The Creation of the Concept through theInteraction of Philosophy with Scienceand Art

Mathias Schnher University of Vienna

Abstract

In What Is Philosophy? we find philosophy devised as that power ofthinking and creating which, in a division of labour with science and art,creates the concept. This division of labour points to the free interplay ofReason, Understanding and Imagination in KantsCritique of Judgementand enables us to affirm, without obliterating the differences in kind, thenon-hierarchical relationship between the three forms of thought thatis asserted by Deleuze and Guattari. However, as powers of thinkingand creating, philosophy, science and art do not inscribe themselves in atranscendental subject. Rather, Deleuze and Guattari conceive of them,following Spinozas creating nature, as powers that express themselvesin an attribute in which every thinking subject participates.

Keywords: Deleuze and Guattari, Kant, Spinoza, What Is Philosophy?,concept, creation, interaction, power

I. The Creative Powers of Thinking

Although Gilles Deleuze is one of the most influential philosophers of thesecond half of the twentieth century, his last book,What Is Philosophy?,written in collaboration with Flix Guattari, has received relatively littleattention. For many readers, this book came as a surprise, even assomething of a disappointment, recalls Isabelle Stengers, noting that itfaced readers with a strong differentiation between the creations which

Deleuze Studies 7.1 (2013): 2652DOI: 10.3366/dls.2013.0093 Edinburgh University Presswww.euppublishing.com/dls

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are proper to philosophy, to science, and to art (Stengers 2005: 151).The creative ideas pertaining to philosophy, through which philosophyperforms its thought, are the concepts it creates by means of conceptualpersonae on the plane of immanence; those pertaining to science arethe functions created by means of partial observers on the plane ofreference; those pertaining to art are the compounds of sensationsconsisting of percepts and affects created by means of aesthetic figureson the plane of composition. Thinking is thought through concepts,or functions, or sensations, state Deleuze and Guattari, and no oneof these thoughts is better than another, or more fully, completely, orsynthetically thought (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 198). In all threecases, the modes of thinking are specific, each as direct as the others, andthey are distinguished by the nature of the plane and by what occupiesit (198).

Regardless of this explicit dismissal of any hierarchy of the threeforms of thought, Peter Hallward, for instance, argues for the precedenceof philosophy. He underlines the clear distinction between the formsby examining them independently of each other, then ranking them.The fact that he gives philosophy precedence is surprising, however,since he criticises the conception of philosophy proposed by Deleuzeand Guattari, which, he writes, leads forever out of our actual world(Hallward 2006: 164). It would therefore seem to make sense forHallward to argue for the precedence of science, which deals with theactual world. But in his assessment, Hallward turns his attention to thethree forms of thought in terms of the product of their creation, anddefines philosophy as the most immediate discipline of thought, whichunlike science or art, . . . can claim to think at the highest degree ofproximity to absolute chaos because it has the privilege of going furthestin the spiritualisation of its medium, in which it brings forth creation(129, 132).

In a paper based mainly on Deleuzes essay on Melvilles Bartlebythe Scrivener, Joost de Bloois makes an exemplary attempt to counterarguments in favour of a hierarchy of the three forms of thought,looking at the relationship between conceptual persona and aestheticfigure. He argues that the very classical distinction between philosophyas such and art as such that prevails in What Is Philosophy?leads to an artificial distinction between conceptual persona andaesthetic figure, whose fundamental shared image of philosophy andliterature reveals its common indetermination in the figure of Bartleby(de Bloois 2004: 124, 126; my translation). According to de Bloois,Deleuze and Guattaris stroke of genius consists in having realised

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that philosophers, too, write fables (118; my translation). Bartlebythus points to writing as the common characteristic of philosophy andliterature: he is at once a figure and a persona and, as the mask ofany writer, presents nothing less than the precondition of all possiblewriters (115; my translation). Since, by analogy with the dichotomyof concept and affect, the conceptual persona presupposes the aestheticfigure, philosophy appears as merely a derivative of literature: Theconceptual persona . . . transforms the philosopher into a writer, andan aesthetic paradigm becomes the pivot of philosophical activity (120;my translation). Thus, whereas Hallward establishes a hierarchy byevaluating the product of creative activity with regard to its contiguityto chaos, what de Bloois attempts is to undermine hierarchy by reducingthe clearly distinct forms of thought through a sufficiently neutralisedfigure on a common plane. Having deprived philosophy of its clearlydistinguished realm, de Bloois then criticises Deleuze and Guattari forsubordinating their philosophical project to aesthetic modernity andcurtailing the critical potential of philosophy by denying it autonomy(128; my translation).

My interpretation of What Is Philosophy?, in contrast, grants neitherscience nor art nor philosophy priority as a more perfect or moredirect form of thought, while refusing to obliterate the difference inkind between them. On the contrary, each of these forms is assigneda specific activity, which finds expression in the creative ideas that canonly be produced on its own plane; and each form secures its ownrealm precisely by positing its own objects through these creative ideas.With its concepts, philosophy brings forth events. Art erects monumentswith its sensations. Science constructs matters of fact with its functions(Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 199).1 Philosophy, science and art mustnot be identified from the outset as three disciplines that consist in thecollection of the products of their creation as universalities formedby an abstraction of the products, abandoning the singularity of eachcreation. Instead, we must define them as those ways of thinking andcreating, those modes of ideation, that express themselves in the actof creating the concept, the function or the compound of sensationsthrough the conceptual persona, the partial observer or the aestheticfigure; or, to put it another way, which unfold as the power of thinkingand creating in always singular moments in which thought is raisedtime and again anew to a specific creative faculty or power, preciselythrough creative ideas (8, 12). However, in What Is Philosophy?Deleuze and Guattari say that philosophy creates concepts in interactionwith science and art. Philosophy, science, and art, they write, are

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immediately posited or reconstituted in a respective independence, ina division of labor that gives rise to relationships of connection betweenthem (91). This division of labour does not limit their independence,because each form, in its own realm, remains independent of the othertwo. Nor does it contradict the autonomy of each form, an autonomylent by its own creation; rather, this interaction serves precisely to enablephilosophy, science and art to stimulate each other strongly enough tobecome capable of bringing forth a creation and expressing themselves asautonomous faculties or powers of thinking and creating. That they aredependent on one another, yet do not restrict each others independence,confounds the dispute over the precedence of one or other of theseforms of thought. Philosophy arrives at the concept with the help ofscience and art, in that these latter intervene freely in the creative processand support philosophy in creating its specific ideas and, in turn, inpositing its objects in a realm where science and art themselves are quiteunable to do so. Philosophys concepts thus acquire their determinationsthrough allusions to the actual with the help of science, which, for itspart, finds expression through the partial observer as scientific facultyof knowledge (215). And philosophy arrives at the sensations of theconcepts with the help of art, which, for its part, finds expressionthrough the aesthetic figure as faculty of feeling (212).

