The Logic of Sense is a dense philosophical treatise in the form of a series of 'series' or paradoxes, developing a theory of sense as an impersonal, incorporeal event that inheres at the surface of language and bodies. Drawing on the ancient Stoics, Lewis Carroll, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, Deleuze distinguishes sense from denotation and signification, argues that events are incorporeal effects of corporeal states of affairs, and analyzes paradoxes of becoming, time, and nonsense. The book systematically explores how series of propositions, bodies, and events intersect, how language produces sense through surface-effects, and how paradoxes of nonsense, the unconscious, and time reveal the logic proper to sense rather than refute it. Throughout, Deleuze weaves together literary examples (especially Carroll), psychoanalytic motifs (the schizophrenic, the paranoiac), and metaphysical claims about events, surfaces, and depth to articulate a non-subjective, non-representational conception of meaning.
At a Glance
- Author
- Gilles Deleuze
- Composed
- 1966–1968
- Language
- French
- Status
- original survives
- •Sense as incorporeal event and surface-effect: Deleuze argues that 'sense' is neither a mental representation nor a referent in the world but an incorporeal, impersonal event that occurs at the surface where language and bodies intersect. Drawing on Stoic logic, he distinguishes between corporeal bodies and their states of affairs (which are causes and effects) and incorporeal events (which are expressed). Sense is identified with these incorporeal events; it is what is expressed by propositions but does not exist as a thing, property, or psychological content. This allows Deleuze to explain how the same event (e.g., 'the battle') can be expressed in multiple, diverging ways without being reducible to any particular physical configuration or subjective experience.
- •Distinction between denotation, manifestation, signification, and sense: Deleuze systematizes the logical dimensions of language by distinguishing denotation (reference to states of affairs), manifestation (the speaker’s subjective use and beliefs), and signification (relations within systems of concepts). He contends that none of these exhaust what is at stake in language because they presuppose a more fundamental dimension: sense. Sense is the expressed of a proposition, the condition that makes denotation, manifestation, and signification possible. It is neutral with respect to truth and falsehood, existing as a pre-personal, structural dimension of language. This account undermines traditional subject-centered theories of meaning, placing sense prior to and independent of speaking subjects.
- •Paradoxes as expressions of the logic of sense: Far from being mere anomalies, paradoxes for Deleuze are privileged sites where the logic of sense manifests itself most clearly. Using Lewis Carroll’s logical puzzles and Zeno-like problems of becoming, he analyzes paradoxes of infinite regress, circular reference, and self-reference to show that sense is inherently paradoxical. The paradox of becoming—where something is simultaneously what it is and what it is not yet—reveals that events are always double (already past and yet to come), while logical paradoxes disclose how sense proliferates in series that never converge on a final referent. The logic of sense thus requires accepting paradox as structural, not as a defect of language or thought.
- •Events, series, and the surface/depth distinction: Deleuze develops a topological model of language and reality organized around surfaces and depths. Bodies and their mixtures belong to the domain of depth, associated with drives, desires, and material processes; events and sense belong to the surface. He introduces the notion of 'series'—ordered sets of elements (words, propositions, objects, affects)—whose intersections generate sense as a surface-effect. The surface is where heterogeneous series (of words and things, signifiers and bodies) resonate and produce events. This framework enables Deleuze to critique depth-psychological and hermeneutic models that seek hidden meanings beneath language, insisting instead on a productive surface where sense is continuously generated through the encounter of series.
- •Nonsense, the unconscious, and the production of sense: Through extended readings of Lewis Carroll, psychoanalysis, and clinical cases, Deleuze distinguishes between two types of nonsense: a sterile, negative nonsense that blocks sense and a 'productive' nonsense that engenders new series of sense. He interprets psychoanalytic phenomena (schizophrenia, neurosis, perversion) not just as pathologies of subjectivity but as different organizations of series and surfaces that modulate how sense is produced. The unconscious is thus conceived less as a hidden depth than as a system of disjunctive syntheses and series producing sense-events. This reconceptualization of nonsense and the unconscious undercuts purely interpretive models of analysis, emphasizing instead the generative power of nonsense and its role in creating new logics and series of sense.
