The philosophical constructivism of Deleuze and Guattari
Iain MacKenzie
At first glance, Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy? may appear to confirm the mainstream critical opinion that poststructuralism has gone astray.1 What was once a radical agenda questioning the legitimacy of social institutions and the n ature of modern subjectivity has now become, in the words of one reviewer, a matter of doing 'philosophy for philosophy's sake'.2 The abandonment of their earlier interrogations into the machinations of desire in this, their last work together, may have s anctioned the view that Deleuze and Guattari were always really ivory tower metaphysicians inclined towards an arid scholasticism. From this perspective, their investigation into that most intractable of problems, the nature of philosophy, is indicative o f a common tendency within poststructuralism towards an uncritical variety of abstruse theorizing that all too easily loses touch with the demands of practical social criticism.
A thorough reading of What is Philosophy? shows that this charge is invalid. As I will argue, the constructivist view of philosophy outlined by Deleuze and Guattari culminates in a carefully crafted account of what it is to be a social critic. S pecifically, What is Philosophy? is the most convincing attempt to date to reveal the philosophical claims implicit within poststructuralist theoretical analysis and critical practice. As such, it should not be dismissed as the product of ageing in tellectuals losing touch with social and political reality; nor should it be confined to dusty shelves full of obscure works by difficult 'continental' philosophers. Its rightful place is alongside the 'classics' of contemporary thought as a novel and com pelling account of what it is to be a (poststructuralist) social critic.
What is philosophy?
Deleuze and Guattari give a deceptively simple answer to this question: 'philosophy', they say, 'is the discipline that involves creating concepts.' At first glance this definition is hardly contentious. Its critical impact, though, is clear from the conceptions of philosophy that it excludes: namely, philosophy as 'contemplation, reflection and communication'. Philosophy as contemplation Deleuze and Guattari call 'objective idealism', and it is clear that they have Plato in mind as the founder of this approach. For Plato, philosophy was the contemplation of 'Ideas'. In The Republic, for example, Plato is able to equate justice in the individual with justice in the community because the 'Idea of Justice' resides in neither the individual nor the community but in a separate realm of pure 'Ideas', in the bright world outside the cave. Philosophy as reflection Deleuze and Guattari call 'subjective idealism', and here they have both Descartes and Kant in mind. In Cartesian philosophy the doubting subject cannot be sure of the objective status of 'Ideas'; Platonism, whether right or wrong, must be bracketed out of the equation. Yet, in the act of doubting, Descartes rediscovers the 'Idea', only now it resides within the subject as the 'I think', the famous Cartesian 'cogito'. Although Kant called into question the Cartesian 'cogito', the approach of reflecting upon an agent's self-knowledge was maintained (the transcendental categories replacing the activity of doubting). Philosophy, on this account, is reflection upon the subject's implicit knowledge of thought (in Descartes) or thought, space and time (in Kant). According to this approach, 'objectivity will ... assume a certainty of knowledge rather than presuppose a truth recognized as pre-existing, or already there.' Philosophy as communication Deleuze and Guattari call 'intersubjective idealism', a philosophical moment whose beginnings they associate with phenomenology, in particular the work of Husserl. Husserl's project was to reintroduce the Kantian subject to the phenomenal world, not in order to renounce transcendence but to put the transcendental subject on the solid empirical ground of 'actual experience'. As Deleuze and Guattari explain, the subject's transcendence via such experience has a triple root: 'the subject constitutes first of all a sensory world filled with objects, then an intersubjective world filled by the other, and finally a common ideal world.' The transcendent 'Idea', on this account, is neither a pre-existing object, nor a presupposition of subjective reflection, but a consequence of intersubjective interaction. Philosophical activity becomes indistinguishable from the 'communication' (broadly defined) that takes place between subjects.
That Deleuze and Guattari take these differing accounts of philosophical activity to be variants of 'idealism' already suggests the tenor of their critique. Contemplation, reflection or communication, they argue, cannot be definitive of philosophical activity because the concepts 'contemplation', 'reflection' and 'communication' must first and foremost be created. What they say of Plato in this context applies equally to Descartes, Kant and Husserl: 'Plato teaches the opposite of what he does: he creates concepts but needs to set them up as representing the uncreated that precedes them.' Deleuze and Guattari are not suggesting that human beings do not 'contemplate, reflect or communicate', nor that philosophy should not concern itself with these actions, only that it is a mistake to equate these actions with philosophical activity itself. Philosophy, they say, becomes 'idealism' when it forgets this distinction.
Surely treating philosophy as a form of constructivism, as the creation of concepts, is also susceptible to the charge of idealism? Is 'creation' not a concept, and a distinct activity, as surely as contemplation, reflection and communication? One response would be: if creation is a concept, as a concept it must first and foremost be created, thus retaining the idea of philosophy as the creation of concepts. Does this help? To pursue this line is to ground philosophy in a representation of the 'uncreated of creation', precisely the kind of argument that engenders the philosophical idealism Deleuze and Guattari hope to avoid. Besides, to equate philosophy with creation and leave the matter at that would be to neglect the fact that other disciplines, such as science and art, are equally creative. To give substance to the idea that philosophy is the creation of concepts, and thereby meet the charge of idealism, one must look more carefully at what is being created: the concept.
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