small perceptions of blue
and yellow.SZ At their basis, all our perceptions are primarily these undetect­
able micro-perceptions. hus, the perception of green is not really the homog­
enizing blending ofyellow and blue. Green results not from their assimilation
and bleeding into one another, but rather from their diferentially jarring up
ainst each other. And neither the micro-perceptions of yellow nor those of
blue have green on their phenomenal horizon. hus, the whole is not implied
in the parts. So contrary to Merleau-Ponty's theory, phenomena in the world
around us, for Deleuze, appear to our perception not when they integrate
holistically, but rather when they oppose each other diferentiall.
he micro-perceptions are obscure and conused; we perceive nothing in
them, and yet they are like raw phenomenal data that are only secondarily
synthesized into constituted perceptions. So, when the ininitely small per­
ceptions of yellow and blue diferentially relate to produce a higher-order
phenomenon of green, our perception comes more into clarity, because we
can better notice the color that we are seeing. s higher and higher orders dif­
ferentially relate, the perceptions ind themselves having greater clarity; thus,
"clrity emerges from obscurity by way of a genetic process."53 he diferential

52 G. D eleuze, Le pli. Leibniz et le Baroque, Paris: Les editions de ninuit, 1 9 88, p. 1 1 9; he

Fod: Leibniz and the Baroque, English trans. by T. Conle; Minneapolis: University of Mn­
nesota Press, 1 993, p. 90. Henceforth abbreviated s , with French/English page numbers.
53 , p. 1 20/90.
 Body and ord in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 195

relating that produces the higher-order phenomenon in a sense is like a clarity

ilter, and there is an ininity of these ilters.
Each ilter determines which perceptions will diferentially relate so to pro­
duce higher-order phenomena on the basis ofwhat is remarkable or notable in
that perceptual situation. To use Gregory Bateson's formlation, it is a matter
of diferences that make a diference. 54 Leibniz gives the example of the noisy
sound from a mill or waterfll that we have become overly accustomed to. Per­
haps at irst the micro-perceptions of the sound were remarkable or notable
when we initilly began living near the waterfall. he irst perceptual ilter
selects the micro-perceptions whose diferential relations wll provide a clearer
perception of the sound. hese various sub-perceptions are diferentially re­
lated yet again and iltered to an even clearer perception, until reaching the
highest order of clriy, the waterfllsound that we notice explicitly. However,
because the sound is monotonous, the noise gradully becomes less remark­
able, and oher diferential vriations in our ield of perception come to be
selected instead through diferentil ilreing.55
By selecting what is remrkable, the perceptions become distinguished
but not yet distinct. A percep tion obtins distinctness by means of yet an­
oher sort of ilter hat renders what is remarkable into what is regular. 56 his
regularizing of the perceptions is perhaps what makes them less noticeable or
phenomenal. So in the case of he waterfall sound, we at irst distinguish its
variations from all the other possible ones that could have diferemially related
so to come into clariy in our awareness. We hear it as its own perception, but
as long as it stands out to us in its remarkableness, it seems new and hetero­
geneous each moment and still worthy of our attention. Yet, as we gradully
realize that it has, for exmple, a certin range of volume that it never strays
from, and the sorts of sounds it makes and their patterns also stay within
certain ranges of variation, the perception then becomes regular and homo­
geneous. Our perception of the waterfall begins with a chaos of varying tiny
sounds that demand our attention, but it ll gradually turns into a blanket of
ignorable white noise that occupies the background of our awareness.
For Deleuze, the diferential relation beween micro-perceptions does not
just hold for all the perceptual data given together in one instant, like all the
micro-perceptions of blue and yellow that we have when seeing the green of
n apple; rather, "tiny perceptions are as much the passage from one percep­
tion to nother as they are components of each perception."57 his is because

