A Physics of Thought: Spinoza, Deleuze and Guattari on Concepts and Ideas (Preprint. Published version available at https://www.pdcnet.org/philtoday/content/philtoday_2021_0999_2_24_388)

Florian Vermeiren PhD Candidate Institute of Philosophy Catholic University of Leuven Florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.be Florian Vermeiren, “A Physics of Thought: Spinoza, Zourabichvili, Deleuze and Guattari on Concepts and Ideas”, Philosophy Today 65:1, 2021 (forthcoming) --------------------------------------------------------------------------A Physics of Thought: Spinoza, Zourabichvili, Deleuze and Guattari on Concepts and Ideas Abstract: In What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari understand concepts in a very unconventional way. One of the central aspects of their theory is that concepts are self-referential and should not be understood in terms any form of reference or representation. Instead, concepts are complex ‘assemblages’ interacting on a ‘plane of immanence’. I argue that we can best understand this theory through the philosophy of Spinoza. More specifically I invoke Francois Zourabichvili’s interpretation of Spinoza in terms of a ‘physics of thought’. I do not only call upon Spinoza to elucidate the general approach of Deleuze and Guattari; I use Spinoza’s notions of modal essence and existence, interpreted by Deleuze in terms of intensity and extensity, to expound the details of their theory of concepts. Keywords: Concepts, Ideas, Deleuze, Guattari, Spinoza, Zourabichvili Introduction In the first chapter of What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari offer a stunning theory of what a concept is.1 They use terminology that seems to belong to physics rather than philosophy of language; they talk about ‘phases,’ ‘variations,’ ‘resonances,’ ‘intensive Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 1 ordinates’ and so on. It is clear that their theory radically differs from the traditional approach to conceptuality. Rather than understanding the concept in terms of its reference or meaning, they describe them as dynamical bodies or ‘assemblages’ with a certain consistency and force. I argue that this approach to concepts is deeply Spinozistic. He too describes thought as a causal interaction between ideas (E2P9D).2 He argues that the idea of a globe is caused by the movement of the concept of a semi-circle around its center (TEI 72). Some contemporary and 20th century French readers of Spinoza have interpreted his idea of ‘genetic definitions’ in terms of a deductive-genetic process that more or less falls under the same principles elaborated in the ‘little physics’ (e.g. Matheron 1988, 11–12, 31–33; Laveran 2014, 92–95). Particularly Francois Zourabichvili has elaborated on this peculiar aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy and speaks of a true ‘physics of thought’.3 In this paper I want to relate these two theories of concepts and thought to each other. This will help us understand Deleuze and Guattari’s theory and will show the originality and radicalism of Spinoza’s theory of thought. To discuss this aspect of Spinozism I start with the theory of attributes. Spinoza’s physics of thought is based on the fact that attributes are completely autonomous, which implicates that things should be explained from within the attribute of which they are a mode (E2P6). Ideas cannot be explained by reference to another attribute (E2P5); they are caused only by other ideas or God as a thinking thing (E2P9). Ideas cannot be explained through the thing of which they are the idea. Accordingly, the autonomy of attributes implicates a nonrepresentational understanding of ideas. I then turn to Zourabichvili’s interpretation of Spinoza and his idea of a ‘physics of thought’. He argues that Spinoza’s redefinition of individual form allows both modes of Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 2 extension and modes of thought to be understood through the same logic of relations elaborated in the ‘little physics’ in the second part of the Ethics. Lastly, I discuss Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of concepts in light of their inherent Spinozism. This helps us understand their general approach to concepts, but it also elucidates the specific details of their theory. More specifically their distinction between concepts and propositions can be better understood through Spinoza’s distinction between modal essence and modal existence, and particularly Deleuze’s interpretation thereof in terms of intensity and extensity. The theoretic connections that I examine here are part of a broader context; the Spinozistic conception of thought had a deep influence on French philosophy in the 20th century. In Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze, Knox Peden argues that for many French authors Spinoza offered an alternative for phenomenology and philosophies of consciousness (Peden 2014). Jean Cavaillès, for example, turned to Spinoza’s rationalism to understand scientific and mathematical thought in a purely immanent way. Primarily reacting against Husserl’s transcendental approach in which thought was dependent on a form of consciousness, Cavaillès invokes Spinoza’s theory of ideas to construe the internal necessity of thought. He writes: “It is not a philosophy of consciousness but a philosophy of the concept that can yield a doctrine of science.” (Cavaillès 1960, 87) In a way, Cavaillès’ use of Spinoza is characteristic of the French Spinozism that will follow. Louis Althusser, in his ‘anti-humanism,’ relied on Spinoza to reject the human subject as the ruler and author of thought; decentralizing psychic life allowed him to construct a truly scientific concept of ideology, and rid Marx of Hegel. Accordingly, Althusser opened up the path of the (neo-)Marxist reading of Spinoza by authors such as Etienne Balibar, Robert Misrahi and Antonio Negri. Furthermore, the Spinozistic approach to thought is often close to French structuralism in which the subject is Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 3 more of an effect then the origin of thought. Many of French Spinoza scholars, such as Martial Gueroult, Pierre Macherey and Alexandre Mathéron, have produced an anti-Cartesian structuralist reading of Spinoza. In short, when Deleuze and Guattari wrote their theory of concepts in What is Philosophy?, the Spinozistic immanent approach to thought had been an important aspect of French philosophy. Of course, their approach differs from Cavaillès’ rationalism and the structuralism of Althusser or Guèroult. As will be discussed in the final section, thought is for Deleuze (and