Criticism of the moral image of thought from the principle of immanence and Spinoza's theory of affects

Abstract

This article aims to both, clarify the relationship between judgment and desire in Gilles Deleuze’s thought, and highlights the importance of Spinoza for the resolution of this problem. The negative conception of desire is the basis of western culture and thinking; however, Spinoza proposes an affirmative and immanent conception. These elements are essential to clarify the theoretical and practical meaning of Gilles Deleuze's proposal in his work, where an affirmative conception of desire allows him to propose the existence of two images of thought: a moral image, which is criticized by him, and an ethical image that restores the affirmative value of the body and the affects, based on Spinoza's theories of affects and nature. Deleuze and Spinoza thus propose an image of thought which sustains the value of the affirmative over the negative, in other words, it relies on the production of the different and the multiple over the hierarchy of the identical or the hegemonic.