The first book-length work to explore in depth Deleuze’s view of the sciences

Gilles Deleuze once claimed that “modern science has not found its metaphysics, the metaphysics it needs.” The Force of the Virtual 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 original essays 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.

All of the essays work 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 collection 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.

Contributors: Manola Antonioli, Collège International de Philosophie (Paris); Clark Bailey; Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht U; Manuel DeLanda, U of Pennsylvania; Aden Evens, Dartmouth U; Gregory Flaxman, U of North Carolina; Thomas Kelso; Andrew Murphie, U of New South Wales; Patricia Pisters, U of Amsterdam; Arkady Plotnitsky, Purdue U; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State U; Arnaud Villani, Première Supérieure au Lycée Masséna de Nice.

Peter Gaffney is visiting assistant professor at Haverford College and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he teaches film studies, philosophy, and literature.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Science in the Gap
            Peter Gaffney

Part I. The Virtual in Time and Space
1. The Insistence of the Virtual in Science and the History of Philosophy
            Arnaud Villani
2. Superposing Images: Deleuze and the Virtual after Bergson’s Critique of Science
            Peter Gaffney
3. The Intense Space(s) of Gilles Deleuze
            Thomas Kelso

4. Interstitial Life: Remarks on Causality and Purpose in Biology
            Steven Shaviro
5. Digital Ontology and Example
            Aden Evens
6. Virtual Architecture
            Manola Antonioli

7. The Subject of Chaos
            Gregory Flaxman
8. Elemental Complexity and Relational Vitality: The Relevance of Nomadic Thought for Contemporary Science
            Rosi Braidotti
9. Numbers and Fractals: Neuroaesthetics and the Scientific Subject
            Patricia Pisters

10. The Image of Thought and the Sciences of the Brain after What Is Philosophy?
            Arkady Plotnitsky
11. Deleuze, Guattari, and Neuroscience
            Andrew Murphie
12. Mammalian Mathematicians
            Clark Bailey

Afterword: The Metaphysics of Science: An Interview with Manuel DeLanda
            Manuel DeLanda and Peter Gaffney

Contributors
Index

Forlag:
University of Minnesota Press

ISBN:
9780816665983

Utgivelsesår:
2010

Hovedkategori:
Filosofi

Språk:
Engelsk

Sider:
416

Innbinding:
Heftet

Pris:
288