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The aim of this essay is to attempt to explore what may be termed Deleuze's 'overturning' of

Platonism, informed by Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche and his attempt at providing a challenge to

various philosophical concepts. Through this exploration I hope to critically examine the

implications of Deleuze's philosophy of difference and also the challenge that it potentially provides

to Platonism and its implications. As noted by Whitehead (1979, p39), 'the European Philosophical

tradition may be characterised as a series of footnotes to Plato' however; it has also been stated that

philosophy may not necessarily be considered a footnote but rather as a constant the attempt to

overturn his philosophy,(Smith p90) as Foucault notes overturn Platonism: what philosophy has

not tried? (Foucault) According to Deleuze modern philosophy has never had any other task than

this overturning (reversement) of Platonism.(Flaxman cited by Jones :8) It is stated that Deleuze

approaches Platonism with the belief that the 'very conditions for it's overturning, already exist

within Platonism itself.' (Flaxman cited by Jones p10) 'Within this project', he states, 'many of the

characteristics of Platonism must be conserved'. (Deleuze D&R p71 )

'Like an animal in the process of being tamed, whose final resistant movements bear witness better

than they would in a state of freedom to a nature soon to be lost: the Heraclitan world still grows in

Platonism.' (D&R p71)

Plato, may be recognised by his contribution of the human “soul” which is distinct from the human

body, 'corresponding to this soul was Plato's “theory of ideas, or forms,” in which a separate “real”

world contained ideally eternally unchanging examplars.' Plato's forms and the Platonic soul are

conceived of in such a way as to be 'more real than the body, or world of appearances, of higher

rank and higher value.' (Peery p58) Using this idea Plato was able to argue for a ranking order

which placed the “philosopher-kings” at the top of a social hierarchy, of the highest power and

value.

Deleuze states that ‘the poisoned gift of Platonism’, was its introduction of this transcendence into

philosophy, 'to have given it a plausible philosophical meaning.' (the triumph of the judgement of

God)’ (ECC 137). Deleuze confronts the transcendent aspect of Plato's theory of forms, which

seems to have permeated much of Western thought since; as Nietzsche states 'Christianity is

Platonism for "the people"' (Nietzsche BGE, xii), or as also noted, one of the major constants within

Physics is the 'concept of matter as a receptacle for forms that come from the outside, in which the

genesis of both form and structure seem to involve resources from beyond the capabilities of the

material substratum of these forms and structures,' although classical physics began with a break

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from the philosophy of both Plato and Aristotle it still managed to 'reduce the variability of material

expression to the concept of mass and studied only the simplest material systems in which

spontaneous self-generation of form does not occur, thus retaining some transcendental agency

hidden in the background.' (De Landa )

Why Deleuze chooses Platonism despite his criticisms of it, may be explained by the claim that is

attributed to Nietzsche – that 'Platonism is pregnant with a future; it is pregnant with difference'.

(Brusseau intro page 1) The difference that Deleuze attempts to appropriate from Platonism, is its

disregard for a middle term in its process of division. Deleuze notes that Aristotle first found this

irreplaceable element within Platonism, - despite using it as his part of his critique against Plato -

the Platonic method of division is not based upon mediation, 'without middle term or reason it acts

in the immediate and is inspired by the ideas rather than by the requirements of a concept in

general.' (D&R p71) Once Deleuze has established his attempt to think of difference without

recourse to prior identity, Aristotelian division begins to break down into a series of differences with

similarities or 'difference mediated within the concept in general, in the genus and in the

species'(Deleuze p72) – not a concept of profound difference or difference-in-itself. It is in

Platonism that Deleuze seems to find the means for a process of division that does not mediate

within a concept, 'there is no question of species, nothing in common with Aristotle not a question

of identifying but one of authenticating' (D&R p72) As Foucault notes, 'the question of separating

between genera did not concern Plato, neither did the characteristics of particular species, what

Plato attempted was the discovery of the identity of the true claimant.' (Foucault – Theatricum

Philosophicum)

Another accepted view of Plato's influence within Western philosophy is the superior position that

he grants to a-priori knowledge in relation to objects. What can be known by reason, or in reference

to a Platonic form, may be accepted as surpassing (in a distinguished metaphysical sense) what can

be gained through sense experience. (Markie, 2008) It is stated that Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche

draws upon this 'rejection of transcendence within philosophy, in which his conception of the

univocity of Being is used to counter any form of ontological transcendence' (Hallward p70) As

Foucault notes 'univocity of being, is paradoxically the principal condition that permits difference to

escape from the domination of identity, while also freeing it from the law of the Same as a simple

opposition within concepts.' He states - Being can express itself in the same way, because difference

is no longer submitted to the prior reduction of categories; because it is not distributed inside a

diversity that can always be perceived; because it is not organized in a conceptual hierarchy of

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species and genus. Being is that which is always said of difference; it is the Recurrence of

difference.

