V IR T UALITY AND T H E L A W S OF PH Y S I C S
I NT E NS IVE SC I E NC E AND VI RT U AL PH I L O S O P H Y
syste mj in particular, there can be no causal links among states, nor among
any other system of qualities . -ss
On th e o the r hand, whil e the anal ysis of th e state spa ce o f a model
may not provid e us with causal information, it can be made to )ield
insight about quasi-causal relations . This epistemo logical result, how-
ever, depends on a particular ontological interpretation o f the contents
o f state space. Deleuze , as I said , does not view the differential
relations defining a model as expressing a law go verning the generation
o f th e serie s o f sta tes that make up a traject ory, but as d efining a
vec to r field whi ch captu r es th e ove rall tenden cies o f th e syste m as a
distribution o f singularities. 'Beneath the general operation o f laws' as
he says 'there always remains thc play o f singu larities.' 'i'' These
sing ular ities d efine th e conditions o f th e problem, ind ep endently of its
so lutions, while each solution curve is the produ ct o f a specific
individuation process guided at every point by th e tendenci es in th e
vect or field :
Already Leibniz had shown that the calculus . . . expre ssed problems
which co uld not hitherto be solv ed or, ind eed, even pos ed . . . One
thinks in particular of the ro le of th e regular and the singular points
which enter into the co mplete determination of th e specie s of a
cur ve . No doubt the specification of t he singular points (for
example, dips, nodes, focal points, centres) is undertaken by means
o f th e form of integral curves, which refers back to the so lutions of
th e differential equations. There is nevertheless a co mplete deter-
rnination with respect to the existence and distribution of these
points whi ch depends upon a completely dilTerent instance, namely,
th e field of vectors d efined by th e equation itself . . . Moreover, if
t he specification of th e points already sho ws th e necessa ry imman-
ence o f the problem in the soluti on, its involv em ent in the solutio n
which covers it, along with the existence and distrihution o f points,
test ifies to the transcendence of the problem and its directive role
in rel ation to the organizatio n o f the solutions them selv es. ss
To bring o ut th e o riginality o f Del euze ' s ana lysis it will help to
co nt rast it with th e anal yses perfo rm ed by ana lytical phil o sophers wh o
focus exclusive ly o n the episte mo logical rol e pla)'{'d hy trajectories. In
one approach, for exam ple , the role of the trajectori es is to be used as
predictions about the specific sequence of values "vhich the relevant
properties o f the syst em being mod elled will follow. The first ste p in
the procedur e , according to this approach, involv es making measure -
m ents o f the properties of a real system in a laboratory and plotting
the resulting numerical values as a curve. If the laboratory system is
prepared in such a way that it starts its evolution in the same initial
co nditions as the model, thcn this curve and the co rresponding state -
space trajecto ry should be oeome<ricolly similar. A perfect match
be t ween th e two, with th e state-space traject ory exact ly tracking th e
plotted value s, co uld th en be in te rp re ted as meaning that th e model is
true to the modelled system . Given that, du e to empirical limitations,
we cannot prepare a laboratory system to start at preci sely the same
initial conditions as an abstract mod el , the relation between plotted
values and predicted trajectories will not be a perfect match, so that
their relation will be one of approximate truth . Neverthel ess, it is the
geome trical similarity , or approximate simi larity, between the two
curves that matters for epistemo logical purposes. 56
An alternative view would disregard this ex trinsic resemblance
between metri c objec ts, and emphasize instead the common possession of
topological invariants. As one physicist puts it,
For present purposes, a system may be viewed both as a field of
phy sical phenomena in which a class o f elements exhibits its
functions or behaviors in space and time , and as an abstract
d escription which presumably ma y be isomorphic with th e phy sical
field . . . Two system s will be viewed as fun ctionally isomorphic
o ver a dynamic range if they have the same sing ularities of motion, in
the stability sense, over that range .'i7
T his w ould be th e co rrect stance to adop t in a D eleu zian anal ysis. The
episte mo logical valu e o f state space would be to reveal a topoloqicol
isomorphism between singu larities in the model and singularities in the
physica l system bein g mod elled . T his isomorphism , in tum, would be
ex plaine d by sho w ing that th e model and th e physical system are co-
actualizations o f the same virtual multipli city (or o f part o f the same
mult iplicity t given that the iso morphism is valid o nly within a rangl') .

I N T E N SI V E SCIE NCE AN D V I R T UA L P HI LO S O P H Y
Dcleuze's approach d oes not exclude th e po ssibility that th ere can be
sim ilarities between traj ect ories and plotted values, but thi s resemb-
lance must itself be explained as a result of the co mmon topological
properties o f th e systems producing th e curves . The repl y that
possession o f common properties is what makes a mod el and a real
ystem similar is, as th e phil osopher Nel son Goodman arg ued long
ago, redundant. As he put it, 'to say that two things are sim ilar in
having a specified property in com m on is to say nothing more than
that they have that property in com m on'. 58
There is another wa y of stating th e differen ce between th ese tw o
philosophical approaches to th e episte mology of state space . In th e
analytical appro ach , th e main episte mo logical relati on is that between
laws (ex pres sed by differential equations) and the traj ectories obtained
as solutions to tho se equations. This relation is on e of Beneral to
particular. In other words, if we ignore th e rol e whi ch th e vecto r field
plays in th e individuation of traj ect ori es, it see ms natural to view law s
as stat ing a Beneral rule govern ing th e volution of se ries of states , and
to see eac h t rajectory as th e result of appl ying that rul e for a particular
initial condition . In th e Deleu zian approa ch , on th e co ntrary, th e
parti cu lar sta te at w hich a traject ory starts becomes irrelevant, given
that ma ny d ifferent start ing points within th e same basin of attraction
end up in th e same place , th e attracto r. In othe r wo rds, it is th e
distribu tio n of sing ularities itself th at det ermines w hat changes in initial
co nd itio ns are relevant (relative to th e end state) and wh ich are
irrel evant , O n th e other hand, th e ge ne rality of th e law (of which a
g iv'n tra jec tory and plot of real values ar e particular instances) is
r 'p laced by th e uni versality of virt ual multipliciti es of wh ich both model
.1IIt! real syste m are di vergent actualizations. As Del eu ze wr ites,
'S ingularity is beyond particular proposition s no less than uni versality
is h 'yond ge ne ra l prop ositi on s. '59
T he subse rv ience of probl ems to so lutions in th e anal ysis of state
SIl.\CC is but one exam ple of an error with a rather lon g history, a
' long perversion ' wh ich Deleu ze traces back at least to Ari stotl e ."?
O rigin ally, the subo rdinat ion deri ved fro m th e habit of th ou ght of
think ing abo ut problem s as if th ey were proposition s, th at i , from
missin J the non -lingui st ic and ex tra-proposi t ional nat ure of th ir
VI R T UALI T Y A ND TH E L A WS O F PHYSICS
co nditio ns (contrast space). But in more recent times, in th e historical
peri od wh en classical mechani cs developed , the surrende r to solutio ns
took a more specific, more mathematical form . T o Del eu ze , math-
ematical problems are subordinate d to th eir solutions wh en ever th e
we ll- posedness of a problem is approached in terms of its solvability
(the possibility of findin g a solution) . In th e final sec tio n of th is chapter
I would like to discu ss two episode s in th e hist ory o f mathematics
w he re this traditional subord ina tio n was inverted , with so lvability
becoming a consequence of th e w ell -posedness of a problem . As I will
discu ss in a moment, thi s in version has for Deleuze r evolutionary
co nse que nces whose impact has not been gen erally appreciated . One
episode invol ves th e hist ory of algebrai c equations, and th e reversal of
th e subordination had, as on e of its con sequen ces, the birth of group
th eory. The other episode is more familiar, relating to th e hist ory of
differential equations , having as a result th e birth of th e th eory of
dy namical syste ms, whi ch is th e source of th e modern approach to
sta te space.
Let m e begin by describing in very rough form th e techni cal issues
invo lved in qu esti on s of so lvability in th e case of algebraic equatio ns .
T here are two kind s of solutions to equatio ns, particular and Beneral. A
partic ular solution is given by numerical values whi ch, whe n used to
re place an equatio n's unknowns, make th e equation co me out true .
(Fo r ex am ple, an algebraic equation like x 2 + 3x - 4 = °
has as its
nu me rical so lutio n x = I .) A ge ne ral or exact so lution , on th e othe r
hand, does not yield any specific value or set of values but rather the
Blobal patt ern if all particular solutions. Thi s gen eral pattern is typi cally
give n by another equation o r formula. The above exam ple , which
may be written as x 2 + ax - b = 0, has th e gen eral solution
x = V h + b - ~ . When mathematicians speak of the solvability of
d
an equation th ey usuall y mean its exact solvability, and the subordi-
nati on of problems to so lutions ste m s from th e demand that a well -
posed problem have an exact so lution , not ju st numeri cal on es. By th e
sixteenth -ce nt ury mathematician s knew that exact solvability was an
achi vable goa l, at least with eq uations wh ere th e unknown variable
was raised up to th fourth pow er (that is, th os including x 2 , x I and
x"). But th n a crisis ensued. Eq uations raised to th fifth po wer
 INTENSIVE S CIENCE AND VIRTUAL PH ILOSOPHY
sed to yield to th e previously successful method . Was this lack of
:t solvability indicative that there was something wrong with th e
olern as it was posed by the fifth degree equation?
'he answer cam e two centuri es later wh en it was noticed that th ere
a pattern to th e solutions of th e first four cases, a pattern which
ht hold the key to understanding the recalcitrance of the fifth,
wn as th e quintic. First Jos eph -Luis Lagrange and Neils Abel, and
I Evari ste Galois, found a way to approach the study of this pattern
g resources that today we recognize belong to group theory . In a
.hell we can say that Galois ' sho wed that equations that can be
cd by a formula must have groups of a particular typ e, and that
quintic had the wrong sort of group' .6 1 I cannot go here into th e
mical details of Galois's work but what he achieved was to invert
subo rdination of problems to solutions: rather than general solv-
ity defining th e correctness of a problem, th e form if th e problem
me th e explanation if Beneral solvability. In other words, whil e before
exact solvability of th e first four ca e was tak en for granted (as a
Jerty which problems mu st have) it now became something that
ld be explaine d by a uni versal feature of th e problem which these
, cases posed. This is what Del euze means wh en he says that 'it is
th e solutio n which lends its gen erality to th e problem, but th e
rlem which lends its univ ersality to th e solution ' , 6 2 a univ ersality
ur ed in this case by a group of transformations. But how exactly
> a gro up of transformations capture th e universal conditions that
ne a problem as a problem, that is, ind ependently of its solutions?
'0 answe r this question let me first take a different exam ple, th e
of transformation groups to study th e invariants of physical laws.
) of th e mo st typical transformations in this case are displacem ents
pace or time. Given a law -governed physical process that can be
'oducc d in a laboratory, if we simply mov e it in space (for instance ,
-cproducing it in another, far away laboratory) we can expect th e
liar asp ects of its behaviour to remain invariant. Similarly, if we
)Iy hang e th tim e at which we begin an expe rime nt , we can
ct this tim e displa cem ent to be irrelevant as far as th e regularity
he pro ess is on c rn ed . It is onl y th e differen ce in time b tween
first and final states o f th e pr ocess that matt rs, not the ab olute
at which th e fir t tat e 0 ur s. Thus, via transformation appli ed
V IRT UA L I T Y AN D T H E L A W S OF P H Y S I C S
to th e equat io ns express ing laws, w e can discover those types of
change to which th e la w is indifferent, that is, th e types of changes
whi ch do not matter as far as th e law-like process is concerned . Th e
sense in which th e group of an equation captures th e conditions of a
probl em is th en that it reveals distributions of th e rel evant and th e
irrelevant, th e irrelevance of using absolute time or absolute position
as inputs to a law for instance. It may be asserted without exaggeration
that understanding this connection had profound implications in th e
history of physics playing a crucial rol e , for example, in th e develop-
ment of th e gen eral theory of relativity. 63
Similarly, Galois's analysi s of algebrai c eq uations relied on th e use
of certain transformations (substitutions or permutations of th e solutions)
whi ch, as a group, showed what changes were relevant to the validity
of the equation (or more exactly, to th e validity of the relations
between solutions), More specifically, wh en a given permutation of
o ne solution by another leaves the equation valid, th e two solutions
become, in a sens e, indi stinpuishable as far as this validity is concerned.
T he eq uation is indifferent to the switch. As Morris Kline writes, 'The
gro up of an equation is a key to its solvability becau se th e group
expresses th e degree of indistinguishability of th e [solutions]. It tells us
what we do not know about th e [solutions]. '64 Or as Deleuze would
put it , the group r eveals not what we know about th e solutio ns, but
the obj ectivity if what we do not knoll' about th em, that is, th e obj ectivity
of th e probl em itself. 6 5 Moreover Galoi 's method involves the equi -
valent of a symmetry-breaking cascade in that th e solutions to th e
eq uation become increasingly 'mo re accurately defined as the original
group gives rise to sub-gr oups which proBressively limit th e substitu tions
leaving th e relations invariant. In other words, through a cascade which
unfold s th e original group, the problem itself becomes progressively
better spe cified and, as a by-product if this se!f-specification, individual
solutions emerge . As Dcleuze writes:
We cannot suppose that , from a technical point of view, differential
calculus is the onl y mathematical expression of problem s as such
... More r cent ly othe r procedures have fulfilled this rol e better.
