Gilles Deleuze, Deleuze’s Bergson and Bergson Himself

Abstract

In a letter to Michel Cressole, Gilles Deleuze outlines his concept of the writing of the history of philosophy:

But I suppose the main way I coped with it at the time was to see the history of philosophy as a sort of buggery or (it comes to the same thing) immaculate conception. I saw myself as taking an author from behind and giving him a child that would be his own offspring, yet monstrous. It was really important for it to be his own child, because the author had to actually say all I had him saying. But the child was bound to be monstrous too, because it resulted from all sorts of shifting, slipping, dislocations and hidden emissions that I really enjoyed. I think my book on Bergson a good example.