54 G. Bateson, Mind and Naure: A Necessay Uni, London: ildwood House, 1 979, p. 1 1 0.
55 G. W Leibniz, Nouveax essais sur l'entendement humain, in C. I. Gerhatdt (ed.), Die
philosophschen Schriten, vol. 5, Berlin: Weidmann, 1 882, p. 47; New Essays on Human Un­
destanding, English trans. by . Remnant and J. Bennett, Cambridge: Cmbridge University
Press, 1 981 , pp. 53-54, and see lso , pp. 1 1 6-1 17/86. Deleuze uses the exmple of a water­
mill in his nalysis.
56 , p. 1 2 1 /9 1 .
57 , p. 1 1 5/87.
196 Cory Shores

in a way, the uture is already sensed now in the immediate ield of micro­
perceptions. Following his waves illustration,Leibniz writes:

he loudest noise in the world would never waken us if we did not have some
perception of its stn, which is smal, just s the strongest force in the world
would never break a rope less the lest force strained it and stretched it slight­
ly, even though that little lengthening which is produced is imperceptible. 58

Deleuze reads this to mean that what we perceive now gives us tiny indica­
tions of what is to come.

However abruptly I may log my dog who eats his meal, the animal will have
experienced he minute perceptions of my stelhy arrival on tiptoes, my hos­
tile odor, and my liing of the rod that subtend the conversion of plesure into
pain. How cold a feeling of hunger follow one of satisfaction if a thousnd
iny, elementay forms of hunger (for salts, for sugar, butter, etc.) were not
released at diverse and iniscernible rhyrhms?59

So like animals, we feel "pricklings," even though what we wil come to per­
ceive is not yet clear to s. hese are tiny perceptions that "are not integrated
into present perception."60 In the following moments, more of these tiny
pricklings prove remarkable and come out as a clear and distinguished per­
ceptionY hese subversive micro-perceptions "destabilize the preceding mac­
roperception while preparing the following one."62 his is striingly similar
to Merleau-Pont's notion that we now are implicitly aware of the content
of our forthcoming perceptions. We shold emphasize that for Deleuze, the
basis for the implicit perception is not that uture macro-perceptions are in­
tegrated with present ones, but rather that present ones are heterogeneous
mltiplicities with nti-integrational parts that overthrow former phenom­
enal apperings rather than blending them together. It is only on the highest
order of synthesis, the relarizing ilter that makes perceptions regular and
homogeneous, that such a blening happens.
So recall how a macro-perception is the diferential product of sub-phe­
nomena, which themselves are diferentials of yet smaller ones, all the way
to the ininitely small. We will turn now to Deleuze's explicit discussions of
phenomena in Dfference and Rpetiion, and note how his modiication of
the J.-H. Rosny energetics formula corresponds to the analysis ofLeibnizian
micro-perceptions:

58 G. W Leibniz, Nouvax essas, op. it., p. 47; Nw ssays, op. it., p. 54.
59 , p. 1 1 5/87.
60 , p. 1 1 6/87.
6' Ibi.
62 , p. 1 1 5/87.
 Body and ord in au-Pony and Deuze 197

Every intensiy is an E- E, where each E refers to an e- e', nd e toe- e' etc.:

each intensity is already a coupling (in which each element of the couple refers
in turn to couples of elements of another order), thereby revealing the quli­
tative content of quntity. We call this state of ininitely doubled iference
which resonates to ininiy dipaiy. Disparity-in other words, diference or
intensity (diference of intensity)-is the suicient reason of all phenomena,
the condition of that which appears. 63

Phenomena, Deleuze explains, lash in signal-sign systems, which we will

illustrate with the orders of perception. When the system itself has at least wo
heterogeneous series-"wo disparate orders capable of entering into commu­
nicatio''-then it is a signal.64 Consider, for example, the sub-phenomenal
and the macro-phenomenal levels.

he phenomenon that lshes across this system, bringing about the commu­
nication beween disparate series, is a sign. [. ]
. . Every phenomenon is com­
posite because not only are the wo series which bound it heterogeneous but
each is itself composed of heterogeneous terms, subtended by heterogeneous
series which form so many sub-phenomena.65

he green lashes out as the diferential relation between yellow and blue,
which themselves are diferentil relations, nd so on to ininity. Green lashed
out phenomenally because it was remarkable in that situation, and perhaps
that is why we might call ii a sign in Deleuze's sense of the term here. he
sound of the waterfll does not representationally signiy anhing when it
lshes out, but it alerts our awareness to somehing remarkable in our phe­
nomenal world.

. Bodiy Dferenias

Deleuze lso uses Leibniz's diagram when discussing Spinoz's bodily af­
fection, which will allow us to explain the nti-integrative relations beween
boh our body and its world and lso those within the Deleuzin phenomenl
body itsel£ To do so, we begin with his interpretation of Spinoz's simplest
bodies so as to link his renditions of Spinozistic bodily composition and f­
fective variation.

