I will interpret intuitions concerning the notion of time rooted in the philosophies of Deleuze and Lacan. These two perspectives will then be referred to the contemporary physics (general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics). Two papers will be crucial for me: Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certainty Lacan’s and Deleuze’s The Logic of Sense.

The metaphor of contemporary physics will be applied to elucidate the difference between the two philosophers which is mostly the difference of the plane of reference (so to say different territories of references) rather than the difference within the intuition about the notion of time itself. The direction in which the presentation will be heading is rather a departure from the category of difference between Deleuze's and Lacan's approaches. The two may even be complementary, as both have a similar structure, whereas once territory is ontological (Deleuze) and once ethical (Lacan).

A parallel process takes place in sciences. The difference between Einstein's theory and quantum mechanics is the difference of the plane of reference and what follows a different position of the observer. Lacan’s notion of time is based on the relation between three subjects (three prisoners here) and deleuzian time consists of two forms of time (Aion and Chronos) in the relation to a subject. In quantum mechanics a subject studies two particles and in general theory of relativity two objects (wherein one is a subject) must be referred to the point of reference (Sun, Moon, etc.).

Cosmological references sporadically appear in Deleuze’s work and D&G’s collaborative work. D&G integrate cosmological theories such as the universe born of a quantum fluctuation, the fractal universe, and the solution to the three-body problem. However, D&G’s chaosmos is not merely a scientific object. It is also a cultural production (artistic and philosophical). I explore this cultural aspect of D&G’s cosmic sensibility by investigating the way in which cosmological questioning becomes for them a core feature of modern culture. In order to do so, I present some of the cosmic dimensions in artistic productions and discourses that D&G consider emblematic. I examine examples from literature (including Artaud, Blanchot, and Joyce who inspired the notions of forces of the outside and chaosmos), painting and music (Klee and Stockhausen whose work open up to a “cosmicization of the forces”), and cinema (modern cinema gives reasons to “believe in this world”). I then look at how answering the big cosmological questions is for D&G both a scientific endeavor and a task undertaken by the imagination. That is to say, the chaosmos is a hybrid entity not only because it is an assemblage (agencement) of order and disorder but also because it involves, similarly to the plane of consistency, “no distinction between the natural and the artificial” (ATP 266). Following What is Philosophy? (217), there are “interferences that cannot be localized” (interférences illocalisables) between the forms of thought (science, art, philosophy). I argue that D&G’s chaosmos implies such interférences illocalisables, making it a scientific and cultural creation.

There is much affinity between Deleuze’s metaphysics and the dispositionalist approach to modality in analytic metaphysics. Both seek to ground any account of what may be or become the case in terms of the powers of concrete rather than abstract objects such as possible worlds. However, they differ in the question of whether difference or identity has metaphysical primacy. I argue that the dispositionalist should accept the primacy of difference in order to successfully respond to an important criticism: the question of how to account for necessary truths in a dispositionalist framework. Yates argues that dispositions alone cannot account for necessary truths such as 2+2=4. If so, then dispositionalism fails to explain modal certain paradigm modal truths, and so fails as an account of modality. In her response, Vetter separates the challenge into two questions: can dispositions, in principle, ground necessary truths, and if so, what objects have these dispositions? Vetter answers the first problem but leaves open the second. I propose an answer to the Whose Powers Question which does not require positing abstract objects. I argue, following Deleuze, that such powers are not the powers of any particular objects, but rather powers produced by the mere existence of difference. These are called powers of pure difference or of difference itself. This has implications for views which reduce powers to abstract objects in that it is shown that there are powers which, by their nature, cannot be the powers of any essence, or anything else which presupposes an identity.