Guattari) a differential open process, rather than a structural affair.4 In general, Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza is influenced by Nietzsche and Bergson. He reads Spinoza in terms of an expressionism in which the goal is not so much a rational life, but an expressive life in which our affective capacity is maximized. Of the French Spinoza scholars, Zourabichvili—who was also a prominent Deleuze scholar—is the one that follows Deleuze’s reading most explicitly. As I will show, both read Spinoza in terms of a differential logic of relations based on the ‘little physics’ in part two of the Ethics. Therefore, it is no surprise that his theory of a ‘physics of thought’ fits so well with Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the concept. Spinoza’s Materialism: the Autonomy of Attributes One of the central aspects of the canonical interpretation of Spinoza is the doctrine of parallelism. However, this term never occurs in Spinoza’s writing. The notion is taken over from Leibniz, who used it to characterize how mind and body run in perfectly parallel series without having any causal interaction. A very similar idea is found in Spinoza’s texts: “The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” (E2P7) Given this passage, most authors find it justified to use Leibniz’s notion of parallelism to characterize Spinoza’s philosophy. However, Chantal Jaquet argues that this notion is not Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 4 applicable to Spinoza’s theory (Jaquet 2015, 2017). She emphasizes that for Spinoza mind and body are one and the same thing. Spinoza clearly writes: “A mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, but expressed in two ways.” (E2P7S) As Jaquet argues, parallelism introduces an irreducible dualism that is contradictory to this unity of mind and body and to Spinoza’s monism in general (Jaquet 2015, 27–28). It is better to characterize the relation of mind and body through the notion of ‘equality’ that Spinoza uses himself: “God’s power of thinking is equal [aequalis] to his actual power of acting.” (E2P7C) Through this notion of equality we avoid some of the traps of parallelism. Not only does the latter introduce a dualism between two parallel lines, it also entails a uniformity between those lines. For being parallel also implicates that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the lines; in this doctrine each attribute is a perfect copy of each other attribute. As such, parallelism leads to the ridiculous attempt to translate each mode of extension into a mode of thought and vice-versa. But as Jaquet argues, this logic of correspondence or correlation is not operative in Spinoza (Jaquet 2017, 22–23). The biggest example of this is Spinoza’s account of errors: Now many errors consist of this alone, that we do not apply names rightly to things. For when any one says that lines which are drawn from the centre of a circle to the circumference are unequal, he means at least at the time, something different by circle than mathematicians. Thus when men make mistakes in calculation they have different numbers in their minds than those on paper. (E2P47S) Errors are mainly a distortion of the correspondence between a mode of thought (an idea) and a mode of extension (writing). Obviously this is not possible if the attributes are perfectly parallel with each other. Jaquet argues that the attributes can in fact profoundly diverge (Jaquet 2015, 32, 39). The equality of the attributes does not necessarily entail a uniformity or strict correspondence. The attributes are different ways in which substance expresses itself. Furthermore, the very fact that substance expresses itself in different attributes only makes Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 5 sense if each form of expression is different. Certain modalities of substance are better or more strongly expressed in one attribute than in another. This is evident in Spinoza’s definitions of emotions in the third part of the Ethics. Some emotions are best understood in terms of the body (merriment, pain, melancholy, titillation etc.), while some are better defined in terms of the mind (pity, partiality, self-contentment etc.) and others are best understood through both attributes (love, hatred etc.). Ultimately this plea for the equality of attributes is a defense of their autonomy. Spinoza writes: “The formal being of ideas acknowledges God as its cause only in so far as he is considered as a thinking thing, and not in so far as he is explained by some other attribute.” (E2P5) Even though parallelism affirms that each attribute is independent from the others, in so far as there is no causal interaction, it reduces each attribute to a copy or repetition of the others. In parallelism, the ideas of the mind are representations or reproductions of the body. But Spinoza emphasizes that we should always understand ideas through the attribute of thought alone. This is why he prefers to define ideas in terms of ‘conception’ rather than ‘perception’: “For the name perceptions seems to indicate that the mind is passive in relation to the object, while conception seems to express the action of the mind.” (E2DEF3) Thought is an active and autonomous attribute of God, it is not a mere replica of the material world. The attribute of thought has its own proper power, the power of thought, the power to produce ideas. As Deleuze says, the equality of attributes first and foremost indicates that “no attribute is superior to another, none is reserved for the creator, none is relegated to the created beings and to their imperfection.” (SPP 88) Each attribute is autonomous and immanent to itself. As Zourabichvili says, Spinoza installs a ‘plan of immanence’ for the mind like Descartes and Galileo have done so for matter (Z 126). Their mechanical philosophy of nature reduced matter to pure extension. Phenomena of nature were explained through Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 6 nothing but the form, size and movement of matter. As such, this philosophy got rid of the substantial forms of scholasticism and returned the material world to itself. In a way we could say that Spinoza is even more radical, for he makes every attribute immanent to itself. In order to do so, Zourabichvili says, each attribute must be granted its own ‘matter’. This constitutes an ‘integral materialism’ (Z 114). This does not entail a reduction of reality to matter defined as extension; on the contrary, each attribute is understood to have its own type of irreducible matter. Here, matter and materialism should be understood in terms of immanence instead of