Manuel DeLanda’s Intensive
Science and Virtual Philosophy
by Beth Metcalf
In Manuel DeLanda’s Introduction to Intensive
Science and Virtual Philosophy (2013 edition), he
states his intention to focus on Deleuze’s ontology. DeLanda
sees Deleuze’s world as the set of entities that actually
exist. He classifies the history of philosophy in roughly
three groups (xii): 1) Reality is not independent of the
mind that perceives it. 2) Objects of everyday experience
are independent of the mind although theoretical entities are not
necessarily autonomous. 3) There is a fully
mind-independent reality. This mind-independent
“realist ontology” is that which DeLanda sees as
Deleuze’s world.
DeLanda says (xiii), “Deleuze is not
a realist about essences….something else is needed to
explain what gives objects their identity and what preserves this
identity through time…this something else is dynamical
processes.” Therefore, DeLanda sees a dynamic process
that maintains the identity of objects through time. However,
isn’t the identity of objects that which Deleuze calls
common sense? And, isn’t that which preserves this
identity through time what Deleuze calls good sense? Isn’t
that dynamic process DeLanda attributes to Deleuze exactly the
common sense and good sense that Deleuze rejects? (Difference
& Repetition 226) Common sense is the subjective unity
and the objective identity of the faculties. But this
static common sense needs a dynamic of good sense to maintain the
identity of the object and the unity of the subject through time.
Good sense is the dynamic element that cancels difference in the
object so that it is equalized through time in the
“good” direction from past to future as Self is
unified. Of course, DeLanda would claim (naively) that what
he sees as Deleuze’s “mind-independent realism”
has nothing to do with subjective faculties. And he thinks
that this “dynamic process” is enough to escape
essentialism. DeLanda believes that what he sees as
Deleuze’s realist ontology is enough to defend against the
charge of naïve realism. However, I think he needs to bear
some burden of explanation. How can he know
mind-independent objects apart from his subjective faculties?
How can he know objective properties apart from the
categories of possible experience --- and apart from his
subjectively hinged faculties? And, where does he find such
objectivist realism in Deleuze’s text?
Naïve realism is the common sense view that
our direct perception gives awareness of the external
world as it is objectively apart from our subjective
perception. But Deleuze shows us that the common sense and
good sense structure of representation-analogy is that
naïve view. I see no difference between naïve realism and
that which DeLanda projects into his reading of Deleuze. Can
what DeLanda calls Deleuze’s “realism” really be a
dynamic process of mind-independence? Does Deleuze’s
ontology really claim to be such an oppositional dichotomy
between mind-independent reality and mind-dependent ideas?
DeLanda still has not escaped the structure
of Representation-Analogy with its distributive common sense and
hierarchical good sense. He does not escape analogy which
essentially relates being and actual objects. The
generality of analogous structure cannot say what constitutes the
singularity of the individual. (DR 38) “….analogy
falls into an unresolvable difficulty: it must essentially relate
being to particular existents, but at that same time it cannot
say what constitutes their individuality. For it retains in
the particular only that which conforms to the general (matter
and form), and seeks the principle of individuation in this or
that element of the fully constituted individuals….”
This means that we may divide individuals into smaller and
smaller scales of granularity but, with that division, there will
be no change in nature. We will never reach the singularity
that escapes the generality of the particular formed matter.
We may rearrange the constant relation of the form-matter
variability, but we will still not change the generality of the
essential structure of analogy.
DeLanda’s “dynamic process”
is merely “difference” that maintains the principle of
identity. It merely maintains a constant relation of
form-matter variability. It excludes all but objects and
their parts in conceptual relations of prior possibility. It
includes only what must be in order to maintain the
conceptual identity of a prior mind-dependent image of
possibility. It never reaches real intensive difference
that escapes the maintenance of identity. A prior
conceptual Image of Thought merely maintains the principle of
identical essence no matter how infinitely variable and dynamic
its process from one actual term to another may appear. Its
“virtual” will be merely conceptual possibility. But
isn’t that Image of conceptual possibility just what
Deleuze’s ontology of univocal being allows philosophy to
overcome? Deleuze tells us (DR 35) “There has only
ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal.”
