Repetition and Difference

from Deleuze, "Repetition and Difference," Introduction, p. 12 trans Paul Patton, Columbia University Press

"We wish to indicate the difference between this type of artificial blockage and a quite different type which must be called a natural blockage of the concept. One refers to logic pure and simple, but the other refers to a transcendental logic or a dialectic of existence.

"Let us suppose that a concept, taken at a particular moment when its comprehension is finite, is forcibly assigned to a place in space and time -- that is, an existence corresponding normally to the extension = 1. We would say, then, that a genus or species passes into existence /hic et nunc/ (now and then) without any augmentation of comprehension. there is a a rift between that extension = 1 imposed upon the concept and the extension = [infinity symbol] that its weak comprehension demands in principle. The result will be a 'discrete extension' -- that is, a pullulation of individuals absolutely identical in respect of their concept, and participating in the same singularity in existence (the paradox of doubles or twins).

"This phenomenon of discrete extension implies a natural blockage of the concept, different in kind from a logical blockage: it forms a true repetition in existence rather than an order of resemblance in thought. There is a significant difference between generality, which always designates a logical power of concepts, and repetition, which testifies to their powerlessness or their real limits.

"Repetition is the pure fact of a concept with finite comprehension being forced to pass as such into existence: can we find examples of such a passage? Epicurean atoms would be one: individuals localised in space, they nevertheless have a meagre comprehension, which is made up for in discrete extension, to the point where there exists an infinity of atoms of the same shape and size.

"The existence of Epicurean atoms may be doubted. On the other hand, the existence of words, which are in a sense linguistic atoms, cannot be doubted. Words possess a comprehension which is necessarily finite, since they are by nature the objects of a merely nominal definition. We have here a reason why the comprehension of the concept cannot extend to infinity: we define a word by only a finite number of words.

"Nevertheless, speech and writing, from which words are inseparable, give them an existence hic et nunc; a genus thereby passes into existence as such; and here again extension is made up for in dispersion, in discreteness, under the sign of a repetition which forms the real power of language in speech and writing.