Recall the cir I in which th e th ory of probl em s was caught : a
problem is .olvabl o nly to th e ex te nt that is is 'tru ' but we alwa ys
 I N T E N S I V E SCIENCE A ND V IRTUAL PHI LOSOP HY
tend to d efin e th e truth of a problem by its solvability . .. The
mathematician Abel [lat er followed by Ga lois) was perhaps th e first
to b reak thi s circle : he elaborated a whole m ethod according to
w hich so lvability must follow from the form of a problem. Instead
o f see king to find out by trial and error whether a given equation is
so lvable in general w e must determ ine the conditions of the problem
whi ch progressively spe cify the field s of so lvability in suc h a way
that the stateme nt co ntains the seed of the so lution . This is a radical
reversal o f the problem- solution relation, a mor e co nsiderable
re volut io n than the Copernican .w
T he rev ersal of th e problem - solution relation also had revolutionary
co nseq ue nces in the case of d ifferential equat ions . Although very
different from thei r algebraic coun terpart, equations in the calculus
alsn have particu lar and gen eral so lutio ns, both produced by th e
inh.'gration opcrato r. As it happens, mo st differential equations cannot
he so lved by integration in a general or e xact way . Today we get
around this limitation by using co mputers to generate a population of
m,lny num erical so lutions , a popu lation wh ich may be used to discover
lh,' ge nera l pattern . In the eighteent h century, wh en th e physics whi ch
Ne w to n and o thers had created was first given differentia l form, this
way out o f the difficulty was not, of cours e , available . One conse -
qucnce w as the neglect of models who se co nstituent equatio ns co uld
1I0t be so lved exactly, given that without a way o f knowing th e ove rall
pattern of particular so lutions, physicists could not learn very much
from a model. Thus, in a vcry real sense, the solvability of a probl em
was what made it worthy of study . As the mat hematician Ian Stewart
writes :
Th e math emati cian s of the eighteen t h cent u ry ran headlong into a
p ro blem whi ch has plagu ed th eoretical me chanics to this day: to set
up the equations is one thing, to so lve them quite another . . . The
t'ightcl'nth ce ntury's main achiev ements wer e in setting up equations
to model physical phen omen a . It had much less success in so lving
them ... A process o f se lf-selectio n set in, whereby cq uations that
co uld not he solved were automatically of less interest than those
that co uld."?
VIR TUALI TY AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
One can hardly blame these ma th emati cian s and physicists for fallin g
prey to this process of self-s electio n, since they w ere operating within
th e limits impo sed by the mathematical technology of th eir time. On
the ot he r hand , th e long. tern l effccts of su bord inat ing th e cho ice o f
pro blems to th eir so lvability did influen ce th eir (and th eir succ essors")
wor-ld vie w, biasing it towards a clockwork pictu re of realit y. The
reason for this was that the equatio ns that could be ex act ly so lved
happened to be the lin ear equations. The mathematical difference
between linear and nonlin ear equations is ex plained in terms o f the
superposition prin cipl e. which states that g iven tw o d iffere nt so lutions o f
a linear equation, their sum is also a valid so lutio n. In oth er word s.
o nce w e have discov ered a fcw solutions to an cquation many more
can he obtained for free via the superpos ition princip le. In an e ra
characte rized by the ge ne ral scarcity of ex act so lution s, such a principle
mu st have see me d like a gift from th e o ptim izing rationality of God .
Convers ely , failure to o bey thi s prin cipl e promoted th e ne gle ct of
nonlin ear cq uati onst" In the term s I have been using in this chapter
we may say that superpos ition, that is, a property of the behaviour of
so lutions, biased the process if accumulati on that created the population
of mo de ls making up the theoretica l co mpo nent of classical me chanics.
The requireme nt of exact so lvability prom ot ed the accumulation of
linear model s at the ex pense of nonlinear ones , and even the few
no nlinear models allowe d to become part of the popul ation were used
only in a linearized form . ( Linearizatio n is achieved by using non linear
mo dels onl y for very low int ensities of the recalcitrant variables. ) As
Stewa rt puts it :
Classical mathematics co nce nt rated on linear equations for a sound
pragmatic reason: it co uld not so lve anything else . . . So doci le are
linear equatio ns, that classical mathematicians w ere willing to
co mprom ise th eir phy sics to get th em . So th e classical th eory dea ls
w it h shallo w waves, low-amplit ude vibration s, small temperature
gradients [that is, linearizes nonlin earities). So ingrained became the
linear habit that by th e 1940 s and 1950 s m any scien tists and
enginee rs kn ew litt le el se . . . Linearity is a trap. The behaviour o f
linear equa tio ns . . . is far from typi cal. But if yo u decid e that o nly
linear eq uatio ns are worth thinking about, se lf-ce nso rs hip sets in.
 I N T E N S I V E S CIENC E AN D V IRT UA L PHILOS OPHY
Your textbooks fill with triumphs of linear analysis, its failures
buried so de ep that th e graves go unmarked and th e exis te nce of
th e graves goes unremarked . As th e eighteenth century beli eved in
a clockwork world , so did th e mid -twentieth in a linear o ne ."?
T he co unte rpa rt to Abel' s and Galoi s' s reversal of th e problem-.
so lution relation is represented by th e work of Henri Poin care on th e
q ualitative (or topological) st udy of differential equatio ns . His was a
no vel approach crea te d, like th e group- theo re tic approach to algebraic
equa tions, to break through th e barrier of a recal citrant pr obl em: th e
three body problem, th e problem of modelling th e mutual int eractions of
three solar system bodies (such as th e sun , th e earth and the moon).
Altho ugh oth er mathematici ans had alre ady approached th e st udy of
so lutio ns by analysing th eir behaviour in th e neighbourhood of singular
points, Poin care approach ed the wider questi on of th e way in w hich
the existence and distribution of singularities organized th e space of all
so lutions. In other words , like Galois, Poincare by-pa ssed ex act
so lvability as a way to get global information and instead used a novel
method to investigate the space difining the problem itself, that is, he used
the distributions of singular points as a way to gain qualitativ e
information abo ut th e tendenci es in the behaviour of all solutions. "?
Poin car e' s phase-portrait approach to state space has, of course,
been th e basis of mu ch of what I have said in this bo ok abo ut th e
on to logy of th e virt ual and the problematic. But Galois' s approach has
also been crucial since it provided th e idea of a progressive spe cificat ion
of virtual multipliciti es through sym me try -bre aking cascades . In short ,
a th eory of virtuality as has been pursued in th ese pages depends
fundamen tall y on th e results of th e reversal of th e problem- solution
relat ion , and co nversely , subord inating problems to solutio ns may be
see n as a practi ce th at effective ly hid es the virtual , or th at promotes
tln- illusion that th e act ual world is all that must be explained. Thus
co nstrued , this subo rd inatio n joins th e axiomatic treatment of classical
physics as a barrier to a more satisfacto ry probl emati c appr oach." In
.uldi tion , th ere are th e obstacl es posed by th e lin earity of causes in
ex pe rime nta l physics, and th e linearity of models in th eoretical physics,
both of whi ch arc intimately related since th e former' s addit ivity is
t'Cj ui\',lll'nt to the latt er' s supe rpos ition. Additivity and supe rposi tion
VI R T UA LI TY AND THE L A W S O F PHY S I C S
characterize an unprobl emat ic world , o r at best, a world whi ch is only
tem poraril y probl ematic o r in need of ex planation, but whi ch will
eventually yiel d to a supe r-law or a th eo ry o f everything whi ch will
leave nothing un explained . On th e othe r hand, nonlinear m odel s and
the ir multiple attracto rs, as well as nonlinear causes and th eir co mplex
capacities to affect and be affected , define a world capable of sur prising
us through th e emergen ce of un exp ect ed novelty, a world w he re th ere
will always be some thing else to explain and whi ch will th erefo re
re main for ever problematic . As Mario Bunge writes :
If th e joint acti on of se vera l causes is always an exte rnal juxtaposi-
tion, a supe rpos ition , and in no case a synthesis having traits of its
o w n, and if the hypothetical pati ents on which the causal age nts act
arc passive thin gs incapabl e of sponta neity or se lf-activity ~
inca pable, in sho rt, of add ing some thing o f their own to th e causal
bond - th en it foll ows that, in a sense, e}Jects preexist in th eir causes.
According to thi s extre me but consistent doctrine on th e nature of
causation, only old thin gs come out of cbanpe; processes can give rise
to o bjects new in number o r new in some quantitative respe cts, not
however new in kind ; or again , no new qu aliti es can emerge . A
,v-o rld running on a str ictly causal pattern [i.e. a linear pattern] is
such as yog is, Thomists and eighteent h-ce ntury Ne w to nians ima -
gined it, namely, a uni verse without a history . . .71
Unlike this line ar world, th e ontology I have devel op ed in this bo ok
is fully histori cal. Each of th e individuals whi ch populates thi s other
world is a product of a definite historical pro cess of individuation and ,
to the extent that an individual ' s identity is defin ed by its eme rge nt
propert ies and that th ese properties dep end on th e contin uing causal
inte ractions among an individual' s parts, each individual is itself a
histo rical causal process. The realm of th e quasi-causa] is also fully
histori cal but, as I ex plained in th e previous chapte r , it possesses its
o w n o riginal form of temporality and thus bear s no resemblance to
causal history. In ot her wo rds, in a Deleu zian onto logy th ere ex ist tw o
histo ries, o ne act ual and o ne virtual, having co m plex int eraction s with
on e ano the r. O n o ne hand th ere is a historical series of act ual eve nts
gt'lw ticall)' involved in th e producti on of othe r eve nts, and o n th e
 I NTENSI V E SC IE NC E AN D V IRTU AL PHILOSOP H Y
other, an equally historical series of ideal events defining an obj ective
r ealm of virtual pr obl ems of which each actualized ind ivid ual is but a
speci fic solutio n . T o conclude with Del euze 's own words ,
It is co rrect to represent a double series of eve nts whi ch develop in
two planes, echoing without resembling each other: real eve nts on
the level of th e engende re d solutions, and ideal events embedde d in
th e conditio ns of th e problem, like th e acts - or, rather, th e dreams
- of the gods who double our history. 7 ~
Appendix: Deleuze's Words
Gi lles Del eu ze changes his terminolo gy in every one of his books .
Very few of his co nce pts retain th eir names or linguisti c identity. The
poin t of thi s terminological exuberance is not m erely to give the
impression of differ en ce through th e use of syno nyms , but rather to
develo p a se t of different th eories on th e same subject, th eories whi ch
ar e slightly displaced relati ve to on e another but retain eno ugh over-
laps th at th ey can be meshed together as a het erogen eous assemblage.
T hus, th e different nam es wh ich a give n co nce pt ge ts ar e not ex act
synonyms but ncar synonyms, or so metimes, non -synonym ou s terms
defin ing closely relat ed conce pts . In th is book I delib erately homo-
genized th e tenninology for th e sake of clarity but giving a list of
ncar syno nyms will now prove useful to th e read er as he or she
mov es back from my sim plified presentation of Deleu ze' s onto logy to
his original ones . In fact, beyond providing a mere list I will try to
map the connections between th e different terminologies and discuss
the differe nt wa ys in whi ch th e onto logy is co nce pt ualized and artic-
ulated in each of th e books. As I map th ese tenninological co nnec-
tion s I will use th e following abbreviations of Deleu ze ' s bo oks,
followed wh en necessary by a page number (c hapte r numbers refer
to the pr esent book):
Anti-Oedip us AO
A Thou sand Plateaus ATP
Difference and Repetition D&R
l.oOic if
Sense LOS
What is Philosophy ? WIP
The main sou rces used in my recon st ru cti on were D&R, where
the theory of multipli ities and the virt ual co nt in uum they form is
most clearly arti cul ated , and L S w hich pr es .nts the most detailed
 A P P EN D I X : D E L E UZE 'S WORD S
description of the qu asi-causal op erator. I will begin this app endix with
a list of the com pone nts of Deleuzc 's ontology (D&R, 277-8) . [ will
th en expand th e description of each of the seven compone nts of this
'o nto logical list ' , not onl y to relate th em to th e terminology used in
Illy pr esentation, but also to add details wh ich I left out for th e sake
of simplicity but which ar e now ne cessary in order to rel at e th e items
in th c ontological list to thos e in other books. Finally, [ will tak e three
ho oks, ATP, AO and W [P, and map each component of th e list to
their co unte rp arts th ere .
T HE ONTOLOGICAL LIST
( I) th e depth o r spatium in whi ch inten sities ar e organizcd;
(2) the disparate series th ese form , and the fields of individuation that
th 'y o utline (individuation factors) ;
(3) th e ' dark pr ecursor ' w hich causes th em to communicate ;
(4) th c linkages, intern al resonances and forced movements which
result;
(5) the co nstitution of passive sel ves and larval subj ects in the syste m ,
and th e formation of pure spatio-ternporal dynamisms;
(6) the qua lities and exte nsions . .. whi ch form th e double differen -
ciation of th e syste m and cov er over th e preceding factors;
(7) the cent res of envelopment which neverthe less testify to th e
persisten ce of th ese factors in th e developed world of qualities and
ex te nsit ies .
l , Inten si ve Spatium
T his term refers to th e virtual continuum formed by multipliciti es. In
this hook I used th e term 'plane of consistency' to refer to it , a term
used throu ghout ATP. Other near syno nyms include ' plane of imman -
l'll 'c' (W [»), ' bo dy without organ s' (AO , ATP ) , 'rnachini c phylum '
(AT I'), and ' ide al o r met aph ysical surface' (LO S) . A po ssibl e so urc of
co nfusion h .rc is the term ' inte nsi ve ' which in my presentation was
lIsed ill relati on to indi viduation processes, not th e virtual co ntinuum .
I)l,leu:l.l' uses th e term in thr 'e se nses :
AP PEN D I X : DE LEUZE 'S W O RDS
a) Its original , th ermod ynamic sense in whi ch it refers to int en sive
prop erties, like pr essure, temperature or density. Differen ces in
th ese qu antities have a morphogen etic effect (they drive fluxes
of matter or ene rgy, for exam ple) and when not allowed to get
cance lled (as in non -equilibrium physics) displa y th e full potential
of matter-en ergy for sel f-o rganization.
b) A seco nd derived se nse in whi ch it refers to th e assembly of
different com pone nts as such , that is, th e cre at ion of het ero -
gen eous assemblages in whi ch th e co m pone nts ' differences are
not canc ell ed through homogenization.
c) A third derived sen se in whi ch it refers to th e properties of
ordinal se ries , Th ese ser ies ar e con sti tuted by the differences
between their terms, that is, by asymmetrical relations such as
'in between' . When we co nside r more than on e term between
two other s, thi s ser ial relation is called a 'd istance ', although this
term must be qualifi ed (Deleuze speaks of ' non- de com posable
distances' ) to distingui sh it from its non -te chni cal meaning where
it refers to a metric co ncept (such as ' length ' ) . Finally, there ar e
th e un cance llable differences, or constitu tive ine qualities , whi ch
ord inal ser ies present wh en compared to on e another (on ly
judgments of greater or lesser are po ssible, not of exact eq ual-
ity) . lt is mainly in this third se nse that the term is used in the
exp ression 'intensive spatium ' as th e following quote shows:
Differe nce , distance and ineq uality are th e po sitiv e charact eristics of
depth as intensive spatium (D&R, 238),
2. Multiplicities and D ivergent Series
Altho ugh th e term ' m ult iplicity' is not used in the list above, it is clear
that it belongs in this entry since th e 'disparate series' mentioned ar e
no thing but the e ffect of expand ing in a serial form th e sing ularities
d 'fining each unfolding level of a mu ltiplicity. The term has so me near
s Ilon ym s: 'partial obj ects' (AO ); ' philosophical co nce pts' (W [P) ;
' idea l eve nts' (LOS). So me times Dcleuze refer s to multipliciti es
ind irectly via th eir co m po ne nts , suc h as ' no madic sing ularities' and
 APPE NDI X : DELEUZE 'S W O R D S
'noe m atic attr ib utes ' (LOS) , or 'vague essen ces' and 'becomings'
(AT P) .
