|
December 14, 2006
I'm reading Manual Delanda's Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy---a study of Deleuze's ontology of dynamic processes written in the style of analytic philosophy. Delanda says that a key concept in Deleuze's texts is the concept of multiplicity and the role this category plays is that it is a replacement for the older category of an essence. Delanda says:
The essence of a thing is is that which explains its identity, that is those fundamental traits without which an object would not be what it is.if such an essence is held by many objects, then possession of a common essence would also explain the fact that these objects resemble each other and, indeed, that they form a distinct natural kind of things. That's a good account of essence. That category has its roots in Aristotle and was reafirmed by Hegel and Marx. Delanda says that even if the details of a given process account for the resemblances among the products which make us classify them as members of the same kind, there may be similarities of process which still demand an explanation. He adds:
And when accounting for these common features we may be tempted to to reintroduce essences through the back door. It is in order to break this vicious circle that multipliciities are introduced. And it is because of the tenacity of this circle that the concept of multiplicity must be so carefully constructed, justifying each step in the construction by the way it avoids the pitfalls of essentialism.
Delanda says that multiplicities specify the structure of space of possibilities, spaces which in turn explain the regularities exhibited by morpho-genetic processes.
|
