The Force of the Virtual: Deleuze, Science, and Philosophy
Peter Gaffney
Abstract
Gilles Deleuze once claimed that “modern science has not found its metaphysics, the metaphysics it needs.” This book responds to this need by investigating the consequences of the philosopher’s interest in (and appeal to) “the exact sciences.” In exploring the problematic relationship between the philosophy of Deleuze and science, the chapters gathered here examine how science functions in respect to Deleuze’s concepts of time and space, how science accounts for processes of qualitative change, how science actively participates in the production of subjectivity, and how Deleuze’s thinking enga ... More
Gilles Deleuze once claimed that “modern science has not found its metaphysics, the metaphysics it needs.” This book responds to this need by investigating the consequences of the philosopher’s interest in (and appeal to) “the exact sciences.” In exploring the problematic relationship between the philosophy of Deleuze and science, the chapters gathered here examine how science functions in respect to Deleuze’s concepts of time and space, how science accounts for processes of qualitative change, how science actively participates in the production of subjectivity, and how Deleuze’s thinking engages neuroscience. The book works through Deleuze’s understanding of the virtual—a force of qualitative change that is ontologically primary to the exact, measurable relations that can be found in and among the objects of science. By adopting such a methodology, this text generates significant new insights, especially regarding the notion of scientific laws, and compels the rethinking of such ideas as reproducibility, the unity of science, and the scientific observer.
Keywords:
Gilles Deleuze,
exact sciences,
time,
space,
qualitative change,
subjectivity,
virtual,
reproducibility,
scientific observer
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816665976 |
| Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: August 2015 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816665976.001.0001 |