Th e term 'd isparate ' m eans ' d ifference of difference' (D&R, 241 ) .
To spea k of 'disparate ser ies ' is another w ay of expressing the idea
th at th e ordinal ser ies which form the nonmet ric co ntin uum mu st be
rela te d to one another via '!ffirmative divergence, so that not only are th e
se ries mad e up of differences, their divergent relations further differen-
tiate these d1Jerences:
Di fferen ce mu st become the elemen t , th e ultimate unitv; , it must
th erefo re refer to other differences which nev er identify it but
rath er d ifferentiate it. Each term of th e series , being already a
differen ce, must be put into variable relations with other terms,
th ereb y co nstit uting other se ries d evoid of cen te r and co nvergence.
Divergen ce and decentcring must be affi r me d in th e se ries itself.
(D&R , 56)
3. Dark Precursor
T his term refers to what in my re construction I called th e 'quasi-causal
o perator'. Its near synonyms include: 'quasi-cause ", 'al eatory or para-
do xical point' and ' nonsense ' (LOS); 'line of flight' and ' abstract
machi ne ' (ATP); 'd esiring machines' (AO) ; 'co nce pt ual person ae'
(W IP); 'o bject = x ' (D &R , LOS) .
4. Resonances and Forced Movements
T his ent ry includes th e effects w hich the quasi-cau sal operator has on
the multipliciti es and th eir series . In my reconstruction I used an
info rma tion-t heo re tic model for th ese effect s (in terms of em issio ns of
signs o r informati on qu anta) but Del eu ze also uses an alt ernative phy sical
model in terms o f resonances (D&R, LOS , WIP) . The te rms ' reso nance'
and ' forced mo vem ent.' sho uld not be taken as mere phy sical met ap hors.
Rath er , w e sho uld think about resonance as positi ve fte dback, a ge ne ric
pr on'ss which implies one or o the r form o f mutually stimulati ng couplin8s
k.g. .autocatal ysis} inducing re sonance s amo ng het erogeneous el em ents,
as well .lS th e ampljfica t ion if origina l djfferences (forced mov em ents) .
AP PEND IX : DELE UZE 'S WORDS
The crucial idea is that th e qua si-cau sal op erator m ust couple th e
o rd inal series ema nating from multiplicities so as to weave th ese into a
nonmctric co ntin uum. Resonances are th e means to effect co uplings,
w hile the resulting for ced movem en t produces th e co ntinu um (LO S,
239-40). As I hav e just said, th e couplings between ser ies must en sure
t he ir affir mative di vergen ce , keeping th e continuum op en and in
co nsta nt variation . But also , as a separate operation (w hat I called ' pre-
act ualizatio n' in Chapter 3) , it must induce so me convergences in th e
se ries, since it is in th ese ce nt res of co nverge nce that th e process of
actua lizatio n begins :
To be act ualized . . . mean s to extend ove r a ser ies of ordinary
points; to be selecte d according to a rul e of con verge nc e ; to be
inc ar nated in a bod y; to be come th e state of a body; and to be
ren ewed locall y for th e sake of limited new actualizations and
ex tensions . (LO S, I 10)
5. Passive Selves and Spatio-Temporal Dynamisms
T his en try contains the two components of what in m y reconstruction
I referred to as 'inten sive individuation processes' . The first meaning
of the term 's patia-tem poral dynamism ' is straightforward, r eferring
to t he phenomena of sel f-org anizatio n which occur in many non-
equilib rium system s. Self-organizing dynamics ar e typi cally gov erned
by th e singularities (at t racto rs and bifurcations) which chara ct eri ze
d iffere ntial relations (t hat is, co upled rates of chang e o r relations of
re lative rapidity and slo w ness.) In thi s se nse, th e term relates to th e
first sense of th e word 'intensive', as in a non-equilibrium material
w he re inten sive differen ces have not been cancel led . But th e term also
refers to 'a ffects', or th e seco nd sense of 'inten sive ' , that is, to th e
capaci ties and dynamism s whi ch produce heterogeneous assem blages.
That th e tw o senses are intimately co nnected is clear from th e
''''lo wing:
It is no lon ger a qu estion of imposing a form up on a matt er but of
d ahorating an increasingly rich and co nsistent mat eri al , th e better
to tap incr easingly int en se fo rces . What makes a matt' rial incrcas-
 A PPEND IX: D ELE UZE 'S WORDS
ingly rich is th e same as what holds het erogen eiti es togcther without
t he ir ceasing to be heterogeneous . (ATP, 329)
Unlike spa tio- te m po ra l dynamism s, the terms passive sel f' and
'larval subject' recei ved very little elaboration in my recon struction ,
m ostly because I wanted to keep th e description of Deleu zes ontology
as free from anthropocentrism as possible . The first term is related to
t he 'passive synthes is' whi ch forms th e core of Dclcu zc ' s th eory of
time , the synthesis of 'living presents' which metricize or give measure
to tim e . In his theory, this synthesis is directl y related to the gen esis
of subjectivity (it is a co nte mplative subjec t who co ntracts instants into
a present ) but, as I ex plained in Chapter 3, these 'co ntemplations'
occur everyw here, in the form of prot o -perception s and proto-feelings
wh ich even microscopi c individual entities may be said to have . Hence,
we not only co ntract instants to synthesize our psychol ogi cal sense o f
present , we are made out of micro -contractions and t heir presents:
W c arc mad e o f co nt rac te d water , earth , light , and air - not onl y
prio r to the recognition or representati on o f these, but prior to
their being sen sed . Every organism, in its recept ive and perceptual
el em ent s, but also in its visce ra, is a sum of contractio ns, of
retentio ns and ex pec ta t ions . (D&R, 7 3)
The term 'larval subjec t' is clo sely related to these ideas, referring
to the 'vo luptuous co nsumptio n' of the intensities which drive spa tio -
tem po ral dy nam isms . The best ex am ple here is t he developing emb ryo
as it experiences the inten sive fold ings , migratio ns, and oth er transfor -
mations which will e ventually turn it into a fully formed organism .
Indeed, unlike my recon struction where the term 'indi vidual' refers to
the final produ ct (o rganisms, species, etc.) in Deleu zc 's work it refers
to th e lar val subjec ts t hemselv es. It o fte n has th e m ean ing o f a
Lc ibnizian 'mon ad', and it is said to be born during pre -actu alization ,
that is, from the ce nt res o f co nverge nce whi ch occur in the virtual
series :
A world already envelo ps an infinite syste m of singularities selected
through co nve rgence. Within this world, ho we ver, individuals are
APPEND IX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
co nstituted which select and envelop a finite numb er o f the singular-
ities of the system . . . An individual is therefore always in a world
as a circle o f co nverge nce, and a world ma y be formed and thought
on ly in th e vicinity of th e individuals whi ch occupy or fill it. (LO S
109-10)
To avo id co nfusion, I will usc the term 'inten sive individual ' to
refe r to these monad s, and 'individual' without qualification to refer
to th e ex tended and qualified actual en tities whi ch form my flat
ontology o f indi viduals .
6. Extensities and Q ualities
These are th e two characte ristics w hich d efin e th e realm of th e ac tual,
the fully co nstit uted world o f ex te nde d and qualified individuals. In
ATP these two characteristics are referred to as 'substances ' and
'forms' respecti vel y . To sec the connec tio n one needs to think , on the
one hand, of a substance without any oth er characte ristic than its
manner of occup ying space (its extension), and, on the other hand, of
the form s o r structures wh ich endo w this substance with specific
qua lities (suc h as its mechanical or optical properties) . Given that no
act ua l substance is e ver purely ex tensional, these two characteristics
arc 'not really distinct. They are the abstract components o f every
articu lation ." (AT P, 50 2)
7. Centres of Envelopment
This co nce pt w as not discussed in my reconstruction. I introduce it
here not o nly bec ause it appears as the last item in the listing of
ontolog ical co mpone nts under discussion , but also because its defin ition
relates to aspects o f th e th eory of t he actual whi ch bear on questions
of te rmi no logy. The different spheres o f the actual (ro ughly, th e
physico-che mical, o rganic and cultural spheres) need to be conce ived
witho ut presupposing a teleo logical devel opment or ' any kind of
rid iculous cos mic e vo lutionism' (AT P, 49) . There are , o n the othe r
hand, very real distinction s bet w een these spheres . In particu lar, unlike
the physico -che m ica l sphere wh e re the 'co de' that underlies form s o r
 A P P E N D I X : DELEUZE 'S W O R DS
q ua lities is distributed throughout th e three-dimen sionali ty of a struc-
ture , in th e organic sphe re thi s co de becom es detached as a se parate
o ne -d ime nsional str uct ure: th e linear seque nce of nu cleic acids consti-
t uting th e ge ne tic code, The ge ne t ic co de, in Deleu ze 's view, repres-
ents an interiorization if the intensive indivi duati nq facto rs whi ch in
physico-chemical st rata remain ex te rn al to indi vidu als. Thi s int eri ori -
zation, w hich characte r izes th e increase in complexit y of living syste ms ,
is w hat is referred to by th e term 'centres of envelopme nt' :
Th e functi on of these ce ntres ma y be defined in se veral ways
we claim that com plex systems incr easingly tend to interiorize th eir
co nstitutive differen ces: th e ce ntre s of envelo pment carry out thi s
int eriorization of th e indi viduating factors. (D&R, 256)
Summary
Let me now summ arize what I have just said about th e co nte nts of th e
onto logical list. Items 1, 2 , and 3 co nstit ute th e eleme nts of th e virt ual:
the co nti nuum , th e multipliciti es and th e quasi-cau sal o pe rato r. Items
4 and 5 may be made to cor res po nd, with a bit of tw eaking , to th e
intensive . T he reason wh y some tweaking is necessary is that it invol ves
s 'parating th e di vergent and th e co nve rgent relati on s between th e
xer ic , the former bel on ging to th e virtual and th e latter (as a kind of
pre-actua lizatio n) to th e int en sive. Ce ntres of co nve rgence would
orrcspond to wh at so me scie ntists call ' mo r phogenetic fields' , o r what
Dc leuzc calls ' fields of indi vidu ati on '. Although Deleu ze includes as
part o f Item 2 'fie lds of indi viduation ' , and th e resonances of Item 4
also produce di vergen ces, it will prove useful to keep th e tw o Items
.lpart and define th e inten sive both by th e field s of individuation and
th . spa tio -tc rnpo ral dynami sm s that perform th e actualization of th ese
field s. Pinally, Items 6 and 7 form th e conte nts of th e actual. Pr eci sely
because th e vir tual, th e int en sive and th e actual are aspects of one and
til(' same pro cess, or th e different mom ents o f a cascade of progressive
d iffer mtiation , so me Items (4 and 7) represent areas of ove rlap
(so l!wt hing of th virt ual, o nv rg nc , within th e inten sive ; so me thing
of th e inte nsive, cnv .lo pmc nt ntrcs, in th actual). Let me now sho w
hm\ tln - virt ual, th e int en sive , and th actual arc trc: ted in other books.
APPEND IX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
A THOU SA ND PLAT EAU
In ATP the different sphe res whic h make up th e actual world (physico-
che mical, orga nic , cult ural and so on) ar e called 's tr ata' . T he term
's tratification' is near syno nymo us with 'act ualizatio n'. The different
extensities and qualities which characte rize th e actual world are
referred to as 's ubstances' and ' forms' , and also as ' te r ritorialities' and
' codes ' . Thus, Del eu ze writes that str ata ' proceed sim ultane ously by
code and by territoriality' (AT P, 40) . The int en sive processes whi ch
give rise to strata, and which become hidden und er strata, ar e th erefore
called 'territorializat ion ' and 'coding' . Given that so me parts of th e
wo rld ma y be pu shed away from th eir equilibr ium state , th er eby
revealing th e hidd en inten sive factors, th e terms 'de te r ritor ialization'
and 'decoding ' ar e used to refer to th ese departures from th e rigidity
of str ata, or rather, to th e int en sive movem ents wh ich animate strata
fro m within. In D&R, Deleu ze had alre ady introduced th e notion of
'dc- differe nciation' (D&R, 249) but it is onl y later that thi s notion
aC'luires its full importance and that it is divid ed alon g th e tw o
compo nents of actualizati on.
