Abstract

The relation between violence and the institution (regime, order, law, right) was truly thematized for the first time in the writings of Hume, and in an entirely different way in Saint-Just's texts on the Republic and the institution. Gilles Deleuze's early works repre-sent an original attempt at reconstruction of a possible dialogue between these two dissimilar authors. Regardless of the possibility of reconstruction of Deleuze's own theory of the institution (in his texts, Deleuze uses the phrase «revolutionary institution» certainly perfectly aware of its particularly chaotic history in the post-revolutionary period), and analysis of the various combinations of the terms institution and revolution, the intention is above all to examine the link between violence and the institution. Deleuze's attempt to make a preliminary systematic examination of the figure of the institution came about as a result of the conjoining of several fragments of his famous predecessors.