Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
283
(~) 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
PATRICK HAYDEN
Department of Philosophy, DePaul University, 2320 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago IL
60614-3298, U.S.A.
1. Introduction
turned to the study of Hume as a way to act against the "rationalist tradition"
that has dominated the history of philosophy. 5 Deleuze's resistance to the
rationalism he disdains is further revealed in the later expositions of Niet-
zsche, Bergson, and Spinoza, all of whom for Deleuze qualify as empiricists.
Consequently, while concerned with the philosophy of Hume in particular,
Empiricism and Subjectivity also proves useful for understanding the devel-
opment and orientation of Deleuze's philosophy as a pluralist empiricism.
What immediately distinguishes Deleuze's reading of Hume from classical
interpretations is that while these interpretations tend to cast Hume in the role
of an early positivist concerned with epistemology and psychology, Deleuze
insists that Hume should be seen fil:st and foremost as a political, histori-
cal, and moral philosopher (ES, 27; 33). 6 Deleuze's point is that Hume, like
Deleuze himself, sought to make philosophy more practical, in the sense that
it is directed toward questions regarding the active composition of an inten-
sive world (or worlds). 7 It is for this reason that Deleuze claims that "the only
possible theory" to be found throughout all of Hume's work "is a theory of
practice" (ES, 32).
One of the most important discussions to emerge from this exposition of
Hume's practical philosophy is directed to the concept of relations. Hume,
according to Deleuze, created "the first great logic of relations" (ES, x). In
Deleuze's view, Hume's philosophy constitutes the apex of early-modem
British empiricism. Yet Deleuze maintains that there is also something more
to Hume, "something very strange," he says, "which completely displaces
empiricism" (D, 15). Deleuze notes that it is a sign of Hume's genius to have
conceived not only a theory of relations, but more importantly a "practice of
relations," which offers empiricism a new and genuinely radical power (D,
15). In fact, while Kant refers to Hume in the first Critique as a "geographer
of human reason," Deleuze describes Hume as, on the contrary, a geographer
of relations (D, 56). 8 Yet what does Deleuze mean by the word relation, and
how does he utilize Hume in this respect?
There are three characteristics of relations that are important for Deleuze:
their exteriority, their non-reducibility, and their status as effects of human
practice. Deleuze claims that Hume discovered the exteriority of relations by
way of his empiricist critique of metaphysical essentialism. Generally, the
problem here is that of the derivation of relations from the supposed essence
or nature of things. 9 Essentialism first posits the existence of essences, as the
source of a thing's existence, and then locates relations as if they are derived
from this source. Hence it is maintained that a relation belongs to an essence
or, in other words, that a term and its relation belong to one another essentially.
It is in this sense that relations are defined as internal or intrinsic to the being
of their terms, that is, grounded in the nature of the things which possesses
FROM RELATIONS TO PRACTICE IN THE EMPIRICISM OF GILLES DELEUZE 285
and therefore reducible to, its term(s); any alteration on the part of one is
met with an equal alteration on the part of the other, such that a thing's
essence and its properties maintain the equilibrium of a constant identity
or generalized equilibrium. Consequently, the purpose of Deleuze's critique
is to demonstrate that the theory of internal relations actually prohibits the
possibility of conceiving change by positing an absolute totality which is
homeostatic in nature. 11
Deleuze contrasts this position to the one he maintains is characteristic
of empiricists. Rather than making relations dependent upon the essence of
things, empiricists emphasize that relations are independent of terms which,
in fact, are not endowed with metaphysical essences. How, then, are relations
between terms to be established? Deleuze explains that it is the contingent
"circumstances, actions, and passions" of life which provide for the specific
instauration and alteration of relations between different terms (D, 56). Both
terms (ideas, objects, persons) and relations are endowed with a positive
reality because relations are not derived from the terms themselves. There-
fore relations may be constituted between terms and changed by a variety
of human actions without affecting the terms themselves, since there is no
necessary connection or absolute unity to be maintained. It is important to
note that Deleuze is not denying the interrelatedness of things, although he
is challenging the fundamental ontological assumptions of the essentialist
theory of relations. This occurs in several ways. First, as we have seen, the
Deleuzian empiricist resists subordinating relations to the essence of things
by insisting on the exteriority of relations. This does not means that relations
do not exist between terms, only that they come into existence by practical
rather than essential or necessary means. Furthermore, when the relation(s)
between terms are altered there is no requirement that the terms themselves
must change, at least "in essence." This provides a certain freedom to the
relational realm, which effectively counters any move toward attributing
teleological causation to an internally-related and closed system.