extension. If Spinoza is installing a ‘physics of thought’ or a ‘materialism of thought’ he is only attempting to grasp thought from within thought. In their plea for the radical autonomy of the attributes, both Zourabichvili and Jaquet follow Deleuze and his reading of Spinoza in terms of radical ontological immanence.5 The ‘integral materialism’ that Zourabichvili identifies in Spinoza reminds us of Deleuze’s claim that Spinoza “invites us to take the body as a model” to understand all of reality (SPP 18). Again this does not entail any form of reductionism: “The model implies no devaluation of Thought relative to Extension, but merely a devaluation of consciousness relative to thought.” (EPS 257) Spinoza’s materialism is a rejection of any kind of reductionism, in favor of the complete independence of each attribute. It not only rejects a reduction of thought to extension, but also a reduction of thought to consciousness. Here we already see a glimpse of what this physics of thought entails: consciousness as the substrate of thought, or the regulative and central origin of thought, is rejected. The spirit or soul is defined as a ‘spiritual automaton’ (TEI 85). Through the devaluation of consciousness, thought is de-centralized and understood in terms of composition and force just as physical bodies. This will be further discussed in the following section. Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 7 Spinoza’s Physics of Thought According to Zourabichvili In Spinoza, Une physique de la pensée Zourabichvili analyses how Spinoza’s theory of the mind can only be adequately interpreted in terms of a generalized materialism. In Spinoza’s monism, the body is taken as a model to understand all of reality. As such, everything begins with a new conception of bodies. In this new conception, the physical body is, as it were, ‘dematerialized’ (Z 99). It is defined in terms of relations, power and affective capacities, instead of geometric extension or brute mass. It is only this dematerialized conception of the physical body that can operate as a model to understand the attribute of thought. Oddly enough, Spinoza’s physics of thought thus begins with a new conception of the physical body. We have to move through Spinoza’s physics to grasp his physics of thought. One of the main factors that led Spinoza to such a new conception of the body are the problems faced by the Cartesian theory. Reacting against the scholastic theory of substantial form, Descartes attempts to describe matter purely in terms of geometric extension. “My entire physics is nothing but geometry” he writes (Descartes 1991, 119). But this approach leads to serious problems concerning individuation. Descartes principle of individuation seems simple: a physical object is one particular piece of matter. But how can one piece of matter be distinguished from another piece in the uniformity of geometric extension? Descartes writes: “By one body, or one part of matter, I here understand everything which is simultaneously transported.” (Descartes 1982, 51) However, this is a circular definition; a piece of matter is defined as the simultaneous movement of pieces of matter; but to determine what moves together, we need to identify the pieces themselves, which is precisely what we tried to do in the first place. Yet, the issue troubling Descartes’ theory that most clearly shows the novelty of Spinoza’s approach is the following: if the individuality of a physical object is understood in terms of a quantum of matter, a living organism is robbed of every individuality (Descartes Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 8 1991, 242–43). Organisms constantly change particles as they feed themselves, grow or eject waste. In Descartes philosophy the particles of matter have individuality but a complex living organism is nothing but an aggregate. In contrast, Spinoza’s new conception of individual form attributes more reality and individuality to the complex organism than to the nonorganic particles of matter. In the Ethics a physical body in no longer understood in terms of simultaneous movement, but in terms of a relation that remains constant in the movement of particles (E2P13L3A2DEF). As such, Spinoza no longer defines physical individuality in terms of particles of matter or a certain quantum of matter: If from a body or individual which is composed of several bodies certain ones are removed, and at the same time the same number of other bodies of the same nature succeed to their place, the individual will retain its nature as before, without any change in its form. (E2P13L4) For bodies (Lemma I) are not distinguished with respect to substance. But that which constitutes the form of an individual consists of a union of bodies (prev. Def.). But this union (by the hypothesis), although the change of bodies is continuous, is retained: the individual will therefore retain as before its nature both in respect to substance and mode. (E2P13L4D) This means that an organism that interacts and exchanges materials with an environment does retain its individuality. In fact, the individual form of the physical body depends on such an interaction, for it is nothing but the constant relation within such interaction. Form, for Spinoza, consists of the body’s specific laws of movement, its own manner to react to the outside world. While Descartes understood the individuality of a physical body as the simultaneous movement of its parts, Spinoza understands it as the manner in which the body is moved, the way a body is affected: “Matter is the same everywhere, and its parts are not distinguished one from the other except in so far as we conceive matter to be affected in various ways.” (E1P15S) This is what Deleuze emphasizes when he conceptualizes the Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 9 body’s essence as a ‘capacity to be affected’ (EPS 94). The form of a body is a relation of movements which determines how affections are communicated throughout all the parts of the body; furthermore, it is also a capacity to endure affections without losing this constant relation, without losing this pattern of movements. The affective capacity increases when the organism is more complex and consists of more different types of bodies. The most complex organism is nature itself, as an infinite mode, in which every body is nested, which can endure the greatest affections without losing its form: From this we thus see in what manner a composite individual can be affected in many ways and, despite this, preserve its nature. But thus far we have conceived an individual as composed only of bodies which are distinguished one