If we do not reach that univocal being, we will not escape
representation-analogy that merely maintains the essential
(common sense/good sense) structure of identity. DeLanda
leaves out Deleuze’s univocal being and therefore cannot
escape the equalizing dynamic process of already formed matter in
its constant relation of variability that maintains the essential
identity of objects and their subjective unity through time.
DeLanda’s whole dynamic process is
restricted to the scientific plane of reference. It leaves
out Deleuze’s sub-representative plane of univocality.
It never reaches real intensive difference that escapes any
process that maintains identity. DeLanda confuses
philosophy with science. He confuses the intensive concept
with scientific functions of extensive reference. He
can’t escape the charge of naïve realism since he still
claims (20-1) that Deleuze’s project has a “speculative
dimension”--- a speculation he says is guided by an
avoidance of essentialism. But how does a “dynamic
process” that maintains identity avoid essentialism? It
is a process that merely maintains an essential conceptual Image
of identity. There can be no real change in essence. Deleuze’s
poststructuralism is a postmodernism in the sense that it brings
to light what had always been naively omitted by traditional
philosophy. Essentialism is left intact if we still naively
use a process which maintains a principle of conceptual identity.
If we do not reach univocal being, we are condemned to
repeat the Dogmatic Representational Image of Thought.
DeLanda says (xiii) that his reconstructed
Deleuzean ontology breaks with naïve realism. There are,
he claims, numerically distinct actual entities that populate
reality. He sees a realism of numerically distinct objects.
But for Deleuze-Spinoza’s univocity, the real cannot be a
numerical distinction of objects --- (Expressionism in
Philosophy 34) real distinction is never numerical, and
numerical distinction is never real. DeLanda naively
supposes that numerically distinct entities are produced without
any transcendent conceptual image of mind-dependence. That
is, he claims his “realism” to be independent of any
conceptual image. However, he imagines or conceives an
identical structure of reality that he takes to be the numerical
distinction of objects, parts of objects, and their variable
possible relations. He maintains a conceptual Image of
Representational Thought and its transcendent ground of what is
possible.
In the 2013 edition, DeLanda includes a
‘Preface: Ten Years After’ in which he writes about a
“trend toward a renewal of realism”. A new
“speculative turn” of philosophical work, according to
Delenda, distinguishes a mind-independent reality from the naïve
everyday perceptions of common sense. Something must be
spectulatively added to the ‘given’ properties that
define an object’s identity, tendencies, and capacities.
But he never tells us how these “properties” of the
given avoid being determined by categories of possible experience
(as Deleuze’s ontology requires). How are the
tendencies and capacities of speculative realism anything other
than a “virtual” which succumbs to the danger of which
Deleuze warns (DR 211) of being confused with the conceptually
possible? How can the conceptually possible be both
mind-independent realism and speculative at the same time? Insofar
as it is speculative, it is not mind-independent realism; and
insofar as it is realism, it must be naïve about its
mind-dependent speculations. In other words, Deleuze’s
ontology shows us that ‘realism’ in any speculative
sense must always be naïve essentialism. It relies on a
structure of common sense and good sense and depends on
experience that resembles a prior image of conceptual identity.
It only naively appears to escape mind-dependent subjectivity.
It still requires a structure of opposition and limitation.
Its “difference” is merely conceptual emergence from
one actual term to another actual term. Its so-called
“virtual” is merely conceptually possible. Its essences
are treated as substantial rather than modal. The actual is
confused with the real. Insofar as it reaches any
“dynamic” process it is merely the infinitely variable
constant relation that maintains the principle of conceptual
identity. It puts the whole process on the scientific plane
of functions of extensive reference, leaving out the
philosophical sub-representative plane of consistency with its
intensive concepts. Whenever there is said to be the
“objective” external world, Deleuze shows us that we
are speaking naively. Speculative realism does not answer
the problems postmodernism attempts to address. It does not
answer the problem of how to overcome negative oppositions. We
must reach Deleuze’s ontology of univocal being in order to
overcome the oppositional split between subject/object,
idealism/realism, mind-dependent/mind-independent.