Second, Deleuze rejects the notion of an organic, stable, and absolute uni-
ty that transcends the empirical world. Relations lose all practical relevance
when they are subordinated to this totality, for the only relations possible
are those that inherently tend toward the consolidation of absolute identity.
Instead of viewing things on the basis of their essential identities and relations
as derived from them, Deleuze explains that actual relations are effects of the
activities and practices of individuals who are different yet nevertheless inter-
acting. These interactions do not occur within a single encompassing Whole,
but take place within and give rise to a series of qualitatively changing, open
wholes or systems which may overlap at certain points. 12 Deleuze thus con-
trasts a fixed Whole that transcends its parts to a series of shifting contingent
FROM RELATIONS TO PRACTICE IN THE EMPIRICISM OF GILLES DELEUZE 287
wholes that form the immanent and open network of the world. Both of these
challenges presented by Deleuze not only contribute to the positive empiri-
cist assessment of the contingencies and differences characteristic of human
existence, but they also tend to politicize the ontological implications of each
position. On the one hand, essentialism and the paradigm of internal relations
leads in the direction of extreme centralization and totatization, the subordi-
nation of individuals to transcendental principles, and passivity in the face
of social and political homogeneity. On the other hand, pluralist empiricism
and the theory and practice of external relations promotes decentralization
and multiplicity, resistance to supposed universal necessities, and action with
respect to the possibilities of creating new types of social and political associ-
ation. It is clear, then, why Deleuze is so appreciative of Hume's philosophy,
for here Deleuze has found the resources with which to associate relations to
praxis.
Whereas the essentialist-internalist theory of relations claims that there are
relations arising directly out of the nature of things which have their necessary
place in the Absolute, the empiricist-externalist conception of relations finds
them to be variable effects of the practical formation of multiple open systems
that overlap, converge, diverge, and interact at various points. For Deleuze,
our world is composed of open wholes produced by social practices, practices
which constitute and alter the relations of these wholes and thereby the quality
of the wholes themselves. Although relations are external to their terms
they are nonetheless immanent within and open to the dynamic continuum
of the world. Hence, because relations do not belong to their terms, their
composition and alteration does not transform the terms; instead the wholes
are qualitatively changed. In other words, as relations are created or varied
between terms the wholes to which these terms are related change as well,
in such a manner that the wholes or systems are continually open, always
giving rise to something new. 13 If we reconsider our previous example we
can see that it would be possible to alter the relation between the glass and the
table because the relation is not grounded in any essence and is irreducible
to its terms. What is altered is the relationship between the two terms. The
contingent whole formed by this relationship can be qualitatively changed
without affecting the supposed nature of the terms. This way of thinking
about relationships allows them to be conceived in a practical manner which
refuses their subordination to essentialism.