(Foucault – theatricum philosophicum)

However, Deleuze finds that the most important distinction made within Platonism is not th

transcendent distinction between essence and appearance; or the forms and copies, but rather the

means by which the forms are used to distinguish between two different types of copies -

(1) “Copies” (eikones) are well-grounded claimants, authorized by their internal resemblance

to the ideal model, authenticated by their close participation in the foundation;

(2) (2) “simulacra” (phantasmata) are like false claimants, built on a dissimilarity and

implying an essential perversion or deviation from the Idea. (Smith p99)

The motivation for Plato's method of division lies 'within the will to select, to sort, to fair la

difference (make the difference) between these 'true' and 'false' images' (Smith P91)

Platonic division then can be understood on the basis of 'selecting from among the pretenders,

distinguishing good and bad copies or, rather, copies (always well- founded) and simulacra (always

engulfed in dissimilarity)’ (LS 257) Within this distinction, simulacra are generally considered to be

'demonic images' which are designated by a moral distinction between 'good' and 'bad' copy (p16-17

-Germinal Life, Ansell-Pearson) Rather than subdivision or selection from within categories, Plato's

method is selection from among claimants, that 'he tests with a strung bow, eliminating all but one

(the nameless one, the nomad). 'This distinguishing of the false from the authentic, cannot rely upon

a law of the true and false, (as truth is not necessarily opposed to error but to false appearances) but

must rely upon a model; a model so pure that the actual purity of the "pure" resembles it,

approximates it, and measures itself against it; a model that exists so forcefully that in its presence

they sham vanity of the false copy is immediately reduced to non-existence.' (Foucault - Theatricum

Philosophicum) It is stated that the influence of Plato's exclusion of the simulacra can be found in

the work of other philosophers in which they have sided with the model and copy whilst excluding

the simulacra either through rejection as an external error, (Descartes – DR148) or by assimilating it

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into a higher from, through the dialectic. (Hegel - DR 263). (Roffe iep)

The model is supposed to enjoy an originary superior identity (the idea alone is nothing other than

what it is:only Courage is courageous, Piety pious), whereas the copy is judged in terms of a

derived internal resemblance. Indeed, it is in this sense that difference comes only in third place,

behind identity and resemblance, and can be understood only in terms of these prior notions.

(Deleuze D&R 154)

Within the Meno, Plato discusses how the forms or ideas are recollected during life, in doing this he

attempts to provide the 'possibility of escape from the dream-world of unfounded opinions by

means of the recovery of knowledge of reality which our souls once possessed before our

experience of the material world began.'(Melling p96) Deleuze notes that in this dialogue, Plato

discusses memory in connection with a geometric problem which must be understood before it can

be resolved, and must have the solution it deserves according to the manner in which the

rememberer has understood it. (D&R p78) Plato's idea of anamnesis is one of the means by which

'true love or well-founded madness may be discovered within the souls of those that have seen

much, and retain many dormant but revivable memories' (Smith p95) The true claimants 'are those

that are able to participate in contemplation and reminiscence, while sensual souls, forgetful and

narrow of vision are denounced as false rivals' (Smith p95)

In a discussion on the image of thought, Deleuze challenges the Platonic idea of anamnesis and the

idea that thought must rely upon reminiscence, he states -

Why should it be that so many fundamental principles concerning what it means to think are

compromised by reminiscence itself? For as we have seen, Platonic time introduces difference,

apprenticeship and heterogeneity into thought only in order to subject them again to the mythical

form of resemblance and identity, and therefore to the image of thought itself. As a result, the whole

Platonic theory of apprenticeship functions as a repentance, crushed by the emerging dogmatic

image yet bringing forth a groundlessness that it remains incapable of exploring,(D&R p206)

In every respect it is a matter of production, not of adequation. It is a matter of genitality, not of

innateness or reminiscence.(D&R p192)

Arguably, Plato's system of thought seems to construct a tiered hierarchy of representation within

which he seemingly places the idea of the forms as the innate basis of knowledge, what Deleuze at

first seems to challenge is this dominant notion that can arguably be found in much of Western

thought – in which Plato has 'opposed essence to appearance, the original to the image, the sun of

truth to the shadows of the cave.'(Smith, P90) The effects of Platonic representation may be seen

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when, for example, 'Socrates referred to the ideas, when Augustine invoked God or when Kant

proposed the kingdom of ends.' (Brusseau, p2) In each of these approaches, 'the world is considered

in some form of perfection or teleological order, furthermore within these claims about experience

there is an inherent notion of original condition or final destiny.' As such, 'these claims about

experience incline toward first states or last, everything is covered by default.'(ibid)

Deleuze's reversal of Platonism does not necessarily mean that it should still function in reverse;

rather the reversal of Platonism 'means listening for another truth curled inside Socrates.' (Brusseau

intro page 1) Undertaking this task would mean not a reordering of the priorities that are inherent

within Platonic representation but a 'redirecting of their mechanisms for understanding reality,'(ibid)

accordingly such a form of representation would not attempt to grasp at universal meaning 'like

Socrates referring to his universal metaphysical skyline.' (Brusseau i)

As Smith notes 'a simple reversal of this (Platonic) relation would imply that the super-sensuous be

placed in service of the sensuous', which - as Heidegger had also demonstrated – leads to

positivism.' (Smith, P90) Rather it would rely upon a consideration of the generation of meaning, a

generation in which things can 'make their own sense at their own performance and nowhere else.'