Historically, 'The Logic of Sense' has become a central text in Deleuzian studies and in contemporary continental philosophy more broadly. It is one of the key works through which Deleuze reinterprets Stoic logic and ontology, develops a distinctive theory of events and sense, and intervenes in debates about structuralism, psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of language. The book has been influential in literary theory, cultural studies, and political theory for its conception of sense as an impersonal event, its revaluation of nonsense and paradox, and its anti-depth models of subjectivity and the unconscious. It also serves as a conceptual bridge between Deleuze’s earlier monographs on individual philosophers and the later collaborative works with Guattari, particularly in the treatment of desire, the unconscious, and the 'body without organs'.
1. Introduction
The Logic of Sense (Logique du sens, 1969) is a philosophical treatise by Gilles Deleuze that develops a distinctive theory of sense as an incorporeal event occurring at the surface of language and bodies. Written in a deliberately non-linear form, the book investigates how meaning arises through paradox, how events relate to material states of affairs, and how time and the unconscious can be reconceived once sense is no longer treated as a psychological or representational content.
Central to the work is a reactivation of Stoic logic and ontology, combined with close readings of Lewis Carroll and an extensive engagement with psychoanalysis and structuralism. Rather than presenting a unified argument in standard chapters, Deleuze organizes the book into a series of short “series” or paradoxes, each exploring a problem such as the status of events, the logic of nonsense, the nature of becoming, or the structure of the unconscious.
While it is often read alongside Difference and Repetition as completing a major phase of Deleuze’s thought, The Logic of Sense has also been interpreted as a pivotal transition toward his collaborative works with Félix Guattari, particularly in its treatment of desire, the body without organs, and the critique of depth-based models of subjectivity.
2. Historical and Intellectual Context
The Logic of Sense was composed between 1966 and 1968 and published in 1969, at the height of French structuralism and in the immediate aftermath of the events of May 1968. It emerges at the intersection of several intellectual currents:
| Context | Relevance to The Logic of Sense |
|---|---|
| French structuralism (Lévi-Strauss, Lacan) | Provides models of systems, series, and structures that inform Deleuze’s treatment of language, the unconscious, and events. |
| Renewal of interest in Stoicism | Offers the distinction between bodies and incorporeal events that Deleuze radicalizes into his concept of sense. |
| Debates in logic and analytic philosophy of language | Form the backdrop for Deleuze’s reworking of denotation, signification, and the proposition, though often in indirect or critical ways. |
| Post-war psychoanalysis | Supplies concepts (unconscious, desire, neurosis, schizophrenia) that Deleuze reinterprets in terms of series, surfaces, and nonsense. |
Within Deleuze’s own trajectory, the book follows Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), Proust and Signs (1964), Bergsonism (1966), and Difference and Repetition (1968). Commentators often view it as both consolidating these earlier engagements—especially with Bergsonian time and Nietzschean affirmation—and responding to contemporaries such as Foucault and Althusser over questions of structure, subjectivity, and discourse.
The book also participates in broader 1960s discussions on language and meaning, alongside works by Barthes, Derrida, and others, while adopting a stylistically and conceptually idiosyncratic approach that some see as marking a shift from structuralism toward so‑called post-structuralism.
3. Author and Composition
Deleuze’s Position in the 1960s
By the late 1960s, Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was a well-established figure in French philosophy, known for monographs on Hume, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Proust, and for Difference and Repetition. He worked primarily in the French university system (notably at the University of Lyon, then at Vincennes), engaging with but not fully identifying with structuralism.
Genesis and Writing Process
The Logic of Sense was written between 1966 and 1968. Scholars suggest that Deleuze drafted the book in close dialogue with his work on difference, repetition, and the event, seeking a more explicitly logical and linguistic articulation of themes already present in Difference and Repetition. The dedication to Michel Tournier and Pierre Klossowski signals its proximity to contemporary literary and theological-philosophical experiments with language, bodies, and simulacra.
