Conclusion: Multiplicity, Ontology, Deleuze, Badiou

Abstract

This chapter recovers the work of the preceding several chapters to demonstrate my attention to structure and procedure as key components of both Badiou’s and Deleuze’s ontological multiplicity. I discuss the prospects for ‘other lineages’ in which to take up this investigation, including the discussions in Chapter 5 concerning Badiou’s relationships to Heidegger and Kant. Knox Peden (Spinoza Contra Phenomenology: French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2014) uses an entanglement with Heidegger to propose ways in which Deleuze’s alternative reinforces his deep Spinozist commitments; this recognition extends the frontier of the Badiou-Deleuze engagement beyond the boundary I identify in Kant’s notion of the manifold. I conclude by addressing the critique of multiplicity in Badiou’s review of Deleuze’s The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. This engagement offers an opportunity to consider the foundation of ontological inquiry not in multiplicity, but the decision or commitment to dissolution that warrants its deployment.