My interpretation considers Deleuze and Guattaris last joint workin the lineage of Kants Critique of Judgement, lauded by the authorsas an unrestrained work of old age, which his successors have stillnot caught up with, where all the minds faculties overcome theirlimits, the very limits that Kant had so carefully laid down in the worksof his prime (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 2). Seven years before thepublication of What Is Philosophy?, Deleuze declared in his prefaceto Kants Critical Philosophy that an unregulated exercise of all thefaculties would define future philosophy (Deleuze 1984: xiii). Whereasin his first two Critiques, Kant assumes an interrelationship which isdominated by one of the faculties and rigorously regulated by its laws,in the Critique of Judgement he finds, beneath this hierarchy of faculties,unregulated use and with it the basis of all harmonious interaction. Inthe aesthetic of the beautiful and the sublime, the various faculties enterinto an accord which is no longer determined by any one of them,and which is all the deeper because it no longer has any rule; theycorrespondingly find their accord in a fundamental discord (Deleuze1984: xii). In What Is Philosophy?, philosophy is finally devised in itsrelation to science and art as one of these three faculties or powers ofthinking and creating which, in free interplay, create the philosophical

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concept. And we can say of this work what Deleuze wrote in 1963of Kants third Critique: that it goes beyond presenting the exercise ofready-made faculties under particular conditions to offer insight into thegenesis of those faculties, which are engendered in their original freestate and in reciprocal agreement (Deleuze 2004: 68). However, thethree faculties do not inscribe themselves in a transcendental subject, aswith Kant, or depend on a predefined subject, but posit and reconstitutethemselves at the same time as the subject, which only distinguishes itselffrom thought by carrying out the movements of that plane on which itis creative. The possibility of a subject that does not precede its owncreative activity or, conversely, the becoming-subject that necessarilyoccurs when carrying out these movements by means of the conceptualpersona, the partial observer or the aesthetic figure is based on everycreation being a construction on a plane that gives it an autonomousexistence (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 7). The plane gives autonomyto the creation, because it is the plane itself which, in performing itsmovements, becomes the brain layer of a singular subject. That subjectunfolds out of thinking only when it creates, so that a creation neverremains dependent on an already given subject of lived experience.

Deleuze and Guattaris reference to a brain layer becomes clearthrough the example of Raymond Ruyer and the illustrations heprovides. Ruyer presents a man on a chair; he is wearing glasses, lookingat his writing hand and the sheet or layer of paper on the table beforehim. Ruyer then puts us in the mans position, showing us his visualfield (now framed by the glasses on our nose), which moves out fromour body along the writing hand to the sheet of paper and the table.Our visual field is thus composed, like a collage, of the parts of ourbody and the various objects. During the absolute survey of my visualfield, writes Ruyer, I am everywhere at once: The multiple details ofsensation are distinct one from another, but nevertheless the ones arenot really other for the others, because together they make up mysensation, which is only one (Ruyer 1952: 99; my translation). Withrespect to Leibnizs monad, Deleuze refers to Robert Rauschenberg,whose collages weave their components into surfaces so dense that theybecome opaque and lose all referential function (Deleuze 2006: 30).They form smooth spaces with close vision visual fields that, withouta prevailing perspective or rigid spatial dimensions, do not allow anystrictly definable exterior point of view. While the writing mans habitualgaze at the objects in front of him already marks one exterior point ofview, and our observation of the man at work adds another, the absolutesurvey cannot attain its unity by referring to a subject of lived experience,

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because that would lead to an infinite regress of echelons of viewers.Between the I-unity and the visual field there is only a purely symbolicdistance . . . My visual field itself necessarily sees itself through anabsolute survey (Ruyer 1952: 1012; my translation). The primaryplane of sensation has to perceive itself; the viewer is thus completelyembedded in the plane, just as Rauschenbergs 1963 collage Estate, as avisual field, immerses the viewer in the sensation of early 1960s NewYork with its survey. The collage releases the viewer from any kindof experience that might be felt by a city tourist, who can confirm hisexpectations using prepared routes to continue his accustomed routinewith the happy feeling of having seen what there is to be seen. Finally,a further illustration presents the previously observed visual field as alayer or sheet of paper that from a distance looks like a picture postcard.Ruyer shows that this distance of the I-unity in the absolute surveydoes not exist: he labels the illustration false representation of the visualfield (Ruyer 1952: 103; my translation). The self-surveying field ofconsciousness cannot be represented, just as the plane as the brain layerin What Is Philosophy? is only given in the survey on that plane by the Iof thinking, in which the plane raises itself to a singular power.

II. The Distinction of Planes as Aspects and as Layers of theBrain-Subject

Philosophy, science and art transect chaos in order to produce theircreative ideas on a specific plane of creation always confrontingchaos, laying out a plane, throwing a plane over chaos (Deleuze andGuattari 1994: 197). The plane of transections particular relationwith chaos defines which type of movement of thought is carriedout, and determines the power of thinking; the plane itself definesthe elements that are created on it and warrants for their cohesion.Hence, only on the plane of immanence, with its infinite movements,is it possible to create the concept which brings forth the event anddoes thinking accede to the infinite movement . . . and reconquers animmanent power of creation (140). Only on the plane of reference,with its finite movements, are those referential relations possible bywhich science constitutes or modifies matters of fact and bodies andscience gains its power: Functions derive all their power from reference(138). And finally, only on the plane of composition is it possible tocreate compounds of sensations, which in the finite restore the infiniteand are forces in themselves. Philosophys plane of immanence, withconcept and conceptual persona, sciences plane of reference, with

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function and partial observer, and arts plane of composition, withcompound of sensations and aesthetic figure, cannot be reduced to oneanother through their specific relation to chaos nor can they join up toform a neutral plane: The three planes, along with their elements, areirreducible (216).

Laying out a plane is the condition for that plane to rise to thepower of thinking and creating by virtue of the creation it bears. Asa power, the plane is a layer of a brain-subject, and is what unfolds thesubject out of the thinking whose movements that very subject carriesout (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 214). Carrying out these movements isonly possible by means of the conceptual persona, the partial observeror the aesthetic figure, which expose us to chaos and draw us into abecoming-subject in line with the aspect of the respective plane. Thethree great forms of thought constitute the three aspects under whichthe brain becomes subject, Thought-brain. They are the three planes, therafts on which the brain plunges into and confronts the chaos (210).The raft image is apt in that, similar to the notion of point of view thatDeleuze develops in his study on Leibniz with recourse to Whiteheadssuperject, the aspect is not so much a point as a place, a position, asite (Deleuze 2006: 20). It does not mean a dependence in respect toa pregiven or defined subject; to the contrary, a subject will be whatcomes to the point of view, or rather what remains in the point of view(21). This differentiation between the aspect and the layer of a brain-subject with regard to the planes recalls Spinozas distinction of attributeand power, which Deleuze and Guattari condense into their conceptionof planes. When they write that immanence does not refer back tothe Spinozist substance and modes but, on the contrary, the Spinozistconcepts of substance and modes refer back to the plane of immanenceas their presupposition, they are linking the creative divine substance,and the created modes, to the plane of immanence as the preconditionof creation, which determines the relation between substance and modes(Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 48). When they then add that this planepresents two sides to us, Extension and Thought, or more accurately, itstwo powers, power of being and power of thinking, they are referring tothe distinction between the attributes of Extension and Thought on theone hand, and the powers of being and thinking on the other (48/50;translation modified). Because Deleuze and Guattari apply this dualdistinction to the plane of immanence itself, the plane with these twoattributes as its two sides represents the condition for it to unfold as thepower of thinking and creating by virtue of the creation it carries, andthus also to unfold as the two powers.