63 G . Deleuze, Dfirence et rpeition, Paris: PUF, 1968, p. 287; Dference and peiion,
English trans. by . Paton, Nw York: Columbia UniversityPress, p. 222 . Henceforth abbrevi­
ated as D R, with French/English page numbers. Rosn's original formulation does not have he
third coupling e - e'. Deleuze adds it, perhaps to emphasize that the orders go on to ininity.
See J.-H. Rosny, Les sciences et le pluralsme, Paris: Felx Alcan, 1922, p. 6.
4 DR, p. 286/222.
65 Ibid.
198 Coy Shores

Nested within the second book of Spinoz's Ethics is a section known as

"he Short Treatise on Physics," where Spinoza explains the composition of
compound bodies. On the most undamental level, bodies are composed of
simplest bodies, which are distinguishable from one another only on the basis
of their diferences in speeds nd slownesses.66 However, simplest bodies re
not atoms for Spinoza. By means of his novel interpretations ofSpinoz's 12th
and 32nd letters, the "Letter on Inini'' and the "Letter on Blood," Deleuze
characterizes these simplest bodies as pure diferential relations, even though
the letters predate the invention of diferential calculusY And it is also on this
basis that Deleuze portrays Spinozistic bodily composition as being based on
diference rather than on integration, despite Spinoz's language suggesting
othewise. Spinoza writes that simplest bodies become "reciprocally united to
each other" when "they re in reciprocl contact with each other, or if they
are moved with the same or diferent degrees of speed in such a way that they
communicate their motions to each other in some ixed ratio."68 However, this
"ixed ratio" for Deleuze is a relation of continuous co-variation. What makes
the relation xed is not that it stays the same, but raher that the simplest
bodies adaptively co-vary so hat they may together maintain themselves as a
compound despite each one afectively altering the other. To explain, Deleuze
turns to Spinoz's "Letter on Blood."
Here Spinoza writes about the particles of blood, which are the tiniest
parts of "lymph, chyle, etc.," using terminology similar to when he describes
simplest bodies in the Ethics. Parts make up wholes when "the laws or nature
of one part adapts itself to the laws or nature of another part in such wise
that there is the least possible opposition beween them."69 Deleuze tkes into
account that the simplest bodies are not atoms, and thus are not the basic
indivisible extending bodies that make up larger extending bodies.7° Instead,
they are ininitely small partitions found together in ininite sets. According
to Deleuze's reading, when the simplest bodies of diferent sets continuously
afect each other's speeds and maintain their continuous co-modiication, they
compose compound bodies. And as well, the simplest bodies can be regard­
ed s ininitely small vanishing terms whose diferential value beween their

66 B. Spinoza, Ethica, in C. Gebhardt (ed.), Opera, voL 2, Heidelberg: Winter, 1 972, p. 97;
Ethis, English trans. by G. H. R Prkinson, Oford: Oford University Press, 2000, p. 1 26.
67 S. DuY, he Loic of pression: Quali, Quantiy and Intensiy in Spinoa, Hegel and
Deleuze, ldershor: Ashgate, 2006, p. 48.
68 B. Spinoza, Ethica, op. cit., pp. 99- 1 00; Ethics, op. cit., p. 1 28.
69 B. Spinoza, Epstoae, in C. Gebhrdt (ed.), Opera, vol. 4, Heidelberg: Wmter, 1 972, p. 1 70;
he Leters, English trns. by S. Shirley, Cmbridge: Hackett, 1 995, p. 1 92.
70 B. Spinoza, enati Des Cartes Principiorum Phiosophiae Pars 1 & Il, in C. Gebhrdt
(ed.), Opera, vol. 1, Heidelberg: Winter, 1 972, p. 1 90; he Pincples of Cartesian Philosoph,
English trns. by S. Shirle, Cambridge: Hackett, 1 998, p. 53. See also G. Ddeuz� , Spinoa et
le probleme de !'epression, Paris: Les editions de minuit, 1 968, p. 1 87; Expressionism in Phi­
losophy: Spinoza, English rans. by M. Joughn, New York: Zone, 1 990, p. 204.
 Body and World in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 199

speeds determines the compound's power to afect other bodies and to sustain
its diferential composition under the inluence of detrimental afections.71
For example,

chyle is an iniite set of very simple bodies. Lmph is nother ininite set of the
very simple bodies. hat distinguishes he wo ininite sets? It is the dfferentil
relation! You have this time a dy/x which is: the initely smal prts of chyle
over the ininitely small parts of lymph, nd his diferentil relaion tends to­
wrds a limit: the blood, that is to say: chyle and lymph compose blood.72

