Deleuze's problematic principle of sufficient reason: From Hume to Bergson

Abstract The significance of the principle of sufficient reason for the philosophy of Deleuze has long been recognized. Predominantly drawing from Deleuze's two 1968 publications, Difference and Repetition and Expressionism in Philosophy , commentators have tended to read Deleuze as engaging primarily with Leibniz's formulation of the principle, and to a lesser extent Spinoza's. By contrast, we argue that the problematic that determines Deleuze's earliest published works in the 1950s is framed by an engagement with the principle that predates his work on Leibniz and Spinoza. This engagement leads to the discovery of a “principle of difference” in Hume, anticipating the notion of individuation as differentiation. Hume's empiricism, however, is unable to provide a conception of “difference‐in‐itself,” prompting Deleuze to move “from Hume to Bergson.” We argue that Deleuze's distinctive differential ontology is therefore articulated in these earliest texts as an explicit response to a problematic encounter with the principle of sufficient reason. In doing so, we seek to provide a “genetic” reading of Deleuze that is capable of illuminating these concepts as they emerge in the texts themselves.