Deleuze and Learning

Synonyms

Critical philosophy; Critical thinking; Learning; Poststructuralism; Postulates

Introduction

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) provides an integrated theorization of learning without having written specifically on education. He was a philosopher who worked for the majority of his life as an intellectual and university academic. Deleuze was propelled into the public eye in 1972, after the success of his first collaborative work with Félix Guattari, called Anti-Oedipus. He did not write a book on learning, so one must piece together his ideas on learning from comments interspersed from within the oeuvre. Despite this apparent lack of direct information and analysis of learning, Deleuze’s ideas have gained traction in many educational and creative circles (Cole 2011). Perhaps this is because Deleuze provides what he described as “a conceptual toolbox” (Deleuze 1980, p. 17), which can be readily applied to education in terms of a philosophical framing and as a theoretical base that...