Our blood, then, is a "xed ratio" only in the sense that the lymph and chyle
maintain their continuously varying diferential relation instead of splitting
aprt and forming diferentil relations with other bodies; in other words,
their being related in a ratio remains xed, even though the value of that ratio
is under continuous alteration.
Yet, the blood will decompose under the afective inluence of arsenic,
for example. he poison's simplest bodies have a diferentil vlue that, rath­
er than allowing the arsenic to combine with the blood, instead causes the
lymph and chyle to lose their co-variational relations and to then take up
relations with other simplest bodies.73 Note as well that the blood's power to
sustain itself is dependent on its diferential relation to other parts of the body.
he blood diferentially relates with other tissues to make up organs, which
themselves diferentilly co-compose to constitute the whole body. Our body
is then made of various levels of diferential composition, all the way down
to the ininitely smallest level of pure diferences without terms. So when we
are afected, our body's total level of power varies depending on whether the
afecting bodies increase or decrease the power of our compounds' abiliy to
retain their continually ltering relations. Arsenic, upon entering our body,
decomposes the blood, which then decomposes higher layers of our composi­
tion, and so on, sending shock waves of disruptive afections throughout all
the levels of our body. s Spinoza writes: "I understand a body to have died
when its parts are so disposed that they maintain a diferent ratio of motion
and rest to one nother."74 s we will ind, these compositionl disruptions are
matters of continuously varying ffective intensities sweeping throughout our
bodies and ltering their power levels.
So as to better understand the continuous variations of our body's overall
power or perfection, Deleuze returns to diferential calculus concepts. We will
need to conceive afections as though they are like instantaneous velocities;

71 G. Deleuze, Spinoa. Philosophie praique, Paris: Les eitions de minuit, 1981, p. 47; Spi­
noa: Pracical Philosoph, English trns. by . Hurle, San Francisco: City Lights, 1988, p. 32.
72 G. Deleuze, Seminr 10/03/1981, English trns. by S . DfY, hrtp://ww.webdeleuze.
com nd htp://ww.univ-pris8. fr, accessed 14-Dec-20 11.
73 Ibid.
74 B. Spinoza, Ethica, op. it., p. 240; Ethics, op. it., p. 256.
200 Cory Shores

they would be more like tendencies-towrd-chnge that express themselves in

a pure instant, and as such hey are intensive quantities raher thn extensive
ones.75 One way to visualize this is to imagine a ball tied to a string nd sung
around in the air. At every phase of its motion, its direction is continuously
varying, so as to form a circle. Yet, if we cut the string, the ball does not ly of
in a spirl, but rather moves in a straight line. his is because at every instant
the ball is tending straiht outward even though it actually moves circlarly
[igure 9].

Fig. 9 Bll spinning on a string

his path that lies at a right angle to he string would also be a tngent to
a circle's cuve at that location. For a cuve moving in a somewhat more ir­
regular path, ining its tendency-toward-change is more complex, and here
is where we might use something like Leibniz's method. We create a triangle
on the basis of how the curve's dimensions extend in a certain region. hen, as
with Leibniz's tringles, we slowly diminish the two tringle legs, nd he third
diagonal side gives us the tangent, which also tells us which way the cuve is
tending at that place [igure 1 0].

Fig. 1 0 Tangent obtained through vnishing values

So in this wa, as the triangle legs almost completely contract upon each other,
he diagonal line gives us the intensive vlue of the tendency-toward-chnge.

