Canisius College

This course will explore some of the fruitful interactions between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze on one hand, and modern science on the other. Particular emphasis will be as follows:

Lecture One: Deleuze and the Genetic Algorithm
This lecture gives an introduction to a theory of the genesis of material form as elaborated by Gilles Deleuze. It introduces the key distinction between extensive (or spatial) properties and intensive properties (stress, temperature, pressure). It also discusses the concept of a “virtual multiplicity”. To anchor onto something concrete, the lecture discusses the use of computer-simulated evolution to breed new entities (art forms, electric circuits, etc) and shows how populational, intensive and topological styles of reasoning are necessary for the productive use of scientific software.

Lecture Two: History and Materials Science
This lecture introduces the Deleuzian distinction between Royal and Minor sciences. Given that Deleuze is a materialist philosopher, the history of the field of “strength of materials” will be used as a case study. This branch of physics remained till this century the “Cinderella” of science, with artisans and engineers contributing more to its development [than hard scientists] until the basic notions of stress and strain were fully elucidated.

Lecture Three: The Mathematics of the Virtual
This lecture will introduce some formal concepts needed to get a deeper insight into the dynamics of structures. The basic distinction between equilibrium and non-equlibrium structures will be introduced, as well as some of the mathematical tools necessary to study these different types: the notions of phase space, the point, cyclic and chaotic attractors which give form to that space, and the use of these abstract spaces to model, for example, fracture dynamics. All these concepts are necessary to understand the Deleuzian notion of “virtual multiplicity”.

Lecture Four: Deleuze’s Theory of Space and Time
This lecture will introduce the ideas from science (theory of symmetry, topology, etc) which Deleuze borrows and elaborates to construct his theory of space and time. The correspondences with Relativity Theory will be explored given that a main source of Deleuzian insights is Bergson who participated in a famous controversy with Einstein.

Lecture Five: Can there be a materialist ethics?
This lecture will discuss Deleuze’s version of Spinozian ethics, where the moral dichotomy of “good” and “evil” is replaced by the pair “food” and “poison” which do not form a dichotomy. From environmental ethics one can see that “a little bit of phosphorous feeds the soil; too much poisons it”, hence not a dichotomy, and the threshold between the two needs to be established experimentally. How this ties to Deleuze’s epistemology will also be discussed.

Required Text: Manuel De Landa, Intensive Science & Virtual Philosophy (Continuum Press (2002), New Directions in Philosophy Series).

Assessment: While attendance and participation is mandatory, the grade will be primarily determined by a 1000 — 1500 word essay on the course material.

Biographical Information: De Landa is a world-renowned philosophical historian with an exceptionally diverse array of scholarly interests. De Landa addresses science in its broadest contexts and has written and lectured extensively on self-organizing matter; artificial life and intelligence; economics; architecture; chaos theory; history of science; nonlinear science; cellular automata, and much more. De Landa especially draws upon — and seeks to illuminate the meaning and utility of — the work of the dynamic French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

De Landa has written three philosophy books, War in the Age of Intelligent
Machines (1991), A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (1997), and Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2002), and he has published numerous philosophical essays, these appearing in an array of prestigious journals. De Landa is also a brilliant speaker with a gift for illustrating and explaining deep philosophical concepts in an exceptionally clear way.