Brassier and the Idealization of Immanence
I recently read Ray Brassier’s doctoral work Alien Theory. Although unnecessarily obscure and dense at crucial points, Brassier offers several very interesting points, especially on the connection between Deleuze and Laruelle. One idea I am particularly interested in is the supposed ‘ideality’ of the plane of immanence in Deleuze, previously discussed here and here. Contrasting it to the phenomenological positing of the transcendental field, Brassier writes:
What is idealizing about the Deleuzoguattarian reduction is that the plane is instituted not according to the form of absolute consciousness as ‘self-giving’, but rather through the philosophical Concept as ‘self-positing’ or as a relative-absolute which pre-supposes the plane in and through its own self-supposing or self-positing…. The plane has to be philosophically constructed; yet it is also that which constructs itself through philosophy…. (2001, p.63)
Brassier’s Hegelian formulation is far from being accidental. What is it stake is precisely the “hyletic continuum” that lies at the center of Deleuze’s project. Namely, in his ‘Spinozist’ ontology the separation between an ontological and an epistemological concept of a plane is strictly untenable. In order not to fall into the abyss of correlationism, Deleuze has to insist on the absolute continuity between Being and Thought (a project which he rounds off in WIP). And, it is precisely this continuity that forbids the double use of the plane. “The plane has to be philosophically constructed; yet it is also that which constructs itself through philosophy”. In other words, the philosophical positing of the plane as ‘pre-supposed’ is both an epistemological and an ontological act, since what is at stake is not knowledge, but thought. The “image of thought” specifies the conditions of the emergence of thought, which delineates simultaneously the actualization of a reflective composite and the slicing of chaos that makes philosophy possible.
As Brassier shrewdly observes, this reduction, by bypassing the postulation of a transcendental subject, isolates a “transcendental residue” at the very point of “indiscernibility between the supposition and pre-supposition” (p.64). That is, the absolute ground of thought is the pure synthesis of the plane, the condition sine qua non of philosophical thinking. In other words, thought is only made possible by the production of an ‘outside’ which is not merely an epistemic ground, but delineates the necessary condition of thought’s ontological emergence. Thought thinks itself only via the pure synthesis of the plane. And, it is precisely here that the ‘idealizing’ gesture is to be located. If the plane is the absolute exteriority of thought, which nevertheless is philosophically posed and pre-supposed, then its immediacy is displaced by an always present conceptual mediation, i.e. by a pre-existing ‘sublation’. On this reading, Deleuze’s position is remarkably similar to Hegel’s “positing of the pre-supposition”. The plane, understood as a pure horizontal slicing of the chaos is self-synthesizing, but at a price: “it lays itself out through the positing of the philosophical Concept” (p.64). The abolition of the transcendent crutch is always accompanied by an idealistic residue – the mediation of the plane’s self-positing through Thought.
Conclusively: a) even if LE PLAN is an unrepresentable totality, that unrepresentability is, always and by definition, posited through Thought, i.e. via the activity of the philosopher. And, b) the ontological-epistemological distinction in the concept of the plane is untenable, since it misses the core of Deleuze’s project: the hyletic continuum and the self-supposition of the plane. What is at stake, again, is not knowledge, but thought – the image of its emergence and its annexation to the flux of Becoming. The non-organic life….
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I should point out that I think Ray has retreated from the reading of Deleuze he gave in the dissertation. Regardless though, I just don’t see how this reading stands up.
In essence, you’re trying to claim that the distinction between the epistemological concept of ‘a’ plane of immanence, and the ontological concept of ‘the’ plane of immanence can’t hold up because ‘the’ plane of immanence needs to be auto-positional or something of the like. The problem is that all these notions of self-positing are introduced in relation to the epistemological concept, i.e., you have to elide the distinction already in order to show that it doesn’t stand up. It sounds fancy, but it’s basically circular.
This is woven together with some claims about the identity of Being and Thought, which Deleuze does indeed endorse to some extent. However, you’re conveniently interpreting thought as ‘conceptual thought’, or what Deleuze gives an account of in WIP. It’s this account of the conceptual which could be described as ‘epistemological’, and thus you reinforce your point about the epistemological and ontological becoming indiscernible in his work. However, this is again just a bad reading.
Thought in Deleuze is something far broader than the conceptual. For Deleuze, there is a sense in which EVERYTHING thinks, insofar as everything is solving problems (i.e., actualising the virtual). The particular, conceptual form of thought that we evince is just one manifestation of this ontological notion, and thus any claims that are specific to the conceptual (such as claims about auto-positionality or what not) are not thereby convertible into ontological claims.
All I can say is that the reading your presenting here seems to be falling over itself to try and find an idealism in Deleuze, and to that end seems to muddle a bunch of different notions from different points in his work that are related in more complex ways.
Above all, I want to re-iterate that my discussion of the plane is based more or less on an intuition, which, unfortunately, I don’t have time to develop or pursue more methodically. In that sense, the ‘muddling’ is a direct result of the lack of any systematic analysis of the issue. Basically, what I am presenting is a series of ad hoc approaches on the topic. Moreover, I have to admit that I am relying on a more general argument, the idea that every absolute materialism has to depend on a primary idealizing gesture…
Nevertheless, I haven’t seen anything in your claims that has really made me reconsider. It is probably fruitful to recapitulate:
1. The plane of immanence was originally a phenomenological concept
2. In the phenomenological use of the plane the ontological/epistemological distinction is a non-issue, because of the immediate coincidence of Being and Thought and the “self-positing” of the plane in the epoche
I think we agree on these two points. But:
3. For Deleuze to cleanse the ‘plane’ of all phenomenological residues, he can either:
a) stick to an epistemological use of the plane (a philosophical yoking of the chaos)
- which he does not do
b) posit an unrepresentable ontological plane distinct from any philosophical conceptualization (this plane would lack any substantial content)
- this, I think, is the position you are holding
or:
4) frame the plane into an auto-positing narrative that Brassier talks about
- in this scenario, I do not at all need for all thought in Deleuze to be conceptual. All I need is the fact that the positing of the so-called ‘epistemological’ plane is an act of conceptual thought
At this point, the argument is simple:
‘b)’ is very problematic (and because of the continuity of conceptual Thought and Being) tends to move towards 4…
And, the issue that raises most problems concerning this is ‘univocity’:
5) The horizontal leveling of Being for Deleuze is, supposedly, a necessary consequences of the banishment of transcendence,
but:
6) that leveling is ‘problematic’ if it is to be presented as a ‘synthesis’ of heterogeneous elements….
7) It is precisely the (im)possibility of this type of synthesis that is the kernel of the criticism, since (when separated from an ‘epistemological’ use) this leveling of chaos is a speculative (and idealizing) gesture
In other words,
8 ) This disjunctive synthesis of the plane is unattainable in a non-phenomenological account, since it relies on a speculative inflation of the pluralist ontology
Why ‘consistency’ in addition to the heterogeneous ‘presentations’ of Being?