Deleuze and Guattari, ‘What Is a Concept?’ notes
If you’re struggling, drawing a diagram might help
Deleuze G and Guattari F (1994) What Is Philosophy? (Tomlinson H and Burchell G trans), Columbia University Press, New York, USA.
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Concepts are multiplicities, with multiple components, but no concept has every component. The concept’s contour is determined by its components. Each component is caught up within relations with other components, making the concept fragmentary, but this determination of the contour means that (whilst remaining fragmentary) the concept is whole, that is, never lacking
If we consider the problem of plural subjects, their positions and relations with one another, we end up with components whereby the other person is either presented as an object perceived by me, or as a subject perceiving me as an object. When we consider the problem of what it is to be in the position of an object perceived by a subject, the components all change (since the problem is of the nature of the position of object, the other person — the person within whom the subject-object relation exists — ceases to be a component). As such, it is evident that the problems considered determine the components, and so determine the concepts produced. The concept is that within which a given set of components make sense
They give an example of a concept of the other that does not require any “self” to enter the discussion: a world exists that is peaceful, and a face comes up, a face that is terrified and is looking at something not in this (hypothetical) world; the face is a component, which in expressing terror implies the possibility of an other world (a second component). The word “I”, they note, only serves to indicate the possible existence of an other world internal to a subject. They switch the example suddenly, and give instead the example of China. If we simply say the word “China” we have given the possible existence of a world (called China). If, however, we speak Chinese, or speak about an experience of China, this China has become real (without any subject needing to visit it). The implicit claim is that, similarly, to speak about a part of the “I” or to describe an experience within the “I” is to make the possible “I” real. The face that expresses terror (component one) posits a possible other world (component two), which becomes real when the face says “I am terrified” (component three, the speech that makes it real). These three components form the concept of the other as ‘a possible world as it exists in a face that expresses it and takes shape in a language that gives it a reality’ (1994:17)
Every concept has a history, which in forming the concept takes components from other concepts, without ever being exactly the same as them
Concepts can belong to the same plane. In that case, they interact with each other, share components, link in various ways, etc., even with different histories, and form part of the same philosophy. Just as a concept needs a problem to reshape old components, so too does a concept, redistributing its components, always lead to another concept
In turn, each component can be its own concept. Even though components are distinct (remember, the concept is fragmentary), they have areas of overlap and so are inseparable, making the concept consistent and internally cohesive despite its fragmentation: ‘For example, in the concept of the other person, the possible world does not exist outside the face that expresses it, although it is distinguished from it as expressed and expression’ (1994:19). Within these zones components become indiscernible, something passes between them, while the concept is also (as shown above) consistent with other concepts by means of what D&G call bridges
Components are heterogenous. The arrangement of each of these components is an arrangement of different types of things (one can pass from face to expression to world, for example), where each passage is a variation. There is therefore no essence to a concept, only a conceptual point which is constantly passing through variations while being present in all variations at once
Obviously the concept does not exist in space, it does not belong to extension; rather than extensive coordinates it has intensive ordinates, intensities rather than energies. The concept is pure event, insofar as — for example — the event of the other is the intensive coexistence of the three components outlined above. D&G describe the concept as ‘the inseparability of a finite number of heterogeneous components traversed by a point of absolute survey at infinite speed’ (1994:21). Regarding that infinite speed bit: the conceptual point, as mentioned, traverses the variations; since the concept is intensive, it has no extensive space to cross in this traversal, and so the speed of traversal is infinite; since some concepts have more components, etc., some conceptual points (‘point[s] of absolute survey’) move faster than others, in the same way that some infinities are bigger than others
In relation to components, the plane, the problem, and other concepts, each concept is relative. Insofar as the concept has a place on the plane, condenses components, and conditions the problem, it is absolute. I hate to quote too much, but sometimes they put a point as simply as possible: ‘As a whole [the concept] is absolute, but insofar as it is fragmentary it is relative. It is infinite through its survey or its speed but finite through its movement that traces the contour of its components’ (1994:21). The concept is real and ideal, but not actual and/or abstract
Propositions, which logic understands as the material of philosophy, are nothing like concepts. Rather than positing themselves (creating themselves and their objects simultaneously) and being purely intensive, propositions refer to external conditions, that is, they take the intensive and project it out as extensive coordinates. Concepts are disjointed but resonate, are therefore non-discursive, whereas propositions must cohere with one another in an external discourse. The inseparable variations of concepts are, in propositions, replaced by independent variables
Propositions belong to science, and are created and signed by ‘extrinsic partial observers that are scientifically definable in relation to a particular axis of reference’ whereas concepts belong to philosophy and are signed by ‘intrinsic conceptual personae who haunt a particular plane of consistency’ (1994:24); D&G lay out the specific differences between philosophy, science, and art in their use of syntax, while specifying that they allow for communication and interdisciplinary influence
Example one: Descartes’ cogito is a concept with three components (though not all concepts have three components), of doubting, thinking, and being; to put it simply, I who doubt am a thinking thing. The concept of self (synonymous with cogito in this context) is the point at which the components of doubting, thinking, and being meet. Each component has a zone of indiscernibility with that component which is intensively next to it (D-T, “the doubter cannot doubt their own thought” ; T-B, “that which thinks must be”). The cogito has the notion of infinity, which forms the bridge from the concept of the cogito to the concept of God
To ask whether Descartes was right is inconceivable. There is a concept with its components, bridges, zones, intensive ordinates, plane, etc., functioning as a response to a problem; planes are constructed, problems are posed, and concepts are created, but we can only ever discuss whether that has been done well, not whether a problem is true
Philosophy avoids discussion. The task of philosophy is to pose problems and create concepts; discussions, beliefs, defences have nothing to do with this whatsoever. Socrates ‘turned the friend into the friend of the single concept, and the concept into the pitiless monologue that eliminates the rivals one by one’ (1994:29)
Example two: Plato, in the Parmenides, proposes the concept of the one, but only to go on to teach that this concept represents the uncreated that precedes it (paraphrasing 1994:29). The Platonic Idea is the truth that is already there, prior in time; Plato infuses the time of the anterior or the first into his concepts, understanding the Ideas as those things which are self-identical. The Idea is thus a concept with four components: quality as possessed; the Idea that always has the quality before any thing; things, which claim qualities and only possess them after Ideas; ‘the Idea participated in, which judges the claims’ (1994:30). This understanding of time makes Descartes’ cogito an impossibility, the cogito could only exist once the relation to time has been changed; each concept has components that prevent the existence of other concepts. Adding a component to a concept (as Kant does when he adds time into the cogito) will cause a fundamental change in the concept. The Kantian move adds time to the cogito, but a new concept of time; this alters the cogito, the concept of space, etc.
‘The task of philosophy when it creates concepts, entities, is always to extract an event from things and beings, to set up the new event from things and beings, always to give them a new event: space, time, matter, thought, the possible as events’ (1994:33)