Introduction

Abstract

Among the more pronounced features of Gilles Deleuze’s work is a sustained discussion of the demands and joys of reading philosophy. Whether the concept is that of “becoming,” middle,” or “actualization” whether the metaphor is that of the portrait or the double, the reader understands that the idea of interpretation as the simple relocation of a fixed meaning from one chain of signifiers to another has been left far behind. Equally noticeable, however, is the fact that Deleuze never frames his discussion of reading philosophy as a critique of the signified. In contemporary theory the critique of the signified has assumed a variety of forms: the claim the signified is itself a signifier (an interpretation is itself a text); the celebration of the reader’s role in the production of meaning; the assertion that multiple, valid interpretations of the same text are possible; the notion of différance. But Anti-Oedipus finds Deleuze, along with Guattari, distancing himself from this entire current of thought (what could be called the valorization of the signifier).