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For Spinoza,2 Gods absolute essence is formally the power ofbeing, and objectively the power of thinking. It is expressed by Godsformally producing in the attributes and at the same time objectivelyunderstanding how he produces. The power of being finds its expressionin the modes of the attributes, which also include Gods infinite intellectas a mode of the attribute of Thought. With respect to the power ofbeing, this attribute is not distinct from the attribute of Extension, sothat in their formal being, ideas also take on a form of existence. Thepower of being is established according to its possibility and according toits necessity by the formally distinct attributes, for these are the conditionof its being active, and taken together are the formal essence of God,which makes them necessary. The power of thinking finds its expressionin the objective being of the ideas, in other words the ideas insofar as theyrepresent something. Deleuze stresses that the objective being, even theidea of God as the objective being of infinite intellect, would be nothingwithout this formal being through which it is a mode of the attributeof Thought. Or, if you like, it would be only potential, without thispotentiality ever being actualized (Deleuze 1990: 122). Accordingly, thepower of thinking which, as a divine power, is always an actualised,active power points to the attribute of Thought not only as its soleobjective condition, but at the same time as its formal condition. Thusthe formal possibility of the idea of God is established in the attributeof Thought, while its objective necessity is established in Gods absoluteessence.

In any case, to return now to What Is Philosophy?, the attributes arealways the condition of the powers. It is for this reason that Deleuzeand Guattari find it more accurate to say that the plane of immanencepresents its two powers to us than to say that the plane of immanencepresents its two sides, Extension and Thought, to us because strictlyspeaking it is only the plane of immanence when it becomes a powerof thinking and creating, or, to put it another way, because it is onlythrough the creation of concepts that philosophy itself rises to become apower, to become the plane of immanence as the layer of a brain-subject:

At the same time that the brain becomes subject or rather superject, asWhitehead puts it the concept becomes object as created, as event or creationitself; and philosophy becomes the plane of immanence that supports theconcepts and that the brain lays out. Cerebral movements also give rise toconceptual personae. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 211)

The moment of creation corresponds in Spinoza to the transition fromcreated nature to creating nature, from infinity to the absolute, from

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the infinite movements to the power of thinking and creating. Laid outas a presupposition, the plane remains prephilosophical for as long asthe concept has not been posited as creation. Prephilosophical doesnot mean something preexistent but rather something that does notexist outside philosophy, although philosophy presupposes it. Theseare its internal conditions (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 41). It is onlywith the creation of concepts according to the specified aspect that theplane becomes the plane of immanence, becomes a power, becomesphilosophy. The always singular moment of creation is the momentwhen, as ric Alliez emphasises, philosophy as the expression of aconstructivism unfolds its power (Alliez 2004: 15). Philosophy doesnot remain dependent on a pregiven subject of lived experience thatsubject is located in a historically determined mental landscape, as iseverything that, in Ruyers example, is on the table or the sheet of paperand is identified by the subject present, thus being defined as a historicalstate of affairs in agreement with the collective milieu. Even when thephilosopher constructs concepts, he uses components taken from thismental landscape, breaks them out of it and reassembles them like acollage, forming Riemannian spaces in which the connection betweenone term and the next is not defined and can be effected in an infinitenumber of ways. This construction makes it possible, in the surveyof the plane, to be immediately co-present to all its components and,in the condensation effected by the survey, to create those opaquesurfaces which are absolute and stand for themselves. The intentionallyopened rift, the hiatus, as Deleuze writes with reference to Book V ofSpinozas Ethics, functions to bring together to the maximum degreeterms that are distant as such, and thereby to assure a speed of absolutesurvey (Deleuze 1998: 150). These hiatuses require one to reconstitutea missing chain, but in return allow one to jump from a relative speed(the greatest) to an absolute speed, which Deleuze calls the speed ofpower (14951).

To explain how it is possible for thought to gain access to the infinitemovement and to reconquer an immanent power of creation, it isnecessary to follow a strong hint by Deleuze and Guattari and probemore deeply into Spinozas work. We must go beyond the ordinaryideas of opinion and arrive as quickly as possible at mental objectsdeterminable as real beings (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 207). To thisend, however in order to reach concepts, in other words those ideasthat must be created we must also make use of opinion, but only sofar as is necessary to get to a plane where we go from real being toreal being and advance through the construction of concepts, through

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reconnecting the components taken from chaos into a concept andsequencing the concepts among themselves, until they are created in theirfull maturity (207). We must connect the ideas to their causes, even if wedraw on opinion to do so, writes Deleuze of Spinoza, in order to reachthe idea of God as quickly as possible and to proceed in a mannerexcluding all opinion, in a way that moves from one real being toanother, deducing ideas one from another, starting from the idea of God(Deleuze 1990: 1378). In this way, we will arrive at the adequate ideas,which are distinguished by the fact that they express their own cause.The cause of ideas in their objective being is the idea of God, so that theadequate ideas give expression to the absolute power of thinking, or theobjective essence of God, which corresponds to the idea of God. As Godformally produces in the attributes the way he objectively understandshimself, the ideas connect in the attribute of Thought in accordancewith their own content: the content of an idea (in other words, whatthe idea objectively is) is identical with the formal existence of the ideain the attribute. Starting from the idea of God, ideas are then linkedaccording to their own content; but their content is also determined bythis sequence that is to say, it is in the content or objective being ofthe idea that the power of thinking finds its expression, as the power ofbeing finds expression in the form of that idea (138). The form of theidea is automatically united with the content through its autonomoussequencing with the other ideas following the order of infinite intellect.Ideas are mental objects, determinable as real beings, if they express thepower of thinking in which they participate, the objective essence ofdivine nature. In the same way, for Deleuze and Guattari, the plane ofimmanence as an immanent power of creation finds its expression inthe concepts, through their sequencing in accordance with the infinitemovements of the plane, which gives creation an autonomous existence.

