The philosophy of love by Gilles Deleuze

Mikhan Roman Igorevich ORCID: 0009-0001-9821-0086 Graduate student, Department of Ethics, RUDN University 6 Mikuho-Maklaya str., Moscow, 117198, Russia roman.mikhan@gmail.com

The article is devoted to how Gilles Deleuze considered the phenomenon of love throughout his philosophical project. Relatively few studies have been devoted to this aspect of his philosophy and, as a rule, they focus on one specific work or proceed from the general orientation of Deleuze's philosophy. The fact is that Deleuze returned to the topic of love more than once with long intervals (about 20 years), and with each new appeal he refined previous ideas. This article presents an attempt to reconstruct the complete system of his philosophy of love. To do this, it will be necessary to identify three successive stages in which love unfolds in Deleuze: the discovery of the Other as a possible world, the invasion of each other's world and the unification of worlds. A number of works will correspond to each of these stages. Throughout the article, we will consider in detail the development of this concept, as well as the philosophy of love itself, which is being developed by Gilles Deleuze based on the monadology of G. V. Leibniz.

Discovering the Other as a possible World

We will begin the analysis of the phenomenon of love with Gilles Deleuze's earliest work "Description of a Woman". During this period, Deleuze was strongly influenced by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, so the style of reasoning, as well as the terms used, are inextricably linked with Sartre's philosophy and phenomenology. One of the central themes of Sartre is the relationship of the "I" and the "Other". He describes these relationships as mutual and as a relationship of conflict: "Everything that is needed for me is needed for another. While I am trying to free myself from the other's grip, the other is trying to free himself from mine; while I am trying to enslave the other, the other is trying to enslave me. Here we are not talking about a one-sided relationship with the object-in-itself, but about mutual and mobile relationships. Hence, the descriptions that follow must be considered from the point of view of the conflict. Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-another" ^{[1, p. 379]}. However, Deleuze seeks to get rid of negativity in these relations and break the dichotomy of subject and object ^{[2, p. 33]}.

In this work, Deleuze explores the relationship between the sexes, but this cannot be done from previous phenomenological models. In Martin Heidegger, a person appears asexual, in Sartre, only the lover has sex, but not the beloved: "Because the one who makes love has sex is loving, but not at all beloved. The beloved in itself is endowed with gender only because he, in turn, is loving" ^[3]. Thus, Sartre has no way out to Another, in his vision of love, the beloved is another Me, the same subject, but not Another One. The beloved is a passive, subordinate subject relative to the lover. In Sartre, love is represented as negativity, seizing the power of Another and over Another ^{[4, p. 27]}. He sees desire as pure negativity or lack ^{[5, p. 74]}. The philosophy of the "Other" occupies an important place in the French intellectual field of the second half of the 20th century. Starting with Alexander Kozhev and his interpretation of Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Spirit" through the dialectic of slave and master, many philosophers have tried to solve this problem. Deleuze is no exception ^[6]. If for Sartre the relationship between "I" and "the Other" is negative, then Deleuze wants to present a positive version based not on conflict, but on interest and knowledge of an alternative point of view.

Dissatisfied with Sartre's analysis of love, Deleuze builds his phenomenology of the beloved. First of all, the "I" does not endow a thing with meaning, meaning is inherent in a thing regardless of the subject: "I do not invent anything, I do not project anything, I do not bring anything into the world, I am nothing, and even, and definitely, not nothing: I am only an expression" ^[3]. The other exists independently of the "I" and is not reduced to a similar subject or subordinate object: "The other must exist independently of its function in the subject-object relationship: this structure thereby becomes superfluous" ^{[7, p. 103]}. Moving away from the subject-object paradigm and the intersubjective model, Deleuze proposes an inter-monadological model.