(Brusseau, i) What this overturning must consist of then, is a challenge to the foundations of

Platonism, not in an attempt to literally reverse the relation but to destabilise it. What is considered

Deleuze's greatest contribution to this project is his view that the Idea does not simply serve to

contrast with the image, the actual relation he finds is the motivation to distinguish between images

and selecting from them. Within Platonism, Deleuze finds that the Idea serves as a principle of

selection that induces and at the same time intervenes in a dialectic of separating good images from

bad, genuine images from the false ones.(Flaxman cited by Jones p14-15)

Deleuze's project then may be said to reverse the problem of the selection of genuine claimants and

the exclusion of simulacra, in doing this it attempts to ask 'how to select simulacra and to what

extent do they escape the play of the original and copies? How does one think images outside of the

framework of representation? 'How to produce an image of thought that is based on a different

thought of the image? How to think and live without transcendence? (Beistegui, p18)

It is stated that within Plato's dialogues Socrates never cared too much about 'who in particular was

just nor who was beautiful, instead, the question Justice and Beauty themselves absorbed him.'

(Brusseau, p 2) Deleuze notes (N&P p75-77) that Metaphysics has generally proposed the question

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of essence in this form; “what is...?” 'This habit', he states, 'we owe to Socrates and Plato. We must

go back to Plato to realise how much the question “what is...?” presupposes a particular way of

thinking.' (N&P p70-71) The issue of language in relation to representation is further explored by

Hardt, who notes that the central question of Platonic enquiry, (according to Deleuze) “Qu'est-ce-

que?' (What is beauty, what is justice, etc?) is challenged by Nietzsche's attempt to change the

question into “Qui?” (Who or which one is beautiful?) (Hardt p30) It may be stated that within the

question of 'what is?' there is some form of appeal to a transcendent source, in Deleuze's project the

Idea cannot be ascertained through the Socratic question of “what is..?” instead questions which

refer to the differential Ideas immanent in the intensive processes [that] they structure , “minor”

question, questions such as “Which one?” “Where?” “When?” “How?” “How many?” are more

suited to Deleuze's immanent strategy. (Smith & Protevi) Deleuze states that 'when the question of

what is this? is asked, it assumes an essence behind appearances, or at least something ultimate

residing behind masks. Other types of questions - 'minor' questions – seek to discover the masks

behind the mask, displacements behind every place. (DI p113-114)

In an interview in Desert Islands Deleuze further explains his critique of particular forms of

language and their implications in thought. In this, he notes his admiration of Kant for asking the

question of 'what is an object?' but situating this question within another framework, that of the how

question, which in Kant is taken up as how is this possible? (Deleuze p106 D,I) What he

demonstrates, is the extent to which a given framework may further shape the line of enquiry he

states that the question (What is this?) precedes and then directs the other questions, these other

questions then allow us to answer what is this?

He states - However, is there not every reason to fear that, if we begin with what is this?, we will

never even get to the other questions. The question what is this? biases the results of the inquiry, it

presupposes the answer as the simplicity of an essence, even if the essence is properly multiple,

contradictory, etc. This is just abstract movement, and we will never be able to reconnect with real

movement, that which traverses a multiplicity as such. In my view, the two kinds of questions imply

irreconcilable methods. For example, when Nietzsche asks who, or from what perspective, instead

of what, he is not trying to complete the question what is this!, he is criticizing the form of this

question and all its possible responses.

Within the Platonic structure of representation there is inherently a privileged notion of originality,

which arguably leads to a way of thinking that presupposes essential features or properties, with

emphasis placed upon the intelligible realm rather than the sensible, arguably subordinating

empirical experience to the transcendent. This does not necessarily mean that Deleuze's project

denies essence, rather it may need to be reconsidered; in his philosophy it must depend upon the

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'spatio-temporal and material coordinates of a problematic Idea that is purely immanent to

experience,' a problematic idea that is determined by 'minor' questions, questions of 'the accident,

the inessential, of multiplicity, of difference – in short of the event (Smith 111)

In order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit

thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). (Wittgenstein, Preface to

Tractatus p27)

In reference to Wittgenstein's remark, Platonism can be seen to draw the limitation of thought at his

concept of the forms or even the idea of the Good, in what Deleuze may refer to as an image of

thought. Platonism sets the limitations and relations between empirical experience and intelligible

forms, the contradiction that is set by the limitation is what seems to interest Deleuze. The main

task of the dialogue in the Sophist, is the identification of the sophist – the false claimant - and it's

problematic nature due to the sophist being able to claim to argue knowledge of any subject.

It is stated that sophist's claim to argue any subject must derive from a belief that he somehow

possesses knowledge of all subjects, however if this knowledge is not really possible, then the

sophist must possess only an apparent knowledge on all subjects, not the reality. This imitation of

knowledge is the basis for the distinction between sophistry and philosophy, and also the means by

which the sophist is identified.(Flaxman cited by Jones p20-21)

While the dialogues of both The Phaedrus and The Statesmen both move dialectically upward

toward a search for the 'true lover' and the 'true statesmen' in accordance with the claimants

resemblance to the ideal form of each respectively, the dialogue of The Sophist works in the

opposite way in which the false claimant is instead sought after. (Smith 98)

Deleuze finds that Platonism is constituted on this basis, it's attempt to disregard the phantasm or

simulacra, which he identifies with the sophist himself.