DeLanda writes (51), “[W]hile an
ontology based on relations between general types and particular
instances is hierarchical, each level representing a
different ontological category (organism, species, genera), an
approach in terms of interacting parts and emergent wholes leads
to a flat ontology, one made exclusively of unique,
singular individuals, differing in spatio-temporal scale but not
in ontological status.” I assume that DeLanda’s
“flat ontology” is his attempt to reach Deleuze’s
univocal being and its immediate relations. But Deleuze
tells us (DR 38) this cannot be done at the level of the fully
constituted individual. “We must show not only how
individuating difference differs in kind from specific
difference, but primarily and above all how individuation
properly precedes matter and form, species and parts, and
every other element of the constituted individual.” That
is, we must reach a sub-representative field of individuation
underneath matters and forms. Only the pre-individual
forces of disparate intensity can relate with immediacy, because
only those forces are not already formed matter. So,
DeLanda thinks that his "flat ontology" reaches the
singular individual with merely differences of spatio-temporal
scale. And, he thinks that this flat ontology reaches
relations of immediacy because he thinks that these relations of
fully constituted individuals have no difference in ontological
status. However, because DeLanda never reaches
pre-individual forces of intensive singularity, he has only
numerical distinction of already formed substances. In
other words, without reaching sub-representative forces of
univocal being, he cannot escape the conceptual identity of
Representation-Analogy.
DeLanda sees (147) “a flat ontology of
individuals” without reified totalities like society or
culture in general. But without Deleuze’s concept of
univocity, DeLanda can only see emergent scales of parts (the
many) to whole (the one) which does not escape generality. A
particular individual can only be subsumed under the generality
of its species. That is, a particular individual is never a
singularity. The singular must reach pre-individual
disparate degrees of intensity that may be actualized, each time,
as singular-universal incommensurable with any other. With
Deleuze’s univocal being, disparate intensive singularities
may be actualized, each time, as a new individual-collective.
Therefore, the sub-representative process of univocity does
not maintain identity of a generalizing or universalizing
structure. The ‘virtual’ is not a
transcendental structure maintaining an essential identity of
what is thought to be possible. Rather, there are modal
uses of incommensurable difference.
DeLanda knows that singularity must not presuppose individuation (73-4). He knows that singularity must be pre-individual. However, DeLanda’s “singularity” is still at the level of the numerically distinct actual individual, because he never reaches the pre-individual singularity of intensive univocality. Whenever Deleuze’s notion of univocal being is left out, we cannot reach pre-individual singularity of Deleuze’s intensity. DeLanda says, “As Deleuze puts it, virtual relations must involve a purely reciprocal determination between their elements, a reciprocal synthesis between pure changes or differences which should not presuppose any prior individuation.” But the relation of reciprocal determination of which Deleuze speaks is not to be found on the plane of scientific reference (where DeLanda looks for it). On that plane there could only be relations between form and already formed substances without any real distinction (A Thousand Plateaus 44). Rather, we must reach heterogeneous parallelism on the plane of real distinction between content and expression where external relations of terms do not pre-exist the double articulation of reciprocal determination.
DeLanda quotes a textbook definition of the
distinction between intensive and extensive thermodynamic
properties (62-3), “Thermodynamic properties can be divided
into two general classes, namely intensive and extensive
properties. If a quantity of matter in a given state is
divided into two equal parts, each part will have the same value
of intensive properties as the original, and half the value of
the extensive properties. Pressure, temperature, and
density are examples of intensive properties. Mass and
total volume are example of extensive properties. Van Wylen, Thermodynamics,
p.16.” But since DeLanda is confined to the plane of
scientific reference, he doesn’t seem to notice that this
definition has nothing to do with Deleuze’s philosophical
sense of ‘intensity’. Since Deleuze’s
‘intensity’ is pre-individual singularity, it is on the
philosophical plane of consistency. It must not be confused
with the individual object on the scientific plane of reference
where intensity is developed in extensity and covered by quality
(DR 223). When a quantity of matter in a given state is
divided, according to the scientific sense of the definition
above, there is no change in nature. In dividing, as the
scientific definition says, it maintains the same value.
Therefore, this should tell DeLanda that he has not reached
Deleuze’s philosophical sense of ‘intensity’
which, when divided, must change nature. Deleuze’s
intensity of disparate difference is the inseparability of a
degree of intensity, not because it can’t divide, but
because when it does, it necessarily changes its nature (DR 237).
