I admit that “differential phenomenology” could be seen as a particularly poor choice of words to describe Deleuze’s project in Difference and Repetition, mostly because he’s simply not doing phenomenology, even one based on “differences” instead of “identities.” Nonetheless, he spends quite a lot of time thinking about and asking how phenomenology has so far worked — and perhaps only in order to be overturned… But nonetheless, I definitely see him working through the same kinds of things Derrida is working through in the Grammatology (I’m especially thinking of both works’ relationships to theoretical mathematics.) Deleuze should of course not be mistaken for a new Husserl. But I would claim that Deleuze is trying to forge a new kind of science, or at least bring our attention to the fact that minor science, nomad science, gay science, has a rich history and true discoveries; in some ways it is the only kind of science with a future.

In other words, Deleuze is often concerned with that which appears to be marginal, exterior or intermediary — a concealed difference — may in fact may be what’s really in control, ‘unconsciously’ structuring our organization of ideas, reality, etc. Here I’m just trying to highlight what I see as a continuation (perhaps a repetition) of the same overturning of scientism which Husserl’s phenomenology presented at the turn of the 20th century (which perhaps Deleuze’s work could be seen as presenting in a “different” way to us.) And it’s in this sense that I think D&R — though sober and academic — is undoubtedly one of his most important works.

A much better choice of words would perhaps have been a “differential philosophy“. I definitely see your point that about phenomenology being unable to see into its own origin, its constitutive depths. Yet in some ways this owes to the fact while it claims to be a “pure” science (like mathematics,) phenomenology accomplishes a blurring of the discourse of natural and social sciences, of nomad and state sciences. On the one hand, this ambiguity doesn’t rescue phenomenology from the fact that ultimately it must find its justification somewhere outside of itself, either in the unscientific or non-scientific, or finding a mediation in an “impure” science. On the other hand, Deleuze is clearly trying to present us with an entirely different kind of science, along roughly Nietzschean lines and apparently directly opposed to Kant and Hegel’s conceptions (though utilizing a continuous subversion of the entire history of philosophy to effectuate this new modality of science finally capable of “genealogizing” itself.)

As to your other point, Deleuze describes the synthesis of depth in D&R as a kind of transversal line which splits open unities, homogeneous spaces and systems. It is a fundamental principle of differenc/tiation that it covers itself up, cancels itself out by explicating itself in the form of a system. This would seem to link up well with the abstract machine (and even some of the claims about fractal topology in ATP.)

It’s great to hear from you, man! Hope this began to answer your questions. Best regards,

Joe

*notion = nothing less than (not ‘notion’

it is, i will say, one of the most important differences between D&R and the LoS…and what makes the transition between the two so exceedingly complicated, for the task involved notion less than moving away from a notion of intensity as ‘profond’ [FR] or ‘depths’ to a topological account of evental synthesis. quite a shift, which has gone remarkably underappreciated in deleuze studies.
(note: this is the subject of my recent research in Deleuze…hopefully some papers will be emerging on the topic soon.)

best,

kieran

sorry for my only comment in a while to be negative…i’ve not had too much time to read up on your latest posts, so i’m just picking an easy starting place to contribute some constructive (i hope) feedback.

-kieran