The Dramatic Power of Events: The Function of Method in Deleuze's Philosophy

Abstract

Deleuze's text on dramatization has a peculiar place in his philosophy. In this text, he attributes, for the first time in his own name, a singular function to philosophy. I aim to show that all the notions developed in ‘The Method of Dramatization’ – such as the transformation of the status of Ideas, the first development of a theory of individuation, the decentring of subjectivity, the critique of representation – are part of one general function: to grant events the importance they call for. If a method is required for such an endeavour, it is because thought must become the site of the maximal intensification of what – beyond a psychological or an anthropological point of view – is of importance.