75 G. Deleze, Seminr 20/01/1981, English trns. by S. Dfy, http://ww.webdeleze.

com and http://ww. niv-paris8.fr, accessed 14-Dec-20 11.
 Body and orld in Mereau-Pony and Deleuze 201
hen, on he basis of Spinoz's correspondence with Blyenbergh in letters
1 8 through 24, Deleuze characterizes afections as being series of instanta­
neous ffective variations.76 Blyenbergh would like to know how it is possible
that our perfection, that is, our power of afection, is always ltering, and yet
our essence is eternl. Blyenbergh rites "nothing else pertains to n essence
than that which it possesses at the moment it is perceived,"77 which Deleuze
reformulates as "there belongs to an essence only the present, instantneous
afection that it experiences insofar as it experiences it."78
Deleuze ofers an illustration for how afections are continuous variations
hat are given as diferentil relations in the sense of instantaneous velocities.
We suppose we are meditating in a dark room. hen someone abruptly en­
ters and turns on the light, our concentration is broken and we are blinded.
We become aware that our power of afection has decreased instantaneously in
a "lihtning fast" alteration: "Two successive afections, in cuts. he passage is
the lived transition from one to the other," and we experience this transition
as the "phenomenon of passage." Every passage between afections is then
"necessarily l increase of power or a decrease of power."79 So if we were in­
stead feeling for our glasses in the dark, and then someone turns on a soter
light, our power instantaneously increases. hat we feel in that instant is the
intensity of the change, nd thus we are phenomenally aware from moment
to moment of a continuous alteration of afective intensiy.
So, we see that the continuous variation of afection not only involves a
series of discrete intensities, but is continuous like a curve or wave as well. De­
leuze elaborates this when discussing the sequences of ideas that we have while
being continuously afected. hen bodies afect us, we obtain inadequate
ideas of them. Deleuze says, "I look at the sun, and the sun little-by-litle dis­
appears nd I ind myself in the dark of night; it is thus a series of successions,
of coexistences of ideas, successions of ideas."8° Corresponding to these ideas
is he continuous variation of increase and decrease in our power of action.
To illustrate, he has us imagine hat while walking down the street, we sud­
denly encounter our enemy Peter, nd the idea of him makes us afraid. Yet,
just hen we notice our friend Paul; we turn our attention to him and become
empowered by his charm. s we transitioned from the idea of Peter to the idea
of Pal, we experienced our power continuously increse. "In other words,"
Deleuze says, "there is a continuous variation in the form of an increase-dim­
inution-increase-diminution of the power of acting or the force of existing of
someone according to the ideas which she has," and "this kind of melodic line

76 Ibi.
7 B. Spinoza, Epistoae, op. cit., p. 137; Letes, op. cit., p. 160.
78 G. Deleuze, Seminar 20/0 1 1 1 9 8 1 , op. cit.
79 Ibi.
80
G. Deleuze, Seminar 24/0 1 / 1 978, English trns. by . S. Murph, http://ww.webde­
leuze.com nd http://ww.univ-paris8.fr, accessed 1 4-Dec-20 1 1 .
202 Coy Shores

of continuous variation will deine afect."81 It is a continuity made up of a

series of intensities. So to solve Blyenbergh's objection, then, Deleuze explains
that an existing mode like our body is something that continuously varies
in power on account of its afections. Yet, what is eternal about our modal
essence is the fact that it is a range of possible power levels that our existing
body can have, and when our power dips below the lowest threshold of our
range, our body ceases to express our modal essence and instead decomposes
into parts that express other essences. So, even while our body continuously
alters throughout its duration, the essence it expresses remains eternally the
same range of intensive quantities.
To urther explicate the phenomenologicl value of Deleuze's rendition of
Spinozistic ffection, we should note his distinction between "afection" (fec­
tio) and "ffect" (aects) .SZ An afection is the efect that colliding bodies have
on one nother, and these efects determine the compositional integrity of each
afected body. hen our own body is afected, the afection itself seves as a sign
that makes us awre of how much power we have at that moment. An afect,
however, is more like n instantaneous vriation or tendency-toward-change. It
tels us whether that afection is tending to increase or decrease our power, nd
how strongly it is doing so. ffects, then, seve as signs of the afection's inten­
sit. Since ffections mke us aware merely of our quntities of power, he clls
hem "scalar." ffects, however, he considers "vector," because they lso indicate
to or awreness the up or down direction of the afection's inluence on or
power. Ifwe regrd the ffection as a place long a cuve representing n increse
or decrese ofpower, then the ffect would be like the tangent at those locations,
indicating how strongly nd in which direction the instntaneous variation is
tending. 83 And because afections nd ffects re signs that we interpret immei­
ately, they then involve a sort of phenomenal bodily awareness of the way things
in the wold appear to us when they afect our bodies.
Deleuze elaborates this afective awareness in his interpretation of Spinoz's
irst two inds of knowledge. We obtain knowledge of the irst ind through
our reception of afective signs that indicate an increase or decrease in our
levels of power. he sun's particles shocingly strike our skin, and we become
aware of whether and how strongly the sun is empowering or wekening our
body.84 he second ind of nowledge is more like "know-how" savoiraire).
We might be under the continuous detrimentl afection of a body that will
decompose our composition if we do not adapt nd maintin our diferen­
tial relation with it. To illustrate, Deleuze has us consider a line in Dante's