Ind eed , as I argue d in Ch apter 3, th e quasi-cau sal ope rato r may be
said to accelerate th ese dep artures from act uality in an ope ratio n called
'counter-actualizatio n ' . In ATP , Deleu ze spe aks of ' re lative det errit-
o rializations' to refer to moveme nts awa y fro m th e act ual toward s th e
int ensive , and of 'abso lute d et erritorializati on ' to refer to co unte r -
actualization , the acce leration of th ese movemen ts allowing them to
reach all th e way int o th e virt ual. The three co m po ne nts of th e virtual
(the continuum , th e multiplicities th at co m pose it and th e quasi -cau sal
ope rato r w hich effects th e com posit io n) have exact counte rparts in
T P as the foll owing ex tract illustrates:
T here was a first gro up of notions: th e Body without Organs or
dcstrat ified Plan e o f Co nsiste ncy ; th e Matter of th e Plane, that whi ch
oc .urs in the bod y o r plan e (sing ular, non segm ented multipliciti es
co m posed of int en sive co nt inuums , emissions of particl e-sign s, co n-
junctio ns of flow ); and the Abstra ct Machine , o r Abstract Machines, in
Sl) far. s th ey co nst ruc t th at bod y o r draw th e plan e o r 'd iagra m' what
oc urs (line. of flight , or • hsolut det errit o rializati o n) . ( T P, 72)
 APP E NDIX : O E LEUZ E 'S W OR D S
Multiplicities ar e said to ' occ ur ' in th e plan e of consiste ncy becau se,
as I arg ued , th ey are ideal events or becomtnqs. The term ' no nseg mente d '
sho uld be read as near syn onym o us with ' no nmetr ic ", and ' inte nsive
co ntin uum ' as 'ordinal co ntinuum' . The ' emi ssion s of particle-signs '
arc th e resonances that co uple th e multiplicities, and th e 'co njunc tio ns
of flows' co rres pond to mutual amplifi cations o r forc ed movements,
Th e quasi-causal operator, here called the 'abstr act machine', is
charact erized in terms of 'lines of flight' which r efer to th e process of
co unte r -actualization, and is said to 'd raw th e plane ', that is, to extract
ideal eve nt s from what act ually occu rs and to mesh these m ultipliciti es
int o a heterogen eous co nt inu um . As Deleu ze writes 'the plane of
co nsiste ncy does not preexist th e movements of deterritorialization
th at unravel it, th e lin es of flight that draw it or cause it to rise to th e
surface , th e becomings that co m pose it ' (AT P, 270). Finally, the
' centre s of envelopme nt ' are not given a special nam e but th ey are
referred to indirectl y when it is asserted that ' the abstract Machine
exits sim ultaneo usly devel oped on the destratified plane it draws, and
en veloped in each st rat um whose unity of co m posit io n it defines . .. '
(AT !' , 70 ; my em phasis) .
This is, roughly, th e mapping from on e set of terms to another .
But in ATP we witn ess an elaboration of the origin al o nto logical
co mpo nents and thi s introduces new terms and ideas . In particular,
in ATP the actual wo rld is not defined sim ply in terms of extensities
.1nd qu alities, but of vcry spe cific articulations of th e exte ns ive and
the qu alit ati ve . As I discu ssed in my reconst ruc tio n, th e actual co nsists
excl usively of individual entities , eac h individual at a given level of
scale emerging from th e interactions of populations of smaller scale
ind ivid uals. Deleu ze refers to th ese two scales of every stratum as th e
' mo lec ular ' and th e ' mo lar ' . Stratificati on co nsists in producing popu -
lations of ' mo lecules ' and organizing th em into ' mo lar' , or large
scale, aggregates . (Cl earl y, 'molecul es' may be cell s or even organ-
isms, wh en th e molar scale is th at of th e organism or th e species,
rcspcctivelv.} Thus, eve ry strat um needs a double articulation, a
doub] o play of substances and form s, of exte nsities and qu aliti es, o ne
at the level of mol ecu lar populations and ano the r at th e level of molar
.lgg reg.lt es :
AP P EN DI X : DE L EU Z E 'S WO RDS
The first artic ulatio n chooses o r deducts, from un stabl e particle-
flows, m eta stable m ole cular or quasi-m olecular units (substa nces)
up on which it imp oses a statistical o rder of co nnect ions and
successions (forms) . The seco nd articulation esta blishes functi on al,
co mpact , stable structures (/orms) , and constr ucts th e molar com-
pounds in wh ich struc t ures arc simultaneo usly actuali zed (substances) .
(AT P 40 -1 )
T his process is called a 'd ouble articulation ' . Although th e term
' do uble differen ciation ' alr ead y o ccurs in th e ontological list , it refers
only to th e pair substa nce and form , not to thi s more el aborate
inte rpl ay of territorialiti es and co des . A sim ilar elaboration is evident
in Del eu ze 's treatment of th e int en sive . As I arg ued in Chapter 2,
eve n th e most rigidl y metric (or ' m ost stratified ') indi vidual still has
unactualized capacities to affect and be affected, and ma y not be
limi te d to a sing le stable equilibrium but have a vari et y of unactualized
stable states availabl e to it. Th ese two aspect s of the int en sive , 'affects'
.1I1d 's ingularities' , become further developed int o 'parastrata ' and
'cpist rata' in ATP . On on e hand, affects endo w individuals with th e
capacity to establish novel connections with alien mili eus, as with th e
evolutio n of the capacity to tap into a reservoir of ox ygen, or other
non -alimentary ene rgy sources . Organisms may also have the capacity
10 act ively shape th ei r environme nt , as spide r web s or beaver dams
illustrate . These capacities are what Delcuze calls 'parastrata", th e
(·.l pad ty to connect with an 'anne xe d o r associated mili eu' (ATP, 5 1) .
O n the oth er hand, a fully formed individual may be capable of a
\ ,u'kty of stable states whi ch may be act ualized by crossing critical
points and give rise to ' variat ions that ar e tol erated bel ow a certain
threshold of iden tity' (AT P, 50) . Th ese ' inter med iate states or milieus'
.m- what Del euz e calls 'epistrata". As he writes, even ' a sing le chemical
substance (sulfur or carbon , for exam ple) has a number of more or
h'ss dcu -rrit orializcd sta tes' (AT P, 53) . The relations of the different
t('l'ms fo r int en sive factors can th en be summa r ized like this :
Fo rms re late to codes and proccsst.~s of cod ing and decoding in th e
IMf.l-"t rat a; substa nces , l»..· ing formed matt ers, rel ate to tcrr'itorialities
 APPENDIX : DELEUZE 'S W O R D S
and mov em ents of territorialization and deterritorialization on th e
epistrata. (AT P, 53 )
Finally, th ere is a term which refers to th e act ualizatio n (or
e ffectuation) of th e qu asi-cau sal ope rato r its elf. I did no t discuss thi s in
d .tail, but I did give an ex ample in Chapte r 2 of th e neighbo urhoo d of
a pha e transiti on (o r 'e dge of chaos'). Deleu ze 's o wn example is not
critical points in a line of valu es, but critical sUIfaces in objects w ith
volume (LOS , 103) . (In both cases th e quasi-cau se o pe ra tes at an N-I
dim ension, as discu ssed in Chapte r 3) . In ATP, th e organic membrane
as a critical sur face is kept as an instance of th e qua si-cause as it exists
e ffect uated in th e actual , o rga nizing the division of e pist rata and
paras trata (AT P, 49 -50). But now a spec ial term is co ined for this
actua lized qua si-causal ope rator : ' machinic assemblage' . As he writes:
'The most important probl em of all : given a machini c assem blage ,
what is its relation of effect uation with th e abstract machin e ? How
do cs it effectuate it, with what ad equati on ?' (AT P, 71 ) .
Much as th e qu asi-cau se o r abstract machine endows th e virtual
co ntinuum with cons iste ncy , th e machinic assemblage endows actual
ent ities with co nsiste ncy , 'What we term machini c is precisely thi s
synthesis of hetero gen eiti es as such' (AT P, 330) . T he machini c assem -
blage performs th e different o pe ratio ns invo lved in stratification, suc h
as articulating a strat um with w hatever serves as its subs tratum (e.g.
the pr e-biotic so up for o rganic strata), as well as doubly ar ticulating
the different e xtensities and quali ties, substa nces and forms, which
defin e a give n stratu m (AT P, 71 ) . But also , as an actualized qua si-
cause , the machini c assem blage is th e age nt behind co unter-
actua lizatio n:
T he assem blage has two poles or vectors: on e vec to r is o riente d
toward s the strata, upon whi ch it distributes territorialities, relative
dct c rr itori alizati on s and rct erritori alizations: th e othe r is oriente d
to ward s th e plane of consiste ncy o r destratificati on , upon wh ich it
co njugatcs pr ocesses o f det crrit orializati on , carry ing th em to wards
till' abso lute of th e eart h. (AT P , 14 5)
APPENDIX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
A TI -O EDIPU S
In th is book th e mapping of th e items of the onto logical list is less
straightforward . In particul ar , th e virtual and th e inten sive are gro upe d
togethe r in a pro cess whi ch is referred to as ' mo lecular' (in the sense
just mention ed ), w hile th e actual is re ferred to as ' the m olar '. Unlike
ATP, wh ere all kinds of strata ar e co nside re d, in AO only th e
actualization of human soc ieties is dealt with , so th e molar see ms to
beco me synonymous with ' large social aggregat es', such as stable
persons, govern me ntal o r economic insti tution s, agricult ural or indus-
trial machin es. But it sho uld be kept in mind that thi s narrowing of
the meaning of ' the molar ' is a matter of focu s and not a change in th e
und erl ying th eory.
W ith some care , in fact , th e different el em ents of th e o nto logical
list can be paired with th eir counter parts in AO. The virt ual and th e
intensive processcs of actualizati on ar e referred to as 'des ir ing produc-
tio n' and defined as co nsisting of three separate ' passive syntheses'
(AO , 26). These ar e referred to as ' the co nnective', ' the disjuncti ve '
and ' the co njunc tive' syntheses. (T his three-p art classificati on first
appears in LO S, 174. ) Th e disjunc tive synthesis invol ves th e crea tio n
of divergent relations among se ries , and it is said to occ ur on th e bod y
without organs (AO, 13). It th erefore re fers to th e virtual co nti nuum,
'a pure fluid in a free sta te, flowin g w ithout inte rr uption, stre ami ng
o ver the surface of a full body' (AO , 8) . T he co njunctive synthes is, in
turn, invo lves th e cre ation of conve rgent relat ion s am on g series, an
o pe ration whi ch as I said above , forms ' ind ivid uation field s' whi ch
alre ady prefigure th e inten sive (pre- actualization). Thi s synthes is cap-
tures one of the aspec ts of th e int en sive , th e emergence of a larval or
passive subjec t, 'a strange subject with no fixed identity, wandering
abo ut ove r th e body without organs .. . bein g born of th e [int en sive]
states that it co nsumes , . " (A0, 16) . Finally, th e co nnec t ive synthesis
capture s ano the r aspect of th e int en sive, th e machini c assemblage. It
co nnects o r co uples together het erogcn eous ' partial obj ects or organ s'
thro ugh th e emiss ion of 'e ne rgy flows' (AO, 323) . Here the term
' partial' is not used in its xt in ive se nse but in th e sense of matter
filling spa • to a give n d 'g r of int en sit y. 'T he ye, th e mouth , th e
.lJlII S degrees of ma tter" ( 0, 309) .
 APPENDIX : DELEUZE ' S WORDS
T his int erpretation o f th e three syntheses gives us o ne o f th e
elements of th e virtual (the plan e o f co nsiste ncy o r bod y without
organs), and tw o o f the intensive (larva l subjects, assembl ages), but
leaves several things o ut. In particular, the o ther tw o el em ents of the
virtual, mult iplicities and the quasi-cau sal operator, don 't see m to be
included. Multipliciti es appear in AO as ' partial objects' when th ese
'a tt ach them selves to the body without organs as so man)' point s of
disjunction between which an entire network of new syntheses is now
wov en marking the surface off into coo rdinates , like a grid ' (AO, 12) .
This co rresponds to the idea that multiplicities exist in the sphere of
the intensiv e embodied in self-organizing processes, but may be
e xtracted from these as 'Rat multiplicities' or 'pure events' and
depl oyed as such o n the plane of co nsiste ncy. The quasi-causal o perator
is, in turn, referred to as a 'desiring machine ':
Inso far as it brings together - without unif}'ing or uniting them -
th e body without o rgans and th e partial objects, th e desiring
machine is inseparable both from th e distribution of partial o bjects
o n the body without organs, and o f th e leveling [i.e. flatt ening]
e ffect exerte d on the partial organs by th e body without o rgans ,
wh ich results in appropriation. (AO , 327)
The desiring machine is said to have 'chains' as its apparatus of
transmission (AO, 327). The term 'chain' is used instead of 'series'. It
has the meaning o f a 'Markov chain' (AO, 39), a series o f events in
whic h the probability o f occurren ce o f an y even t depends o nly on th e
previous one in the se ries. In o ther word s , a 'chain ' is a partially
aleatory series. This co rresponds to o ne o f the effects of the quasi-
cause, bri efly discu ssed in Chapte rs 2 and 3, o f injecting chance in th e
distrihutions o f virtual singularities to create 'nomadic' distributions,
,1S opposed to the 'sede ntary' probabilit y distributions which characte r-
ize population s in the actual world. This is also exp res sed by saying
that th e quasi-cause must affirm all of chance with every throw of the
dk-c ( LO S, 59 -60) . The term 'chain ' is also used as in th e exp re ssion
'sig nil),ing chain' hut without any reference to a fixed code , linguistic
or otherwise . Rather these heteroge(wotls chains arc mad e of 'Hying
br-ic-ks , . . co ntaining within [them] not o nly an inscripti on with signs
APPENDIX : DELEUZE'S WORDS
from different alphabets , but also various figures, plus o ne o r seve ral
straws, and perhaps a co rpse' (AO , 40 ).
There is o nc more detail to be discussed which pro vides an
important bridge to th e nex t book to be deciphered (W IP). Mu ch as
multipliciti es are woven into a virtual co ntinuum through their diver-
ge nces, but also form individuation fields when their series converge,
' t he points of disjunction on th e body without organs form circles that
co nve rge on the desiring machine s; then the subject , , . passes through
all the degrees of the circle, and passes from on e circle to another'
(AO , 20 ). The term ' passing' is used here as synonymous with
'becoming', and the 'degre es of the circle' are 'intensive quantities in
the ir pure state ' (AO , 18). The idea here is that thi s larval subj ect
w ith out identit y can mov e about the plane , from one individuation
field to another , becoming now this and now that intensive individual
depending o n the intensities it co nsumes . This is the key idea behind
the process whi ch in AO, ATp and WIp is referred to as 'becoming -
animal' (as well as 'becoming -w oman ", 'becoming-mo lec ule' , etc .).
The co nce pt app ears first in D&R , 25 4:
W e sho uld not say tha t individuals of a given species arc distinguished
by their participation in oth er species: as if, for exampl e , there was
ass or lion, wolf or sheep, in eve ry human being, There is indeed
all th at and metempsychosis retains all its symbolic truth. However,
the ass and the wolf can be co nsidered species only in relation to the
fiel ds o f individuation . . . lit is true that sorncone's so ul) never
change d bodies, but its bod y co uld be re -env elopcd or re -irnplicated
in o rder to ente r, if need be, other fields o f individuation . . .
