Abstract

In the fifth chapter of Difference and repetition, Deleuze intends to build a theory of intensive quantities and intensive individuation, with the aim to explain how the intensive space (the spatium) can be the genesis of the extensive space (the extensio). The first task of this theory consists in distinguishing the intensive quantities to the extensive quantities, and to explain the relation between the concepts of distance and intensity. The reading of Leibniz, and his distinction of the concepts of the spatium and the extensio, with the mediation of the commentary of Russell and Gueroult, enables us to describe the genealogy of those concepts in the thought of Deleuze, to understand their use and meaning in the chapter 5 of Difference and repetition.