He states; with Plato a philosophical decision of the utmost importance was taken: that of

subordinating difference to the supposedly initial powers of the same and the similar, that of

declaring difference unthinkable in itself and sending it, along with the simulacra, back to the

bottomless ocean.'(Deleuze p155) Deleuze's reading of the Sophist concentrates on the predicament

in the last part of the dialogue which demonstrates the 'anti-Platonism at the heart of Platonism'

when Socrates is able to distinguish himself from the Sophist, but the Sophist does not distinguish

himself from Socrates. (D&R P156) Here it may be seen that the simulacra consists of a claim or

claimant that is an attempted distortion of the ideal – but as Deleuze notes also provides the means

to challenge the notion of both model and copy. (p156)

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Deleuze's interpretation of Platonism, defines it by its will to track and eliminate simulacra, to

identify the sophist himself, the diabolical insinuator (Dionysus).(Smith p99) The goal of this

process is to confirm the legitimacy of true claimants, whist abolishing from the test of selection

those that make false claims. this method is supplemented by the use of a mythic circle which is

used to establish a foundation and therefore the creation of the concept of the Idea. (Deleuze D&R

p74) It is stated that the overall motivation for this distinction, is a moral motivation in which the

simulacra is condemned for its challenging of the model and the copy, 'thereby turning us away

from the Idea of the Good (hence Plato's condemnation of certain poets along with the sophists).'

(Smith p99) It is further noted that due to the absence of mediation in Plato, he must resort to the

use of myth, a method that is combined with the power of the dialectic to achieve the method of

division. (Smith p91) Deleuze points out that within Plato's dialogue the Sophist myth is not

necessarily present, Plato resorts to a 'counter-utilisation of his method, in which he attempts to

isolate the false claimant – the one who lays claims to everything without any right – the “sophist”

(Deleuze D&R p73) The method of division can not be applied with reference to a myth of model,

as the true sophist cannot be distinguished from a false claimant, since the false claimant here is the

sophist.(Smith p98) With the final definition of the Sophist leading to the point where he cannot be

distinguished from Socrates: the ironist operating in private by elliptical arguments. Was it not

inevitable that irony be pushed this far? And that Plato be the first to indicate this direction for the

overthrow of Platonism?”(Deleuze p47 – Plato and the Simulacrum)

The dominance of the model is collapsed into difference itself, and the copies are dispersed into the

dissimilarity or the series such that one can never say that the one is a copy and the other a model.

(D&R P156) Foucault states that 'philosophy may be defined at the point in the Sophist in which it

is impossible to distinguish Socrates from the sophist. (theatricum philosophicum)

Within the dialogue, Plato's attempt to define the false imitator falls short, at which point The

Sophist and Socrates are unable to be differentiated or rather where Socrates distinguishes himself

from the Sophist, but the Sophist does not distinguish himself from Socrates, (Deleuze D&R p156)

An overturning then, according to Deleuze, must pose the questions as to whether selection amongst

rivals can be abandoned in favour of a different method of selection such as those by Nietzsche or

Spinoza, as their methods do not concern the legitimacy to claims of transcendence but instead the

degree to which a 'being is filled with immanence....Selection no longer concerns the claim, but

power” (ECC, p. 137)

It is here that Deleuze attempts to appropriate the concept of the simulacra due to its ability to

destabilise the reign of the identical and of analogy. (ibid)

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The challenge, and one of the key points of the Sophist, is the attempt to consider the existence of

non-being, if non-being can be posited then from this the Sophist may be identified.

Being is also non-being, but non-being is not the being of the negative; rather, it is the being of the

problematic, the being of problem and question. Difference is not the negative; on the contrary,

non-being is Difference.( D&R p77)

The contradiction here arises from the use of the idea of non-being to determine the art of sophistry

and the effect that this has on the notion of being itself. In discussing the Plato's Sophist, Moravcsik

(1962 p22-23) notes how it's main topic is actually the problem of seeing or explaining the idea of

nothing, in which Plato sought to explain truth, falsehood and meaning without suggesting that it

was possible to see the nothing. He states that underlying this problem, is the dependance upon

viewing truth as analogous to seeing, if falsity is seeing nothing it is generally assumed to be akin to

blindness. However, believing a falsehood does not entail believing in nothing; it is not blindness,

he states that this puzzle demonstrates the nature of truth and falsehood. (ibid)

In denying that wisdom is sight and folly blindness we come to understand that truths are not

objects of mental sight. What is true or false is not an object or a name. Thus Plato's explanation of

truth, falsehood, and meaning has important consequences for his conception of the nature and

objects of knowledge, and therefore for his theory of Forms. The results of Plato's investigation are

not of mere historical interest to us. The differences between statement and name, meaning and

truth, sort- and formal concepts, -- differences which Plato was pointing out -- are as lively topics

of philosophical debate today as they were twenty-four hundred years ago." (Moravcsik 1962 p22-

23)

The simulacra exists without reference to a model, it is unmediated, according to Deleuze it is

difference itself. (DR 29) Each simulacra may be said to be it's own model, the being of difference

itself. Here it is noted that to achieve a notion of something as 'difference itself' Deleuze turns to

Nietzsche and borrows from him the idea that there cannot be such a thing as an intrinsic

ontological unity. He also borrows from Nietzsche the idea that being is becoming, in which 'there

is an internal self-differing within the different itself, the different differs from itself in each case.

