a critical post by a DeLandian

Just ran across THIS. It’s not especially hostile, but does make several critical claims about my reading of DeLanda which I can answer quickly. It only refers to the 2008 Continental Philosophy Review article (which is based on my 2007 Goldmsiths lecture on DeLanda & Latour; I had to cut the Latour pages to make it small enough for CPR). The poster doesn’t seem to be aware that there’s also a chapter on DeLanda in Towards Speculative Realism, which is the November 2008 lecture I gave in Stavanger, Norway. I enjoyed writing both of those pieces, because DeLanda is so clear in his claims. It’s like the best sort of analytic philosophy– he makes a point, tries to justify the point with relevant evidence, and moves on to the next point.

Incidentally, I gave that Norway lecture because DeLanda himself couldn’t go and recommended me as his substitute. Despite the blog poster’s assertion that I’m inclined to clumsy misreadings of DeLanda, that doesn’t seem to be how DeLanda sees it. We’re not close personal friends, but do correspond a bit and are on good terms. I mention this because the blog poster makes it sound like I’m more hostile to his work than is the case. DeLanda is actually one of my favorite contemporary philosophy authors. Though I don’t share most of the Deleuzian elements of his position, he develops it skillfully, and best of all, he has a knack for showing how his concepts can work in all kinds of subject areas. How many other people in contemporary continental philosophy give explanations of thunderstorms, for example? These kinds of passages in DeLanda are wonderfully stimulating. He’s also an exceptionally good writer, in my opinion.

Just a few quick responses to the post:

•”While apparently celebrating DeLanda’s realism, Harman’s critique in a way ends up saying, ‘not bad, but not as good as mine.’”

Well, of course. I’m not a DeLandian (or even a Deleuzian). I have my own philosophical position, and I think there are features that recommend that position. But it would be safe to say that the CPR article is written in a generally appreciative tone. This looks like a case of projection, in fact, since the blog poster’s attitude towards my philosophy seems to be “not bad, but not as good as DeLanda’s.”

1. “…if Harman’s ontology is an actualist one, however expanded, which the essay suggests, and if he excises the virtual, then he is left in the position of championing (presumably actual) objects which do not in fact exist in reality. [Admittedly, I am not an expert on the Harmanian school, so perhaps others may correct me here]”

The blog poster tends to call things “misunderstandings” that are actually bona fide philosophical disagreements. This is one such example. As explained in both the CPR and TSR pieces, I think the virtual has many of the same flaws as the potential, from which people never tire of differentiating it. It’s not concrete enough for me.

I’m not sure why the blog poster thinks I am left defending objects that don’t exist in reality. They do exist in reality, and they are completely concrete as to their qualities (this is where I differ from advocates of the virtual) but they are non-relational. There is a tendency among Deleuzians to think that qualities must arise in a relational context, and hence that the real/virtual must be deeper than any qualities. (Parenthetically, this has to do with a wider philosophical disagreement that I’ll be dealing with in the next couple of weeks in an essay on Whitehead.)

2. “Harman also claims that ‘DeLanda draws an absolute separation between species and genus.’ Now, for anyone who has read all of DeLanda’s works, this is clearly a misreading for DeLanda replaces the categories of species and genus rather than working within that framework. Harman’s misreading becomes more obvious when he says of DeLanda’s use of species and genus, ‘they actually refer to two different ontological structures.’ The whole point of DeLanda’s new philosophy of society is to streamline Deleuze and Guattari’s work, and thus to posit a flat ontology, only assemblages may be considered real.”

This misses the point. DeLanda does not generally retain “genus” and “species” as technical terms in his philosophy, of course. But I’m referring here to one specific passage in DeLanda’s new philosophy of society book. And there, as I quoted rather precisely, he does make a significant distinction between genus and species. He uses them, in short, as temporary technical terms to prove a point.

Species is not real at all for DeLanda. Darwin destroyed the species, in his account. There is no “monkey” in general, just a lot of individual monkeys. This is part of DeLanda’s critique of essentialism, and is linked with his general hostility to Aristotle (which I do not share).

By contrast, DeLanda uses genus as a positive term in that passage. The genus is not just an illusion like the species is, but has a topological reality. “Vertebrate” is an example that DeLanda uses. DeLanda does not say that vertebrate is illusory in the way that monkey is. Rather, vertebrate is a structure of a space of possibilities.

The blog poster pays no attention to the passage I’m commenting on, and instead makes a sweeping claim about the role of assemblages in DeLanda. But no one would deny that “assemblage” is a more important technical term for DeLanda than “genus” is. My point was about the one passage in the society book. And there is much to be learned about DeLanda’s views from that passage.

3. “The most serious misunderstanding on Harman’s part concerns the status of the virtual in DeLanda. One wonders if he has just read the one book (A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage theory and social complexity), ignoring for example, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, or if it is a deliberate move. How for example does Harman come to the idea that DeLanda’s virtual is ‘unusually quantized,’ that is to say, ‘far more fragmented into discrete chunks than it is for many Deleuzians?’”

Is it really necessary to claim that someone hasn’t read a book? The article purposely covers the society book only. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy is in some respects even more interesting; it was the first DeLanda I ever read, and sparked my correspondence with him. It’s simply hard to write about Intensive Science without getting into an interpretation of the whole of Deleuze’s philosophy, and I couldn’t fit that into a single lecture at Goldsmiths (and as stated, that lecture is where this article came from).

The poster doesn’t explain why he thinks it’s so incorrect to claim that the virtual for DeLanda is “unusually quantized” in comparison with that of many Deleuzians. Sure, quite often Deleuzians do resent the charge that Deleuze’s virtual is too monistic, but I’m hardly the first person ever to make that charge, and neither was Badiou (individuals in Deleuze tend to be treated as sterile efflorescences, not as real –if indirect– causal agents, as for me). I would make roughly the same charge against Spinoza, and Spinoza fans get upset about that too. They claim in response that of course Spinoza leaves plenty of room for bona fide individuals, and of course being is not “numerically one” for Spinoza, etc. But this is all the province of legitimate philosophical debate, not the mere result of someone’s “misreading.”

4. “Given that Harman is by no means a careless reader, it seems strange that his review of DeLanda’s ontology would contain these misunderstandings.”

The poster hasn’t shown that any of them are misunderstandings. Points 1 and 3 concern full-blown philosophical disagreements. As for Point 2, the poster simply missed the intent of my discussion of DeLanda’s genus/species passage.

DeLanda doesn’t seem to think that they’re simply misunderstandings either. He’s currently in the midst of writing a response to my Norway chapter from Towards Speculative Realism, and I would expect that response to be both a useful clarification of differences and, again, bona fide philosophical debate.