from the other merely by motion and rest, rapidity and slowness, that is, as composed of the most simple bodies. But if we now conceive some other individual composed of many individuals of a different nature, we shall find that it can be affected in many other ways, preserving its nature notwithstanding. For since each part of it is composed of numerous bodies, each part will therefore (pre. Lemma) be able, without any change in its nature, to be moved now slower now faster, and consequently communicate its motions to the others with varying speeds. If we conceive a third class of individuals composed of these second ones, we shall find that this one can be affected in many other ways without any change of its form. And if thus still further we proceed to infinity, we can easily conceive that all nature is one individual whose parts, that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways without any change of the individual as a whole. (E2P13L7S) In the end physical nature itself is nothing but these relations between movements, these affections and manners to be affected. As Zourabichvili says, this leads to a kind of ‘dematerialization’ of matter (Z 99). In Spinoza’s theory there is no anonymous mass; everything has a form and particular nature. There is no primary matter that circulates from one form to the other; there is nothing but form. What circulates are forms themselves: forms that transform as they are composed and recomposed. As such, matter no longer consists of ‘particles’ that move and can be destroyed, matter is ultimately nothing but a “matter for transformation” (Z 100; my translation). Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 10 This ‘dematerialized’ physical body offers a model through which we can understand thought. Spinoza’s concept of form is applied to both attributes. But what are the consequences of using this conception of a body as a model to understand thought? First, this model emphasizes that there is no underlying substrate. In the case of physical nature this entails that there is no primary matter. In the case of the attribute of thought this involves a rejection of an underlying consciousness or subject. For Spinoza the human mind does not have ideas, it is an idea (E2P11). There is a coming and going of ideas but there is no substantial seat or substrate. This results from Spinoza’s refusal to define anything but God as a substance. The human mind is not a substance (E2P10); it is just as other ideas, a product of nature, that is, a mode (E2P10C ). Ideas find their cause in other ideas, but not in an entity thinking them: The cause of one particular idea, is another idea, or God in so far as he is considered as affected by another idea: and of this Idea God is the cause in so far as he is affected by another idea, and so on to infinity. (E2P9D) Understanding ideas through the model of the body, or through the new conception of form, entails that ideas are taken to be a result of an interaction between ideas. Just as every physical body is produced in the interaction with other bodies, in the play of composition and decomposition, ideas too find their origin in a ‘physics’ of thought. For an idea such as the human mind is for Spinoza also composite: “The idea which constitutes the formal being of the human mind is not simple, but composed of many ideas.” (E2P15) And emotions are also composed. In fact, Spinoza offers a true logic of composition of different emotions in the third part of the Ethics. He writes, for example: “Love (amor) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause.” (E3P13DEF6) “Pity (commiseratio) is pain accompanied by the idea of harm which happened to another whom we imagine similar to ourselves.” (E3P59DEF18) “Glory (gloria) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action of ours which we imagine others to praise.” (E3P59DEF30) Even mathematical ideas are understood 11 Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com in terms of composition and interaction between ideas: the idea of a globe results from the composition of the idea of a semicircle with the idea of its rotation (TEI 72). Zourabichvili speaks of a ‘dynamic formation’ of concepts in which the line can be understood as the idea of a point combined with the idea of its movement, the idea of a plane as the idea of a line with the idea of its movement and so on (Z 157). As Albert Rivaud writes, Spinoza equates ideas with definitions; as such, ideas are always a complex of other ideas, namely the constituents of its definition (Rivaud 1906, 52–53). However, Spinoza’s new concept of form not only entails that each body is composite, but also that a body is in constant interaction with an environment. In fact, the body is nothing more than a constant relation in this interaction, a constant relation between movements. This entails that an idea is also not an enclosed entity, but that its individual form consists of a certain interaction with an environment of ideas. On this point, Spinoza seems to be close to structuralism in that an idea or concept should be understood in terms of its relation to other ideas, in terms of its position in a structure of ideas. Adequate knowledge of an idea therefore requires that it is related to God as he expresses himself in the infinite chain of ideas, the infinite interaction of ideas that is the only true cause of any particular idea. Just like a physical body, an idea has a capacity to be affected; strong ideas can be affected by a large number of other ideas without losing their form, that is, their characteristic relation. Weaker ideas are easily transformed in an interaction with other ideas. As Jaquet says, the history of philosophy consists of a battle between powerful ideas in which some triumph and survive and others die out or are dramatically transformed (Jaquet 2017, 15). It is clear that the idea of such a ‘physics of thought’ starts from a position of radical ontological immanence. Ideas are only caused by and only interact with other ideas. But how can we define the adequacy of ideas if they are not referred to an object? Spinoza often says that we should understand the truth of an idea as an “intrinsic denomination” (TEI 69): Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 12 Therefore the form of a true thought must be located in that very same thought, without relation to other things, and it does not require an object as its cause, but must depend on the power and nature of the intellect. (TEI 71) But what is this form of a true thought? As Deleuze emphasizes, Spinoza characterizes adequacy in terms of expression instead of representation: “In Spinoza