In the creation of the concepts the plane of immanence becomes thepower of thinking and creating, which unfolds as a layer of a brain-subject:

[The brain, under the] aspect of absolute form, appears as the faculty ofconcepts, that is to say, as the faculty of their creation, at the same time that itsets up the plane of immanence on which concepts are placed, move, changeorder and relations, are renewed, and never cease being created. (Deleuze andGuattari 1994: 211)

The infinite movements of the plane of immanence can only beperformed as a subject which itself only arises in that process, in linewith the aspect of the plane. The cerebral movements give rise to

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conceptual personae, for maintaining oneself on the plane of immanence,remaining in thinking, is possible only through a continuous sequencingof concepts. The conceptual personae proceed by linking concepts, theydesignate insistence in philosophical thinking, they draw us into abecoming-subject (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 76), and we could say,with Spinoza, that they set a spiritual automaton in motion. They arethe only compass for carrying out the movements, and in this sensecorrespond to the idea of God, which guides us in the linking of adequateideas. When the brain becomes subject, Thought-brain, it is as a line ofbecoming on the plane, as a hyphen between thought and brain. Theplane of immanence has two facets as Thought and as Nature, writeDeleuze and Guattari, and it is unceasingly permeated by unlimitedmovements . . . on two sides (38, 44). As a fold between Thought andNature, which arises with the movements on both sides of the foldedplane at once, the brain-subject expresses the actual mental objects,which have become nature, as real beings, with their power to positthemselves as creative ideas. Infinite movement is double, and there isonly a fold from one to the other. It is in this sense that thinking andbeing are said to be one and the same (38). Philosophy, as this Thought-Being, creates the concept that is, a chaos that has become Thought,mental chaosmos (208).

In What Is Philosophy?, Spinoza is hailed as the only philosophernever to have compromised with transcendence, as having postulatedimmanence as only immanent to itself and hence as a plane which,even as a power of thinking, does not inscribe itself in the subject ofthinking (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 48). By doing so, he fulfilledphilosophy because he satisfied its prephilosophical presupposition,since in carrying out the movements, as a fold running through thewhole plane, the I of thinking does not set itself apart as an overridingI (48). Philosophy as a plane of immanence thus does not add itself tothe prephilosophical plane through the creation of concepts. This is thevertigo of immanence to which the I succumbs a spiritual automatonor a sort of child-player against whom we can no longer do anything, aSpinoza who leaves no illusion of transcendence remaining (48, 72).

But despite the high status of Spinoza in What Is Philosophy?, it isJean Hyppolites characterisation of Kants Critique of Judgement asa Leibnizianism of immanence that seems best to fit the philosophyof Deleuze and Guattari (qtd in Kerslake 2009: 105). For if they tiethe creative divine substance and the created modes to the plane ofimmanence as the presupposition of creation, then substance existsonly in the moment of creation as an expression in the modes; it

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exists only in the transition in which the modes themselves becomesubstantial. A becoming-substantial of the modes is, so to speak, abecoming-monad in the vertigo of immanence, a becoming-subject inthe crossing of the entire plane, in the survey: I am no longer myselfbut thoughts aptitude for finding itself and spreading across a planethat passes through me at several places (Deleuze and Guattari 1994:64). And this I is constantly torn apart by the divergent planes, byphilosophy, science and art, or, as Deleuze writes about Whitehead inhis Leibniz study, pushed apart, kept open through divergent series andincompossible totalities for Whitehead, the bifurcations, divergences,incompossibilities, and discord belong to the same motley world thatcan no longer be included in expressive units, but only made orundone (Deleuze 2006: 92). In What Is Philosophy?, Deleuze andGuattari counter this unfurling of divergent series, this emancipation ofdissonance or of unresolved accords, with their conception of thinking,in which the motley world no longer posits itself as immanent to asubjective unit, but in the junction of the three possibly incompossibleplanes. It could be said that the monad, astraddle over several worlds, iskept half open as if by a pair of pliers; it could also be said that the I tornapart in a perpetual show of strength, the acrobat, constantly ties itselfup again into a brain-subject and makes and undoes the world (Deleuze2006: 157).

III. The Extrinsic Interferences of Philosophy with Science

Philosophy modulates the concept with inseparable components,positing it as object or event. The concept posits itself and its objectat the same time as it is created (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 22). Thepositional enunciation is strictly immanent to the concept because thelatters sole object is the inseparability of the components of whichit, and hence the event as concept, is composed (23). For its part,science posits the actual matter of fact with the function: an object isscientifically constructed by functions (117). The function posits thematter of fact as external, though not as independent but in referenceto the scientific plane, which also defines the conditions of reference.The functions are defined by their reference, which concerns not theEvent but rather a relationship with a matter of fact or body andwith the conditions of this relationship (22). The scientific act ofpositional enunciation thus remains external to the proposition [orfunction] because the latters object is a matter of fact as referent (23).Science constitutes or modifies the actual matter of fact, constructing

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this, its object, with distinct determinations: Acts of reference are finitemovements of thought by which science constitutes or modifies mattersof fact and bodies (138). These acts of reference of the function are, asDeleuze and Guattari point out, very different from the philosophicalconcept, involving no longer inseparable components but rather distinctdeterminations. The realm of function does not, however, just extendto that of the scientific function, but also to that of the logical functionand that of opinion. Through functions, science continually actualizesthe event in a matter of fact, thing, or body that can be referred to,whereby these relationships are made with the plane of reference and notwith a pregiven subject whereas opinion, with its function of the lived,refers to already constituted objects, which it relates to a subject of livedexperience (126, 144). Opinion founds its reference on pure qualities,such as can be abstracted from a universal subject in the perception ofan object, in order to form the arguments of the functions of opinion aslived states (151).

Art thinks through affects and percepts; it uses sensations to create thecompounds of sensations themselves: We paint, sculpt, compose, andwrite with sensations. We paint, sculpt, compose, and write sensations(Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 166). Art does not actualise the virtualevent but expresses the event without actualising it, by giving it auniverse which sets the compounds of sensations in motion; art erectsmonuments with its sensations and posits its object in this way. Incontrast to opinion, art does not abstract any pure quality; as percepts,sensations are not perceptions referring to an object (reference) (166).Art goes beyond the perceptual states and affective transitions ofthe lived, for we attain to the percept and the affect only as toautonomous and sufficient beings that no longer owe anything to thosewho experience or have experienced them (171, 168). The pure qualityof opinion, which serves for reference, remains isolated from the universein which it unfolds, whereas art precisely considers the quality . . . fromthe standpoint of the becoming that grasps it (Deleuze and Guattari2005b: 306). Art implies the emergence of pure sensory qualities, ofsensibilia that cease to be merely functional and become expressivefeatures, making possible a transformation of functions (Deleuze andGuattari 1994: 183). The qualities of art, the qualities in becoming,cannot be apprehended by functions; they remain what the MiddleAges called the signifiable complex of a proposition, distinct from thematter of fact (Deleuze 1997: 105; translation modified).

