What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance'. Deleuze defines simulacra as 'those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an accepted ideal or 'privileged position' could be 'challenged and overturned'. Where Plato saw two types of representation-faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)-Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality (2) perversion of reality (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model) and (4) simulacrum, which 'bears no relation to any reality whatsoever'.

According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original, since a simulacrum signifies something it is not, and therefore leaves the original unable to be located. Postmodernist French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in the Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality. This example from the visual arts serves as a metaphor for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort the truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper angle. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed.

He gives the example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. The second is intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. In his Sophist, Plato speaks of two kinds of image-making. Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers.

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