Introduction to Deleuze Studies Special Issue Ontologies of Difference

What is it about?

This special issue of Deleuze Studies is dedicated to the work of the late French philosophers Gilbert Simondon (1924–89) and Raymond Ruyer (1902–87).1 Simondon and Ruyer influenced Deleuze, and references to their work can be found throughout his texts, from Difference and Repetition (1994) to Deleuze’s work with Félix Guattari in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia volumes (1983, 1987).

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Why is it important?

In the anglophone world, Simondon’s work is beginning to be read outside of French philosophy in fields such as communication, media studies, and science and technology studies thanks to a new English translation of On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (2017). Ruyer’s work is also beginning to be rediscovered. Some of Ruyer’s works have been rereleased or reprinted in France, and this has been accompanied by an uptick in the secondary scholarship on Ruyer in that country. Additionally, an English translation of Ruyer’s Neofinalism (2016) was recently released and The Genesis of Living Forms (2017) will be released later this year. Other translations are under way.

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