Concept, scientific function and compound of sensations must each becreated separately, even though philosophy, science and art each need

The Creation of the Concept 39

the assistance of the others to do so. When an object a geometricalspace, for example is scientifically constructed by functions, itsphilosophical concept, which is by no means given in the function,must still be discovered (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 117). If thisgeometrical space is determined by a function as a scientific matter offact, the concept of this space is not therefore given, but must first becreated on the plane of immanence: A function of space can be givenwithout the concept of this space yet being given (133). Likewise, acompound of sensations may be given without the correlate concepthaving been created or, as Deleuze and Guattari put it, a sensationexists in its possible universe without the concept necessarily existing inits absolute form (178). Like the function, the compound of sensationscan thus be created before the concept, and conversely the conceptbefore either, for it is said of each of these three elements that noneof these elements can appear without the other being still to come,still indeterminate or unknown, and each created element on a planecalls on other heterogeneous elements, which are still to be created onother planes (199). Just as, for example, a new space function callsfor the creation of a correlating concept, and on that basis philosophyspins forth thought in a heterogenesis (199), so art occasionally toreturn to Deleuzes examination of the play of faculties in Kant pushesphilosophy towards an inspiration which it would not have had alone(Deleuze 1984: xii). But more than that, the creation of a conceptwill entail the creation of further concepts on the same plane as well(see Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 19). In other words, a concept itselfwill also call for the creation of new concepts with which it can linkup. The degree of attention that Deleuze pays to this heterogenesis ofthought is evidenced in particular by his cinema books and his study onLeibniz. But even if he notes the simultaneous appearance of the filmand Bergsons thinking, or explains how the fold as the characteristic ofthe Baroque finds expression through the different forms of thought atthe same time, Deleuze still emphasises in both cases that philosophy,science and art must be creative on their own account without directtransposition, although he goes so far as to say that the monad and itssystem . . . cannot be understood if they are not compared to Baroquearchitecture (Deleuze 2006: 31).

With their creative ideas, philosophy, science and art each posit theirown object, or more precisely the event, the actual matter of fact or themonument. Even when science, for example, is concerned with the sameobjects it is not from the viewpoint of the concept; it is not by creatingconcepts (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 33). Indeed, it is only the same

40 Mathias Schnher

object inasmuch as it is identified as such by recognition, in What IsPhilosophy? the finite movement of thought that gathers together thewhole of the negative. Joining together in the brain and continuallyknotting up the brain-subject, the planes of philosophy, science and artdo not address the same object with concept, function and compoundof sensations. The three thoughts intersect and intertwine but withoutsynthesis or identification (1989). Each posits its own object, but theymust intertwine in order to allow the free interplay from which creationemerges. To this end, though, they must first of all free themselvesfrom the well-coordinated interaction to which opinion subjects them.Lacking creative force, opinion cannot avoid designating solely analready constituted object, starting from a pregiven subject of livedexperience. Conceptual art, while directly raising the question of its ownrelationship to the concept and to the function, is a prime example ofhow opinion crosses the boundaries of philosophy and art to supportitself, and for this reason can go no further than, as Deleuze and Guattariput it, to find ordinary perceptions and affections in the infinite andto reduce the concept to a doxa of the social body or great Americanmetropolis (198). So when Joseph Kosuth in his 1965 artwork Oneand Three Chairs, to which What Is Philosophy? unmistakably alludes,installs a sufficiently neutralized plane of composition, on which thesupposed artwork hierarchically arranges a thing, its photograph onthe same scale and in the same place, its dictionary definition, heis referring to the recognition of the viewer, the subject of reflectionwho brings forth the intended artwork by identifying an object in thishierarchical arrangement with the help of the prevailing opinion (198).A chair, a photograph thereof and the definition of a chair provides uswith everything we need to form the clich of a chair, supplying thereferents for what we mean when we say: This is a chair. And as Kosuthleaves the selection of the chair and the photography to an arbitraryagent, the object is hardly likely to escape from the sphere of functionswhose arguments are consensual perceptions and affections. The agentmust subject himself to the disciplinary power of the system of opinionimplemented in the social body in order to make the right choice, namelya seat with a back, and often arms, usually for one person. This is howthe functions of the lived calibrate themselves against the given stateof affairs and set up linguistically and culturally separate social milieusinto which philosophers, like anyone else, are bound, right down to theirmental movements.

Now, of the different types of interference between the planes thatjoin up in the brain, the extrinsic interferences are those in which

The Creation of the Concept 41

each of the three forms of thought remains on its own plane andutilizes its own elements (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 21617). Inthe division of labour involved in the creation of the concept, theextrinsic interferences establish those relationships of interconnection onwhich the interaction of philosophy and science rests. Philosophy has afundamental need for . . . science, say Deleuze and Guattari in summary,because science constantly intersects with the possibility of concepts andbecause concepts necessarily involve allusions to science that are neitherexamples nor applications, nor even reflections (162). Science cannotprovide a basis for the possibility of concepts that can only be done bythe plane of immanence laid out by the philosopher but science doesintersect this possibility with actual matters of fact and bodies, which itconstitutes or modifies with its functions, and thus calls for the creationof correlate concepts. Concepts necessarily involve allusions to sciencebecause philosophy will be able to draw out concepts from these mattersof fact inasmuch as it extracts the event from them, and this extractionof the event implies that we find allusions to them on the plane ofimmanence and in the event (52, 161). In order to create the concept asevent, it would be necessary to return to the interior of scientific mattersof fact or bodies in the process of being constituted (140). To be precise,the philosopher extracts the event from everything that a subject maylive, from its own body, from other bodies and objects distinct from it,and from the matter of fact (159). As is made clear at several pointsin What Is Philosophy?, if not only the realm of scientific function, butthe realm of function as a whole including the mental landscape andthe historical milieu formed by opinion forms the actual factors onwhose basis philosophy determines concepts, then the philosopher inany case neither reproduces the matter of fact nor imitates the lived(160). He or she does not look for the function of what happensbut extracts the event from it, so that the concept itself abandons allreference and instead contains allusions to the actual (160). In respectof the creation of the concept, therefore, we must not separate what thescientific faculty of knowledge determines as matter of fact from whatthis faculty or power, in its degenerate form, accommodates throughthe application of recognition in the function of the lived even if greatimportance is attached to that separation in answering the question ofsciences creative activity. In the process of the concepts constitution,a distinction in the realm of function cannot be upheld at all, becausein that process wresting the determinations away from the matter offact, the body, the lived, means nothing other than removing them from