In o the r words, becomin g -animal is an o peration which canno t be
perfo rmed within the actual , by a transformation from a fully co nsti-
tuted individual o f o ne species to another of a difTercnt speci es. But if
we m o ve to wards the virtual, towards those circles o f convergence or
fields o f individuation wher e there are still communications between
not-yet -actualized specie s, o ne can become 'rc -cnvcloped' in another
field . T his theme is elaborat ed in AO, 86 and in ATP , 238 and
becomes a key co mpo nent of Dcl euzc's theory of artistic practic e as
dis{'uss('d in WIP.
 APPEND IX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
WH AT IS P H ILOSO P H Y?
Muc h as AO narrows th e focu s of the onto logy and deals o nly with
the act ualizat io n of social struct ures, WIP deals ex clusively with th e
rela tions bet ween th e virtual , th e int ensive and th e act ual, on one
hand, and th e different forms which th ou8h t assumes in certain societies
(p hiloso phical, artisti c and scientific forms of thought). The virtual
ap pears here as ' the plan e of immanen ce' explore d by phil osophical
thought; th e int ens ive as ' the plan e of com pos ition' as it app ears in
artistic tho ught ; and th e act ual as ' the plan e of referen ce ' as it is
investigated by scientific th ou ght. Let me discuss each one of th ese
'planes' sta r ting with th e actual world,
One way of thinking about th e plan e of referen ce is as a flat
ontology of indi vidual s. Th e subject matter of scie nce would be , in
th is inter pretat ion , th e world of fully co nsti t ute d individuals and th e
metric and measurable space time th ey form. In other words, actual
indivi d uals would form th e referen ce of scientific statements, and all
ref rents wo uld form a ' plane' preci sely in th e sen se that, onto logically
at least, they do no t have a hierarchical str uct ure but remain a ' flat'
set , \'arying only in spatio-temporal scale . In Chapters 1 and 2, wh ere
I discussed the philosophical co nce pt of ' m ultiplicity', I em phasized th at
the scientific ideas invol ved (differe nt ial relations, sing ularities) had to
he detached fro m th eir o riginal context wh ere th ey are related to
mathematical J unctions. Th e ju stificati on I gave for thi s transformation
was that func tio ns, as they are ordinaril y used , presuppose indi vidu a-
tion . Indee d, in so me of th eir uses (as in th eir use to cr eate state o r
phase spaces) th ey define procedures for th e individu ation of states
within these spaces . T hese states of affairs co nstitute a re fere nt, and
I he use of functions the re fore foll ows th e line wh ich goes fro m th e
virtua l to its act ualizatio n , retaining o nly the final product.
T his is part of what Deleuze mean s w hen he asserts that the objec t
of science is 'functio ns whic h are presented as propositi on s in discursive
sysu-m s' (W IP, 117 ). I will return bel ow to th e qu esti on of wh ether
one can cha racterize scie nce in th is way. As I said in Chapte r 4, 1 do
no t think the re is such a th ing as 'science ' in genera l, so I reject many
of the det ails of th e characte rizat io n given in WIP . Nevertheless, th e
IMrt of it that I do kee p is th e assertio n that most s icntilic fields tend
APPEND IX : D ELEUZE 'S W OR D S
to study th e world in th e direction of act ualizatio n , sometimes
co nce ntrating on th e final pr oduct and disr egarding th e pr ocess (e .g .
eq uilibrium th ermod ynami cs) , sometimes studying th e process but
always in th e dir ecti on of th e final pr oduct.
Art, on th e other hand , ma y be said to st udy, or engage with, th e
inte nsive itself. The term ' inte nsive' is used in a varie ty of se nses
only so me of whi ch are rel evant to th is characte rizatio n. One of th e
co mpo ne nts of th e inten sive given in th e onto logical list was th e
lar val subject who co nsumes int en siti es as suc h, and is born and
reb orn of th ese vo luptuo us consum ptions . In thi s case , th e int en sive
state co mes first or it is prior to th e individual th at lives it (AO , 20) .
In other words, obj ecti ve int en siti es do not constitute psychological
se nsations bu t th e very ' be ing of th e sensible' (D&R, 140) , a being
w hich is itself imperceptible psychologically given that inte nsities
become hidd en underneath qualities and exte nsities (D&R, 230), In
W IP thi s bein g of th e sensible is di vided into two co m po ne nts ,
'perce pts' and 'affects';
By mean s of th e material [e .g . paint, canvas, brush], th e aim of art
is to wrest th e percept from perceptions of objects and th e states of
a perceiving subject , to wrest th e affect fro m affecti on s [e. g .
feelin gs] as th e transiti on fro m on e state to another: to ex tract a
bloc of se nsatio ns , a pure bein g of sensat ions . (W IP, 167 )
Sim plifying so mewhat , we may say that ' pe rcepts' are related to th e
passive selves involv ed in th e synthesis of living presen ts at all scales of
reality, in th e organi c and inorgani c world. Even though these presents
are constituted by 'conte m platio ns' or 'contracti on s of past and future
instants', th ey do not refer to a psych ological realit y . As Deleu ze
writes :
Th e plant co nte m plates by co nt racting th e ele me nts from whi ch it
originates - light , carbon, and th e salts - and it fills itself with
o lo rs and odo rs th at in eac h case qu alify its var iety, its co m pos iti on :
it is sensatio n in itsel f. It is as if flowers sme ll th emsel ves by
sme lling what co m poses them .. . before being perceived or eve n
sme lled hy an age nt with a ner vou s system and a br ain . (W IP, 2 12)
 APPENDIX : DE LEUZE'S WORDS
On th e othe r hand , affect s re fer to sta te tran sm ons whi ch mu st be
und erstood as ' becomings', in the sense of a becom ing-an imal or
becoming- plant discussed above . Th e artist must reach th at inte nsive
state w he re one can leave one individuation field to enter ano ther,
where one can reach 'a zo ne of indet ermination , of indiscerni bilitv , as
if things, beasts , and persons . . . end lessly reach that point that
immed iately preced es th eir natural differentiation ' (W IP, 173) . Finally,
having reached the very being of th e sensible , th e artist mu st place
th ese percep ts and alTects in their o wn plan e , a plane of co mpos ition,
a bloc o r co m po und of se nsations wh ose 'o nly law of creation is that
the co mpo und mu st stand on its own' (W IP , 164 ) .
T hus, in a very lit eral sense , art is conce rned with making perceptible
the usuall y hidd en realm of th e intensive . Similarly, philosophy mu st
ma ke th e virtual intelligible. Philosophy must go beyond th e centres of
convergence wh ere th e lar val subjects of percepts and affect s und ergo
int en sive becomings, to reach th e virt ual in its full div ergen ce and
difference, its contin uo us or ' inse parable variations' (W IP, 126).
Philo so phy cannot perform this task via a se t of propositi on s whi ch
rifl er to the virtual, but rather, it must const ruct a th ou ght wh ich is
isomorphic with th e virt ual. T he re fore, any phil osophy mu st be co n-
struc te d out of th e three co m po ne nts of th e vir tual: multipli citi es,
qua si-causal ope rato r, and the co ntinuum . In WIP th ese three co mpo-
n .nts are referred to as 'conce pts', 'conce pt ual persona e ' , and ' plane
of immanence', respecti vely.
Th term ' concept ' do es not refer to a se mantic entity , that is, to
cone pts in th e ord inary sense, a se nse in which th ere would also be
s i mtific co nce pts (e .g. entropy) . Rather, it is defined as an entity
whi h wo uld be isomorphic with virtual multipliciti es.
[A concept is] a multiplicit y, an absolute su rface or volume [e .g . a
ma nifold I ... mad e up of a ce rtain number of inse par able inten sive
vari: tion s according to an orde r of neighborhood, and traversed by
a po int in a sta te of survey . (W IP, 32)
T o say that a co nce pt 'orders its co m pone nts by zo nes of neighbor-
hood ' ( W IP, 20) is to say that th e relation s it invo lves ar no nmetric
or o rdi nal. This re fers to the third sense o f 'i nte nsive' as defi ned
APPEND IX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
above , and to the definition of to po logical spaces in Chap ter I , and is
also ex pressed by saying that a concept 's co mponen ts are 'i nte nsive
ordinates' (WIP, 20) . Concepts, therefore, are not to be th ou ght of
sema ntica lly, bu t literally as sta te or phase spaces, th at is, as spaces of
possibili ties st ructure d by sing ularities and defined by th eir di me nsions
or intensive ord inates. As Deleu ze writes, 'Every co nce pt th erefore
has a phase space, altho ugh not in th e same way as in scie nce' (W IP,
25) . For ex am ple , th e Cartes ian co nce pt of ' the Cogito' wo uld be a
space w ith three d imen sion s (doubting, thi nkin g and being) each
divide d by singularities into phases (e .g. perceptual, scie ntific, ob ses-
sio nal doubting , as different phases of doubt, as oppose d to different
species of th e ge nus doubt) .
T he idea of a ' point in a state of survey' refers to an op eration of
the quasi-cause whi ch I did not describe in my recon structi on. Mu ch
as multipliciti es mu st be meshed together into a continuum whil e
preservi ng th eir dilTeren ces ('exo-consiste ncy'), so the heterogen eou s
components of a multiplicit y must th emsel ves be meshed by a ' po int
of abso lute survey' (W IP, 2 1) whi ch continuo usly traverses th em at
infinite speed ensuring th eir 'endo-consiste ncy' . Exo-consiste ncy is
ex plained in WIP in terms of r esonan ces between di vergent se ries:
Co nce pts whic h have only [endo-]con sisten cy o r inten sive ord inates
outside of any coord inates, fre ely ente r into relation ship s of non -
d iscursive r eson ance . .. Con cep ts ar e ce nte rs of vibratio ns, each in
itself and everyone in relat ion to all the othe rs . This is wh y th ey
all resonate rather than cohe re or corres po nd to each o the r . ..
T hey do form a wall, but it is a dry -ston e wall, and everyth ing
holds together only alon g diverging lines. ( W IP, 23)
T he qua si-cau sal ope rator behind th ese effects of endo- and exo-
co nsistency is referred to as a ' con ceptual persona ' . Thus, Deleuze
w rites: 'T he co nce pt ual persona is need ed to cre ate concepts on th e
plane , ju st as th e plan e need s to be laid out. But th ese two o pe ratio ns
do not merge in th e persona , w hich itsel f app ears as a distinct ope rato r'
(W IP, 76). Co nce pt ual person ae are endo we d with all the characte r-
istics of th e qu asi-cau 011 operato r. Mu ch as th latter mu st inject as
mu h hancc into th e d istribution ' of th singular and till' o rdi nary in
 APPEND IX : DELEUZE 'S WORDS
virt ual se ries, ' the persona esta blishes a corresponde nce between each
throw of th e dice and th e int en sive features of a co nce pt ... ' (W IP,
75 ) . And mu ch as th e ope rato r is said to ex trac t ideal eve nts fro m
what act ually occ urs (that is, to perform co unte r-actualizat ions o r
' counter-effectua tions'), in phil osophy 'i t is precisely th e conce ptual
persona w ho co unte r -effect uates th e event' (W [P, 76).
But w hy the term ' pe rso na'? A clue to the meaning of thi s
expre ssion may be glim pse d fro m some rem ark s in LO S. As [ have
just said , in th e circles of conve'8ence defined by pr e-actualized multi -
plicities an int en sive indi vidual develop s (larval subject) , an indi vidual
whi ch ex pre sses th e world whi ch conve' 8ent ser ies form. Similar ly, in
th e d ivergent series a ' virt ual person ' develop s, a person who ex presses
what is com m on to man y different worlds (LO S, 115 ). A more
eI tailed ex planation , however, emerges from a discu ssion in D&R .
Mu ch as a larval subject is born from percepts and affects whi ch do
no t refe r to psychological phen om ena, but ar e th e very bein g of th e
s msiblc, so personae are intimat ely co nnecte d with w hat co nstitutes
the very being of th e int elligibl e (D&R, 141 ). Differen ce in inten sity
is the being of the sensible (sentiendum') and sim ulta neously th at
whi ch cannot be sense d (by fully act ualized indi viduals) since it is
normally covere d by ex te ns ities and qu aliti es (D&R, 144). im ilarl y,
the being of the int ell igibl e (cogita nd um') is wh at can o nly be tho ught
and at th e same time that whi ch marks th e impossibilit y of th ough t
(again, im poss ibility from th e point of view of a fully actualized
think ' 1') , Hen ce the need to invent a conce ptual person a to capture
these cogitanda or ' thought-events', a persona who ' lives inte nse ly
within th e thinker and forces him to think ' (W IP, 70 ).
Fina lly, th ere is th e third co m pone nt : th e virtual co ntin uum itsel f
or the 'plane of im mane nce ' of a phil osophy. Thi s refers to th e
presu ppositions of a phil osophy, th e main o ne of whi ch is an assumed
' im: ge of th ou ght' (W IP, 37), in other w ords, a pre-con ceptual
int uitio n of w hat it is to think: 'E very phil osophy dep ends up on an
int uitio n that its co nce pts co nstantly develop through slight differen ces
flf intensity .. . ' (W IP, 40). O ne way of und erstanding what thi s
means is to think of the rel ation b tween co nce pts and th e plan e of
imma nc n l' as that be tween so lut ions and probl em s. As I d iscu ssed in
'hapu-r 4, problems ar not reelucibl ' to th ir so lutio ns bu t rath er arc
APPENDIX : DE LEUZE 'S WORDS
defined by th eir co nd itions : a give n distribution of th e singular and th e
ordinary , th e im po rta nt and th e unimportant. As suc h, pr obl em s ar e
inherently 'obsc ure ye t d istinct' and only acquire clarity in th e pr ocess
w hich progr essively specifics eac h of th eir so lutions . T he intuition
referred to above wo uld refer to th e gras ping of a pr oblem as such, as
d istin ct and obscure (as oppo ed to grasping an esse nce, or a clear and
distinc t idea) , an intuition whi ch can only reveal itse lf pro gressively as
co nce pts are create d as cases o f so lutio n :
If th e co nce pt is a solutio n, th e co nditions of th e phil osophi cal
problem ar e found on th e plane of immanen ce presupposed by th e
co nce pts . . . and th e unknowns of th e problem are found in the
conce ptual persona e that it calls up . . . Each of th ese three instances
is found in the others, but th ey ar e not of th e same kind, and th ey
coexist and subsist without one disapp earing int o th e othe r . . .
