Abstract

In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze presents a unique biophilosophical project, which culminates in a new concept of living organisms. But, to fathom the nature of these organisms it is necessary to go back to the “letter and spirit” of the Deleuzian ontology. Contrary to the most popular interpretations, I maintain that the ontology of Difference and Repetition revolves around the notion of difference of intensity, which displaces the abused concept of the virtual and affirms the necessary implication of the processes of individuation in actual entities. Clarifying this point will lead me directly to the goal of understanding the peculiar nature of living organisms. Since the actual is anchored in intensity through a relation of implication, the real constitution of organisms is revealed as an “intensive actuality” which assembles two asymmetrical tendencies: one of intensive depotentiation, one of actual organization. As an assemblage, however, the organism needs to constantly negotiate its consistency and be sustained by an ethics of intensity that teaches it to simultaneously “affirm even the lowest” and “not explicate itself too much”.