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danielad's review
4.0
Though I still don't trust Deleuze or his diehard followers, this book did give me more respect for his work.
In Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, DeLanda tries to bring Deleuze's ontology into dialogue with modern mathematics and science. Not that Deleuze didn't know about modern developments. Rather, DeLanda tries to make Deleuze's brief and cryptic references to the sciences and mathematics understandable. Throughout, DeLanda argues that the essences and universals of traditional ontology arise out of historical and intensive processes.
In the first two chapters, DeLanda examines Deleuze's idea of 'multiplicities'. Roughly, multiplicities act through the attractions singularities exert. No actual objects are singularities; rather, singularities are non-actual attractors which direct and form possible trajectories or paths which are then, depending on such circumstances, occasionally actualized. They are the asymptotes that phenomena (running along trajectories or paths) approach but never realize: "the trajectories . . . always approach an attractor asymptotically, that is, they approach it indefinitely close but never reach it" (23). Such multiplicities of singularities are real insofar as they can be studied and have effects, but they are not actual because they are never fulfilled by actual phenomena; hence, as DeLanda explains, multiplicities are virtual.
By resorting to virtual multiplicities, DeLanda (through Deleuze) tries to interpret the spacial-qualitative world we are familiar with as being fundamentally produced through the interactions between topological intensities and attractors. Just as projective transformations reduce differences between objects ("in projective geometry all conic sections, without further qualification, are the same" (17)), space (extension) and qualities are ultimately derived from intensive quantities. Space and quality, which have been so fundamental to the study of essences, actually conceal their intensive origins: "once a process of individuation is completed, the intensive factors which defined this process disappear or become hidden underneath the extensive and qualitative properties of the final product" (62).
In the third chapter, DeLanda turns to Deleuze's theory of time. Here, he claims that time arises out of the relations obtaining between different processes, the speeds of which depend on how they perceive and are perceived (the movement of glass as compared to liquid glass (105)). As DeLanda explains, "[a] process may change too slowly or too fast in relation to another process, the relationship between their temporal scales determining in part their respective capacities to affect one another" (110). Moreover, since all entities in the world perceive - everything interacts both actively and passively with everything else (an entities is not fully understood until we know how it interacts with other entities) - all entities have their own unique time. Time, therefore, is not absolute but produced through perception or interaction between contrasting and embedded processes.
In the final chapter, DeLanda seems to criticize two views of science: on the one hand, he criticizes the pre-20th century and now antiquated view according to which scientific laws are universals that govern all operations. The problem with this position is that it falls into the same trap as essentialism. That is, it does not believe that laws have histories and can be produced and overcome. On the other hand, DeLanda criticizes those who deny the reality of laws, believing them to be 'useful fictions'. By contrast, DeLanda, following Deleuze, argues that physical and biological 'laws' are real but produced; they are subject to change as these same entities continue to interact and affect each other.
That's all.
In Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, DeLanda tries to bring Deleuze's ontology into dialogue with modern mathematics and science. Not that Deleuze didn't know about modern developments. Rather, DeLanda tries to make Deleuze's brief and cryptic references to the sciences and mathematics understandable. Throughout, DeLanda argues that the essences and universals of traditional ontology arise out of historical and intensive processes.
In the first two chapters, DeLanda examines Deleuze's idea of 'multiplicities'. Roughly, multiplicities act through the attractions singularities exert. No actual objects are singularities; rather, singularities are non-actual attractors which direct and form possible trajectories or paths which are then, depending on such circumstances, occasionally actualized. They are the asymptotes that phenomena (running along trajectories or paths) approach but never realize: "the trajectories . . . always approach an attractor asymptotically, that is, they approach it indefinitely close but never reach it" (23). Such multiplicities of singularities are real insofar as they can be studied and have effects, but they are not actual because they are never fulfilled by actual phenomena; hence, as DeLanda explains, multiplicities are virtual.
By resorting to virtual multiplicities, DeLanda (through Deleuze) tries to interpret the spacial-qualitative world we are familiar with as being fundamentally produced through the interactions between topological intensities and attractors. Just as projective transformations reduce differences between objects ("in projective geometry all conic sections, without further qualification, are the same" (17)), space (extension) and qualities are ultimately derived from intensive quantities. Space and quality, which have been so fundamental to the study of essences, actually conceal their intensive origins: "once a process of individuation is completed, the intensive factors which defined this process disappear or become hidden underneath the extensive and qualitative properties of the final product" (62).
In the third chapter, DeLanda turns to Deleuze's theory of time. Here, he claims that time arises out of the relations obtaining between different processes, the speeds of which depend on how they perceive and are perceived (the movement of glass as compared to liquid glass (105)). As DeLanda explains, "[a] process may change too slowly or too fast in relation to another process, the relationship between their temporal scales determining in part their respective capacities to affect one another" (110). Moreover, since all entities in the world perceive - everything interacts both actively and passively with everything else (an entities is not fully understood until we know how it interacts with other entities) - all entities have their own unique time. Time, therefore, is not absolute but produced through perception or interaction between contrasting and embedded processes.
In the final chapter, DeLanda seems to criticize two views of science: on the one hand, he criticizes the pre-20th century and now antiquated view according to which scientific laws are universals that govern all operations. The problem with this position is that it falls into the same trap as essentialism. That is, it does not believe that laws have histories and can be produced and overcome. On the other hand, DeLanda criticizes those who deny the reality of laws, believing them to be 'useful fictions'. By contrast, DeLanda, following Deleuze, argues that physical and biological 'laws' are real but produced; they are subject to change as these same entities continue to interact and affect each other.
That's all.
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