What is Grounding?

The inaugural text in the series is the first English language translation of the near-complete transcription/ lecture notes taken by a student enrolled in the earliest recorded course offered by Gilles Deleuze, What is grounding? (Qu’est-ce que fonder?). It is here that the history of philosophy is engaged in a direct manner (prior to the “method of dramatization”); that the originating ideas of Difference and Repetition begin to develop; and, that the key to groundbreaking readings of Deleuze is introduced (e.g., Christian Kerslake’s Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy: From Kant to Deleuze). COVER PAGE Copyright EDITORS’ PREFACE TABLE OF CONTENTS TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION 1 FROM MYTHOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY 1.1 Natural ends and infinite tasks 1.2 Will, value, ground 2 THE ESSENTIAL BEING OF A GROUNDOR REASON 2.1 Claims and rights 2.2 Hume to Kant: formation of the idea ofthe transcendental 2.3 Characteristics of the ground in theCritique of Pure Reason 2.4 Heidegger after Kant 2.5 Conclusion to the second chapter 3 GROUND AND QUESTION 3.1 Socrates and the question 3.2 The question that silences: Kierkegaard andShestov 3.2.1 The most lyrical and themost simple 3.2.2 Morality, duty, law, and power 3.2.3 Essence and existence, quality and quantity 3.2.4 Repetition 3.2.5 Eternal return in Nietzsche 3.2.6 Intermediate conclusion I 3.3 The question which yields a principle to solveall problems: Leibniz 3.3.1 Leibniz and the concept of expression 3.3.2 Leibniz and principles 3.3.3 Intermediate conclusion II 3.4 The third type of question: the critical question 3.4.1 The concept of error in philosophy 3.4.2 Transformation of a doctrine of truth 3.4.3 Critique of metaphysics 3.5 Conclusion to the third chapter 4 GROUND AND PRINCIPLE 4.1 Method and system 4.2 Principle and ground in the method 4.2.1 Descartes, Spinoza, Kant 4.2.2 Bacon and middle axioms 4.2.3 Two senses of ‘principle’ 4.3 System and Kantian critique 4.3.1 Kant’s analytic 4.3.2 Post-Kantian objections 4.4 Finitude and ground 4.5 Conclusion to the fourth chapter 5 CONCLUSION TO THE SEMINAR BIBLIOGRAPHY BACK COVER