[T]he three acti viti es making up [th e phil osophical method] co ntinu-
o usly pass fro m one to th e othe r, sup po rt one another, so me times
pr eced e and sometimes foll ow each other, one creating co nce pts as
a case of solutio n , ano the r laying out a plane and a mo vement on
the plane as th e co nd itio ns of a prob lem , and th e othe r in venting a
persona as th e unknown of th e pr obl em . (W [P, 8 1)
In my recon struct ion of Deleu ze ' s onto logy I used as a guid ing
constraint th e avoid ance of th e categories of typological th ou ght:
resemblance, identity, analogy and co ntradictio n. But [ co uld have as
we ll said th at what guides thi s co nstruct ion is th e avo idance of th e
image of th ou ght impli ed by these categor ies: ' a natu ral capacity for
th ou gh t endo we d with a capaci ty for truth o r an affinit y with th e
tr ue ... ' (D&R , 131 ) . This im age whi ch, Dcl euze argues, haunts the
history of philosophy, has th e result of turning the plan e of immanen ce
int o a plane of transcenden ce, Or what amounts to th e same thing, to
trap philosophy within th e plan e of r eferen ce, linking it to linguistic
propositions whi ch are eithe r true of or false of th eir referents. This
manoeu ver, of co urse, closes th e road to th e virtual o r th e problematic.
[f, on th e co ntrary, th e image of th ou ght leads to a plan e of
im mane nce, th n phil osophy ' docs not co nsist in knowing and it is not
inspired by truth. Rath er it is categories like Int I' sting, Rem ark able ,
 APPENDIX : D E LEUZE 'S WORDS
o r Important that deter-min e success o r failure ' (W IP, 82 ). The image
o f t ho ught th at has thi s problematic e ffect is on e in whi ch thought is
horn from the violent shock of an encounter with pure intensiv e
difl ercn ces (being of th e sensible), a sho ck whi ch a philosopher may
th en be capab le of co m m un icating to his or her other faculties, leading
all th e way to pure virtual dilTeren ce s (being of th e int elligible) (D&R,
140).
T his is not th e pla ce to argue for or against thi s view of phil o sophy.
Whether o r not all phil osophical systems ma y ind eed be analysabl e in
te rms o f the three co mpo nents o f the virtual remain s an open question.
O n the o the r hand, I must take issue with the imagc of science which
WI!' d evelops, particularl y because my disagreement with it bears not
just on narro w ly scientific quest ions but on deep ontologica l matters .
Speci fically, my main divergen ce from Deleuzc 's ontology occurs at
th e level o f th e flat ontology of individuals. I m entioned above that I
b roke w ith Dclcuze 's terminol ogy by using the term 'individual' for
extended and qualified actual beings, while he reserves it for intensiv e
bei ngs (larv al subjec ts) . But the break is more than ju st terminologi cal.
Alt ho ug h a flat ontology meshes well with many o f Del cuze' s idea s
(his th eory o f actual tim e as a nest ed set of cycli c presents of different
durations, for example) , it is unclear to what extent he subscribed to
suc h a view . In p articu lar , in a flat ontology as I have developed here
th ere is no room for totaliti es, such as 'society' or 'science' in general.
But Dcl cu ze does not seem to mind such entities . For example , while
I would never speak o f a virtual multiplicity co rrespond ing to all of
society (i.c, a 'social Idea' or 'social multiplicity ' ) he does so without
hesitat ion (D &R , 186).
In the case of 'science ' as defined in WIP, that is, in term s of
functions working as discursive propositions, the problem is that the
image invoked is on e too clos e to that created by Anglo.American
philosophers of science of the first hal f of t he twentieth century. All
the examples o f ' func t ives" (the co mponents of functions) given in
\VIP co me from classical mechanics . No mention is made, for instance,
of the op erators o f quantum physics , which use functions themselves
as inputs ,1I1d o utputs . And, of co urse, the question o f what chemic al
o r biological function s arc is left most I)' unspecified . This amount s to
clt'flning scie nce as if its 'e ssen ce' was classical m echanics . Furthermore,
APPEN DIX ; DELEUZE'S WORDS
mu ch as o ld-scho ol anal yti cal phil osophers disregarded th e actual
mathematical models used by ph ysicists and focused excl usively on se t
theory, so Dcl euz e view s set theory as the too l which constitutes the
plan e of r eference of scien ce (WIP, 121). My analysis in Chapter 4- o f
classical me c hani cs (as an indi vidual field) broke with all this . It
preserved the idea that clas sical physics (as many other scie ntific field s)
is mostl y co ncerned with the plane o f reference (actual beings , metric
spaces) but it uses a very different co nce ption o f how referen ce (o r
the fix ing o f reference) is achi eved, pla cin g more e m phasis on caus al
interventions than on representati on s. Similarly for my treatment of
mathematical models, which are not redu ced to lingui stic entiti es
(func tio ns as propositions) hut tackled in th eir specificity.
On th e other hand , my ana lysis of classical physics meshes we ll with
Dclcuze's views on scien ce as d eveloped else where . The requirem ent
o f avo id ing th e categories of typological thought to prevent th e plane
fro m becoming a plane o f transcenden ce ma y also be e xpressed by
saying that we must avoid the ' classical im age of thought , and th e
st riating of mental spa ce it elTects' (AT P, 379) . Th e term ' striate d
space ' refers to a metri c space , while non metric spaces , 'vectorial,
proj ective, or topological' (AT!', 361 ) are referred to as ' smooth ' .
The transformation of thought itself into a metric space is not,
ho w ever, an internal affair of philosophy , but on the contrary, it's
directly linked to th e relations between individual phi losophers (e .g .
Hegel) and indi vidual State or Royal institution s. It is these intitutions
whi ch first st riate or metricize real space (e .g . agricultural lands, urban
areas), and later perform the same operation o n ment al spaces . The
opposite transform ation, to create a non metric space for thought is
pe rform ed by philosophers (e .g. Spin o za) wh o operate outs ide of th e
State .
A simi lar distin ction is made between scientific fields , or even
among the different practices (theoretical as opposed to expe rime ntal)
w ithin one field, We have. on one hand, 'Royal science ' (the science
of th e great Ro yal Societies o r Academies at th e se rv ice of th e Stat e),
and. o n the other, the 'min or sciences' o perating in less prestigious
surroundings. Roughly, the distinction is between scie ntific practices
which arc axiom atic o r theo remat ic , as o ppose d to problematic; that
0lll'ra l l~ within metr ic and exactly measurabl e spaces, as o ppose d to
 APPENDIX : D E L E U Z E ' S W O RD S
d >aling with anexact yet rigorous nonmetric on es; that focus on th e
simple behaviour of matter, as in ideal solids or gases, as opposed to
confronting th e com plex behaviour of liquid s (e .g. turbulence); and
that st ress constant and homogen eous laws, as opposed to becomings
and het erogeneiti es (AT P, 361 ) . My account of classical physics, whi ch
is clea rly at odds with th e Royal and legalisti c image whi ch that field
has of itself, ma y be see n as an account from th e point if view if min or
science. But for the same reason, it mak es the distincti on whi ch WIP
esta blishes between science and philo soph y pass right through th e
middle of science itself. Thi s, it seems to me, is the 'more Deleuzian '
approach to the subj ect.
Notes
TH E MATHEMATI C S OF TH E VIRTUAL:
MANI FOLDS, VECTOR FIELD S AND
TRANS FORMATION GROUPS
1. The term ' multiplicity' makes its first appearance, as far as 1 can tell , in
1966 in Dcleuze 's book on Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Berpsotiism (Zo ne Books,
New York, 1988), p. 39 . Its final appearance occurs in Deleuze' s last book
in collabo ratio n with Felix Guattari, Gilles Del euze and Felix Guattar i, What
Is Philosophy? (Co lumbia University Press, New York, 1994), p. 15.
2. Morris Kline, Mathematical Thouqh: fro m Ancient to Modern Times, Vol. 3
(O xford University Press, New York, 1972), p. 88 2. (My emphasis)
Making surfaces into spaces, by eliminating the supple mentary dim ension ,
allowe d the differentiation and study of different met ric geo me tries . As
Morri s Kline wri tes:
Thu s if the surface of the sphere is studied as a space in itself, it has
its own geo metry , and even if the familiar latitud e and longitude are
used as the coo rdinates of point s, the geo metr y of that surface is not
Euclidian ... How ever the geome try of the spherical surface is Euclidian
if it is regarded as a sur face in three-dim ensional space. (p. 888)
For the details on Gauss coordinatization pro cedu re, which is what
guarantees th is absence of a suppleme ntary dim ension or embedding space,
see Lawrence Sklar, Space, Time, and Space-Time (University of California
Press, Berk eley, 1977 ), pp. 27-42.
3. Kline, Mathematical Tboupbr, p . 890 .
4 . Gilles Deleuze, D!lJerence and Repetition (Co lumbia University Press, Ne w
York , 1994), p . 182. O n page 183, for example, he says: ' In all cases the
mult iplicity is intrinsically defined, with out externa l reference or recourse
to a uniform space in which it wo uld be subme rged .' See also Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, 1987 ), pp . 8-9 ,
Unity always operates in an empty dim ension supplem ntary to that of
the syste m co nsidered (ovc rcoding) . .. [But aJ multiplicity never allows
 r
NOT ES
itself to be overcode d, never has available a supp leme ntary dim en sion
over and above its number of lines, that is, over and above th e
multiplicit y of numbers attached to those lines.
.5 . Deleuze and Guattari, II Thousand Plateaus, p . 266 . Th e rem ark qu oted is
made abo ut th e ' plane of co nsiste ncy ' not abo ut multipliciti es. But th e
fo rm er is nothing but th e space formed by th e multipliciti es th emselves , as I
will exp lain in detail in th e next chapte r .
6. Wh en Dcl eu ze defin es his multipliciti es he always see ms to be referring to
manifolds whose dimensions are used to represent degrees of freedom (o r
indep endent variabl es) of some dynamic, and not to manifolds as mere
geo me tric objec ts . Thus, in his first introducti on of th e term he says,
Riem ann defined as 'm ultiplicities ' th ose things that co uld be det ermined
by th eir dimen sion s or their ind ependent variables. He distinguished
between discr ete multiplicities and co ntinuo us multipliciti es. Th e former
co ntain the principle of th eir ow n metrics . . . Th e latter found a m etrical
principle in some th ing else , eve n if onl y in ph en om en a unfolding in th em
o r in th e forces acting in th em. (Bcrasonism , p. 39)
And else w here he says, using th e word ' Ide a' to refer to co nc re te univ ersals
or m ultiplicities as r epla cem ents for esse nces ,
An Idea is an n-dimen sional , co ntin uo us, defin ed multiplicit y. Colour -
o r rath er, th e Idea of colour - is a three dim en sional multiplicit y. By
dim en sion s, we mean th e variables or coo rdinates up on whi ch a phen om-
eno n dep ends; by co ntin uity , we mean th e set of relations between
changes in th ese variables . . . by definition, we mean th e elements
reci procally det ermined by th ese relati on s, ele me nts w hich canno t change
unless the multiplicit y changes its o rder and its metric. ( D!iJerencc and
Repetition , p. 182)
7 . I ta ke th is r ath er Sim plified description fro m Ian Stewart. Does God Play Dice?
The Mat hematics if Chaos (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989), Chapter 6 .
H. Loo king for rel ation ship s between th e d iffere nt solution cur ves [i.e .
tra jectories ] of th e same d ifferential eq uation, Poin car e began with a local
analysis and exami ned th e beha vior of th ese curves in th e neighb orhood
o r a singular point . . . He sho we d that there were four possible different
ty pes o r singular points and classified th em by th e beh avior of th e nearby
so lutio n cu rves: nccuds (no des), throu gh whi ch an infinite number of
sol utio n curves pass; eols (sadd le points), th rough whi ch o nly tw o so lutio n
curves pass ... .foyers (fo i) , w hich th e so lution curves approach in th e
NOTES
manner of a logarithmic spiral; and centres (ce nte rs), aro und whi ch th e
so lutio n curves are closed, envelo ping o ne another. Having used direct
algebraic co m putat ion to sho w th at th ese four ty pes necessaril y e xist, he
studied th eir distribution. He found that in the ge ne ral case o nly three
ty pes pr evailed - nod es, sadd le points and foci - with cen te rs arising in
only exceptio nal circ umstances. (June Barrow-Green , Poin care and th e
Three Body Problem [American Mathematical Societ y, 1997J, p. 32)
Rou ghl y, we can say that Poin car e disco ver ed not only the existence of ce rta in
recurrent ' to po logical for ms' whi ch ar e bound to app ear in a large class of
differ ent ph ysical models, but also that some of th ese forms ar e 'more
gene r ic' th an othe rs, that is, th at if we study the distributio n of sing ularities
in many different m odels some of them (ce nte rs) are less likely to occu r
than oth ers. See also discussion of th e term 'gene ric' , a technical term
whose meaning is still evolving , in Ralph Abraha m and Chr isto phe r Shaw ,
Dynamics: The Geometry if Beha vior, Vol. Three (Aerial Pr ess, Santa Cruz,
198.5), 1'1'. 19-34.
9. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Platea us, p. 40 8.
10. 'To rever se Plat oni sm ' , as Del eu ze says, we need ' firs t and for em ost to
rem ove esse nces and to substi tute events in th eir pla ce, as jet s of singu lari-
ties' (Gilles Del euze , Loqi c c1 Sense [Columbia Uni versity Pr ess, New York,
1990], p. 53) .
11. Speaking of the image of the light of reason (or of rationalit y as a faculty
capable of graspin g the esse ntial truth of thin gs) Deleu ze says,
Th e very co nce ption of a natural light is inseparable from a ce r tain value
supposed ly attache d to th e Idea - namely, 'clarity and distinctness' ...