42 Mathias Schnher

chaos, for they appear first of all as chaotic. Creation requires that weplunge into chaos and free ourselves from all the historical ballast thatis still preventing us from becoming philosophers anew. The differencebetween science and philosophy in their respective attitudes towardschaos establishes a difference in kind between concept and function,and assigns them to their belonging on their own plane (see Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 11718). Since concept and function order chaos indifferent ways within a chaosmos, philosophy cannot adopt the orderof science and simply transpose the elements of science directly onto itsplane. For this reason it is the extrinsic interferences with science that arenecessary for the creation of the concept, because philosophy remainson its own plane and utilizes its own elements, so that it always createswith its specific means (217, 161). And these interferences are necessarynot only when a correlating concept is created for an already givenfunction of science, because every kind of determination has recourseto sciences and opinions acts of reference. Concept and function arenot creations ex nihilo, since chaos is not a nothingness. Chaos first andforemost contains that which we expose to chaos when we plunge intoit in order to produce something new. Chaos is characterized less by theabsence of determinations than by the impossibility of a connectionbetween them, by the fact that there is not a movement from onedetermination to the other (42). Only through determinations takenfrom chaos being reconnected within a concept in accordance with theorder of philosophy, and through the sequencing of the concepts amongthemselves, does thought accede to the infinite movement of the planeof immanence and reconquer an immanent power of creation. Thus, ifscience supports philosophy in the creation of the concept, it does soprecisely not by assuring a reference of the concept.

The extrinsic interferences that occur between all forms of thoughtwhen the interfering discipline proceeds with its own methods ormeans therefore appear when a philosopher attempts to create theconcept of . . . a function (for example, a concept peculiar to Riemannianspace) (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 217). The concept of a functionstrictly speaking means creating the concept which is peculiar to afunction, or as Deleuze and Guattari put it, the concept for Riemannianspace. The extrinsic interferences with science and the allusions inthe completely created concept both relate to the object that scienceconstitutes or modifies with the functions and that it thereby posits asextrinsic. The concept does not reflect on the function any more than thefunction is applied to the concept. Concept and function must intersect,

The Creation of the Concept 43

each according to its line (161). In the case of philosophy, this line leadsfrom the matters of fact that science actualises to the events; in the caseof science, it leads from the events to the matters of fact:

If the two lines are inseparable it is in their respective sufficiency, andphilosophical concepts act no more in the constitution of scientific functionsthan do functions in the constitution of concepts. It is in their full maturity,and not in the process of their constitution, that concepts and functionsnecessarily intersect, each being created only by their specific means. (Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 161)

In their full maturity, the two heterogeneous elements concept andfunction outline an object as though they tied together the event and theobject posited as matter of fact, as though enveloping them with the twolines of philosophy and science. The two lines are therefore inseparablebut independent, each complete in itself: it is like the envelopes of thetwo very different planes (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 161). We findallusions to the matters of fact, to the object of science, we find onlyallusions to them on the plane of immanence and in the event (161).The event, on the other hand, wrests itself from the function and cannotbe grasped as a matter of fact. Deleuze and Guattari liken the event fromthe viewpoint of science to a cloud: Philosophy can speak of scienceonly by allusion, and science can speak of philosophy only as of a cloud(161). Philosophy has a fundamental need for science, although the twolines of philosophy and science are independent and each is completein itself and science is . . . equally and intensely in need of philosophy(162). But philosophy does not reflect on the function, and providesscience with no sort of criterion for a distinction in the realm of function.

IV. The Intrinsic Interferences of Philosophy with Art

In Kants aesthetic of the beautiful and the sublime, the various facultiesof thought enter into a discordant accord which is not dominated by anyone of these faculties and not regulated by any predefined law. And it isprecisely beauty which, in What Is Philosophy?, reveals the divisionof labour of philosophy with art that leads us to a free interaction,guided by taste, of all three forms of thought. The starting point forcharacterising the intrinsic interferences by which philosophy arrives atthe sensation of the concept is the following passage:

The fact that there are specifically philosophical perceptions and affectionsand specifically scientific ones in short, sensibilia of the concept andsensibilia of the function already indicates the basis of a relationship

44 Mathias Schnher

between science and philosophy on the one hand, and art on the other, suchthat we can say that a function is beautiful and a concept is beautiful. Thespecial perceptions and affections of science or philosophy necessarily adhereto the percepts and affects of art, those of science just as much as those ofphilosophy. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 132/126; translation modified)

This relationship, which enables us to say that a concept or a functionis beautiful, thus consists in the perceptions and affections of science orphilosophy adhering to the sensations of art. The interference in questionis intrinsic, and must not be confused with an extrinsic interference,which appears even when, for instance, a philosopher attempts to createthe concept of a sensation or when a scientist tries to create functionsof sensations as long as they use their own methods or means (Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 217).

[Sometimes] we speak of the intrinsic beauty of a geometrical figure, . . . but solong as this beauty is defined by criteria taken from science, like proportion,symmetry, dissymmetry, projection, or transformation, then there is nothingaesthetic about it: this is what Kant demonstrated with such force. (Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 217)

Because science remains on its own plane and utilizes its own elements,this beauty, even if it is described as intrinsic beauty, is completelydifferent from the beauty that points to intrinsic interferences (Deleuzeand Guattari 1994: 217). Only these intrinsic interferences with art canbe the reason why there are sensibilia of the concept and sensibilia of thefunction and thus the conceptual persona, which can raise the concept tocreation, or the partial observer, who can raise the function to creation.Partial observers are sensibilia, write Deleuze and Guattari, theperceptions or sensory affections of functives themselves . . . For theirpart, conceptual personae are philosophical sensibilia, the perceptionsand affections of fragmentary concepts themselves (131).

In order to create the function, explain Deleuze and Guattariimmediately after discussing the intrinsic beauty of a geometrical figure,the function must be grasped within a sensation that gives it perceptsand affects composed exclusively by art, on a specific plane of creationthat wrests it from any reference (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 217).In the same way, philosophy is dependent on art because its specialperceptions and affections also necessarily adhere to the percepts andaffects of art. As the perceptions and affections of philosophy are neitherpercepts and affects themselves nor derive from habitual experience,they must go back to art, or to be more precise, to the conceptualpersona, which philosophy can only awaken to life with the help of

The Creation of the Concept 45

art. The division of labour between these two forms of thought doesnot, however, imply that with the completely given concept, art hasalready posited a correlating artwork: the artwork must likewise becreated for itself. In addition, philosophy or science does not call fora single and precisely defined artwork that art still has to create. Thus,the Rauschenberg collage is an artwork for the Riemannian space ofmathematics, but so are the smooth spaces with close vision in Bressonsfilms.

