The project of a philosophy of immanence and the question of subjectivity in Deleuze

Abstract

The late concept of plane of immanence in Gilles Deleuze's philosophy concerns not only the refusal of a transcendent second world, but also of a transcendental field organized under the reciprocal determination between universal subject and object form. The construction of this concept therefore passes through the critique of the Kantian transcendental ground developed by Deleuze through an original take on Hume's empiricism. The discussion revolves around the status of subjectivity: according to the empiricist critique, the subject cannot be understood as an a priori presupposition, but should rather be understood as an a posteriori product whose emergence ultimately refers to a principle of repetition. Thus, seeking to understand the extent of the notion of immanence in Deleuzian philosophy, we analyze the French philosopher's reading of the problem of the transcendental ground, especially in Empiricism and Subjectivity. Finally, we briefly indicate how this set of problems reappears in Difference and Repetition.