8 1 Ibi.
82 Ibi.
83 G. Deleuze, "Spinoza et les trois 'ethiques'," in Criique et liniqu�, Paris: Les editions de
minuit, 1 993, pp. 1 72-173; "Spinoza and the hree 'Ethics'," in Essays Criical and Clinica,
English trns. by D. W Smith, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1 38-1 39.
84 Ibid.
 Body and orld in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 203

neno:85 "he rain makes them howl like dogs; wih one side they screen the
other; they oten turn hemselves, the impious wretches."86 in droplets are
pelting a dmned soul, disrupting he composition of is sin at that location
and thereby sending shock waves of decompositionl forces throughout the rest
of his body. Yet, to maintain his constitution, the sol turns up a new side of his
body that is more able to sustain the afections. He is awre of how the rain af­
fects him, and he thus knows how to self-afectively alter himself so to maintin
his dfferentil contact with it. Our active self-ffection nd adaptive interaction
with the world around us is what Deleuze here clls "rhythm." He also ofers
he example of swimming hrough a powerul wave. hen we colide with the
wave, its afection begins to decompose our bod. Yet, by self-afectively altering
the arrangements of our own body's prts, we may swim in conjunction with
the wave and together form a larger composite bod.87 Deleuze suggests nother
illustration to explain more clearly how afective rhythm involves couplings of
continuous afective variations. He hs s consider a dual improvisation of a vi­
olin and a pino. On the one hand, each one needs to improvisationaly choose
its own development. Yet, the musicians' decisions wil inluence how the other
plays in concord with it. So, in order for both instruments to maintain their
diferential co-composition, they must make self-modiications that are difer­
entilly compatible with those of the oher player.88

. he Phenomenal Body without Organs

We will now draw an even stronger contrst between a Deleuzian phenom­

enological body and a Merleau-Pontian one, by applying Spinozistic afective
rhyhm to the "rhythm of sensation" in Deleuze's more phenomenologiclly
relevant text, Francis Bacon: he Loic ofSensation. We keep in mind that af­
fections proceed as a continuous variation that on the one hand is made up of
discrete instantaneous intensities, while on the other hand still forms a luid
cuve or "wave" of sorts. Likewise, each igure in Bacon's paintings presents a
"shiting sequence or series" of intensive variations, causing the sensation to
exist "at diverse levels."89 Deleuze then ofers four problematic hpotheses to
explain how sensation is a matter of diferences of level, with the fourth being
the "phenomenologicl hypothesis." It regards the levels as being diferent do-

8 5 G. Deleuze, Seminar 24/03/1 9 8 1 , English trans. by . S. Murphy, http://www.webde­

leuze.com and htp://ww.univ-pris8.r, accessed 1 4-Dec-20 1 1 .
86 Dnte, he Ineno ofDante Alighieri, English trns. by J. Crlyle, London: J. M. Dent,
1 900, p. 6 1 .
8 7 G . Deleuze, Seminar 24/0 1 1 1 978, op. cit.
88 G. Deleuze, Seminr 3 1 103/ 1 9 8 1 , http://ww.univ-paris8.fr, accessed 14-Dec-20 1 1 .
89 G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon. Loique de a sensation, Paris: Eitions du seuil, 2002, pp. 41-
42; Franis Bacon: h e Loic ofSensaion, English trns. by D. W Smith, London: Continuum,
2002, p. 27. Henceforth abbreviated s FB, with French/English page numbers.
204 Cory Shores

