2nd Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy – Abstract/Flanagan


Timothy Flanagan

Deleuze and Politics: Some Problems and Possibilities

In this essay I seek to consider the potential problems which might arise from thinking time in the way that Deleuze does, and how this might be problematic for attempts to portray him as a political thinker. So too I am keen to assess how Deleuze’s ontology and account of time might offer us new ways of conceptualising what is politically possible. It is my thesis that although Deleuze’s thought is indeed something that finds many approaches to politics to be wrought with problems, this is not to say that his thoughts on the topic can be entirely discarded. On the contrary, I hope to suggest ways in which the full radicality of his thoughts on time might allow for a renewed conception of the power of ‘the political’.