Somers-Hall, (0.7), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘0.7 Conclusion [to the Introduction]: Three Forms of Difference’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH, and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition.
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

0 Introduction: Repetition and Difference

0.7 Conclusion [to the Introduction]: Three Forms of Difference

Summary

Brief Summary:

We have seen two main types of difference, conceptual and non-conceptual. Deleuze in the first chapter of Difference and Repetition will “perform an enquiry into the principle of difference which neither sees it as conceptual nor sees its non-conceptuality as the end of our enquiry” (21).

Summary

Somers-Hall examined a couple kinds of difference in the Introduction to Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, and he will now review them briefly.

1) Conceptual difference:
Conceptual differences can be represented. We obtain them by finding conceptual boundaries and specifications that distinguish things.

2) The difference between incongruent counterparts:
We cannot conceptualize this difference. There is no conceptual difference between right and left. Rather, we tell the difference between them by means of experience.

3) The difference that gives rise to incongruent counterparts:
There is an inner difference that distinguishes incongruent counterparts [this is not entirely clear, but it is different than the internal relations of the parts. It seems to be inner more in the sense of inherent, and it has certain spatial features inherent to it.] For Deleuze there is a sort of difference which gives rise to such inherent differences as left and right handedness (21). This means then that there is a deeper sort of repetition based on this deeper sort of difference. “In other words, Deleuze wants to provide an account of the genesis of the kind of spatiality which Kant takes as his starting point” (21).

 
For Leibniz difference is conceptual and for Kant it is non-conceptual. Deleuze’s project will be

to perform an enquiry into the principle of difference which neither sees it as conceptual nor sees its non-conceptuality as the end of our enquiry. In doing so, he will develop an account of difference which allows us to explain the kinds of differences presupposed but not explained by Kant and the atomists. Developing this new concept of difference is the primary aim of chapter one of Difference and Repetition. (21)

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.