Th e restitution of the Idea in the doctrine of th e faculties requires th e
explosion of the clear and di stin ct , and th e discovery of a Dion ysian value
according to whi ch th e Idea is necessarily obscure in so fa r as it is distinct, all
th e more obscure th e more it is distinct . ' (Em phasis in th e original;
Gill es Deleu ze , D!iJerence and Repetition , p . 146)
Th e term 'Id ea ' here refers to multipliciti es, and th e fact th at Del euz e uses
th at Platoni c term shows he mean s to r epla ce esse nces with multipliciti es,
Ideas ar e by no means esse nces . In so far as problem s ar e th e obj ect of
Ideas, probl em s belon g on th e side of events, affecti on s, or accidents,
rather than o f theorematic essences . . . Co nseque ntly th e domain of
Ideas is that of th e inessential. (I" 187 )
12 . Self-ass mhl y during [th e ear ly stagcs of) em bryo nic de velopment is not
medi at ed by direct ge ne int erv ention . Wh en all the tran scriptions have
 NOTES
been prevented [thro ugh the use of an inhibitor] th e regular cleavage
patt ern s are re tained. How ever, the polarity of molecular organizatio n of
both th e egg's cyto plasm and its nucle us ... are esse ntial for normal
development. Hence th e main features of [earl y] embryogenesis - ce ll
differ entiation, indu cti on, det ermination o f pattern form ation - all ste m
from th e ooge netica lly originated, spatial distribution of pr eformed
informatio nal macr om olecules. Th e initial conditio n of embryogenesis is
ooge nesis. Th e epigene tic.~ of emb ryo nic development is built on th e
to po logical self-organization and orienta tion of macromolecules of th e
tota l egg. (Vladimir Glisin , ' Molecular BioloBJ in EmbryoloBJ. The Sea Urchin
Embryo", in Se!f-0rsanizins Systems. The Emerpence eif Order, ed . Euge ne
Yates [Plenum , Ne w York 1987], p . 163)
T he term 'oogenesis' refer s to th e pro cess which creates th e egg in th e first
place .
13. Joe Rosen, Symmetl)' in Science (Springe r- Verlag, Ne w York, 1995), Chapter
2.
Besides clos ure, a collec tion of enti ties togeth er with a rul e of comb i-
nation nee ds to display associativity, and possession of identity and inver se
elements. The set of positive integers (including zero, and using addition as
a comb ination rul e) displays associativit y because the res ult of adding two
numbe rs first, and the n addi ng a th ird one is the same as that of adding th e
first to what results from adding the last tw o. It also conta ins an ' ide ntity
cle me nt' , th at is, an eleme nt whi ch added to any othe r leaves th e latt er
unchanged (in this case th e identity elem ent is the number zero) . But it fails
to be a gro up because it lacks inver se eleme nts , th ose which wh en compose d
with certain othe rs yield th e identity eleme nt. For instance , the number
'-3' when co mposed with the number '+ 3' does yield zero (w hich is th e
identity eleme nt) but '-3' is not part of the set of positive integer s. Thus,
for the integers to for m a gro up we mu st also include negati ve numbers in
the set.
14. T his dyna mic aspect of sym me try- based classificati ons is obscure d in standard
presentatio ns of th e subject by th e fact that th e emphasis is not placed on
the t ransfor matio n as an event , but on its input and output. That is, the
t ransformatio n is a pro cess but all that matter s math ematically is the init ial
and final states of th e object transformed. See Ian Ste wart and Martin
Go lubits ky, Fea1ul Symmetry (Blackwe ll, Ox ford , 1992), PI" 32-3.
15. JIM, p. 97.
Besid s assuming ideal solids and gases, th is illustra tion of br oken
s)"lnn1l'try assumes that the gas containe r and the crysta l latti care infinit
ill all direct ion s. T he use of an 'obs rve r' to define invar iancc is just a
NOTES
convenience. The subjective po int of view can , in fact , be avoided. See Joe
Rosen , S)'mmetl)' in Science, PI" 173- 4 .
16 . Ste wart and Go lub itsky, Fea1ul Symmetl)', Chapter 7 .
17 . Ralph Abraham and Christo pher Shaw , ' Dyna mics: A Visual Int rodu ction ' ,
in Se!f-Orsanizing Systems, ed. Yates, p. 576.
18. Stewart and Go lubits ky, Fea1ul Symmeuv, Chapte r 5. See also , Gr egoire
Nicolis and lIya Prigogine , Exp/orins Complexity (W. H . Free man, Ne w York
1989), pp . 12-1 5.
19. Brian C. Goo dwin, 'The Evolutio n of Ge neric Forms', in Orsanizational
Constraints on the Dynamics eif Evolution, ed. J. Maynard Smith and G. Vida
(Mancheste r Un iver sity Press, Manchester 1990), PI" 11 3- 14 .
20 . Dele uze, Difference and Repetition , p. 187 .
Altho ugh Deleuze does not ex plicitly use the term 'symme try- brea king
cascade ', he docs refer to an 'e mbedding of gro ups' (p. 180) pr ecisely in
th e contex t of explaining how a multiplicity may be pr ogr essively det er -
mined . Unfortun ately, his bri ef discussion of gro ups uses a very obscure
aspect of Galo is's meth od , th e originato r of group theory, called th e
'ad junction of fields'. Th e two formulations are, nevertheless, equivalent,
fields of nu mber s and groups being tw o related ninet eenth-cen tury abst ract
objects. An algebraic pr obl em , specified pro gressively as its field is com-
pleted by successive adjunctions, is the eq uivalent of an abstract smooth
space being specifie d by a progr essive series of br oken symme tries, yielding
increasingly mor e differe ntiate d, more striate d spaces . Deleuze 's discussion
of Galois is correct techni cally, but it is not as clea r and intuitive as th e
equivalent formulation in terms of 'embedding of !,TfOUps' . Hen ce in this
reconstructi on I will stick with the clearer alte rnati ve. But wheth er one uses
fields or groups, it is clea r that so me form of prosressil'e differentia tion is a key
compo nent of the concept of a Deleuzian multiplicity.
2I. What distingui shes a pace as opposed to a mere set of poi nts is some
co nce pt that binds th e points togeth er . Th us in Euclidea n space the
distance between points tells how close points are to each othe r . . . As
Frechet [a pion eer in th e development of topol ogy] pointed out, the
bind ing pr op er ty need not be the Euclidea n distance functi on . In
particular he gene ralized the noti on of distan ce by int roducing th e class
of metric spaces. In a metric space, which can be a tw o-dim ensional
Euclidean space, one speaks of the neighborhood of a point and means all
those points whose distance fro m th e point is less than some quantit y
. . . How ever , it is also possi ble to suppose th at the neighb orh oods,
certain subse ts of a gh'en set of poin ts, are speci fied in so me way, even
without the introduction ~f a metric. uch spaccs are said to have a
 NOTE S
neighb orhood topology. (Mo r ris Kline , Math emat ical Thouqh t ; p . 1160;
m y em phasis)
1 will use th e term ' me tric space' and 'no nmetric space' throughout th is
book in the sense in wh ich th ey are defi ne d in th is q uo te but 1 will take
so me liberties. I will spe ak of top ol ogical spaces , for exam ple, as th e ' least
metric ' and of Euclid ean as th e 'most metric' , even th ou gh it would be
more techni call y co rrec t to differentiate fla tures if spaces that do or do not
depend on an)' strictly metric property.
22. Dcl cuze usuall y spe aks (foll ow ing Bergson ) o f tw o d ifferent t)'p es of multi-
pliciti es, metric and nonmetric, whi ch he calls ' striated' and 's mo oth'. For
th e purposes of en suring th e co r re ct int erpretation of Delcu ze 's position
her e it would have been ver y useful if he had e ver discussed Felix Klein ' s
work, thereb y clarifying th e relations between the metric and the nonmetric
as one of group inclusion . Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, Dcl euz e never
discuss es Klein . On th e oth er hand, Del euze is perfectly aware of th e
ex iste nce of several nonmetric geo me t ries and uses a sinnle term (' smooth
space ') to refer to all of th em:
It is the difference between a smooth (vectorial , projecti ve, or topolonical )
space and a striated (metriC) spa ce: in th e first case 's pace is occupied
without co unting' and in th e second case 's pace is counte d in orde r to be
occupied'. (De lcuze and Guattari , A Thousand Plateaus, P: 361 ; my
e m phasis)
T he definitions given in th e extract are his own , but ar e linked to th e
more orthodox definitions. A metric space is co unted in order to be
occupied in th e sense in which sede ntary cultures divide th e land int o
measured (o r counte d) plots in o rde r to inhabit it:
Good sense is . .. agricultural , inseparable from th e agrarian problem,
th e establishme nt of e nclosure s, and the dealings of middle classes th e
part s of whi ch are supposed to balan ce and to regulate on e another. Th e
ste am eng ine and livestock , but also properties and classes, ar e th e living
source s of good sense , not onl y as facts that spring up at a particular
peri od, but as ete rn al ar chetypes. (D eleuze, Loqi c if Sense, p. 76 )
T o the sede ntary way of metricizing space, of dealing with it as esse ntially
e xte nsive, Dcleu z opposes an int ensiv e way of oc up ying space th e way a
liquid do cs, that is, occupying it without Jividing it o r co unting it. Thi s
alternative h· calls a ' no m ad ic d istribution ' . Th e distin cti on bctwc n scdcnt-
.lTV
, .md nomad ic di stribution s is first mad , in DilJ;'rence
. and Repetit ion ,
NOTES
pp . 36 -7, in relation to qu estions of typolog ical thinking, but is taken
furth er in an actual co m pariso n of nomad and sede nta ry cult ures
. . . eve n thou gh th e nomadic traj ect ory may foll ow trails o r customary
ro utes , it do es not fulfill th e function of the sede ntary ro ad, wh ich is to
parcel out a closed spaee to people, assigning each person a share and
regulating th e com m unication between shares . Th e nomadic traj ect ory
does th e opposit e : it distributes people (or anima ls) in an open space .. .
sede ntary space is striate d [i.e. metricized], by walls , enclosures and
roads between enclosures, whil e nomadic space is smo oth [i.c. non-
metric], marked on ly by 'traits' that ar e effaced and displa ced with th e
traj ect ory. (De lcuzc and Guattari , II Thousand Plateaus, p . 380; emphasis
in th e original)
23. Morris Klin e, Math emat ical Tboupht, p. 917 .
24. David A. Brannan, Matthew F. Esplen, Jerem y J. Gra y, Geometry (Cambridge
University Pre ss, Cambridge, 1999 ), p. 364.
25. This way of describing the subject oversimplifies things so me w hat. First of
all , th e actual relati on s between the different geo me tr ies ar e more co mplex
than the Simp lified hierarchy 'topological-differential-projective-affme-
Euclide an geome tries' ma y sugges t. For th e detail s of Klein ' s orig inal
classificati on see ibid., P: 919 .
My friend the math ematician Andreas Dress (pe rso nal co m m unica tion)
sum marizes Klein ' s programme (called th e Erlange r Pro gram) like thi s,
Th e Erlanger Program by Felix Klein is based on the fact that dep ending
o n whi ch (bijective) transformations yo u need to deal with (isome trics
keeping distances invariant , similarities scaling all distan ces by th e same
fact or and, hen ce, keeping rati os of distances in variant, affine maps
keeping rati os of distances of points on parallel lines invariant, proj ectiv-
ities keeping cro ss-ratio s of distan ces invariant , differential transforma-
tion s resp ecting infinitesimal straightness, hom eomorphism s respecting
nothing but infinit esimal clo sen ess) , it always makes sense to ask ( 1)
whi ch features of configurations within th e space of int erest do remain
in variant , and (2) wh ether a basic famil y of such features can be found so
that every othe r suc h feature can be expressed as a function of those basic
ones.
26 . Morris Klin " Math ematical Thouqlu , p . 9 21 . Th er e ar e imp ortant exce ptions
to thi s state me nt. Some mathematicians, like Riemann him self, but also
\ illi: m ' IilTord, did see an o llto logica l co nnec tion between th e metric and
 N OTES
no nme t:ric prop erties of spaces. As one historian of twentieth-century physics
writes,
[Riemann I asserted that space in itse lf was nothing more than a three -
dim ensi onal mani fold devo id of all form: it acquire d a definit e form o nly
through th e mat erial co nte nt filling it and det ermining its m etric relations
. . . Riemann' s anti cipation of such a dep end en ce of th e metric on
physical data later provided a justifi cati on for avoiding th e noti on of
absolute space wh ose metric is ind ep end ent of physical forces . For
example , more than sixty years later, Einstein took Riemann ' s em pirical
co nce ptio n of geome try using it as an important justificati on for his
gene ral theory of relati vity.
(Tia n Yu Cao, Conceptua l Development if Twenti eth -Century Field Th eories
[Camb rid ge Univ ersity Press, Cambridge, 1997], P: 373)
27 . Gordo n Van W ylen, Th ermodynami cs (j ohn Wil ey & ons, New York , 1963) ,
P: 16 .
28 . Wh at is the significance of these ind ivisible distances that are ce aseless ly
transformed and cannot be divid ed or transformed without th eir eleme nts
changing in nature each time? Is it not th e int en sive characte r of this type
of multiplicit y' s elem ents and the relati ons betw een th em ? Exact ly like a
spee d or a temperature, which is not co m pose d of oth er speeds or
te m perat ures , but rath er is envelo ped in o r envelops othe rs , eac h of
which marks a change in nature. T he metrical principl e of these
multipliciti es is not to be found in a homogen eous mili eu but resid es
elsewhere , in forces at work within them , in physical phen om en a
inhabiting th em . . . (De leuze and Guattari , A Thousand Plateaus,
pp . 3 1-3)
T he term 'd istance' is used as if it was a nonmetr ic prop erty, th ou gh in its
usual meanin g it certainly den ot es something metric. Deleu ze takes this
specia l inte nsive mean ing of ' distance' fro m Bertrand Russell as I will discuss
in de tail later in the next chapte r . O n dist an ces as int ensive magnitudes, or
as 'i ndivisible asymme tr ical relations' see Deleu ze, Difference and Repet it ion,
p. 237 . Deleuze does not ex plicitly give phase transitions as exa m ples of
'c hanges in kind ' . But one of the very few illustrati on s he does give is ind eed
a symmet ry-brea king transiti on , 'For exa mple , one can divide mo vem ent
into the gallo p, tro t, and walk , but in such a way that what is di vided
changes in natu re at each moment of th e di vision ... ' (Dc lcuzc and
C uauari, /1 Thausatul Plat eaus, p. 483).