Accordingly, empiricists are not concerned with determining the essence
and intrinsic relation of each thing, but with describing how new relations can
be actively created between things in order to produce change in and between
the wholes these relationships form. Relations are to be thought in accordance
with what Deleuze refers to as the "fundamental principle of empiricism," the
288 PATRICK HAYDEN
in meaning. Meaning and therefore truth, are obtained only when language
accurately corresponds to non-linguistic reality and are defined in terms of
reference. The problem, of course, is knowing whether our language is indeed
standing in correct relation to the reality it supposedly represents. Deleuze
argues that the traditional attempt to guarantee this knowledge has taken the
approach of proposing that language and nonlinguistic reality are internally
related, and this in three ways. Considering the case of propositions, Deleuze
notes that the first internal relation claimed to hold is that of denotation
or indication. Denotation is that which refers the words of a proposition to
exterior objects or states of affairs. This mirroring relation individuates or
identifies the non-linguistic object by linking it to the linguistic form "it is":
it is this or that, it is here or there (LS, 12-13). The second internal relation
examined by Deleuze is that of manifestation. Manifestation connects the
proposition to the speaking subject, that is, to the pure intentions internal to
the subject who speaks (LS, 13). The purpose of this relation is to ground the
correspondence of beliefs and objects in the apparently indubitable domain of
human nature. Meaning emerges as the intrinsic relation of subject and object,
whose certainty is found in the linguistic form of the subject who speaks, the
'T' (LS, 13-15). The "I" is, in this case, conceived as the identity-form of
representation and functions as the foundation of all possible denotation (LS,
13-15).
The third internal relation discussed by Deleuze is that of signification.
Signification is the relation of the words of propositions to general or uni-
versal concepts. Further, its syntactic connections relate, Deleuze writes, to
"conceptual implications capable of referring to other propositions, which
serve as premises of the first" (LS, 14). Basically, signification guarantees
the truth of an assertion either by linking words to universal concepts or by
connecting one proposition to another, such that valid claims about reality are
obtained (LS, 15-16). In other words, signification is supposed to guarantee
the truth of the proposition by serving as the internal relation of implication
and assertion. Through these various approaches meaning is accounted for
by explaining how language and non-linguistic reality are internally related,
that is, connected by an ideal relation of correspondence.
However, Deleuze contends that this model of language as a representa-
tional medium results in what he calls "the circle of the proposition" (LS, 17).
The difficulty here is that denotation and manifestation, the speaking subject
and external object, must presuppose one another; the intentions of the sub-
ject require something which they are "about." Furthermore, their intrinsic
relation to signification also presupposes that the denotative premises of a
proposition are true, that it is at once already situated within meaning on
the side of the subject. If the designation or denotation of an object is the
290 PATRICK HAYDEN
realization in a state of affairs. We will not ask therefore what is the sense
of the event: the event is sense itself. (LS, 22).
Thus, the event of sense is not a thing or a fact but the relational effect of the
practical interaction of words and things, expressed in the infinitive, active
form of verbs (LS, 5). Infinitives express the becomings of events, which pass
between language and states of affairs. They do not serve an attributive but
an expressive or predicative function, expressing movement, action, passion,
change, p a s s a g e - in short, the event. 23 Sense is the singular and contingent
unity composed as an effect of infinitely variable relations between terms,
a unity without intrinsic relations. As such, it is, Deleuze remarks, "exactly
the boundary between propositions and things" (LS, 22). Utilizing the theory
of external relations in his account of sense, Deleuze stresses that linguistic
meaning is not formed according to a transcendental principle or represen-
tational schema of the intrinsic relations of signifier to signified and sign to
referent. On the contrary, sense is the variable effect of the dynamic pro-
duction and distribution of actual series of differentially related words and
events. In Deleuze's logic of sense, words and things are treated as elements
that interact on an immanent plane, but that are fundamentally distinct and
different; sense is an incorporeal event that passes between them, on their sur-
faces. Sense is not the property of a natural correspondence between words
and things. Rather, sense must be considered as the expressed affirmation of
multiplicity, a true event of becoming which displaces essentialism and the
pure subject of meaning (LS, 172).