the term ‘adequate’ never signifies the correspondence of an idea and the object it represents or indicates, but the internal conformity it expresses.” (EPS 133) This idea of expression is the same through which a physical body is understood. A powerful expressive body has a large capacity to be affected, and can interact with a large part of nature without losing itself in the interaction. Likewise, an adequate thought relates itself to a large number of ideas and broadly expresses the attribute of thought. Another way to understand it, is that an adequate idea, a reasonable idea, is an idea that expresses its reason, that is, its cause (L60). An idea expressing only a small part of its cause will be inadequate. An idea produced by imagination only expresses its immediate cause: the trace in the body of a physical interaction. A truly adequate idea expresses its complete cause, which is in the end nothing but the whole attribute of thought. As Rivaud says: “The truthful idea and the essence correspond, not as simple and empty elements, as atoms of thought, but as infinitely rich and complex realities, each of which encloses, in contraction, the total order of nature.” (Rivaud 1906, 25; my translation) An idea is not an enclosed entity but a constancy in interactions with an environment, a constant relation of movements. As such, the idea cannot really be distinguished from its cause, namely, the ideas affecting it. For, an idea is its characteristic interaction with other ideas. So the adequacy of the idea is in the end a matter of completeness. Spinoza writes: “Confusion proceeds from the fact that the mind knows only in part a thing which is a whole.” (TEI 63) Inadequate ideas are very limited thoughts or incomplete ideas. The idea of God, on the other hand, is necessarily adequate, for it expresses the whole of thought (E2P46). The idea of God is the most complete idea there is. Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 13 This approach to knowledge conforms with Spinoza’s ethics. For as Deleuze has shown, ethical knowledge is for Spinoza not a transcendent cognition of moral principles to which practice should be subjected (SPP 17–28). Ethics is a matter of immanent practice, a matter of learning and enlarging your capacity to be affected. The more that we can joyfully interact with the world, the more we express God and the stronger our form is. An ethical body can be affected in numerous ways without losing its form. But since body and mind are one and the same thing, a strong individual also has an ethical mind expressing God and interacting with a broad set of ideas (E5P39). So in the end this physics of thought is strongly related to ethics, for it is only this conception of thought that allows the understanding of ethical thought as an immanent practice and not a transcendent process of judgment. Ultimately, as Zourabichvili says, Spinoza’s intention is to reinscribe epistemology in the order of ontology (Z 148). As such, ideas are grasped in their ontological ‘fullness.’ Ideas themselves are real and they do not in any way depend on a represented object. Inadequate ideas are not empty, they do not lack the existence of a denoted object. As such, inadequate ideas are just as real as adequate ideas. What distinguishes them is their expression of God, their force or completeness. But these are all immanent criteria, intrinsic to the realm of ideas. In the end, as Pierre Macherey says in his reflection on Zourabichvili’s book, Spinoza’s physics of thought consists of a return to ontology, away from logics and epistemology which always relate ideas to something beyond ideas (Macherey 2007, 6–7). Spinoza returns ideas to ontology by defining them as things or ‘mental objects’ and not as images or representations of things. Intensive Concepts and Extensive Propositions: Deleuze and Guattari In the first chapter of What is Philosophy? the authors take a surprising approach to conceptuality. Although they praise Spinoza and refer to him in several instances throughout Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 14 the book, he is not mentioned in this chapter. It is only in the conclusion to the book that they relate Spinoza to their theory of concepts: Ideas can only be associated as images and can only be ordered as abstractions; to arrive at the concept we must go beyond both of these and arrive as quickly as possible at mental objects determinable as real beings. This is what Spinoza and Fichte have already shown: we must make use of fictions and abstractions, but only so far as is necessary to get to a plane where we go from real being to real being and advance through the construction of concepts. (WP 207) I argue that the theory that they offer in the first chapter is an attempt to continue Spinoza’s project: conceptualizing ideas or concepts as mental objects. This is exactly where we left off in the previous section: ideas are things that are fully real. As Deleuze and Guattari write “concepts are not discursive” (WP 22); they do not refer to another reality without which they would be wrong or meaningless. “The concept […] has no reference: it is self-referential.” (WP 22) The concept is a mental object, a real being, that has reality in itself and is selfpositing. But how should we understand such a “real being”? In Spinoza’s philosophy every individual being, every object is first and foremost a mode. And it is through this concept of a mode, and especially Deleuze’s interpretation of it, that we can grasp what Deleuze and Guattari are doing in What is Philosophy?. Spinoza, therefore, not only helps us understand the broad project Deleuze and Guattari take up. The Spinozistic theory of modes enables us to clarify the details of their approach in the first chapter ‘What is a concept?,’ more specifically the distinction between proposition and concept. This distinction become clear when we turn to Spinoza’s theory of modal essence and modal existence and more specifically Deleuze’s interpretation thereof in terms of intensive and extensive magnitudes. This distinction goes to the heart of Spinozism and the tension between an indivisible substance and modes that are parts and have parts. For, the issue at stake here is how substance can be defined as something immanent to the world of particular modes without Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 15 losing its essence and indivisibility. In Spinoza’s texts, substance often appears to be the allinclusive whole of its modes: “Whatever is, is in God.” (E1P15) But how can all of nature be in God if he is indivisible? How can substance be a whole without its parts dividing it? Seen