Deleuze reportedly assembled the work from shorter pieces and lectures, reworking them into the distinctive format of “series.” This composition method is often cited to explain both the density and the fragmentary, almost aphoristic style of many sections.
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Period of composition | 1966–1968 |
| First publication | Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1969 |
| Dedication | Michel Tournier and Pierre Klossowski |
Relation to Later Collaborations
Although written before Deleuze’s formal collaboration with Félix Guattari, commentators frequently read The Logic of Sense retrospectively as anticipating themes of Anti-Oedipus (1972), especially the body without organs, disjunctive syntheses, and a non-representational conception of desire and the unconscious.
4. Structure and Organization of The Logic of Sense
The book is organized not into conventional chapters but into 34 “series” followed by additional appendices and essays in standard editions. Each series is a relatively short, self-contained but cross-referential unit organized around a problem or paradox.
Overall Layout
| Part (approximate) | Contents and Focus |
|---|---|
| Early series (1–10) | Events, the surface, bodies vs. incorporeals, paradox and nonsense, often via Stoics and Lewis Carroll. |
| Middle series (11–22) | Temporal structures (Aion and Chronos), paradoxes of becoming, more systematic treatment of propositions and sense. |
| Later series (23–34) | Unconscious, desire, psychoanalytic figures (schizophrenic, paranoiac, pervert), the body without organs. |
| Appendices / supplementary essays | Reflections on structuralism, specific authors (e.g., Carroll, Artaud), and clarifications of the book’s conceptual stakes. |
The “Series” Form
The series are themselves a key organizational principle. Each series contains a sequence of concepts and examples that are said to form a “series” intersecting with other series. The work’s architecture is thus serial and transversal rather than linear: motifs such as surface, event, nonsense, and Aion recur across multiple series, progressively transformed.
Commentators often distinguish:
- A logical-linguistic thread, dealing with propositions, denotation, signification, and sense;
- A literary thread, centered on Lewis Carroll and other writers;
- A psychoanalytic thread, addressing the unconscious and desire.
These threads cut across the numbered series, making the organization more rhizomatic than hierarchical.
5. Central Arguments and Philosophical Themes
Sense as Incorporeal Event
A central claim is that sense is an incorporeal, impersonal event that is expressed at the surface of language and bodies. It is neither a psychological idea nor a physical property. Propositions express sense as events (e.g., “the battle”) that result from bodies but do not themselves exist as bodies.
Four Dimensions of Language
Deleuze distinguishes denotation (reference to states of affairs), manifestation (speaker’s beliefs and intentions), signification (conceptual or systemic relations), and sense (the expressed event). Sense is presented as the condition of the other three, neutral with respect to truth and falsehood.
| Dimension | Function |
|---|---|
| Denotation | Links propositions to states of affairs. |
| Manifestation | Indexes subjective uses and beliefs. |
| Signification | Situates propositions within conceptual systems. |
| Sense | The expressed incorporeal event enabling the others. |
Surface, Depth, and Events
The book develops a topological distinction between surface (where sense and events subsist) and depth (domain of bodies, drives, and mixtures). Events are “surface-effects” produced by interactions in depth but irreducible to them. This underpins Deleuze’s critique of depth-based hermeneutics.
Paradox, Nonsense, and Becoming
Paradoxes—of self-reference, infinite regress, and especially becoming—are treated as intrinsic expressions of the logic of sense rather than as errors to be eliminated. Deleuze analyzes Aion and Chronos as two temporal orders to account for the paradoxical status of events, which are simultaneously past and future but never simply present.
Unconscious and Desire
Later series reinterpret psychoanalytic notions of the unconscious and desire as systems of series and disjunctive syntheses operating on the surface, with the body without organs functioning as a key figure. The unconscious is depicted less as a hidden depth than as a productive arrangement of sense-events and nonsense.