We need to turn to another work by Deleuze - "Michel Tournier and the world without another". There he formulates what the "Other" is and expresses his disagreement with Sartre: "The mistake of philosophical theories is that sometimes they reduce the other to a particular object, and sometimes to another subject. (Even Sartre's concept of Being and Nothing is content to combine these two definitions, making the other the object of my gaze, even if he, in turn, looks at me, turning me into an object.) But the other is neither an object in the field of my perception, nor a subject perceiving me: the other is initially the structure of the perceptual field, without which the field itself cannot function as it functions" ^{[8, pp. 402-403]}. He describes this structure as the structure of an a priori Other or possible world. The other gives reality through himself, expresses a possible world. The concept of a "possible world" refers to the philosophy of G. V. Leibniz, so we have many monads, each of which expresses the whole world, but each of them is a definite and limited point of view on this world. In his work on Leibniz's philosophy, Deleuze writes the following: "Since each monad expresses the whole world, only one concept remains for the subject, and monad subjects can differ only in their inherent internal way of expressing the world: the principle of sufficient reason becomes the principle of indistinguishability, there are no two subjects similar to each other, individuals similar to each other" ^{[9, p. 88]}. Therefore, knowing the Other is knowing something different from us. The other is an expression of a world different from us, a possible world, by the very fact of its existence it expresses a different point of view on the world. When Another Person demonstrates his point of view on the world, he highlights previously unseen areas of the world, opens up new things and complements our limited picture of the world. The other confronts our established view of the world with the possibility of another, alternative view, brings opportunity and diversity. Our world is just one of many possibilities. Possibilities represent the external relative to the immanent existence of the "I" in the world.

In his essay, Deleuze distinguishes between the "Other Man" and the "woman." Our interaction with Another of the opposite sex is different from interaction with Another of the same sex. In the case of a man, friendship can form, which helps us to discover an external, but coordinated world with us, from which we can learn a lot for ourselves. But since a man expresses another, external world, then interaction with him can be conflictual, you can deny and argue about the world. Another man can point out to us the lack in our being, what we lack. He offers us a possible world, shows us the world without fatigue. Initially, the world in which "I" am immersed is tiring: "After all, my fatigue does not belong to me, and I am not tired at all, because there is something tiring in the very air" ^[10]. The Other's world may seem fascinating, the other may express the world in an exciting way. Such a collision with alternative possibilities can plunge us into sadness and fatigue due to unrealized opportunities. In the case of a woman, love can form, which breaks into our world and modifies it from the inside. A woman expresses only herself, the immanence inherent in this world. She expresses the fullness of being, "is someone who cannot be denied, who cannot be insulted; it is impossible to talk about another" ^[3]. She is desirable in herself and does not pay attention to the other world: "At its core, it simply has the power to make me indifferent to the rest of things, because it itself is a kind of thing that is out of relation to other things: it is a world without egoism. This is what we mean when we say: this woman is desirable."^[3] She does not distinguish between our world and the alternative one, but shows its diversity inside. It also brings joy and relieves fatigue by distracting attention. It is worth noting separately that the mentioned "woman" and "Other-man" as the structure of the a priori other differs from specific personalities, not all can establish friendship or love relationships. Deleuze has a distinction between the a priori Other and this Other, between a woman and this woman (beloved). The separation of the sexes should be read as two ways of expressing the possible world – the exterior and the interior. "If other men express the outside world, then, in contrast, a woman is an immense inner life. The possible world that she expresses is herself."^[10]

The "woman" and the "Other man" can be problematized through further philosophical concepts of Deleuze, in such an early work we can see only the beginnings of these concepts. So, two types of differences can be noticed. The first is the difference through identity in the case when we compare our world with the world of the "Other Man", this comparison can be antagonistic and call for comparing one world in the likeness of another. In the case of a "woman" there is another type of difference – a difference in oneself, since when a woman expresses the world, this does not lead to antagonism, but only complements the previous picture of the world, unfolding the world inside. In connection with this division, we can recall two types of desire, which Deleuze further identifies. "The other man" gives us an understanding of desire as a lack, since his expression of alternative possibilities points to those elements that do not exist in our world, thereby creating a desire to fill them. In the case of a "woman", desire will not be negative, on the contrary, desire is a process inherent in love, it gives joy and generates creativity, creating a new view of the world. With regard to the philosophy of the "Other" Deleuze, it can be said that the radical difference between the "I" and the "Other" does not lead to a conflict relationship. In a relationship with the "Other Man", one can succumb to debilitating affects in the form of fatigue, dissatisfaction or doubt, but friendship helps to reconcile these worlds, allowing for the possibility of an alternative point of view and its acceptance. Love, in this particular work, is a purely positive phenomenon that reveals the diversity of the world.

From this description, we can already discover the following theses about relationship with Another and love. Firstly, the Other is not a construct of our "I" or a passive object of perception, it represents the possibility of another world, another view. Secondly, in the case of love, our desire will not be aimed at filling the shortage in our own world, on the contrary, the immanent desire itself complements our world and brings new things into it through interaction with the world of Another. The other can both tire us, reducing our potency for action, and make us happy by increasing it.