from the other side the problem is transformed into the issue of modal essence. The latter is a very strange concept; essence is traditionally not something that is associated with a mode. For, how can that which is merely modal be essential? In Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza, these issues are resolved by defining modal essence in terms of intensity and modal existence in terms of extensity: Here then, it seems, are the primary elements of Spinoza’s scheme: a mode’s essence is a determinate degree of intensity, an irreducible degree of power; a mode exists if it actually possesses a very great number of extensive parts corresponding to its essence or degree of power. (EPS 202) The distinction between intensity and extensity is central to Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza.6 In fact, you could say that it is central to all of his philosophy. He understands this distinction, first and foremost, in terms of Bergson’s two forms of multiplicity (Bergson 2001, 75–139) : the numerical or homogeneous multiplicity and the heterogeneous multiplicity (ATP 533–34). Defined as a heterogeneous multiplicity, an intensive magnitude or ‘degree’ has a number of special characteristics that allow it to resolve this tension between the substantial and the modal. The most obvious trait is that an intensive magnitude, as a heterogeneous multiplicity, is not reducible to smaller magnitudes while an extensive magnitude is: In a multiplicity such as homogeneous extension, the division can be carried as far as one likes without changing anything in the constant object; or the magnitudes can vary with no other result than an increase or a decrease in the amount of space they striate. (ATP 534) A length of a foot can be reduced to twelve lengths of an inch. This has two reasons. The first is that extensive magnitudes are homogeneous with each other while intensive magnitudes Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 16 are not. Each intensive magnitude is singular and heterogeneous with other magnitudes. The second reason is that intensive and extensive magnitudes are each characterized by a different mereology (EPS 191–92). Salomon Maïmon—another big influence on Deleuze concept of the intensive—has put it succinctly: “Magnitude is either plurality thought as unity or unity thought as plurality. In the former case the magnitude is extensive and in the latter, intensive.” (Maïmon 2010, 68) Extensive magnitude follows an ‘additive’ logic of parts and wholes. Such an ‘extensive’ whole is secondary to its parts, the addition of which constitutes the whole. In the case of intensive magnitudes, the whole is primary to the parts; each part is a secondary expression or production of the whole. Intensive magnitudes feature an ‘expressive’ logic of parts and wholes. This entails that the intensive whole is not divided by its parts. And this is particularly interesting when it comes to Spinoza’s metaphysics. Deleuze interprets modal essence as an ‘intensive part’ of substance (EPS 191,198); in this way, substance is not divided by its parts. This alternative mereology also expresses itself in terms of individuation of the parts. In an extensive whole the parts are distinguished from each other externally. As they are homogeneous with each other, they can only be extrinsically individuated, through the medium in which they extend. In contrast, each intensive magnitude is singular; as such, it offers an “intrinsic principle of individuation” (EPS 196). Intensive parts distinguish themselves internally from each other, without dividing the whole.7 Intensive magnitude is thus a unique concept that combines the characteristics of being a magnitude and a part, on the one hand, with being singular and intrinsically determined, on the other hand. By understanding the modal essence through this concept of intensity, Deleuze is able to unite the modal and the essential. As an intensive magnitude, a modal essence has the singularity of essence, while it is still a mode, i.e. a certain magnitude of God’s infinite power. Deleuze writes: “Modal essences are thus in fact inseparable, and are characterized by their total Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 17 agreement. But they are nevertheless singular and particular, and distinguished from one another intrinsically.” (EPS 198) In short, intensive magnitude allows us to conceptualize singularity and essence in an immanent and modal manner. When Deleuze and Guattari follow Spinoza in his conception of ideas as “mental objects” and “real beings,” they understand ideas as modes, that is, products of nature (WP 207). The first consequence is that ideas are defined as multiplicities, just as physical modes (WP 15). But which kind of multiplicities? Deleuze and Guattari make a distinction between concepts and propositions. The latter are defined as extensive multiplicities, the former as intensive multiplicities. In short, Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between concepts and propositions seems to follow Spinoza’s distinction between modal essence and modal existence, interpreted in terms of intensity and extensity. The concept is the intensive modal essence of thought, while the proposition is the extensive modal existence of thought. How should this distinction be understood? To start, as intensities, concepts are internally determined. They are singular essences that distinguish themselves internally from other concepts. Their individuation is not dependent on other concepts or a common medium in which they can be distinguished. Propositions, on the other hand, are extensive and externally determined: Propositions are defined by their reference, which concerns not the Event but rather a relationship with a state of affairs or body and with the conditions of this relationship. Far from constituting an intension, these conditions are entirely extensional. (WP 22) Propositions find their meaning outside of themselves in a state of affairs that is referred to; they are nothing but this reference to an external reality about which they speak. But concepts are purely ‘intensional’; as Deleuze says, the concept “has no reference: it is self-referential” (WP 22). But this does not mean that a concept is completely on itself, unrelated to the world or to other concepts. As the elements of a heterogeneous multiplicity, they relate to each other in a different way. The parts of an extensive whole cohere and add up to each other, just as Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 18 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But concepts, as elements of an intensive whole “all