Everything that exists only becomes and never is.' (Roffe IEP)

Within Nietzsche's criticism of the concepts of the One, the Same and the Whole he also challenges

the assumption of the cyclical hypothesis of the eternal return of the same. Deleuze's reading of

Nietzsche's eternal return may be said to be fundamentally anti-Platonic, much like Nietzsche's

thought. 'With the idea of sameness implying self-identity, essence and being, the eternal return

must be considered as the return of difference.' (DR p153) Nietzsche criticises these concepts as

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grammatical errors resulting from languages that privilege nouns and verbs. In which actors are

separated from actions, and things are conceptualised as stable entities and events as passing and

separable phenomena.' (Bogue p28) It seems to be the external illusory effect produced by the

simulacra that interests Deleuze in Platonism, what is considered to be the power of the simulacra to

imitate the appearance of other things, and thus their ability for deception or affectivity along with

their lack of a reference to a model.(Patton p34) The lack of reference is a key point for Deleuze's

overturning, as it may demonstrate the ability for identification to take place without the need for a

model or transcendent idea; in the immanent act of deception which the simulacra partakes in, it is

able to become something other than that which it seems to be. It seems important to consider that

the concept of the Simulacra may be understood not necessarily as something that may be identified

on the level of representation, rather as the means by which identification is challenged and

destabilised.(p34) Deleuze states that what is essential in these 'systems of simulacra', is that no

prior identity may be found, no internal resemblance. . Simulacra are those systems in which

different relates to different by means of difference itself...... It is all a matter of difference in the

series, and of differences of differences in the communication between series. ( Plato & simulacra

p299)

The text of the Sophist seems of particular interest to Deleuze due to this 'very difficult

investigation' (Protevi p38) which it undertakes, that of the being of falsehood as the being of non-

being. Within the dialogue the Stranger proposes a doctrine which asserts that neither likeness

(eikon) nor image (eidolon) nor phantasm exists, because falsehood never exists" (ibid) 'The

condition for falsehood not existing here is due to the original not existing and therefore the false

cannot be distinguished from the true.' (Protevi p38) It is at the ending of the sophist that Deleuze

attempts to exploit the role of the simulacra, examining the concept of non-being, and Parmenides

assertion that non-being 'shall never be proved, that the things that are not are.'

The contradiction at the end of the Sophist is that in positing the existence of non-being; which

cannot imply a being that does not exist, rather something that is other-than-being, (the being of

difference) the existence of being itself is seemingly challenged. With non-being not constituting a

negation of being, it may be considered only as difference. The idea of becoming, means that

everything that is simultaneously is not, this assumes a concept of non-being, which by necessity is

different from absolute non-being.

Instead, it is a non-being that consists in not being what it (the thing which is not) is, that is, it

consists in an intrinsic alterity relative to its own being.......Plato’s concept of ‘becoming’ in the

middle dialogues carries within it this relative notion of non-being in all its defining traits.

Furthermore, one may reasonably add that the canonical concept of becoming not only carries

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within it the relative notion of non-being, but properly constitutes that notion. (Plato's Eleaticism

p14 -15)

Therefore non-being, may be understood with regards to it's conception not as the opposite or

negation of being, but as other-than-being or as difference itself.

The simulacrum cannot be hunted down and differentiated in any traditional sense because it is

difference itself.....Isn’t this finally the very definition of Sophistry, namely, the image of Platonism

that bears no real resemblance to Platonism, the image that strips Platonism of its rank once and

for all? (Flaxman cited by Jones p 22-23)

'The simulacra,' Deleuze states, 'make their claim from below, by means of aggression, insinuation,

or subversion “against the father” and without passing through the idea.

Groundless claim, covering over the dissemblance of an internal imbalance. If we say of the

simulacrum that it is a copy of a copy, an endlessly degraded icon, an infinitely slackened

resemblance, we miss the essential point: the difference in nature between simulacrum and copy, the

aspect through which they form the two halves of a division.”(Deleuze p48 – Plato and the

Simulacrum)

Where Platonism designates a state of being, an overturning consists in a consideration not of being

but of becoming, in which it is not considered on the grounds of its likeness/analogy to an ideal

form but is actualised within an immanent structure. Deleuze's overturning consists of raising up

simulacra and asserting their rights over icons or copies. Overlooking the distinction between

essence and appearance – which only operates within the world of representation – the simulacrum

can be considered as a positive power, which negates this distinction.