Invading each other's world

In Marcel Proust and the Signs, Deleuze explores the interactions of the characters in the novel In Search of Lost Time through a system of love signs. Here we see the same concept of the beloved as a possible world, but now the task of the lover will be to decipher and understand this world: "The beloved being is a sign, a "soul"; it expresses a possible world unknown to us. The beloved contains, conceals, keeps locked up the world, which must be deciphered, i.e. interpreted" ^{[11, p. 32]}. In this case, signs should be understood as transmitters of information that lead subjects into certain relationships ^{[12, p. 102]}. The lover reads and interprets the signs that come from the beloved. He must penetrate into the world of his beloved. But here there is a problem of misunderstanding, since a lover can interpret signs only from his own point of view on the world: "Since we have to reveal or explain the meanings of another person's words and gestures from the point of view of our own point of view on the world, we end up enclosing a loved one in our own world of meanings, and remain imprisoned in in their own world, without being able to truly see the world from another person's point of view" ^{[13, p. 102]}. The possibility of different points of view on the world suggests that some elements of the world will be visible only from a certain point of view, while others will not: "... the signs revealed by a loved one allow us to give an account of the worlds that did not wait for our formation, which were formed by other people and of which we are not a part" ^{[14, p. 14]}. In his work on Leibniz, Deleuze uses the metaphor of light: the monad highlights a certain area, while other areas remain in darkness for it. "No two individual substances occupy the same point of view on the world, because none of them has an equally clear or distinct zone of expression of the world" ^{[15, pp. 50-51]}. The point of view is limited, and although the Other can give an idea of an alternative point of view, the lover cannot always understand it from his own point of view. The lover and the beloved invade each other's world. A loved one invades the world of a lover, distracting attention to himself, and a lover wants to invade the world of a loved one in order to better understand him. The love situation is dramatic, the difficulty of love is in capturing love signs, as they can be empty, false or simply be misinterpreted. A loved one gives signs, a lover tries to count them correctly, while each of them contains a different view of the world, so in a love game it is necessary to go beyond your own point of view, be ready to take a different view of the world. To be able to exclude yourself from your own world.

Due to the difficulty in interpreting signs in the course of love, we may encounter an unpleasant affect in the form of jealousy. The lover wants all the signs of the beloved to belong to him alone. But by expressing these signs, a loved one also expresses the possibility of a world where these signs are addressed to another person. This is how jealousy appears: "A loved one gives us signs of preference, but since they are similar to those that express worlds of which we are not a part, each special sign of attention we receive outlines an image of a possible world where others could be or are preferred" ^{[11, p. 33]}. One can recall the love story of Swann and Odette, where the fact of infidelity caused torment from the fact that Odette's love signs were addressed to someone else, Swann understood this perfectly well. It is worth noting separately that the tragic idea of love in this work is ensured by the fact that in Proust's novel itself, love is unsuccessful and disappointing. But despite this, Deleuze leaves room for joy: "We repeat suffering. It's special every time. However, the very fact of repetition is always joyful, it creates a common joy" ^{[11, p. 101]}. The very fact that we are suffering again because of love gives us a better understanding of love as such, in all the variety of its connections, and the experience we have experienced develops into a certain life sequence.

In love, one can find an understanding of desire as positivity. Thus, Christian Kerslake notes that, being influenced by Georges Kangilem, Deleuze sees in Proust a positive understanding of desire through love: "Thus, between Deleuze's works on Spinoza and Proust, one can discover a secret path – the path of the positive concept of desire, which develops through the experience of love, as opposed to the concept of desire as negative, which remains on the shores of a simple desire for possession" ^{[5, p. 58]}. Love desire gives joy, which is an important term in Deleuze's ethics and is manifested in his works on Spinoza: "Since the feeling of joy increases the ability to act, it forces us to desire, imagine, do everything in our power in order to preserve this joy itself and the object that gives it to us. It is in this sense that love is linked with joy, and other passions with love, so that our potency to experience affects is completely filled" ^{[16, p. 200]}. Deleuze separates the good and the bad, as actions that make us happy, and as actions that make us sad, as something that increases our potency for action, and that reduces it. In this sense, love desire gives joy: "Joy is an increase in the potency of action through association with something that expands our understanding. Perhaps the greatest example of this is the experience of love, in which a person enters another world through contact with another body" ^{[5, p. 60]}. In this example, we see how a possible world that expresses another, joy and positive desire are interconnected.