Perhaps the most innovative use Deleuze finds for his adherence to the exte-
riority of relations is the concept of the rhizome he develops with Frlix
Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. As was the case with sense, the issue here
is to articulate how differential compositions, open ended wholes, or what
Deleuze and Guattari call "assemblages," can be formulated on the basis of
a relational multiplicity that avoids binary logic and representational corre-
spondence. Drawing inspiration from the botanical rhizome, the subterranean
plant stem that produces shoots and roots, but in no way feeling constrained
to restrict their use of the rhizome to the botanical level, Deleuze and Guattari
create a full-blown concept of anarchic and creative associationism which
they contrast to the hierarchical schema of arborescent structures. 24 Such
arboreal or vertical tree-like structures are found within the dominant forms
of Western epistemology and ontology, which organize knowledge according
to essentialized, centralized, internalised, and codified systems ofrepresenta-
294 PATRICK HAYDEN
tion that are held to reproduce or mirror a transcendent reality. The rhizome,
on the contrary, is a horizontal and immanent assemblage of relations open
to the productive continuum of the world, and is to be distinguished from the
arboreal scheme by six characteristics.
The first two characteristics concern principles "of connection and hetero-
geneity," according to which "any point of a rhizome can be connected to
anything other, and must be" (ATP, 7). As is evident from the previous sec-
tion on Deleuze's reading of Hume, the rhizome is placed immediately within
Deleuze's position on the exteriority and mobility of relations. The rhizome
is defined by its ability to continually establish "connections between semi-
otic chains, organisations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts,
sciences, and social sciences" (ATE 7). It is understood in light of the diverse
relations established between variable and heterogeneous terms, both discur-
sive and non-discursive. Yet rhizomatic relations are not intrinsic, in that they
are not derived from self-enclosed essentialist totalities, but external, because
they are the effects of practices which associate external terms according to
specific social conditions and circumstances. Although always external to
their terms, relations are nevertheless enveloped, that is, immanent, within
these social or empirical encounters. Rhizomatic relations produce contingent
wholes or open systems that cannot be self-enclosed, on the basis of these
particular interactions. Thus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that there is no such
thing as "language in itself," but instead that there are temporary stabilizations
of linguistic, perceptive, gestural, environmental, and political components
that assemble "not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of
different status" (ATE 7). The rhizome therefore partakes of Deleuze's logic
of sense, as well.
The third characteristic of the rhizome is multiplicity, which Deleuze and
Guattari treat as a substantive. Rhizomatic assemblages are multiplicities in
that they are composed of different terms and external relations irreducible
to those terms. Multiplicities change their dimensions and magnitudes by
altering or expanding their relations, thereby bringing about a qualitative
change of the relational assemblage itself: "An assemblage is precisely this
increase in the dimensions of a multiplicity that necessarily changes in nature
as it expands its connections" (ATE 8). 25 The rhizome does not possess an
essence that determines and fixes its relations. Rather, its sense is made up
of the interplay of those relations which compose it; as these connections
are altered or new connections are made the multiplicity effectively assumes
a new or different sense. The sense of the assemblage is seen as the effect
of the co-functioning of heterogeneous elements in a contingent unity. 26
As proposed by Deleuze, external relations are rhizomatic lines of sense-
becomings that constantly pass or flow between the different elements of
FROM RELATIONS TO PRACTICE IN THE EMPIRICISM OF GILLES DELEUZE 295
an assemblage. 27 This lends the rhizome its fourth characteristic, that of the
"asignifying rupture" (ATP, 9). The rhizome, as an open system composed
- o f external relations and heterogeneous elements, is constantly mutating,
shifting, and reforming itself on the basis of its multidirectionality. It pursues
one line at one moment, a different line at another.
This is what Deleuze and Guattari also refer to as territorialization, deterrito-
rialization, and reterritorialization, the qualitative transformation of complex
assemblages on the basis of proliferating relations between heterogeneous
terms. Every assemblage is characterized by the processes of constituting a
"territory" that holds together distinct or heterogeneous elements, which is
simultaneously a movement of deterritorialization or the transformation of the
assemblage's previous relational quality, and reterritorialization or the pas-
sage from one kind of territorial assemblage to another. It follows that none
of these movements can be isolated as the original moment of the process, for
they continually pass into one another. The rhizome does not change simply
because new terms are brought into play, but because different relations are
allowed to flow between the terms, mutating the relationship as a whole; the
rhizome remains although its sense "can no longer be attributed to or subju-
gated by anything signifying" (ATP, 10). The rhizomatic assemblage does not
resemble, reproduce, or represent any fixed meaning that would determine it
in terms of an essential correspondence. Rather, the sense of the rhizome is
engendered in the relational interaction of its elements and forms of expres-
sion, which change as the rhizome itself is transformed. It is a question of the
becoming-expressive of every assemblage (ATP, 322-23).