6. Key Concepts, Paradoxes, and Famous Passages
Core Concepts
| Concept | Brief Characterization |
|---|---|
| Sense (sens) | The incorporeal, impersonal event expressed by propositions, prior to truth-value. |
| Event (événement) | An incorporeal surface-effect of bodily states of affairs, always “double” (already past and yet to come). |
| Surface / Depth | Surface: domain of events and sense; depth: bodies, drives, mixtures. |
| Aion / Chronos | Aion: infinite, empty, divisible time of events; Chronos: present-centered time of bodies and actions. |
| Nonsense (non-sens) | A structural device revealing and generating sense, especially in Lewis Carroll. |
Famous Passages and Paradoxes
-
The Event as Incorporeal Effect (Series 1–3)
Deleuze adapts Stoic examples like “the scarlet” or “the battle” to show that what propositions express is not a body but an incorporeal event:“The event is not what occurs (an accident) but rather the pure expressed of the proposition.”
— Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, early series
Commentators highlight these pages as foundational for Deleuze’s general “philosophy of the event.”
-
Lewis Carroll and Productive Nonsense (Series 5–10)
Through Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Carroll’s logical games, Deleuze distinguishes sterile negation from productive nonsense that organizes new series of sense. Carroll’s famous exchanges on words and meanings are read as dramatizing the serial, surface-based nature of sense. -
Paradox of Becoming and Aion (Middle series, c. 11–16)
Deleuze analyzes paradoxes such as a child “becoming” adult or something “becoming” larger or smaller, arguing that becoming is a pure event on the line of Aion, never present as such but always in the in-between. This leads to the differentiation between Aion and Chronos. -
Three Syntheses and the Body without Organs (Later series, c. 23–33)
Passages on the body without organs, disjunctive syntheses, and clinical figures (schizophrenic, paranoiac) are often treated as precursors to Anti-Oedipus. They reconceive the unconscious as a surface of inscription and production of sense-events, not a depth of repressed representations.
7. Legacy and Historical Significance
The Logic of Sense has come to occupy a central place in Deleuze’s corpus and in contemporary continental philosophy. Initially received as a dense and technically demanding work, it gained prominence as scholars traced its influence on later collaborations with Guattari and on debates about language, events, and the unconscious.
Influence Across Fields
| Field | Lines of Influence |
|---|---|
| Philosophy | Development of “philosophy of the event”; alternative theories of meaning; critiques of depth psychology and hermeneutics. |
| Literary theory | Analyses of nonsense, modernist and postmodern narrative, and textual surfaces drawing on Deleuze’s reading of Carroll and Artaud. |
| Psychoanalysis and critical theory | Reconsiderations of the unconscious, desire, and symptom-formation in terms of series, surfaces, and productive nonsense. |
| Political and cultural theory | Uses of the event, the body without organs, and disjunctive syntheses to rethink subjectivity, institutions, and social change. |
Key Lines of Reception
Commentators frequently interpret the work as:
- A bridge between Deleuze’s early monographs and his later collaborative phase;
- A major reappropriation of Stoic thought, influential on subsequent studies of ancient philosophy and its contemporary uses;
- A distinctive contribution to post-1960s philosophy of language, standing apart from but dialoguing with analytic approaches.
Critics have raised concerns about the clarity of the ontology of sense, the book’s technical density, and its sometimes loose relation to formal logic or orthodox psychoanalysis. Nonetheless, it remains widely cited as a seminal statement of Deleuze’s views on events, sense, and the primacy of surface, and as a key document in the broader shift from structuralism to so‑called post-structuralism.
How to Cite This Entry
Use these citation formats to reference this work entry in your academic work. Click the copy button to copy the citation to your clipboard.
Philopedia. (2025). the-logic-of-sense. Philopedia. https://philopedia.com/works/the-logic-of-sense/
"the-logic-of-sense." Philopedia, 2025, https://philopedia.com/works/the-logic-of-sense/.
Philopedia. "the-logic-of-sense." Philopedia. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://philopedia.com/works/the-logic-of-sense/.
@online{philopedia_the_logic_of_sense,
title = {the-logic-of-sense},
author = {Philopedia},
year = {2025},
url = {https://philopedia.com/works/the-logic-of-sense/},
urldate = {December 11, 2025}
}