Repetition

Abstract

One of the conceptual events that distinguish contemporary post-Hegelian philosophy is the emergence of the concept of repetition as an independent and crucial concept. For Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud and, later on, Lacan and Deleuze, the conceptual stakes of repetition are very much at the center of their projects. There are important differences between these projects, but what they all share is that repetition is viewed, posited, and elaborated as fundamentally different from the logic of representation. The paper starts with a brief overview of Marx’s reflections on repetition in relationship to revolution (from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte), and then focuses mainly on Deleuze and Lacan, on the similarities and differences of their conceptualizations. For Deleuze, repetition as existing beyond representation constitutes an emancipatory realization of Being qua difference. For Lacan, repetition constitutes the other side of representation and cannot be completely separated form it, in spite of their radical heterogeneity. It is related to the contingency involved in the very constitution of the subject. From this perspective the paper then concludes with an analysis of the link between repetition and comedy.