Today, January 18, is Gilles Deleuze's (1925-1995) birthday. The French philosopher would've become 99 had he lived to see the day. He died at the age of 70, in 1995 following a long pulmonary illness that plagued him for much of his life, which either drove him to suicide, or perhaps led him to accidentally fall out of a window.
I only very recently got into his work, as I read his monographs on Spinoza and Nietzsche (both excellent). I am intrigued by the inherent paradoxical nature of Deleuze as a philosopher. He focuses on liberty, resisting societies of control, and standing out from the crowd, refusing to vote for your own oppressors, refusing to be tied down by conventional morality, for which he took inspiration in both Nietzsche and Spinoza. At the same time, he was for all appearances a regular guy, married to Denise Paul "Fanny" Grandjouan) from 1956 until his death, he raised two children with her, living a quiet life where he did not travel much.
Deleuze is known for co-authoring with his good philosophical friend Félix Guattari, a psychoanalyst.
I've written about philosophical friendships and their importance on the Cocoon earlier, here.
Here, I'd like to think about the philosophical significance of Deleuze and Guattari's long-term collaboration and friendship, notably in the works Anti-Oedipus (1972) and its successor Mille plateaux (1980), as well as their opinionated textbook Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? (1991).
Co-authoring is even now not appreciated in philosophy. Most of the canonical works in philosophy are not only sole-authored but almost emphatically so, by isolated lone individuals (who are not really lone and isolated, of course, as they conversed with others). I've frequently co-authored and early on was warned it could be harmful for my career, but I was lucky. I am glad I did not have to relinquish co-authoring as I really like the process, which is so very different from sole-authoring.
Deleuze and Guattari make some substantive philosophical remarks about the process of co-authoring in their preface to A thousand plateaus (Mille Plateaux)
The two of us wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd. Here we have made use of everything that came within range, what was closest as well as farthest away. We have assigned clever pseudonyms to prevent recognition. Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit. To make ourselves unrecognizable in turn. To render imperceptible, not ourselves, but what makes us act, feel, and think. Also because it's nice to talk like everybody else, to say the sun rises, when everybody knows it's only a manner of speaking. To reach, not the point where one no longer says I, but the point where it is no longer of any importance whether one says I. We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied.
In the light of this, I'm curious for reader's favorite co-authored works in philosophy. Feel free to mention classics, or to discuss any pieces you co-authored yourself and that you really like.
Don't be shy! Especially early career folk are pushed to sole author that it's important to push back against this focus on singular minds. Let's celebrate our collaborative ventures.
Deleuze's work reminds us philosophical brilliance does not need to be in (ostensibly) isolated minds. We can be aided, inspired, multiplied, by our philosophical friends and co-authors.
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