Lastly, according to Deleuze and Guattari the rhizome is defined by prag-
matic cartography or the active formation of maps, in contrast to representa-
tional decalcomania or the static imitative function of tracing and reproduc-
tion. Because the rhizome is foreign to any structural or generative model, it
cannot be represented in the form of an infinitely reproducible tracing. Maps
are constructed by means of actual rhizomatic connections. Because it is a
part of the rhizome, the map "is open and connectable in all of its dimensions;
it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification" (ATP, 12).
In short, "one of the most important characteristics of the rhizome is that it
always has multiple entryways," which allows all its other characteristics to
flourish (ATP, 12). What is most important is for the rhizome to be conceived
as productively operating within diverse fields of activity and different types
of social practices, shaped by and informing those fields and practices. At all
points, insist Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomatic multiplicity "must be made"
(ATP, 6). It does not simply occur by spontaneous generation; it is to be cre-
ated by actual productive processes, whether they be philosophic, scientific,
aesthetic, or political. 28
296 PATRICK HAYDEN
the attempt to erect an abstract and homogeneous linguistic system that has
the purpose of explaining contingent and variable formations on the basis of
its universal principles. Central to Deleuze and Guattari's theory is their belief
that all languages "are in immanent continuous variation: neither synchrony
nor diachrony, but asynchrony, chromaticism as a variable and continuous
state of language" (ATP, 97). Such variations are the result of placing linguistic
elements into different relations, which can be done because the relation
between content and expression is not that of an inferred causal infrastructure
but instead the effect of a specific productive cause; it is a molecular and
rhizomatic becoming, rather than a molar and arboreal evolution.
Furthermore, language does not solely have the function of informing or
communicating something that exists independent of one's actions. Language
is a type of social practice whose meanings do not lie outside this practice. On
the contrary, language consists in the emission, reception, and transmission
of"order-words," which are defined by Deleuze and Guattari as "the relation
of every word or every statement to implicit presuppositions, in other words,
to speech acts . . . accomplished in the statement" (ATP, 79). It is true
that at this point Deleuze and Guattari claim that the relation between the
statement and the act is internal, but by this they simply mean that the
relation o f one to the other is one of immanence and not one of identity.
The two presuppose one another, yet they do not correspond in any essential,
intrinsic, or representational manner. Thus, Deleuze and Guattari's concem is
to demonstrate that every statement is linked to an act in such a way that neither
can be seen as a form of transcendence. The relation is neither inferred nor
contained by one of the terms; it is actively established within a given social
field, between order-words, immanent actions, and the sense expressed by
the statement (ATP, 79; 83). Consequently, Deleuze is not making any claims
regarding the impossibility of meaning; for him, the ubiquity of difference
does not undermine the possibility of making sense. Deleuze's point, rather,
is that meaning cannot be confined to a representational model that posits
an intrinsic relation from the supposed essence of the subject to its objects;
the relations of words and things are not "natural" but practical and social
associations that are the expressions of diverse modes of existence. Linguistic
practices are assemblages that we create and occupy immanently, from within
which we make claims about the world and other linguistic practices (as well
as our own), whether minoritarian or majoritarian. Because the relations of
such assemblages are thoroughly social in character, pragmatics (semiotic
and political) becomes the very presupposition of language, as it defines
"the effectuation of the condition of possibility of language and the usage of
linguistic elements" (ATP, 85). 32 And as we have seen, pragmatics can be
FROMRELATIONSTO PRACTICEINTHEEMPIRICISMOF GILLESDELEUZE 299
associated with neither structural organization nor evolutive genesis, but with
the rhizome and micropolitics. 33
5. Conclusion
With his theory of relations and the associated concepts of sense and rhizome
Deleuze develops a pluralist empiricism with which to express the immanent
diversity of the world. It would be a mistake, I think, to see Deleuze's insis-
tence on the exteriority of relations as a path to either a sterile atomism or
a chaotic indifference to unity. What his theory offers instead is a renewed
attention to the importance of relations, from the perspective of a creative,
productive, and practical associationism. For Deleuze, there is nothing which
has only one component, but neither can the unities of this associationism be
subsumed under a totalizing Absolute. In the same way, concrete social fields
cannot be explained by reference to the individual only, but are understood
by way of the relations, interactions, and collective forces through which they
are actualized and transformed. Social fields are combinations of collective
assemblages, of open wholes or multiplicities relating to each other under
many different circumstances and in many different ways. I take it, then, that
the question for Deleuze is how to understand the composition and orga-
nization of the components of social existence, according to the immanent
interaction of variable relations within the encounters of human experience.
