Deleuze’s (counter)historical approach to Leibniz’s Concept of Force

This essay outlines the theory and method of Deleuze’s approach to the history of philosophy in order to identify a specifically ‘modern’ philosophical problem, Leibniz’s concept of force, and to show how this problem opens new paths between ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ thought. Drawing on Gueroult’s specific reading of Leibniz, on his overall philosophical approach and on Deleuze’s critical reappropriation of his method, this essay reconstructs Leibniz’s concept of force both in terms of its historical emergence, and its consequent influence. As a result, force emerges as a dynamic principle of transformation addressing fundamental questions of Leibnizian thought: how we go from matter to thought, or from force as a concrete expression of physical reality to its abstract conceptual construction. In this way, Leibnizian force becomes a ‘requisite’ of Deleuzian difference, and the driver of its philosophical repetition in modern thought. This redefinition of force hopes to offer a new understanding of how Leibniz’s thought continues to shape contemporary conceptions of nature.

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