The goal is the subversion of this world, "the twilight of the idols." The simulacrum is not a

degraded copy.....Of the at least two divergent series interiorized in the simulacrum, neither can be

assigned as original or as copy. It doesn't even work to invoke the model of the Other, because no

model resists the vertigo of the simulacrum. And the privileged point of view has no more existence

than does the object held in common by all points of view. There is no possible hierarchy: neither

second, nor third. . . . Resemblance continues, but it is produced as the external effect of the

simulacrum insofar as this is constructed on the divergent series and makes them resonate.”

(Deleuze p53 - Plato and the Simulacrum)

'This project is aligned with a conception of a world of simulacra in which identities are produced

as effects by the more profound game of difference and repetition' (Deleuze 1994:ix) Ultimately,

however the 'importance of the concept of simulacra is limited to the pre-dominantly negative phase

of Deleuze's project, namely the deconstruction of the world of representation.' (Patton p35)

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Foucault (1979) states that 'the attempt at reversing Platonism by reinstating the rights of

appearances and ascribing them meaning and a conceptual backbone is useless, nor should the

attempt be made to rediscover the inaccessible idea.'

'Rather we should welcome the cunning assembly that simulates and clamors at the door. And what

will enter, submerging appearance and breaking its engagement to essence, will be the event; the

incorporeal will dissipate the density of matter; a timeless insistence will destroy the circle that

imitates eternity; an impenetrable singularity will divest itself of its contamination by purity; the

actual semblance of the simulacrum will support the falseness of false appearances. The sophist

springs up and challenges Socrates to prove that he is not the illegitimate usurper.......A dead God

and sodomy are the thresholds of the new metaphysical ellipse. Where natural theology contained

metaphysical illusion in itself and where this illusion was always more or less related to natural

theology, the metaphysics of the phantasm revolves around atheism and transgression.(Foucault,

1979)

"It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up only to be shattered again, and that new worlds were built from the fragments." (Franz Boas cited by Levi-Strauss p428)

Acknowledging the final contradiction in the Sophist, Deleuze attempts to rely on the use of myth

to overcome this problem. 'Myth' he states, 'with its circular structure, is the story of a foundation

which allows for the construction of models or ideas to which claimants can be judged.” (p292 LoS)

Levi-Strauss explains the importance of myth in overcoming contradictions within a system, he

finds that the kind of logic that is employed within mythical thought may be as rigourous as that of

modern science, (p444) He states,

What makes a steel ax superior to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second.

They are equally well made, but steel is quite different from stone. In the same way we may be able

to show that the same logical processes operate in myth as in science, and that man has always

been thinking equally well; the improvement lies, not in an alleged progress of man's mind, but in

the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its unchanged and unchanging powers.”

(p444)

Deleuze claims that the main function of Platonism is to serve as a selective doctrine, (C&C p136),

his use of the eternal return can be seen as supplementing or perhaps even replacing Plato's basis for

the principle of selection, replacing the myth of the forms with that of the eternal recurrence, which

is described as Nietzsche's 'counter myth' to the myth of the after-life, or the eternal soul. Del caro

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notes that 'Nietzsche attempted to give his myth a similar attraction to Plato's eternal soul by

granting eternal being to transient becoming. (Del Caro 82-83) Unlike Plato's myth of 'the souls that

circulate above the celestial vault and contemplate the Ideas' or 'the Shepard-God who presides over

the circular movement of the Universe, (D&R p74) Deleuze's use of Nietzsche's myth is used in

such a way as to effectively un-ground judgement, in which he seems to place everything within the

circular movement of the myth.

Where the Sophist ends - with its conception of non-being - challenges the system of Platonism and

representation, Deleuze picks up on this with the myth of the eternal return, it is this myth that

emphasises and affirms the idea of non-being. In Deleuze 's attempt to invoke Nietzsche's idea of

eternal recurrence, it may be argued that his reading is an attempt to challenge the apparently stable

concept of Being and it's 'grounding' within Platonism. In doing so the eternal return and it's

principle of selection, based upon affirmation may be said to be an attempt at an affirmation of the

contradiction of non-being, and therefore of becoming, rather than a simple negation (which may

lead to further contradiction.) What is challenged is the entire notion of being, or prior identity in

itself. Deleuze seems to use Nietzsche's concept as a means by which to demonstrate that without a

final cause and without origin or starting point, then everything is conditioned by a state of flux,

disequilibrium or as becoming, his use of the eternal return is in such a way as to destabilise the

traditional narrative of metaphysics that allows for Plato's account of the forms, he states, 'that it is

far from a new foundation, as it swallows up all other foundations, assuring a universal collapse, a

de-founding, setting up a 'world of nomadic distributions and consecrated anarchy.' He states, that

"Behind every cave . . .there is, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger,

richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every 'foundation."' ( p53

Plato and the Simulacrum) Rather than seeking to find a world behind the world, which would be

yet another foundation, Deleuze here begins to “unfound” the foundations, whereby the rule of

representation would be annihilated by the vertigo of simulacrum. (Flaxman in Jones p23-24)

