A Heraclitan Fold between Heidegger and Deleuze

The article addresses the common topics of convergence and divergence in the history of philosophy that is drawn from the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus around the unity of opposites. I identify this thematic in two well-known works by Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze: Heidegger’s 1943 seminar on Heraclitus and Deleuze’s treatise on the ‘baroque’ philosophy of Leibniz in Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque (1988). In analysing this theme in Deleuze, the article develops a discussion of the concept of harmony in baroque music and the function of vertical and horizontal harmonics in general music theory to demonstrate the dependence of Deleuze’s argument concerning the concept of ‘the fold’ ( le pli) on the musical theory of harmony. The article concludes with discussion of the limitations of musical analogy applied to metaphysical principles and some general observations on the relevance of this theory for understanding the debates over continuity and discontinuity in contemporary new materialist philosophies.