The Deleuze Seminars is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.

“Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought” was a 14-lecture seminar given from December 1980 to March 1981. In this seminar, Deleuze revisits his examination of Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy. Deleuze had previously published two books on Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (Spinoza et le problème de l'expression, 1968), and Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (Spinoza – Philosophie pratique, 1970, 2nd ed. 1981). The majority of these lectures were given the same year as the publication of the second edition of the latter title.

This portion of the 31 March 1981 lecture marks the end of the Spinoza seminar, and the beginning of the Painting and the Question of Concepts seminar. During the first part of the lecture, Deleuze offers a summary of the Spinoza seminar, fielding questions from students.  Other topics of discussion include: states of certainty and the third kind of knowledge; power and consciousness; Ethics, Book V, and happiness; joy and sadness; the encounters of bodies; geometric ideas and common notions; the opportune moment; common notions of bodies; and the game.

This dataset includes: one mp3 recording (54:04) and a French transcription of it in both pdf (13 pp) and plain text.

Note: This dataset constitutes the first part of Deleuze’s 31 March 1981 lecture. In this part of the lecture, Deleuze concludes his seminar on Spinoza by opening the floor to students’ questions. For the complete audio and transcription of the 31 March 1981 lecture, see the dataset for “Painting and the Question of Concepts: Lecture 1, 31 March 1981.”

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Les Séminaires de Deleuze sont une collection d'enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents complémentaires des conférences que le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze a donné lors de sa carrière à l'Université de Paris 8.

«Spinoza: des vitesses de la pensée» était un séminaire de 14 conférences donné de décembre 1980 à mars 1981. Dans ce séminaire, Deleuze revisite son examen de la philosophie de Baruch Spinoza. Deleuze avait précédemment publié deux ouvrages sur Spinoza: Spinoza et le problème de l'expression (1968) et Spinoza – Philosophie pratique (1970, 2e éd., 1981). La majorité de ces conférences ont eu lieu la même année que la publication de la deuxième édition de ce dernier titre.

Cette partie de la conférence du 31 mars 1981 marque la fin du séminaire de Spinoza et le début du séminaire sur «La peinture et la question des concepts». Au cours de la première partie de la conférence, Deleuze propose un résumé du séminaire Spinoza, en répondant aux questions des étudiants. Les autres sujets de discussion comprennent: les états de certitude et le troisième genre de connaissance; puissance et conscience; Éthique, Livre V, et Béatitude; la joie et la tristesse; les rencontres des corps; idées géométriques et notions communes; le moment opportun; les notions communes des corps; et le jeu.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Gilles Deleuze (2017). Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought: Lecture 14, 31 March 1981. Purdue University Research Repository. doi:10.4231/R70863HN

  BibTex | EndNote

1. 20th Century French Philosophy
2. Audio Recording
3. Baruch Spinoza
4. Consciousness
5. Deleuze Recordings
6. Deleuze Seminars
7. Epistemology
8. Ethics
9. Geometry
10. Gilles Deleuze
11. Ontology
12. Philosophy
13. Philosophy (Dept)

The publication is part of the series below:

• Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought

  “Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought” was a 14 lecture seminar given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8 from December 1980 to March 1981.

This research has been generously supported through a grant from the College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University.

The description of this dataset is based on the meticulous work of Frédéric Astier, whose Les cours enregistrés de Gilles Deleuze, 1979-1987 has catalogued Deleuze’s seminars for those years.

Special thanks to the family of Gilles Deleuze and the University of Paris 8 for permission to reproduce the material published here.