Deleuze's use of the eternal return is most importantly non-transcendent, one of the key aspects of

this myth would seem to be the conception of time; Plato's narrative for his myth relies upon a

linear model of learning/knowing, forgetting and reminiscence, whereas for Nietzsche his circular

myth may be said to be a process of becoming. This circular time invoked by Nietzsche arguably

destroys any notion of final cause or teleology. In this sense, Deleuze's use of the eternal return may

aid a move away from the teleological arguments of Platonism, Brusseau states that 'according to

Socrates, the whole encompassed its parts and was by definition superior. Difference however, has

the perfect whole on the same shelf as its parts, it is considered as one part among many, like a part

Billy Griffiths

that has taken the name of the whole. Without the Socratic valorisation of beginning or end it has

no priority over its own members nor does perfection have any necessary predence. Deleuze seizes

onto this. His difference grants us a framework wherein the part can be adequate to, even exceed,

the whole.(Brusseau p12) Del Caro further notes the importance of a reorientation toward the

consideration of time as a fundamental step toward reversing the effects of Platonism, he finds that

time must be reconsidered in such a way that in its transient dimension it is not used to cast

aspersions on the passing nature of earthly life. (Del Caro p 82 )

Where Deleuze's use of Nietzsche seems to lead, is to a consideration of a philosophy of becoming

over Being, where Being implies essence or a pre-given subject; within a teleological conception of

time. In Nietzsche and the Vicious circle, Klossowski states that the eternal return does not simply

require the linear narrative of history to be rethought as a regressive one, but also for the concept of

species within this narrative to be rethought as in an 'initial' state entirely dependent upon 'singular

cases'. He states, For the reality principle disappears along with the principle of the identity of each

and every thing. The only reality is a perfectly arbitrary one, expressed in simulacra instituted (as

values) by an impulsive state in which fluctuations change their meanings, depending on the greater

or lesser interpretive force of singular cases. (p130)

Klossowski reads Nietzsche as taking up an occult conception of political mystification and passing

it into the hands of philosophers. This tradition; he states, 'goes back to the sophists and passes

through Voltaire and Sade – one demystifies only in order to mystify better.' (Klossowski p100) In

his interpretation of Nietzsche's eternal return, Klossowski finds a positive notion of the false, one

in which a process of remystification is employed to generate new conditions of life and creative

impulses that overcome the demystification of the world by science. (Klossowski p101)

Nietzsche on the thought of the eternal return states;

I want to teach the idea that gives many the right to erase themselves - the great cultivating

idea...Everything becomes and recurs eternally - escape is impossible! - Supposing we could judge

value, what follows? The idea of recurrence as a selective principle, in the service of strength (and

barbarism!!)....To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means

against the fact of pain ( pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure...); the enjoyment of all

kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the

concept of necessity; abolition of the "will"; abolition of "knowledge-in-itself." (WTP

Deleuze's reading of the eternal return as an affirmation of difference, relies upon it being thought

of as the return of difference, of simulacra, where the eternal return of the same- considered as

Billy Griffiths

being the same - would bring about a return of ideals, identity and causation. Deleuze's

interpretation of the eternal return as the return of difference itself is seemingly used to overturn all

notions of identity, sameness and being, in which the return of difference becomes the only

possibility for an affirmation of becoming, fluctuation and immanence. This reading arguably

provides the possibility of a new 'image of thought', 'of the birth of thought and the thought of birth.'

(Ansell-Pearson p18)

Return is the being of that which becomes. Return is the being of becoming itself, the being which is

affirmed in becoming. (Deleuze N&P p23 )

It may be stated that Deleuze's reading of Plato leads on to his later conception of an image of

thought, where the forms in Platonism correspond to ideal ways of thinking, with logic based upon

universals in which the noble idea 'is segregated from the mongrel differences of the image.

(Flaxman cited by Jones p11) It seems that a reorientation of principles upon which

selection/identification may take place, (eternal recurrence) demonstrates the extent to which

Platonism leads to what Deleuze may call an 'image of thought', in which thinking is already

designated an a-priori aim, in which thought finds its foundation or grounding point and then

proceeds accordingly. In Platonism the identification of things with regards to their adherence to

forms seems to lead thought in a particular direction; within Plato's allegory this can be seen in the

direction of the good which is represented by the Sun, which acts as the basis for all thought

distributed within a hierarchical model. Deleuze's empiricism seems to bring Plato's tiered system

to a horizontal form instead; particularly through his reading of Nietzsche which offers a way in to

'the labyrinth of horizontality.' (Lechte p102) In terms of a wider understanding of Deleuze's

project, his challenging of Platonism may be viewed as a preliminary move to his further

challenging of other dominant images of thought. In exposing the contradiction within Platonism

and embracing the 'error' of the simulacrum and its lack of a precise model, Deleuze demonstrates a

different way of thinking through a particular system of thought and exposing its weaknesses, in

doing this he attempts to show another way of thinking that may not be subject to the 'pillars of

representation'. Where Platonism relies upon a static model of identification with no room for

contingency, Deleuze opens it up to a dynamic way of thinking, in which thought can take place

beyond representation in an act of the production of sense not the conveyance of meaning.