In chapter six, Deleuze examines love relationships through distinction and repetition. It should be noted that Deleuze will present his full ontology of difference only a few years later in the work "Difference and Repetition" and there we can see several examples concerning love in Proust ^{[17, pp. 32, 136, 158, 316]}. Repetition is expressed in the fact that love feelings can arise for many different lovers, but at the same time it will not be a completely new feeling, it will be introduced into the seriality (sequence) of the previous love experience. We will deal with different lovers who are different from each other, but we will love all of them. In Proust, we can view the love series in the form: Gilberte -Duchess of Guermantes - Albertine. Each of them carries a difference, but a common series of love can be traced: "The common truth of love is serial: our loves can exist only by organizing in a series" ^{[11, p. 109]}.

Deleuze identifies several coexisting love episodes: a) the image of love in the form of mother / father love, this love will manifest itself in all subsequent lovers and thus this series mixes the past and present of the lover; b) a series of one specific love, during which the beloved can change, representing a series of changes; c) a series formed between different lovers, where certain elements of past lovers are repeated in new relationships; d) a series of transubjective reality, which includes the observation of other people's love relationships, which affects the overall perception of love. Love deals with several overlapping series at once, which transform into a common series of love. Thus, the world expressed by a lover or loved one has a certain series that influenced the formation of his point of view. The feeling of love presupposes plurality and seriality.

In the case of love in Proust, we can also observe the ontology of Deleuze's difference. He suggests considering the difference not through the relation of identity and representation, but as a difference in itself, which presupposes a multitude. We first assume the set and only then postulate the identity. If we represented love through a model of difference as identity, then instead of a series and a multitude of lovers, we would have a comparison of each individual lover with each other or with some unattainable ideal of the beloved. Through the identity model, love would be presented as a negative phenomenon, where each new love would only negate or replace another. We would not have a continuous feeling, which refers to a multitude, but would talk about love as a representation of a once-possible ideal feeling - "true love".

A love series involves a lot of: "We are even talking about a multitude of worlds; the pluralism of love consists not only in a multitude of beloved beings, but also in a multitude of souls or worlds in each of them" ^{[11, p. 32]}, which, in interaction with the world of a loved one, forms his idea of the world, his point of view. Thus, we do not deny the previous experience of love, but include it in the lover's world. Thus, the lover and the beloved, expressing the world, express the seriality of this world. Here we meet Leibniz again: "According to Leibniz, the point of view is not constituted by the subject; rather, the subject is constituted by the point of view. Points of view, in other words, are a sufficient basis of subjects. An individual concept is a point of view through which an individual expresses the totality of the world" ^{[15, p. 50]}. Each individual will include a certain series of events and have a consistent point of view: "... what is said or predicted about a thing is not only the essence of a thing, but also a set of affects and events that occur with a thing or are related to it or belong to it" ^{[15, p. 47]}. The collision with the worldview of each new loved one brings something to the series of the lover. Love is a multiplicity, when we meet with a possible world, we see a difference between ourselves and Another, but through love we include this difference in the seriality of our world. Thus, the antagonism of difference through identity is impossible in love as differences in oneself. Love opens up to us a whole set of possible views, which we adopt and repeat in later life.

Unification of worlds

First of all, it is necessary to outline the general direction of the joint work of Felix Guattari and Deleuze. They consistently struggle with psychoanalysis, subjectivation and the strict regime of the signifier. Consequently, in their constructions they refuse and consistently oppose familiarization, personal identity and representation: "Let's consider three main points in the interpretation of schizo-love in Anti-Oedipus: material (not representative), social (not family) and multiple (not personal) love" ^{[18, p. 178]}. In the first part of the two-volume book "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" entitled "Anti-Oedipus", they consistently criticize psychoanalysis and its tendency to reduce any relationship to oedipal: "... sexuality and love do not inhabit the bedroom of Oedipus..." ^{[19, p. 186]}. In the second volume, titled "A Thousand Plateaus," they continue this line and mention love several times.

