The essays collected here testify to Deleuze's fundamental conviction that philosophy cannot be undertaken independently of science and art. As often in his writing, the names of philosophers such as Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Nietzsche appear beside those of literary figures including Melville, Whitman, and D.H. Lawrence. Deleuze's ambition to dismantle the barriers between art and its adjacent domains is brilliantly realized here .