These compositions are not governed by an intrinsic connectedness but by a
differential relationality, which prevents them from being reduced to the terms
of which they are constituted or from being identified with a transcendental
principle. Multiple social fields are the products of diverse social practices
forming a network of transformable open wholes or contingent unities, such
that the network is itself open to change; it is a "multiplicity that effectively
goes beyond any opposition between the one and the multiple" (ATP, 154).
From this perspective, what concerns Deleuze is not the project of identi-
fying an essence or necessary relation, but rather the ability empiricism has
to reveal the social, historical, and political character of relations that have
been established and that continue to be established. This anti-essentialism
makes it possible to conceive of a productive practice of relations whose
importance consists in qualitatively transforming existent wholes by remain-
ing open to that which is external to them. Through his theory and practice
of relations, Deleuze provides a means for thinking of alternative ways of
inhabiting our world, without having recourse to the model of an organic
wholeness that would predetermine our interrelationships and interactions or
provide the indubitable standard by which to judge them. 34 In this manner,
Deleuze's account of relations moves from the ontological to the ethical and
300 PATRICK HAYDEN
the p o l i t i c a l b y f o c u s i n g o n t h e i n s e p a r a b i l i t y o f r e l a t i o n s a n d p r a c t i c e s , o n t h e
c o m p l e x i n t e r a c t i o n o f the d i v e r s e e l e m e n t s o f o u r e x p e r i e n c e s , o n t h e t y p e s
o f r e l a t i o n s o u r s o c i e t y e i t h e r m a i n t a i n s o r d e s t r o y s , a n d o n the a c t u a l effects
a n d c o n s e q u e n c e s o f t h e s e actions. F o r D e l e u z e r e l a t i o n s are f u n d a m e n t a l
to p r a c t i c e , a n d t h u s h e m a k e s c l e a r w h a t m a t t e r s m o s t o f all is that w h i c h
h a p p e n s in b e t w e e n . 35
Notes
1. Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and The Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 53; hereafter cited parenthetically as F.
2. Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet, Dialogues, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habber-
jam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), p. vii; hereafter cited as D.
3. Gilles Deleuze, Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume'S Theory of Human
Nature, trans. Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991);
hereafter cited as ES. See Boundas' introduction for a clear presentation of the primary
themes of Deleuze's book.
4. Deleuze had previously co-edited a collection of Hume's writings with Andr6 Cresson
entitled David Hume, sa vie, son oeuvre avec un exposd de sa philosophie (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1952). He later contributed the entry on Hume for the Histoire
de la philosophie series edited by Franqois Chatelet (Paris: Hachette, 1972).
5. "I have nothing to admit," trans. Janis Forman, Semiotext(e) 2/3 (1977): 111-16.