(Buchanan 123) However his 'radically horizontal' style of philosophy must be considered beyond

an order of sameness (with everything reduced to the same level) rather it must be understood in

terms of a 'quasi-order of radical difference, where a basis of comparison becomes problematic.'

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(Lechte p102) 'For Nietzsche, horizontality opens up the possibility for thought as a creative act', as

a form of poetry perhaps.(Lechte p103)

Where this critique seems to lead Deleuze is to propose a philosophy of immanence, in which

meaning is not discerned with the use of an outside, pre-established or transcendent referent, rather

it can be produced and negotiated as an active process. In terms of what may be considered a vague

interpretation of the implications of Platonic representation, it has been considered that within

structuralist concepts of language the designation of language as a signifier to a signified meaning

resembles the Platonic distinction between essence and appearance. This concept has been further

explored by Deleuze, who critiqued structuralist interpretations of representation. Deleuze was

critical of the use of language being designated as a signifier; as this suggests that there is some

form of referent (world), meanings that are then imposed within that world as signifieds, and then

the sounds or text that is used to systematise these meanings in the form of signifiers. This notion of

language as a form of signification thus implies transcendence; where an outside world is able to be

re-presented through a series of signs. (Colebrook 2005 p107)

In terms of Deleuze's overturned Platonism, this critique does not necessarily imply that there is no

signified – as this would seem to undo the possibility of communicable experience - instead, it

challenges the understanding of the signifier as being subordinate to the signified, and its fixed and

seemingly one way relation. It is further noted how the objections to psychoanalysis within the

work of Deleuze & Guattari may be read as stemming from this indisposition toward Platonism and

its insistence on the dialectic of Idea and Copy. This error, it is stated, can be found within

semiotics, where signifiers takes the role of Copy to the signifieds Idea which Deleuze & Guatarri

state is found within the realm of indirect discourse or the simulacra. (Buchanan p123)

Buchanan states that 'signifiers are used to alert us to hidden meanings that it calls signifieds'

thereby teaching us to be dissatisfied with surface meanings; its primary operation is thus an

imposition of a difference of levels between an absent 'other' full of meaning but without substance

and an empty presence full of substance but without meaning.(ibid)

The subject of a concept--in this case difference--suffers enslavement to the formal conditions of

conceptualization. And these conditions belong on identity's level because concepts work in

important ways like Platonism's ideas: they gather up the productive force. (Brusseau p14)

In this sense, it is easy to characterise Deleuze's philosophy as some form of anti-essentialist or

post-modern relativism however unlike many of these discourses that 'posit the world as a social

construction containing only linguistically-defined phenomena, Deleuze does not reject the

Billy Griffiths

autonomous existence of actual forms, (the forms of rocks, plants, animals and so on) but also relies

upon virtual forms.' (DeLanda) It may be stated that in this sense, Deleuze actually shares a lot less

similarities than essentialist and anti-essentialist discourses do with each other, in that his

philosophy does not necessarily view matter as an inert material. While anti-essentialist's do not

posit the basis of forms within Platonic heaven, or from the mind of God, they generally seem to

share the assumption that form is given by the minds of humans (or cultural conventions expressed

linguistically.)' (DeLanda) Deleuze's philosophy seems to lead to distinction or difference based

upon intensity or the ability for affectivity. From here Deleuze is able to found a conception of

difference based upon intensive difference and can then attempt to encourage thought that

disregards transcendence and the 'denigration of existence and its reliance upon the concept of

resemblance, as this compares things within existence to something outside by means of which the

existence is judged.' (May p49) Instead Deleuze proposes a model of actual/virtual in which the

virtual is 'neither a ghost of the actual nor a transcendent that hovers above it. It is part of the

real.'(May p49) 'In this process philosophy is turned into a practice, in the sense that there is no

transcendental, philosopher-subject over and above the products of his philosophy, as there is no

actor separate from his acts. (Lechte p103) What Deleuze's horizontal philosophy seems to do is

encourage a re-constituting of the relationship between the sensible/intelligible, divine/earthly or

transcendent/immanent. However, an effective critique of metaphysics 'cannot just rely upon a

critique of the illusory idea of a supersensuous true world apart from the transient world of the

sense. A revaluation of the status of both sensuous and supersensuous and the line distinguishing the

two must be contested.' (Bowie p292)

The implications of this project may lead to what he terms the actual/virtual relation, which is not a

simple one way relation between the sensible and the intelligible, but rather is a more complex

relation 'between the realm of (actual) empirical subjects and objects, and the (virtual) flux or of

pre-individual, impersonal differences, becomings and affects that constitute these subjects and

objects while preceding and exceeding them.' (Cox C. 504-505) This does not imply any

transcendence, rather for Deleuze 'there is only one plane of being and reality - “the plane of

immanence” which encompasses both the virtual and the actual, each of which are both as

“real.”(ibid) Where Deleuze's philosophy/overturning may lead is to a rethinking of the hierarchical

structures of thought that have privileged concepts of normalisation and also a challenge to

traditional structures of thinking or image's of thought.

Billy Griffiths

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