At the same time as the concepts are attaching themselves to thecorresponding sensations, the conceptual personae slip in among theaesthetic figures. There is an intrinsic type of interference when conceptsand conceptual personae seem to leave a plane of immanence . . . so as toslip in . . . among the sensations and aesthetic figures; and these slidingsare so subtle, like those of Zarathustra in Nietzsches philosophy or ofIgitur in Mallarms poetry, that we find ourselves on complex planesthat are difficult to qualify (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 217). In turn,partial observers, continue Deleuze and Guattari now returning toscience, introduce into science sensibilia that are sometimes close toaesthetic figures on a mixed plane, whose subtle slippings advanceso far onto arts plane of composition that the partial observers mixwith the aesthetic figures (217). It is difficult to separate the aestheticfigures from the compounds of sensations on the plane of composition.Aesthetic figures . . . are sensations: percepts and affects, landscapes andfaces, visions and becomings (177). Their seeing is only perceivinginasmuch as they have passed into the landscape and are themselvespart of the compound of sensations: not perception but percept (169).That the aesthetic figures are sensations by no means excludes arts beingdependent on an interaction with philosophy and science to create thecompounds of sensations in its possible universe a universe that setsthese compounds of sensations in motion. In this interaction, art createsthe compounds of sensations by rising, through the performance of themovements by means of the aesthetic figure, to the power of thinkingand creating, to be a layer of the brain-subject. Art . . . lays out a planeof composition that, in turn, through the action of aesthetic figures, bearsmonuments or composite sensations (197).

For concepts and conceptual personae to be able to mix with thesensations and aesthetic figures at all, the intrinsic interferences ofphilosophy with art must imply that art, in order to support philosophyin a division of labour for the creation of the concept, composes thepercepts and affects to which the concepts adhere that art, in aninteraction with philosophy, awakens to life the conceptual persona that

46 Mathias Schnher

raises the concept to creation. Everything points to the conclusion thatthe subtle slippings of philosophy open up concepts to the plane ofcomposition to such an extent that the concepts form a universe forart, setting in motion the corresponding percepts and affects that arthas composed. And indeed, Deleuze and Guattari say that conceptsare centers of vibrations, each in itself and every one in relation toall the others, counting the vibration (because it is already durable orcompound) as one of the different monumental types, or varieties, ofcompounds of sensations of art (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 23, 168).They also describe concepts given in their full maturity as conceptualblocs, and by comparison, the work of art as a bloc of sensation(208, 164). In any case, there must be a real interplay between theplanes in order to arrive at the concepts as conceptual blocs. To thisend, philosophy must connect up the concepts to the percepts andaffects of art, so that these percepts and affects are set in motion; thismotion, in turn, induces an aesthetic figure on the plane of composition,and with this aesthetic figure, the conceptual persona arises on theplane of immanence through the connecting up of the concepts tothe percepts and affects. This interplay even leads to the conceptualpersonae seeming to leave a plane of immanence and mixing with theaesthetic figures, so that between them, not only alliances but alsobranchings and substitutions take place (66). And all this is possiblebecause the plane of composition of art and the plane of immanenceof philosophy can slip into each other to the degree that parts ofone may be occupied by entities of the other, without fusing (66). Infact, in each case the plane and that which occupies it are like tworelatively distinct and heterogeneous parts (66). The reason why theplanes slip into each other, according to Deleuze and Guattari, is thatthe concept as such can be concept of the affect, just as the affect canbe affect of the concept (66). And together with concept and sensation,conceptual persona and aesthetic figure also pass into one another, butagain they do not fuse: even if aesthetic figures are not the same asconceptual personae they pass into one another, in either direction,like Igitur or Zarathustra, but this is insofar as there are sensations ofconcepts and concepts of sensations (177). This mixing of concept andconceptual persona with sensation and aesthetic figure, as the plane ofimmanence and the plane of composition slip into each other, derivesfrom a becoming that is produced through the affect, when philosophyconnects up concepts with the percepts and affects composed by art.The affect thus causes the concepts to vibrate, and these vibrations aretransferred to the extent that branchings and substitutions, interlinking

The Creation of the Concept 47

the planes, arise between conceptual persona and aesthetic figure. Theconceptual persona and the aesthetic figure, assertsWhat Is Philosophy?,can pass into each other in a becoming that sweeps them both upin an intensity which co-determines them (66). Despite their sharedintensity, it is still possible to distinguish a sensory becoming from aconceptual becoming even in the affect of the concept, the affect beingon the plane of composition and the concept on the plane of immanence.Accordingly, the aesthetic figures never fuse in the conceptual personae,whose sensation is only a perception inasmuch as, having totallypassed into the concept, for them the concepts themselves are thepercepts:

Sensory becoming is the action by which something or someone is ceaselesslybecoming-other (while continuing to be what they are), . . . whereasconceptual becoming is the action by which the common event itself eludeswhat is. Conceptual becoming is heterogeneity grasped in an absolute form;sensory becoming is otherness caught in a matter of expression. (Deleuze andGuattari 1994: 177)

The intrinsic interferences of philosophy with art draw the thinker intoa form of athleticism, for he or she is on two planes at the sametime and does not produce a synthesis but ties the planes togetherwithout referring them back to a unity, in a constant battle, since Kantagain they struggle against one another in him or her (Deleuze 1984:xii). This struggle is a condition of creation itself, to the extent thatit tears the planes from their tacit connection by opinion; they shakeoff the stabilised I of opinion to knot themselves always anew insingular moments of creation. According to Deleuze and Guattari,Igitur is just such a case of a conceptual persona transported ontoa plane of composition, an aesthetic figure carried onto a plane ofimmanence: his proper name is a conjunction (Deleuze and Guattari1994: 67). As conjunctions, these thinkers do not produce a synthesisof art and philosophy but branch out and do not stop branchingout (67):

They are hybrid geniuses who neither erase nor cover over differences inkind but, on the contrary, use all the resources of their athleticism to installthemselves within this very difference, like acrobats torn apart in a perpetualshow of strength. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 67)

In this perpetual show of strength, the hybrid genius establishes thecorrespondence between the planes, bridging the I of thinking, whichis constantly split anew like a tightrope walker, like Zarathustra

48 Mathias Schnher

(Nietzsche 1976: 124). The brain, under its first aspect of absoluteform, appears as the faculty of concepts, as the power of the conceptto become a subject through the conceptual persona, by creating theconcept itself as event, a conceptual becoming as heterogeneity graspedin an absolute form (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 211). And this I is notonly the I conceive of the brain as philosophy, it is also the I feel ofthe brain as art (211).