mains of the senses, with each one being integrated with the others in a Mer­
leau-Pontian synaesthetic way; for example, when our eyes see the stomping
hooves of the bulls in Bacon's bullighting paintings, our ears seemingly hear
the noises they make. In this sense, the painter wold "mke visible a ind of
original unity of the senses." Ddeuze rejects this nd the other hpotheses, be­
cause they do not take into account the "vitl power" of sensational rhchm.90
In simple sensations, he writes, rhythm "appears as the vibration that lows
through the body without organs, it is the vector of the sensation, it is what
makes the sensation pass from one levd to another."91 Recall that the "vector"
of the afect-sign is the intensity of the ffection's increase or decrease in value.
lso, these ffective intensities send shock waves of disruption throughout the
body's composition, causing it to decompose nd recompose, in accordance
wih a "rhythmic" co-variation within and between boies. So, Ddeuze's read­
ing of Spinozistic ffect will now help us better characterize the phenomeno­
logicl value of his body without organs, for he writes that it is "an intense
and intensive body. It is traversed by a wave that traces levds or thresholds in
the body according to the variations of its mplitude. hus the body does not
have organs, but thresholds or levels."92 In Ddeuze's Spinozistic body, these
intensive levels are precisely what causes our bodily composition to shit and
change its arrangements, and the more rhthmically our body acts, the more
it breaks down its norml organic divisions and relations to produce new
unctional relations between its prts. In other words, the rhythm of afection,
just like the rhythm of sensation, pushes our bodies to the limits of its organi­
zation, tending it toward being a body without organs. We see this correlation
as well in Ddeuze's notion of the indeterminate and tempory organs of sen­
sation moving from place to place in bodies without orgns. he exposed side
of the damned soul in Dante's Ineno is the point of contact where the pdting
rain distributes its decompositional afective shock waves throughout him. By
turning another side upward, he self-ffectively sends wiin himself waves of
afective lteration so to rearrange the rdations of his body, and by doing so,
he creates a new site of sensitiviy to the external waves of afection. Because
he continually twists his sides around, each new organ of sensation replaces
the prior one, ming ll of them temporay and indeterminate. Likewise,
Ddeuze writes of the body without organs:

A wave with a variable amplitude lows through the body without orgns; it
traces zones and levels on this body according to the variations ofits mplirude.
hen the wave encounters external forces at a particular �evel, a sensation ap­
pears. n organ will be determined by this encounter, but it is a provisionl

9° FB, pp. 45-46/30.

91 FB, p. 7 1 15 1 .
92 FB, p . 47/32.
 Body and ord in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 205

orgn that endures only as long as the passage of he wave and the action of he
force, nd which will be displaced in order to be posited elsewhere.93

So by interpreting Deleuze's body without orgns in this Spinozistic language,

we may better explain his explicit attack on phenomenology when he con­
trasts the body without organs to the phenomenologicl lived body:

his ground, this rhthmic unity of the senses, can be discovered only by
going beyond the organism. he phenomenological hpothesis is perhaps in­
suicient because it merely invokes the lived body. But the lived body is still a
pltry thing in comprison with a more profound nd lmost unlivable Power
[Puissance] . We cn seek the unity of rhthm only at the point where rhythm
itsef plunges into chaos, into the night, at the point where the diferences of
level are perpetually and violently mxed. Beyond the organism, but also at the
limit of the ived body, there lies [ . . . ] the body without organs. 94

According to the "phenomenological hpothesis," the lived body's sense-organ

domains are synaesthetically linked. To contrast it with the body without or­
gans, consider a Bergsonian exmple that Deleuze sometimes evokes: a cow
automaticlly recognizing grass.95 he cow is able to recognize grass because
its habitul behaviors have formed the motor equivalent of a general idea.

In the animal itsel, we ind representations which lack only relection and
some disinterestedness to be general ideas in the ll sense of the term: f not,
how should a cow that is being led stop before a meadow, no matter which,
simply because it enters into the category that we cll grass or meadow?96

A living being selects from a pool of diferences the parts or elements that
satisy one of its needs. hus, although each experience of grass is diferent,
they are all grouped together, because they each satisy the cow's hunger. he
cow then can dip its head mechaniclly and eat the grass, without an intense
awareness of all the meadow's variations that would distinguish one clump
from another. Bergson illustrates a sort of dephenomenalization that happens
as our bodies become more accustomed and integrated into our surroundings.

