The Concept of Sense in Gilles Deleuze'sLogic of Sense

Abstract

What is the concept of sense developed by Deleuze in his 1969 Logic of Sense? This paper attempts to answer this question analysing the three dimensions of language that Deleuze isolates: the primary order of noises and intensities (depth); the secondary order of sense (surface); and the tertiary organisation of propositions (height). What renders language possible is that which separates sounds from bodies (the primary order) and organises them into propositions (the tertiary organisation), freeing them for the expressive function. Deleuze argues that it is the dimension of sense that brings about this genesis of language, and he analyses in detail the three syntheses (connection, conjunction and disjunction) that bring about the production of this surface of sense. Yet Deleuze also distinguishes between two types of non-sense: the nonsense of Lewis Carroll's portmanteau words, which remain ensconced in the dimension of sense, and the more profound nonsense of Antonin Artaud's psychotic scream-breaths (‘Ratara ratara ratara Atara tatara rana Otara otara katara’), which penetrate the almost unbearable world of the primary order of noise and intensities. In the end, the focus of Logic of Sense is less the surface domain of sense than the primary depth of corporeal intensities. What Deleuze calls a ‘minor’ use of language is nothing other than an intensive use of language that constitutes a principle of metamorphosis.