When the concept itself, as conceptual persona, becomes subject,it determines, as intensity, our becoming or to be more precise,the conceptual persona is nothing but this becoming, the thinking,perceiving and feeling of the concept. This is the moment in whichphilosophy finds its expression through the concept, as that power ofthinking and creating which is the power of the concept itself. Whatdepends on a free creative activity is also that which, independently andnecessarily, posits itself in itself (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 11). Theconcept, created relative to its own components, to other concepts, tothe plane, posits itself as absolute through the condensation it carriesout (21). The moment of creation is the transition from the infinitemovements to the concept as intensity, and corresponds to the transitionin Spinoza from created nature to creating nature, from the infiniteto the absolute: the concept unfolds its power, it posits itself and itsobject at the same time as it is created in carrying out the infinitemovements of the plane of immanence, in the thinking, perceiving andfeeling of the concept (22). The concept itself is what makes us thinkthrough the conceptual persona, makes us see and become. It is noobjection to say that creation is the prerogative of the sensory and thearts, since . . . philosophical concepts are also sensibilia (5). Conceptsare of a creating nature, in the same sense as Deleuze and Guattari saywith reference to art that the sensation is not colored but, as Czannesaid, coloring (167). Through the intrinsic interferences with art withwhich philosophy awakens to life its conceptual persona which, as aliving category, applies the movements of the plane to the concepts theconcept is created as a vital idea, becomes an intensity, and posits itself asabsolute (3). The conceptual persona performs the infinite movements ofthought on the plane of immanence and erects interferences, interveningbetween the plane and the intensive features of the concepts that happento populate it. Igitur (75). Or, to make it explicit: This was to takeplace in the combinations of the Infinite face to face with the Absolute.Necessary the extracted Idea. Profitable madness. There one of the actsof the universe was just committed . . . Proof (Mallarm 1982: 92).

The Creation of the Concept 49

V. The Interaction Led by Taste

At the beginning of What Is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari assertthat the time has come for us to ask what philosophy is, noting that theyhave often raised this question and always provided the same answer:Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts(Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 2). However, they continue, the answer notonly had to take note of the question, it had to determine its moment, itsoccasion and circumstances, its landscapes and personae, its conditionsand unknowns (2). As long as the concept has not yet received thesedeterminations, as long as it is formed but not yet created, linked to otherconcepts, given in its full maturity, the plane remains still-transparent, inother words prephilosophical, and the conceptual persona still in limbo.All three elements must be constructed as such; and as none of them isdeduced from the others, there must be coadaptation of the three (77).Because, on this basis, the concept must be created, it refers back to thephilosopher as the one who has it potentially, or who has its power andcompetence, who awakens the conceptual persona to life precisely bysurrendering to the power of the concept (5):

The philosopher is the concepts friend; he is potentiality of the concept.That is, philosophy is not a simple art of forming, inventing, or fabricatingconcepts, because concepts are not necessarily forms, discoveries, or products.More rigorously, philosophy is the discipline that consists in creatingconcepts . . . Because the concept must be created, it refers back to thephilosopher as the one who has it potentially, or who has its power andcompetence. (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 5/10; translation modified)

Philosophy is the activity of creating concepts to the same extent thatscience and art consist in scientific or artistic activity; it consists asphilosophy only in the creative implementation of the movements ofthought on the plane of immanence, which entails the now of ourbecoming (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 8).

The philosophical faculty of coadaptation, which also regulates thecreation of concepts, is called taste (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 77).Thus taste guides not only the construction of the elements and theirmutual coadaptation but also, starting from this basis, the positing of theconcept as event in each singular moment of creation. Taste first appearsas the triple faculty which imposes on itself the rule for the coadaptationof the three elements of philosophy: No rule . . . will say in advancewhether this is the good plane, the good persona, or the good concept;for each of them determines if the other two have succeeded or not, buteach must be constructed on its own account, and we construct only

50 Mathias Schnher

as we go along and on the basis of their coadaptations (82). In respectof taste, as the triple faculty of the still-undetermined concept, of thepersona still in limbo, and of the still-transparent plane, write Deleuzeand Guattari, the laying-out of the plane is called Reason, the inventionof personae Imagination, and the creation of concepts Understanding(77). Art serves as Imagination, with whose help philosophy inventsthe conceptual personae and brings them to life; science serves asUnderstanding, with whose help philosophy constructs and determinesconcepts; philosophy is in this case Reason, which is stimulated in thisfree yet also necessary interaction until, in the moment of creation, itfinds its expression as the power or faculty of thinking and creating, inthe creation of concepts. Alongside coadaptation, the free creation . . . ofconcepts calls for a taste that guides it and at the same time appearsas philosophical taste, as love of the well-made concept, well-mademeaning not a moderation of the concept but a sort of stimulation astimulation through interference with science and slippings into thesensations and aesthetic figures of art (778).

While opinion proceeds by applying recognition and mediatesbetween a subject of lived experience and its object, the philosophicalconcept needs taste in order to become the object of creation, just asthe brain becomes subject through the conceptual persona. Apart froma rule that the philosopher imposes on himself, no rule is valid forthe free interplay. The philosopher . . . can determine a concept onlythrough a measureless creation whose only rule is a plane of immanencethat he lays out and whose only compass are the strange personae towhich it gives life (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 78). The conceptualpersona, which advances through reconnections of the componentstaken from chaos in a concept and in the sequencing of the conceptsamong themselves, is not prescribed any rigid categories by the plane:the plane implies a sort of groping experimentation and points to aninstinctive, almost animal sapere (41, 79). Nietzsche, suggest Deleuzeand Guattari, sensed this relationship of the creation of concepts with aspecifically philosophical taste and was aware that it is certainly not forrational or reasonable reasons that a particular concept is created or aparticular component chosen (78). A groping experimentation, a taste,remains the only possibility of orienting oneself in the smooth spaces,given in close vision, of sequencing the concepts beyond the intentionallyopened rift, the hiatus, when the linkage between one of them and thenext is not defined in advance.

Because the concept is given its determination by allusions to theactual, we need have no sympathy for Hallwards characterisation, in

The Creation of the Concept 51

a detailed discussion of What Is Philosophy?, of Deleuzes thoughtas post-mystical philosophy with no relation to the actual (Hallward2006: 133). Due to the interaction of philosophy with science and artfor the creation of concepts, it makes no sense to allow philosophythe exclusive privilege of being capable, with concepts, of creation inits purest form. Yet this does not mean obliterating the differences inkind between these three forms of thought and denying philosophy thepotential for its very own and specific creation, as de Bloois does. It isnot in spite of, but precisely because of the intrinsic interferences thatphilosophy posits the concept as a singular creation and expresses itselfas an autonomous power of thinking and creating. The hybrid genius ofDeleuze and Guattari therefore reveals itself in the stimulation of tastefor a free interplay of thought in its three great forms, an interplay thatresists the degeneration of thought into opinion.3

Notes1. I am following Stengerss use of matter of fact instead of state of affairs for the

translation of tat des choses (Stengers 2005: 153). For all quotations fromWhatIs Philosophy? (Deleuze and Guattari 1994) that include other modifications tothe English translation, the second page number refers to the French edition(Deleuze and Guattari 2005a).

2. I base my considerations of Spinoza entirely on Deleuze (Deleuze 1990: ch. 7).3. This article was translated from the German with the help of Michael Scuffil

and Kate Sturge. It outlines the framework of my forthcoming book on WhatIs Philosophy? I would like to thank Professor Richard Heinrich (University ofVienna) for his continuous support.

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