Ansell-Pearson, Keith (2017) Deleuze’s new materialism : naturalism, norms, and ethics. In: Ellenzweig, Sarah and Zammito, John H., (eds.) The New Politics of Materialism : History, Philosophy, Science. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 88-109. ISBN 9781138240742

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Abstract

This essay examines Deleuze’s relation to new materialism through an engagement with new materialist claims about the human and nonhuman relation and about agency. It first considers the work of Elisabeth Grosz and then moves on to a consideration of Deleuze’s own conception of a new materialism/new naturalism (Deleuze elaborates a ‘new materialism’ in his work on Spinoza of the 1960s). I seek to show that Deleuze is an ethically motivated naturalist concerned with an ethical pedagogy of the human, which he derives from his reading of Spinoza. I seek to illuminate some of the principal features of this ethically guided materialism/naturalism and show that even in his later work with Felix Guattari, which situates all life, human and nonhuman, on a plane of immanence, there remains a recognition that the human animal is ethically distinguished as the inventive species par excellence. My main claim, then, is that Deleuze’s project cannot be aligned with a new materialism that supposes a flat ontology and that does away with an ethical distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Although Deleuze bequeaths a complex legacy to post-modern thought in his thinking about the human, it should not be supposed that he has no affinities with aspects of a humanist position and pedagogy.

Item Type:	Book Item
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Deleuze, Gilles, 1925-1995, Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677, Materialism, Philosophy of mind, Naturalism, Ethics
Publisher:	Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Place of Publication:	London ; New York
ISBN:	9781138240742
Book Title:	The New Politics of Materialism : History, Philosophy, Science
Editor:	Ellenzweig, Sarah and Zammito, John H.
Official Date:	29 June 2017
Dates:	Date Event 29 June 2017 Published
Number of Pages:	328
Page Range:	pp. 88-109
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights):	"This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The New Politics of Materialism : History, Philosophy, Science on 29/06/2017, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138240742”
Date of first compliant deposit:	22 March 2017
Date of first compliant Open Access:	19 March 2019
Related URLs:	Publisher

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