NOTES
O n phase transition s in animal movem ent as broken symme tries see,
Ste wart and Golubitsky, FeOIjul Sy mmetry, Chapte r 8.
29 . Cao, Conceptual Developm ent ,?! Twentiet h-Ce ntu rJ Field Theories, p. 283.
30. Th e essen tial idea of grand unified theo ries . .. [is] the ge ne ral form of
hierarch ical symme try br eakin g : an und erl ying large gauge sym me try of
all int era cti on s is brok en do wn in a success ion of ste ps, giving a hierar chy
of br ok en symme tr ies . (ibid., p. 328 )
31. It is beyond th e sco pe of this chapter to analyse Einste in's use of differential
mani fold s in technical detail. But I sho uld at least mention the way in whi ch
his usage differs from that of Del eu ze. In Einste in's theory a gravitatio nal
field const it utes th e metr ic struc t ure of a fo ur-dimensional mani fold
(spacetime), and to thi s exte nt, th e metric properties of space (rathe r,
space time) are ind eed connected to th e physical pro cesses wh ich occ ur
within it. However, as th e philosoph er of scie nce Lawre nce Sklar reminds
us, despit e the fact that Einste in's field eq uation does rel ate th e metric of a
manifold to the distribution of mass and ene rgy, the relation between th e
two is not ge net ic: the m etric is not caused by the mass-energy distribution ,
it is o nly associat ed with it in a lawlik e way. ee Sklar, Space. Tim e, and
Space-Time, pp . 50- I .
32. Th e mo ve aw ay fro m metamath em ati cs (set th eory) and back to th e actual
mathem atics used by scientists was initiated by th e philosopher Patrick
Suppes . Yet the cre dit for the introducti on of state space into mod ern
analytica l philosoph y, as we ll as the cr ed it for em phasizing physical mod alit y
in th e analysis of that space , goes to ano the r philosoph er, Bas Van Fraasen .
See Bas Van Fraasen , l.aws and Symmetry (C lare ndo n Press, O xford , 1989) ,
Chapte r 9.
33. Ralph Abrah am and Chris to phe r Shaw, Dynam ics: Th e Geometry cd' Beha vior,
Vol. 1 (Aerial Press, Santa Cr uz, 1985 ), pp. 20 - 1. My description is merely
a par aphrase of the foll OWing description :
Th e modeling pro cess begin s with th e cho ice of a particular state space
in which to represent the syste m. Prol on ged o bservations lead to man y
tr ajectories within the state space. At any poin t on any of th ese curves, a
veloci ty "ecto r may be deri ved [using the differentiati on operato r ]. It is
useful in descr ibing an inh er ent tenden cy of the syste m to mo ve with a
habitu al velocity, at part icular po ints in the state space. Th e prescription
of a veloc ity vect or at each point in th e state space is called a velocity
vector .fielJ. T he sta te space , filled with trajectories, is called the phase
p"r/mit of till' d -narn ical syste m. T he velocity vecto r field has been
 NOTES
derived from the phase portrait by d!fTerentiation . . . Th e phrase dyruunical
Sj'stem will specifically denote thi s vector field . (Em phasis in the original)
l4. Albe rt Lautman, qu oted in Gilles Deleuz e, Loqic if Sense (Columbia Univ er-
sity Press, ew York , 1990) p. 345. (My em phasis)
Lautman 's Le Probleme du Temps (fro m which thi s ext ract is tak en ) and
'Essai sur Ie otion de tructure et d ' Existence en Math ematiques', are
Dclcuz c 's main so urce s on th e ontological anal ysis of stat e space. Del eu ze
paraphrases Lautrnan 's description in other books, but given the ce ntrality
of these ideas in his work 1 pr efer to qu ot e Lautrnan ' s own words.
15. Abraham and Shaw, Dynamics: Th e Geomeuy if Beha vior, pp. 35-6.
36. Nicolls and Prigogine, Explorina Complexitv; pp. 65-71 .
n . Abraham and Shaw, Dynamics: The Geomet ry if Behavior, pp . 37-41.
38. Abraham and Shaw, Dynamics: A Visual Introduction, p. 562.
~9 . Deleuze, D!lJerence and Repetition, pp. 208-9. (Emphasis in th e original. )
Deleuz e borrows the ontological distinction of the actual and the virtual
fr om Bergson . See Del euze, Berpsonism, pp . 96 -7.
40. Willard Van Orman Quine , quoted in Nicholas Rescher, 'The Ontology of
th e Possibl e', in The Possible and the Actual, ed . Michael J. Loux (Cornell
Universit y Press, Ith aca , 1979), p . 177.
41 . For a bri ef account of th e recent history of modal logic, see Michael J.
Loux , ' Introd uction: Modality and Metaphysics', in Loux, Th e Possible and th e
Actual, pp . 15-28 .
4 2. Ronald N. Giere, 'Constructi ve Realism ' , in lmap es if Science. Essays an
Real ism and Empiri cism with a Reply by Bas C. Van Fraasen, cds . Paul M.
Churchland and Clifford A. Hook er (University of Chicago Press, 1985),
p. 84 .
4 1. Bas Van Fraasen, Laws and Symmetry', p . 223. Van Fraasen discusses the tw o
standard typ es of laws, law s of succe ssion (which gov ern th e evolution of
trajectories, and are exe m plified by Newton' s laws ) and laws of coe xiste nce
(which restri ct position in state space, and are illu strated by Boyle 's law for
ideal gases) .
44 . Exactly mat ching initial co nditions in the laboratory and th e model is not
possible, so we normally deal with bundles ?f traj ectories in state space. Th e
statistical distribution of a small population of initial state s in the model is
mad e to mat ch that of the erro rs which th e exper imente r may have mad e in
pr ' paring the real syste m in a parti .ular initial condition. In what follow s
thi s point will not mak e mu ch differen ce so I stick to the sim pler case of a
single tr ajectory.
4S . t ;i(,rt, rgues that th e regularities exhibited by the possible histories reveal
'om, thin g about th e w USCl I reqularitles in the real ph)'Sical s 'sl .m :
NO TE S
For th e modal realist, th e causal stru ct ure of the model, and thu s, to
some de gr ee of appro ximation , of the real syste m, is identical with th e
modal structure. For any real syste m , the functional relation ship among
the actu al values of [the degr ees of freed om] are causal not because they
hold am on g th e actua l values in all such real syste ms but becau se th ey
hold for all possible values of thi s particular syste m . (Consrrucrrre Realism ,
p. 84; em phasis in the original)
See also Ronald N . Giere , Explaintnq Science. A Coanitil'e App roach ( Unive r-
sity of Chicago Pr ess, 1988), Chapte r 4. Gier e is, in this case , wrong. Stat e
space, as I will argue in Chapter 4 , provides no causal information about th e
modelled processes.
46 . One's attitude towards modalities has a profound effect on one's whole
theory of scien ce . Actualists . . . must hold that th e aim of scienc e is to
describe the actual history of the world . For [modal realists I . . . th e aim
is to describe the structure of physical possibilit y (o r propensity) and
necessity . Th e actual history is just that one possibilit y that happ en ed to
be realiz ed .. . (Giere , Constructi ve Realism, p. 84)
47. Deleuz e, Loaic if Sense, p . 54.
48. Considering that Deleuz e ' s analysis hinges on the differen ce between the
differ entiation and int egration operators of th e calculus, it will be necessary
to remove on e traditional obj ection to the very idea of giving an ontological
dime nsio n to th ese o perato rs. Thi s o bjectio n is that th e o utput of the
differentiation op erator (instantaneo us rates of change or infinit esimals)
cannot be thought of as anything but mathematical fictions . ot to do so has
led in th e past to man y ste ri le specu lat ions and co ntroversy . However,
alth ough a vector field is ind eed com posed of man y of these instantaneous
rates of change, what matters to us here arc not th e 'instants' themselves,
tak en on e at a tim e, but th e topoloqical in variants which those instants displa y
collect ively , that is, th e singularities of th e field .
49 . Ste phe n G . Eubank and J. Doyne Farmer, ' Intr oduction to Dynamical
ystems ' , in Intr oducti on to Nonlinear Physics, ed . Lui Lam (Springer-Verlag,
New York, 1997), p. 76.
50. Abraham and Shaw , Dynamics: The Geometry if Behavior, pp. 7- 11.
51. Attractors ar e ind eed defined as a 'limit se t ' with an op en inset (its basin).
But th e word 'limit' in the definiti on mak es all the differen ce in the world ,
since it refers pr ecisely to the tendenci es of traj ectories to approach th e
att rac to r in th e limit. See ibid. , p. 44.
S2. 'Intuitively, according 10 Russell, a syste m is det erminist ic e xactly if its
 N O TES
pr eviou s stat es det ermine its later states in the exact sense in whi ch th e
argum ents of a function det ermine its values. (Van Fraasen, Laws and
Symmetl)' , p. 251)
See Van Fraasen 's discussion o f the relation between the modal category
of physical necessity and deterministic laws in Chapters 3 and 4 of Laws and
Symmetry :
53. Nicolis and Prigogine, Explorinq Comple xity, p. 14. (Emphasis in th e original. )
54. For example , the way Del euze approaches the qu estion of necessity is by
splitt ing the causal link : on on e hand , processes of individuation are defined
as seque nces of causes (every effect will be th e cause of yet anoth er effect)
whil e singularitie s become pure incorporeal ifJeas of tho se serie s of causes; on
the oth er hand, these pure effects are view ed as having a quasi-causal capacity
to affect causal processes. By splitting causality this way, Dcl eu ze manag es
to separate the det erminism which links causes to causes, from strict
necessity . See Lopic t?f Sense, p. 169 .
Deleuz e uses the word 'de te rm inism' as synonym ou s with ' necess ity',
and uses the word ' des tiny' instead for the modified link between causes . I
keep the word ' de te r minism' to avoid introdu cing neologisms, but empha-
size the br eak with strict necessity. Anoth er way of expres sing Delcuzc ' s
conce pt ualization of this modality is from D!lJerence and Repetition , p. 83,
Destin y never consists in ste p- by-ste p deterministic relation s between
pr esents which succee d on e another . . . Rath er, it impli es between
successive presents non-localizable connections , actions at a distance, systems
of replay, resonances and echoe s . . . which transcend spatial locations
and temporal succession s.' (My em phasis)
Th e idea of 'non-localizable connec tions' is th e key conce pt her e and can
be und er stood by refer ence to convec tion cells. Whil e th e causal int era ction s
between th e cell's compo nents ar e localizable collisions (billiard- ball style
causality) , th e source of cohere nce in th e flow pattern (the periodic attractor)
is, indeed, nowher e specifically in space or tim e. Th e attractor establishes
co nnec tions (e lse th er e would be no coheren ce in th e flow) but not
localizable one s.
')5. Willard Van Orman Quine , ' Refere nce and Modality', in From a Loqical Point
'!f' Viell' (Harpe r & Row , New York, 1965 ) , p. 155. Even though most
mod al analyses deal with purely lingui stic phenomena, such as counte r factual
sente nces , th e mom ent one approaches such sente nces as referring to th e
real world (tec hnically, th e mom ent we quantify over possible entities) we
arqu ir« an onto logical commitme nt to the existence of ess mces. In othe r
NO T ES
words, we comm it ourselves to affirm that objects possess some of th eir
pr op erties necessaril y whil e other s only contingently .
56. Th e first option (ensuring transworld identity through particular essences or
hacceiti es) is exemp lified by Alvin Plantin ga, 'Transworld Identity or
Worldbound Individu als?', in Loux, The Possible and th e Actual, pp. 154-7 .
Th e seco nd option (co unte rparts linked through gene ral essences) is
illustrated by David Lewi s, ' Counte rpart Th eory and Quantified Modal
Logic', in The Possible and th e Actua l, pp. 117- 21.
57. Delcu ze , D!lJerence and Repetit ion , pp . 211- 12. See also Deleuzc , Berqsonism,
p. 97 . Deleuze does not, in fact , refer to the virtual as a physical modality,
but the fact that he explicitly contrasts virtua lity and possibilit y (following
Bergson ' s lead ) do es indicate that he is thinking in modal terms.
58. I take thi s description of Arist otelian philos oph y from Elliot Sober, The
Natu re t?f Selection (MIT Pr ess, Cambridge , 1987), pp. 156-6 I .
59 . Deleuzc, Difference and Repetiti on, p. 29. To avoid falling pr ey to th e dang ers
of representationalism (or as I call it typol ogical thinking) Deleuze follow s
Michel Foucault 's anal ysis of classical representation, wh ich according to the
latter forms an episte mo logical space with four dim en. ion s or ' degrees of
freedom ' : identity, resemblance, analogy and opposition, P: 262 .
For a discussion of thi s aspect of Fou cault 's thought from th e point of
view of an analytical philosoph er see Gar y Gutting , Michel Foucault 's Archae-
oloBY rif Scientific Reason (Cambridge Univer sity Press, 1993 ), Chapter 4 .
In what follows I Simply tak e the idea that th er e are recurrent features in
th ese classificatory pra ctices (rese mblance, identity, etc .) but not that these
form a global entity called an 'e piste me' . I do not beli eve such global entities
or totalities exist as will becom e clear in th e follo wi ng chapte rs.
60 . 'The first formula po sits resemblance as th e condition of differ en ce . It
ther efore und oubtedl y demands th e possibilit y of an identical conce pt for
the tw o thin gs that differ on condit ion that th ey are alike . . . According
to th e other formula, by contrast, resemblance, identity, analogy and
opposition can no longer be conside re d anyth ing but effects of a primary
differ en ce or a primary system of differ en ces . (Dc lcuzc , D!fJerence and
Repetiti on, p. 1 17)
Dclcuze, in fact , does not speak of 'c onstraints guiding a construct ive
proj ect ' . He rath er affirm s his desire for cre ating a ph ilosophy '!f' difference,
and then denoun ces th e categ ories o f typological or represent ational thinking
as obstacles to reaching that goa l. Th e differences he has in mind are not th e
e u crn al diffe rences between thinq« that are part and parccl of classificatory
pract ices, bUI productive differcnces perhaps best illustra ted by inccmil'e