Abstract

In Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-20987-2_6, we see how both believe that the turn to the body, with its emphasis on self-knowledge, is the best way to undermine metaphysical illusions that have enabled theologians and moralists to maintain their power and inhibit authentic self-transformation. I argue that while Deleuze’s analysis reveals much that is of importance, it ignores crucial differences between Spinoza’s and Nietzsche’s accounts of consciousness, their views on how we can know the body, and between the various practical implications of their claims. Both focus on remarkably similar notions of endogenous power and place great emphasis on discussing the multiplicity that constitutes the body. They differ when it comes to the value they assign to conflict in their physiologies and in their power ontologies more broadly.