Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of Freedom: Freedom’s Refrains

The texts collected in this volume originated as scholarly presentations delivered at the international conference "Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari: Refrains of Freedom", held in Athens at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences from 24 to 26 April 2015. The volume focuses on the concept of “freedom” in the thought of Deleuze and Guattari, a task that proves challenging insofar as the two thinkers seldom employ the term “freedom”, preferring instead the notion of the “refrain”. It is often hastily claimed that Deleuze has nothing to say concerning freedom because of his philosophical proximity to Baruch Spinoza. Such a claim rests upon a mistaken interpretation both of “freedom” in Deleuze and of Spinoza’s philosophy itself. The contributions gathered in this volume demonstrate that the term “freedom” has traditionally been construed in an excessively restrictive manner and that freedom, in effect, functions as a refrain across every sphere of thought and creation. The choice of “refrains of freedom” as the central theme of the volume was motivated by Deleuze and Guattari’s conviction that the imposed non-reality of the media and the signifying regimes of capitalism have occupied even the domains of philosophy, art, and science. The essays collected here elucidate and foreground innovative and radical dimensions of their work, thereby contributing to contemporary reflection on the major philosophical, ethical, and political question of freedom.