6. In a recent collection of essays the traditional interpretation of Hume is supported by
Alexander Rosenberg: "Hume is widely recognized to have been the chief philosophical
inspiration of the most important twentieth-century school in the philosophy of science-
the so-called logical positivists. . . . In Hume's philosophy, epistemology is the dominant
force." See "Hume and the Philosophy of Science" in The Cambridge Companion to Hume,
ed. David Fate Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 64-65.
7. For Deleuze, the world of extension, of extended space and time, is the effect of"intensive
quantity," that is, of non-conceptual and dynamic difference differentiating itself. Deleuze
writes in Difference and Repetition that it is "that by which the given is given as diverse,"
because intensity "is the form of difference insofar as this is the reason of the sensible...
the condition of that which appears" (trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994, p. 222). As he states in Dialogues it is "the concrete richness of the sensible"
and the vitality of the world which is primary for empiricism (p. 54).
8. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1929), p. 606.
9. The most obvious adversary for Deleuze on this issue is Hegel, although his critique is
also directed to Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. Hegel is opposed to empiricism on just
these points. For him it can only be a mistake to follow this path as it leads to a pluralism
that does away with absolute unity. He correctly observes, however, that for empiricism
"whatever relation obtains between the things combined, their nature is one extraneous
to them that does not concern their nature at all, and even if it is accompanied by a
semblance of unity it remains nothing more than composition, mixture, aggregation and
the like." Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, N J: Humanities
Press, 1989), p. 711. Hegel seeks to overcome the plurality occasioned by the externality
of relations by utilizing the model of an original "organic" unity composed of intrinsic
relations (see Hegel's Science of Logic, pp. 761 IT)-For an account of Deleuze's differences
with Hegel on these points see Bruce Baugh, "Deleuze and Empiricism," in The Journal
of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan. 1993): 15-31.
FROM RELATIONS TO PRACTICE IN THE EMPIRICISM OF GILLES DELEUZE 301
10. Deleuze holds Spinoza in high regard for his insistence on this very issue. According
to Deleuze, the practical orientation of Spinoza's philosophy and ethics demands the
denunciation of all transcendent values that separate us from life, while encouraging the
composition of diverse relations which increase the power to be affected and therefore
joyful. See Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley (San
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988), chapters two and three.
11. Somewhat similar arguments are given by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell in their
reactions against the British Hegelians. See, for example, "The Refutation of Idealism" and
"External and Internal Relations," in G.E. Moore: Selected Writings, ed. Thomas Baldwin
(London and New York: Routledge, 1993), and Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the
External Worm (London and New York: Routledge, 1914).
12. In an interview conducted in 1980 Deleuze relates that he does not deny the reality of
systems, unities, or wholes, but only that they are closed rather than open. He notes that
what he and Guattari call a "rhizome," which I examine below, is an example of an open
system. "Entretien sur Mille Plateaux," in Pourparlers, 1972-1990 (Paris: Editions de
Minuit, 1990), p. 48.
13. These formulations can be found in Deleuze's discussion of Bergson's notions of relations
and change in Cinema 1: The Movement-lmage, chapter one, third thesis. Deleuze also
states, "We know that the relation between two things is not reducible to an attribute of
one thing or the other, nor, indeed, to an attribute of the set. On the other hand, it is still
quite possible to relate the relations to a whole if one conceives the whole as a continuum,
and not as a given set." See Cinema 1: TheMovement-lmage, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), p. 219 n. 6.
14. For a treatment of the difficulties surrounding the question of unity in Deleuze's work, see
Todd May, "Difference and Unity in Gilles Deleuze," in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of
Philosophy, ed. Constantin V. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski (New York and London:
Routledge, 1994).
15. Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1990); hereafter cited as LS. In keeping with the English
translation, I retain the use of"sense" for the word sens, which can mean not only "sense"
and "meaning," but also "direction," "way," "feelings," and "interpretation."
16. It is not my intention to provide a comprehensive treatment of modern semiotic or semantic
theory, but only to examine how Deleuze's empiricist critique of essentialism carries over
into the analysis of linguistic phenomena and the attempt to ground meaning on an a
priori referential unity of subject and object and thus on an indisputable foundation for
knowledge. There are a number of books and essays which attempt to come to terms with
these issues from a variety of perspectives, but perhaps the most well-known of these
is Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1979).
17. Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin (New York:
Zone Books, 1990); hereafter referred to as SE.
18. For a comprehensive account of how Spinoza's ontology is related to practice by Deleuze,
see Michael Hardt, Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1993), chapter three.
19. Michel Foucault provides a description of Deleuze's notion of sense-event in his essay
"Theatrum Philosophicum," in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. Donald F.
Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca, NY: Comell University Press, 1977), especially pp.
172-76.
20. Deleuze examines the event-relation in his book on Leibniz, demonstrating how it is to be
disentangled from the essence-attribute model of representationalist essentialism. Deleuze
then offers a reinterpretation (against Russell) of Leibniz's theory of relations, showing
that the apparent internality of Leibnizian relations ceases to hold when they are seen
from the perspective of sense-events, and thus that they are more correctly understood
as the type of external relations we have been concerned with here. Whitehead also is
302 PATRICK HAYDEN
particularly important for Deleuze in this respect. See The Fold, especially chapters 4 and
6.
21. Deleuze discusses sense in regards to the genesis of the act of thinking within the context
of his critique of representationalism, in Difference and Repetition, pp. 153 IT.
22. On the equality of event and entity, see Dialogues p. 66.
23. Cf. The Fold, pp. 52-54
24. Gilles Deleuze and F~lix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987); hereafter referred to as ATE Andr6 Pierre
Colombat briefly discusses the extension of the rhizome beyond its botanical limits, and
why it is not simply a metaphor, in his article "A Thousand Trails to Work with Deleuze,"
in SubStance, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1991): 10-23.
25. It is important to note that by speaking of the nature of the multiplicity, Deleuze and
Guattari are referring to the quality that an open whole or system possesses and which
changes as the relations of the whole are transformed, and not to the essence of a thing
and its intrinsic relation to an attribute or property.
26. See Dialogues, pp. 69-70.
27. Cf. Dialogues, pp. vii-viii.
28. See Ronald Bogue's discussion of Deleuze and Guattari's attempts to "situate linguistics
within a larger theory of action" in his Deleuze and Guattari (London and New York:
Routledge, 1989), pp. 136-149.
29. The issue here is to be stated in qualitative not quantitative terms. For Deleuze and Guattari,
majority refers "not to a greater relative quantity but to the determination of a state or
standard in relation to which larger quantities, as well as the smallest, can be said to be
minoritarian: white-man, adult-male, etc." (ATP, 291).
30. Gilles Deleuze and F61ix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trans. Dana Polan
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986); hereafter referred to as K.
31. See the critiques of fascism, semiotic law, social representation, and organicism by Deleuze
and Guattali in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark
Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983).
32. Deleuze reinforces this perspective when he writes in Dialogues that "it is in concrete
social fields, at specific moments, that the comparative movements of deterritorialization,
the continuums of intensity and the combinations of flux that they form must be studied"
(0.135).
33. Deleuze and Guattari explain elsewhere in A Thousand Plateaus: "We just use words that
in turn function for us as plateaus. RHIZOMATICS = SCHIZOANALYSIS = STRATO-
ANALYSIS = PRAGMATICS = MICROPOLITICS" (p. 22).
34. This position is expressed quite well by Foueault, whom Deleuze saw as a fellow empiri-
cist: "! do not think there is anything that is functionally - b y its very nature -absolutely
liberating. Liberty is a practice." See "Space, Knowledge, and Power," in The Foucault
Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 245. Deleuze's Foucault,
trans. Paul Boy6 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), is a magnificent
exercise which reads Foucault in light of the type of empiricism Deleuze promotes, and
shows how Foucault too was a profound theorist and practitioner &relations.
35. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Thirty-Third Annual Conference of
the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. I would like to thank Todd
May and Katherine Meacham for their very helpful comments and discussions on these
issues.