I take a walk in a town seen then for the irst time. At every street corner I
hesitate, uncertain where I m going. [ . . ] there is nothing in one atitude
.

93 FB, p. 49/34.
94 FB, p. 47/32.
95 See DR, p. 1 76/ 1 3 5 ; G. Deleuze, inma 2: L'image-temps, Paris: Les editions de minuit,
1985, p. 62; Cinema 2: he ime Image, English trns. by H. Tomlinson and R Gleta, Lon­
don: Atlone, 1 9 89, p. 42.
96 H. Bergson, La pensee et le mouvant. Essas et conerences, Paris: Fex Alcan, 1 934, p. 66;
he Creaive Min, English trns. by M. Andison, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1 946,
p. 62.
206 Cory Shores

which foretells and prepares uture attitudes. Later, ater prolonged sojourn in
the town, I shall go about it mechanically, without having any distinct percep­
ion of the objects which I m passing. [ . . . ] these accompanying movements
are orgnized to a degree which renders perception useless. I began by a state
in which I distinguished only my perception; I shall end in a state in which I
m hardly conscious of anything but automatism.97

Yet, suppose the cow sees what looks like grass, eats it, oly to ind that it
has the plastic taste of rtiicial turf Quite suddenly, what the cow is eating
becomes remarkable, and it comes to the forefront of its awareness. he parts
of its phenomenal world are not integrating, as its bodily domains of tasting
and seeing are forced to work simultaneously in a disharmonious way. s well,
the cow stops its habitual action of dipping its head to eat the grass and in that
way loses its integration with its world, as though the world suddenly becme
foreign to the cow. hus, eating grass stands out as a potently phenomenl ex­
perience when the cow's horizons cease to integrate. "hthm" in the Francis
Bacon text is the unpredictable varying of the waves of sensation that ffect
each bodily domain diferently in such a way that the sense data cannot be
processed, regularized, recognized, and thereby dephenomenalized. hile this
use of the term "rhythm" is surely quite distinct from the Spinozistic sense, we
might note that even in this context, rhythm also seves to explin the varying
diferential relations within the body, within the world, and between the body
and the world that are at work in phenomenal experiences.

8. Conclusion

Merleau-Ponty's integrationist model of the body would better account

for the passive synthesis of phenomenal objects and for our body's norml
organic unctioning at work in this process. Phenomena for him come to be
constituted by means of horizonal integrations, unfolding over time and oc­
curring on the basis of our body's internal cooperations and its sympathetic
interaction with a coherent world. Yet, as the examples of the waterfall and
grass illustrate, the more that the component parts and moments of our per­
ception integrate, and the more our senses agree on what they sense, and thus
the more accustomed to the world around us our body becomes, the less phe­
nomenally intense the experience is. Hence, the lived body of Merleau-Ponty
is a "pltry thing" compared to the body without organs, for it is incapable of
having intense phenomenal experiences. he body without organs "lies at the
limit" of the lived bod, because it is only when the lived body's harmonious,

97 H. Bergson, Maiere et memoire. ssai sur a reation du cops a !'esprit, Pris: Germer Bail­
Here et Cie., 1 903, pp. 1 00-1 0 1 ; Mater and Memo , English. trans. by N. M. Pal and W S.
Plmer, Mineola, New York: Dover, 2004, p. 1 1 0, emphasis mine.
 Body and orld in Merleau-Pony and Deleuze 207

integrated unctioning breaks down that it comes closer to being the phe­
nomenal body wihout organs. Deleuze's diference-based model, then, can
be seen as compatible with Merleau-Pon's model, as long as we distinguish
heir explanatory purposes. Merleau-Pon's theory better accounts for the
ongoing constitution of phenomenl objects, the familiar things in the world
around us, while Deleuze's theory better explains the intensiy of any given
moment of phenomenal experience. hus, although Deleuze's model in many
undamentl ways contraposes Merleau-Pon's model, we need not regard it
as a critique of phenomenology itsel, but rather as a useul contribution to
phenomenoloy's pool of theoretical ideas.

Corry Shores
Vlierbeeklaan 38
3 0 1 0 Kessel-Lo, Belgium
corry.shores@hiw.kuleuven.be

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