Abstract
This essay considers both Deleuze’s philosophy of embodiment and his own body, the lived experience of which was shaped by long-term respiratory problems. It notes the recurring theme of ‘the breath of fresh air’ in Deleuze’s writings and goes on to suggest that Deleuze’s own concept of bodies – as becomings, as the sum of their affects and as that which forces us to think – functions as just such an opening to ‘the outside’ in relation to dominant discourses on the body (particularly the ‘philosophical diseases’, as Deleuze calls them, of Platonism and Cartesianism). Finally, the essay returns to the question of ill-health, Deleuze’s affirmation of which is understood not as an affirmation of asceticism, but as part of a new way of thinking health, bodies and thought beyond their traditional humanist and anthropocentric formulations.