So, in the plateau called "One wolf or several", Deleuze again turns to Proust, this time to answer the question "what does it mean to love someone?", he cites the same example several times in "Marcel Proust and the signs" ^{[11, pp. 104-105]}. "Albertina is slowly being extracted from a group of girls with their own number, organization, code and hierarchy; and not only does the entire unconscious completely wash over such a group, such a limited mass, but Albertina also has her own sets, which the narrator who isolated her discovers on her body and in her lies — until until the end of their love brings her back to indistinguishability" ^{[20, p. 61]}. In this plateau, the relationship of the individual to the set is investigated. The person in it is represented as an ever-changing set of pluralities. To love means to be able to single out a loved one from a group (individualize), discover him, focus your attention on him, and then explore the many (characteristics) that he conceals in himself. By singling out a loved one from the group, the lover tries to know his world, what kind of sets it consists of. A lover is able to single out a loved one from all other sets, distinguish him, give him a name: "So, a proper name does not denote an individual — on the contrary, it appears when an individual opens into the intersecting sets, at the end of the most severe experience of depersonalization, where he finds his true proper name. A proper name is an instant perception of a multitude" ^{[20, p. 64]}. And here we find the next step that distinguishes this work from all previous ones: "to attach these sets to their own, make them penetrate into their own sets and impregnate them with their own sets" ^{[20, p. 60]}. Interaction with a loved one, his world, changes the world of a lover. These worlds mutually influence and modify each other, create something new: "Then love is precisely this creative novelty of connection, this connection of multiplicity" ^{[18, p. 178]}. She mixes the sets of the lover and the beloved, creating a new combination of these pluralities. Now the invasion of the beloved's world leads to the formation of a new assemblage between the lover and the beloved. And then we have to ask ourselves about the distribution of roles in the love assembly. After all, just as a lover simultaneously identifies and names a loved one, so both the lover and the beloved dissolve into a depersonalized assembly of love.

The following plateau called "On several modes of signs" will help us in this. The plateau is dedicated to different modes of signifier, we will be interested in two modes: signifier and post-signifier. Deleuze and Guattari analyze the lover and the beloved as points of utterance in the system of the signifier. As a post-signifying mode, they cite the example of love as a passion. The mode of the signifier subjectivizes, in love we see the distribution between the beloved and the lover, the subject of the statement and the subject of the utterance, the one who says "I love you" and the one who says "me too" and vice versa. Researcher Brent Adkins demonstrates an example of how the statement "I love you" changes its meaning depending on the mode of the signifier: "There is a big difference between "I love you" belonging to a despotic (signifying) regime and one belonging to a passionate (post-signifying) regime. "I love you“ in the despotic mode is directly or indirectly focused on the face of the despot and ”uses interpretation to evoke a whole series of signifiers corresponding to a chain of signifiers." The "I love you" of the post-signifying regime comes from a point of subjectivation that becomes segmented and comes from new points of subjectivation" ^{[21, p. 93]}. In the signifying mode, we have a clear distribution between the lover and the beloved, but in the post-signifying mode, such a distribution becomes less clear, the boundaries of the lover and the beloved themselves are blurred: "And again, the variable point of subjectivation serves to distribute two subjects who both hide their faces and show them to each other They are also combined with the line of escape, the line of deterritorialization, which always brings them closer and separates them" ^{[20, p. 219]}.

In the future, Deleuze and Guattari adhere to the idea of love as one of the possible lines of escape: "To become unrecognizable yourself, to dismantle love in order to become able to love. To dismantle your own self in order to finally be alone and meet a true double at the other end of the line" ^{[20, p. 324]}. Such a representation demonstrates the eternal formation, duration and dynamics of love, which is combined with depersonalization, a departure from identity: "I am now nothing more than a line. I have become capable of loving, but not an abstract universal love, but the one that I am going to choose and which is going to choose me, blindly, choose my double, as devoid of self as I am. We were saved by love and for love, giving up love and ourselves. We are nothing more than an abstract line, like an arrow cutting through the void. Absolute deterritorialization. We have become like everyone else, like the whole world, but in a way that no one can become like everyone else, like the whole world. We have painted the world on ourselves, but not ourselves on the world" ^{[20, p. 328]}. The lines are notable for the fact that they simultaneously set a limit and destroy it, liberate and limit it. There is a certain dynamism of forces, where the lover and the beloved sometimes dissolve in love, becoming something new, mixed and inseparable, then they regain quite specific outlines and are subjectified.

