Relative Ways: Deleuze, Leibniz and the art of memory
by
Phillip Gillham
Abstract
In this paper we shall present the position that Deleuze’s geo-philosophy is a variant
of the renaissance idea of an art of memory where an art of memory is a practice or
construction of a formation of knowledge. Moreover we shall argue that it is not
immanence and divergence of the concept that provides a key for an understanding of
the constructional nature of Deleuze’s philosophy but the possibility and nonrelational character of the percept. The place where this is most apparent is in
Deleuze’s confrontation with the philosophy of Leibniz in The Fold: Leibniz and the
Baroque and most specifically Deleuze’s invocation of the vinculum. We shall argue
that on the one hand Deleuze’s analysis of the non-relational character of the vinculum
presents us with a deeper logic at work in Leibniz but on the other hand Deleuze
forecloses this logic through his materialist reading of Leibniz. It is the contention of
this paper that this alternative logic undermines Deleuze’s prescription to immanence.
We investigate this by tracing Leibniz’s logic of the event back to its roots in
scholastic philosophy. Here we propose that for Leibniz, contra Deleuze, an event is
constituted by the individual or monad itself. We also draw on the fact that Leibniz
stated that the infinitesimal calculus was only the first step in his mathematical logic
and that he always envisioned a geometric calculus, a calculus that would position
individuals in relation to God. In order to access the logic behind such a calculus we
turn to the ancient Greek term of tolma or audacity in neo-Platonism. Through the
construction of a tolma logic we identify a logic of the percept in terms of a geometry
of place and a theory of proximate individuals. As such we present the art of memory
as a method and practice that combines the tri-fold distinction of art, science and
philosophy.