resonate rather than cohere or correspond with each other” (WP 23). To use Bergson’s archetypal example of a heterogeneous multiplicity, the notes in a melody do not correspond to each other as stones in a wall; rather, each note resonates with all the other notes and expresses the whole of the melody in a specific way. Likewise, concepts “enter into relationships of non-discursive resonance” (WP 23). Concepts thus have a special form of consistency. While they are “fragmentary wholes that are not aligned with one another so that they fit together” (WP 35) they do have an intimate connection and cannot be separated: The concepts is defined by the inseparability of a finite number of heterogeneous components (WP 21) What is distinctive about the concept is that it renders components inseparable within itself. Components, or what defines the consistency of the concepts, its endoconsistency, are distinct, heterogeneous, and yet not separable. (WP 19) This form of consistency is precisely what is characteristic of intensive wholes; the connection or solidarity is always from within. Concepts are connected with each other through their inside, their singular expression of thought. These expressive and intensive relations of resonance, within the heterogeneous whole, are contrasted to the extensive relations of propositions. The latter interact with each other ‘on the outside,’ through external laws of interaction. They follow a logic of addition and division that is characteristic of homogeneous multiplicities. Logical atomism of Russell and Wittgenstein, for example, distinguishes different components of propositions to decipher their meaning. Propositional logic analyses the implicative consequences of an expression following certain rules of deduction. A doctrine of genus and species teaches a logic of composition where categories are further distinguished through the addition of distinctive characteristics. These are all examples of how propositional thought interacts ‘extensively,’ i.e. on the outside. Recall that propositions correspond to the existence of modes in extensive parts; as such, they are Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 19 subjected to mechanical laws of interaction. Propositional logic, we could say, is in the realm of ideas the correlate of mechanics. In the attribute of extension, the modal essence corresponds to the power and activity of a body, while the modal existence refers to its passivity (EPS 217–18). The extensive parts that make up the existence of a body are purely passive and fully submitted to the laws of nature. Likewise, in Descartes’ purely extensive understanding of physical nature, material bodies do not act but only react; purely extensive bodies are passive bodies.8 This is why this geometric approach to nature led to occasionalism, the theory that every form of causality in nature is an ‘occasion’ of divine interference. In the realm of thought, concepts constitute the power and activity of thought: “The concept is an act of thought.” (WP 21) Propositions, on the other hand, refer to the passivity of thought and the submission to laws and rules. A proposition is thought that partakes in the mechanics of thought: the rational debate, the scientific discussion, the “universal democratic conversation” (WP 28). In this play of interaction, thought is something vulnerable that has to defend itself, obeying the rules of “communicative rationality” (WP 28). The proposition is the outside or the extensive existence of thought. Although the essence and driving core of thought can be found in concepts, thought can only express itself, or come into existence in propositions (N 140). However, we should not confuse these propositions in which philosophy communicates with the true sense and value of thought. Concepts, rather than propositions, are the substantial and significant elements of thought. They are the modal essences of thought, and in Deleuze’s interpretation, a modal essence is an intensive part of God’s power (EPS 191). As such, concepts, we could say, are a certain degree of God’s infinite power of thought. They are the active core, the essence and conatus of thought. They resonate with the divine power of thought, with the “powerful Whole,” “the unlimited One-All, an ‘Omnitudo’ that includes all the concepts on one and the same plane” (WP 35). Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 20 Everything considered, let us return to the title of the book and ask: “What is philosophy?” First of all, philosophy is “the discipline that involves creating concepts”(WP 5). As such, philosophy is something active, creative and expressive: “What takes the place of communication is a kind of expressionism.” (N 147) Philosophy is an attempt to express God’s infinite power of thought, an attempt to express a certain degree of power in a concept. Philosophy’s main concern is not with propositions and the ‘communicative rationality’: “Philosophy has a horror of discussions. It always has something else to do. Debate is unbearable to it.” (WP 29) The philosopher is on a different mission. He or she is not attempting to communicate or discover a rational truth that is the object of a democratic process of evaluation. The philosopher is attempting to think; and as Deleuze and Guattari write “thought is creation” (WP 54). “Philosophy is no more communicative than it is contemplative or reflective: it is by nature creative or even revolutionary, because it is always creating new concepts.” (N 136). Philosophy is a matter of force, strength and activity rather than representation, reflection or contemplation. In Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze writes: “The new image of thought implies extremely complex relations of forces.” (NP 102) “The force of thinking, must throw it into a becoming-active.” (NP 101) Philosophy is not burdened with the duty to adequately represent reality or reflect upon it. Its only responsibility is to think, and thought is, in its most ontologically pure form, autonomous and immanent to itself. With this autonomy, as a physics of thought, philosophy loses all ‘weight’ of representation, reflection and contemplation, which is exactly what characterizes Deleuze himself as a philosopher. For, as Derrida says, Deleuze was doing philosophy “the most gaily, the most innocently” (Derrida 1998, 4). Notes Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 21 For references to Deleuze and Guattari I use the following abbreviations: “ATP” for A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2 and “WP” for What is Philosophy?. For references to the works of Deleuze alone I use following abbreviations: “NP” for Nietzsche and Philosophy, “EPS” for Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, “SPP” for Spinoza, Practical Philosophy and “N” for Negotiations, 1972–1990. 