But DeLanda leaves out Deleuze’s philosophical concept of
intensity. Being confined to the scientific plane of
reference, he sees intensity only as cancelled difference covered
by extensive quality. Therefore, with division, it
maintains a same value. His thought can only maintain
identity --- confusing philosophy with science and reducing his
thought to an analytical philosophy of scientific realism.
DeLanda says (99), “The problem of time in a Deleuzian ontology needs to be approached in exactly the same terms as that of space: we need to conceive of a nonmetric time, a temporal continuum which through a symmetry-breaking process yields the familiar, divisible and measurable time of everyday experience.” That is, since DeLanda is restricted to the scientific plane, he puts nonmetric time on that plane where it can’t really break the symmetry of already formed matter. It never reaches Deleuze’s asymmetrical synthesis of the sensible-intensive. Therefore, it can only maintain identity in emergent scales of variability in an object’s identity, tendencies, and capacities. DeLanda sees only that type of multiplicity of scientific reference where movement is the measure of time. But he leaves out the other type of multiplicity where Deleuze says time conditions movement. DeLanda includes only what Deleuze calls ‘Chronos’. He never reaches Deleuze’s ‘Aion’ because he leaves out univocality and its two types of multiplicities. Since DeLanda omits the philosophical type of multiplicity, he can't reach the scientific type either.
DeLanda’s “difference” merely
maintains identity. But isn’t such
“difference” just what philosophers have always
assumed? Isn’t that just what most philosophers still
assume to be unavoidable? If this were really what Deleuze
says, why would he be interesting, remarkable, or important?
What would be new or different about that which maintains the
structure or image of conceptual identity? Isn’t that
structure just what Deleuze calls the Representational Image of
Thought that he rejects? “Difference” that
maintains the identity of that diverse and variable Image is
merely a conceptual difference. It is still a
mind-dependent Image of what is conceptually possible. Deleuze
says that if we are to reach real difference, we must reach (DR
222) that by which the given is given. We must reach a
disparate intensity. We must reach a virtual that is not
confused with a prior concept of what is possible. Difference
must not depend on what is possible in order to maintain
identity. Difference must not be restricted to the
functions of scientific reference. We must reach the
intersection of two types of multiplicities --- (See What is
Philosophy? p 126) philosophical intensity (inseparable
variations of the concept) and scientific extensive reference
(independent variables of the function). But philosophical
intensity must not be put on a scientific plane of reference
where intensive difference is cancelled and covered. Difference
is sub-representative nomadic distribution not determined by any
prior possibility of conceptually variable relations. Only
disparate intensive ‘difference’ is free from
mind-dependence. It is also free from any prior ideas of
what objects can possibly be. In other words, any
oppositional relations, such as idealism/realism, subject/object,
mind-dependence/mind-independence, cannot reach real difference.
To reach the intensive multiplicity of the event
is to reach that from which the subject is missing. As
Deleuze says (Negotiations 146), “Unity is precisely
what’s missing from multiplicity, just as the subject’s
what’s missing from events.” But the speculative
realists try to reach that from which the subject is missing
through a naïve denial of their own mind-dependent subjectivity.
Or, they may reduce the subject to merely another object in the
essential structure of identity. They never reach Deleuze’s event.
So-called ‘Speculative Realism’
naively maintains the principle of conceptual identity. Such
conceptual invariance can only be overcome by the intersection of
two types of multiplicities. Only Deleuze’s univocal
being reaches those multiplicities of real difference.
If we don’t reach the two types of multiplicities, our
philosophy merely remains restricted to scientific reference that
maintains a principle of conceptual identity, even though that
identity may be diverse and variable. Any continuum of real
difference in variation is not given by scientific reference
alone. There must be the intersection of two types of
multiplicities by which the scientific given (empirical diverse
extensity) intersects with that by which the given is given
(transcendental disparate intensity). The continuous
variation of intensive and extensive folding is
transcendental-empiricism. It is the source of both
philosophical concepts and scientific reference as thought and
extension, content and expression, are folded together with
disparate difference and without prior possibility. This
intensive folding is the transcendental source of disparate uses
of scientific reference.