We can observe the same dynamism between the organism and the "body without organs", the ratio on which Deleuze and Guattari work throughout the "Thousand Plateaus": "If we shift this to the theme of love, then we can say that love as an incompatible combinatorics becomes possible thanks to a disjunctive synthesis that simultaneously asserts an individual subject or body and at the same time it produces the cessation or dissolution of the subject, replacing emotions and stable concepts with a-subjective and a-signifying coordinates on a body without organs" ^{[22, p. 475]}. In the plateau called "How to become a body without organs?", an example of courtly love is given to demonstrate the principles by which the body works without organs. With her help, Deleuze and Guattari present their own concept of positive immanent desire. They contrast this concept with a negative one, in which desire is presented as a lack, as pleasure, or as a transcendental ideal. Desire as a lack implies that desire is the fulfillment of what a person lacks. Desire as a transcendental ideal implies that complete enjoyment is impossible and therefore desire will refer to the lack of this ideal in the form of complete enjoyment. Desire as pleasure implies that there is a cycle between desire and pleasure, where the former disappears into the latter.

In this regard, the example of courtly love is extremely entertaining: "intense affective interpersonal relationships are supported by a whole cultural program aimed at preventing the completion of desire" ^{[23, p. 97]}. In courtly love, the rejection of external pleasure leads to a state "where desire no longer has any shortage, where it fills itself and builds its field of immanence" ^{[20, p. 259]}. Desire is not a desire for something, it is the very process of desire. Love does not make up for something, is not an inaccessible ideal and does not serve to satisfy passions. She opens up a new experience, a new interaction that changes the usual coordinates of life and gives joy: "The fact is that there is joy immanent to desire — as if desire were filled with oneself and one's own contemplations — there is joy that does not imply any shortage, no impossibility, joy measured by pleasure, because it distributes the intensity pleasures" ^{[20, p. 257]}. Love is an immanent system, since it completely embraces the lover and the beloved, making them completely indifferent to any external, while plunging into it, the lover and the beloved themselves are crushed in it. Therefore, the pleasure and joy accompanying love are not an external pleasure from receiving something, but are inherent in love as such, immanent to it.

The main problem in the ratio of an organism to a body without organs is intensity. If the intensity of love is too high, then it will tend to go beyond the boundaries of the body and the body, to become a pure intensity circulating on the body without organs. In the example of courtly love, we are not interested in the lovers themselves: "For Deleuze and Guattari, courtly love ultimately leads away from personality, from individualism" ^{[24, p. 90]}, we are interested in their love and maximizing the intensity of this love. At some point, lovers become inseparable, the division into a loved one and a lover simply disappears. An increase in love intensity leads to the merging and destruction of the subject/object and subject/subject dichotomy. Love is depersonalization, since there is no "I" and "Other" in the intensity of love, the very boundary between the lover and the beloved becomes unclear, they dissolve into the intensity of love. However, it is worth noting that this plateau provides examples of various bodies without organs, such as masochistic and narcotic ones, which are designed to show the possible boundaries of a body without organs. Thus, an increase in intensity in the case of masochism and drug addiction leads to the destruction of the body. Too much intensity can completely destroy the body, lead to its death. From an ethical point of view, Deleuze and Guattari call for becoming a body without organs, experimenting and going beyond established boundaries, but they make an important reservation that this should be done carefully: "Deleuze and Guattari constantly call for caution as a necessary component of their experimentation. Ethics is, of course, an experiment, but it is a dangerous experiment. Experiment carefully" ^{[21, p. 107]}. Therefore, a body without organs acts rather as a limit to which one should strive by experimenting, and love gives us ideas about such an experience: "we are talking about creating a body without organs, through which intensities pass, and where there is no longer either a self or another — not on behalf of a higher community or a more extensive expansion, but due to singularities, which can no longer be said to be personal, and due to intensities, which can no longer be said to be extensive" ^{[20, p. 260]}. In love, there is an experience of depersonalization of the moment when two worlds, two points of view merge into an inseparable unity and thereby create something new. But this experience should not overshadow life itself, you need to strive for love, but you do not need to destroy yourself for it. Thus, although Deleuze and Guattari talk about the experience of love as positive and creative, they also recognize its danger, which can lurk in the fusion of the lover and the beloved.

Conclusion

Love can hardly be called the main theme in Deleuze's philosophy, however, throughout his career he constantly addressed it and created a certain concept of love, which is set out in this work. In addition, in the context of the theme of love, a number of main themes and concepts that Deleuze has developed over the past forty years were considered. His ethical motive for interacting with other people remains unchanged. Instead of antagonism, we can observe an interest and acceptance of an alternative view of the world. Such interaction, according to Deleuze, enriches the human world. Love helps to discover a variety of points of view and helps to accept them. Connecting with another person gives you joy and opens up a lot of new things. However, you should not give yourself too zealously to such a feeling if it threatens to destroy the life of a lover and a loved one.