1 References to Spinoza’s Ethics are made, following the conventional method, through the abbreviation “E” followed by the part and “P” for propositions, “A” for axioms, “DEF” for definitions, “L” for lemmas, “C” for corollaries, “D” for demonstrations and “S” for scholia. References to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect are made through the abbreviation “TEI” followed by the paragraph number. References to the correspondence are made through the abbreviation ‘L’ and the number of the letter. 2 References to Zourabichvili’s Spinoza, Une physique de la pensée are made through the abbreviation ‘Z’. 3 Deleuze himself was at first very sympathetic to structuralism, although he did interpret it in a somewhat unusual and differential manner. His early relation to structuralism is spelled-out beautifully in his essay ‘How Do We Recognize Structuralism?’ (DI 170—192). Later, under the influence of Guattari and his essay ‘Machine and Structure’ (Guattari 1984), Deleuze distanced himself further from structuralism. 4 However, it should be noted that Deleuze also understands Spinoza’s theory in terms of parallelism (EPS 109). While both Jaquet and Zourabichvili have argued that parallelism is in contradiction to the radical autonomy of the attributes (Jaquet 2015; Z 123–25), Deleuze is apparently not aware or not convinced of such contradiction. 5 Deleuze uses a distinction between intensive and extensive magnitude that reoccurs throughout the history of philosophy. In Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza he refers to the Scholastic concept of intensio (EPS 191). In the tradition of Duns Scotus, intensive magnitude refers to the degree of qualitative form or ‘latitude of form’ (latitudo formae). Extensive magnitude is more or less of something common, the spatiality and temporality that objects share; intensive magnitude refers to the magnitude of a singular and internal property. But Deleuze’s concept of intensive magnitude is also inspired by Kant and Maïmon. 6 In a similar way, Deleuze and Guattari take concepts to populate the plane of immanence without dividing it (WP 36). The Spinozistic issue of substance’s relation to its modes is clearly recognizable in What is Philosophy?. In his early study of Spinoza, Deleuze interprets this relation as a form of expression in which the substance is that which expresses itself in the modes (EPS 14). As such, the modes ‘explicate’ substance which itself always remains ‘implicated’. This conceptual schema of ‘expression,’ ‘implication,’ ‘explication’ and ‘complication’ often returns in What is Philosophy?: “Concepts are like multiple waves, rising and falling, but the plane of immanence is the single wave that rolls them up and unrolls them.” (WP 36) 7 According to Deleuze, both Spinoza and Leibniz react to this mechanical philosophy with a ‘new naturalism’ (EPS 227–34). Cartesian mechanics stripped nature of all interiority, activity and individuality by regarding matter as pure quantity. This ‘new naturalism’ restores to nature what is beyond mere shape and movement, beyond the mere quantitative exterior. 8 References Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 22 Bergson, Henri. 2001 (1889). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Translated by Frank Pogson. Mineola: Dover Publications. Cavaillès, Jean. 1960 (1947). Sur la logique et la théorie de la science. Paris: PUF. Deleuze, Gilles. 2010 (1962). Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 (1968). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles. 1988 (1970). Spinoza, Practical Philosophy. Translated by Robert Hurley. San Francisco: City Light Books. Deleuze, Gilles. 1995 (1990). Negotiations, 1972–1990. Translated by Martin Joughin, New York: Colombia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 2004 (2002). Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953–1974. Translated by Michael Taormina. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. 2004 (1980). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. New York: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. 1994 (1991). What is Philosophy?. Translated by Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson. London: Verso. Derrida, Jacques. 1998 (1995). “I’m going have to wander all alone.” Philosophy Today 42(1): 3–5. Descartes, René. 1982 (1644). The Principles of Philosophy. Translated by Valentine Miller and Reese Miller. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Descartes, René. 1991 (1638). “To Mersenne 27 July 1638.” In Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 3. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guattari, Felix. 1984 (1969). “Machine and Structure.” In Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics, Translated by Rosemary Sheed. New York: Penguin. Jaquet, Chantal. 2015. L’unité du corps et de l’esprit, Affects, actions et passions chez Spinoza. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Jaquet, Chantal. 2017. Spinoza à l’œuvre, Composition des corps et force des idées. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Matheron, Alexandre. 1988 (1969). Indivudu et communauté chez Spinoza. Paris: Les éditions de minuit. Macherey, Pierre. 2007. “Lire Spinoza aujourd’hui : à propos de l'ouvrage de François Zourabichvili Une physique de la pensée.” Klesis, Revue philosophique 5.1. Maïmon, Salomon. 2010 (1790). Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. Translated by Nick Midgley, Henry Somers-Hall, Alistair Welchman and Merten Reglitz. New York: Continuum. Peden, Knox. 2014. Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rivaud, Arthur. 1906. Les Notions d’essence et d’existence dans la pshilosophy de Spinoza. Paris: Felix Alcan. Spinoza, Baruch. 2000 (1677). Ethics. Translated and edited by G.H.S. Parkinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 1985 (1677). Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, In The Collected Works of Spinoza. Vol. 1. Translated and edited by Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 2016. “Letter 60 to the very noble and learned Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (January 1675).” In The Collected Works of Spinoza, Vol. 2. Translated and edited by Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 432–33. Zourabichvili, Francois. 2002. Spinoza, Une physique de la pensée. Paris: PUF. 23 Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com Contact: florian.vermeiren@kuleuven.com 24