To clarify the concept of immanence as much as possible, it is necessary to review the positions of Deleuze and Guattari, which have been a reference point for the development of various fields of knowledge, such as debates on semiotics, political economy, and ontology. (Althusser, 2002) (Fontanille, 2015) (Zinna, 2016)
I will take the text What is Philosophy? in
which this concept is developed and which will serve as the basis for other
works of theirs, such as A Thousand Plateaus. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1993)
(Deleuze and Guattari, 2002)
The critical thesis that is upheld points to
the inadequacies of the proposal by Deleuze and Guattari, hereafter DG, in
failing to correctly resolve the relationship between the planes of immanence
and their manifestations, which causes the surreptitious entry of that which
they want to avoid: transcendence.
The starting point takes philosophy and turns
it into a plane of immanence, inhabited by concepts. From the outset, the
question of immanence is linked to the infinity capable of including all
philosophical notions.
Yet they resonate all the more, and
the philosophy that creates them always presents a powerful, nonfragmented
Whole that remains open: an unlimited One-All, Omnitudo, which includes them
all in one and the same plane. It is a table, a plateau, a slice. (Deleuze
& Guattari, 1994, p. 35)
The development of the relationship
between concept and plane of immanence is framed by the idea that "the
problem of thought is infinite speed, but this requires a medium that moves
infinitely within itself: the plane, the void, the horizon. (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1993, p. 39) The unstoppable unfolding of concept-generating thought
requires the existence of a medium that allows it to sustain and organize
itself.
Concepts are absolute surfaces or
volumes, formless and fragmentary, whereas the plane is the unlimited absolute,
formless, neither surface nor volume but always fractal... the plane is the
abstract machine of which these assemblages are the working parts. (Deleuze
& Guattari, 1994, p. 36)
The relationship between an infinity originating in its endless multiplicity and the infinity of the immanent plane, which escapes any determination or definition and approaches a negative theology: absolute, unlimited, formless, dimensionless, yet curiously fractal. Here we begin to see the irresolution of the problem of immanence, when that which was believed to be excluded penetrates once again through that immanent plane defined in transcendent terms.
A negative theology that
describes the plane of immanence with theses reminiscent of the definitions of
God in Neoplatonism: "The plane of immanence is not a thought or thinkable
concept, but the image of thought, the image that gives itself of what it means
to think"; this is formulated in terms of the timeless forms through which
God imagines reality through the Word. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1993, p. 41)
But how can we say anything about the plane of immanence if it is neither
thought nor thinkable? We can only be left with the infinite image that escapes
conceptualization; moreover, with an image that the plane of immanence makes of
itself and that does not correspond to any representation expressed in
concepts.
So the plane of immanence is the
object of an infinite specification—so much so that it seems to be the One-All
only in each case determined by the selection of movement. This difficulty
concerning the ultimate nature of the plane of immanence can be gradually
resolved. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 39)
Infinity, as the medium in which concepts are created and unfolded, undergoes processes of "infinite specification" which, in Neoplatonic terms, would be called multiple emanation, thus achieving the finitude of concept production. We are faced with a theophany of the plane of immanence.
Following this Neoplatonic
drift, DG introduces a highly risky gesture, which approaches the exaltation of irrationality,”
barely rational", and comes close to endowing the plane of immanence with
a quasi-mystical experience, through which we are transported to intoxication
and excess.
It is precisely because the plane of
immanence is prephilosophical and does not immediately take effect with
concepts that it implies a sort of groping experimentation, and its layout
resorts to measures that are not very respectable, rational, or reasonable.
These belong to the order of dreams, of pathological processes, esoteric
experiences, drunkenness, and excess. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 41)
In the Kantian manner, DG describes
the errors into which thought falls when it disregards this immanent conception
of philosophical endeavor. A series of illusions are created: transcendence,
universals, eternity, and discursivity.
First of all there is the illusion
of transcendence (the double illusion that makes immanence immanent to
something, and rediscovering transcendence in immanence itself). Next there is
the illusion of universals... Next there is the illusion of the eternal—when we
forget that concepts have to be created. And finally there is the illusion of
discursiveness—when we confuse propositions with concepts. (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1994, p. 49)
At this point, we arrive at the most contradictory part of the text, which ends up falling precisely into what it is trying to avoid. In other words, the text becomes trapped by the very illusions it denounces. Immanence yields ground to transcendence, despite all efforts to think of it in terms of diagrams and the intensive nature of concepts, issues that will be explored at length in A Thousand Plateaus, with the intention of resolving the difficulties raised in What is Philosophy?
Conceiving the plane of immanence as infinite, absolute, and undetermined, the object of an exceptional experience excluded from rationality and discourse leaves the door open to the entry of transcendence. Illusion of transcendence.
This chaotic and fractal infinity, which emanates on many planes, is, at the end of the process of encountering concepts, the universal medium in which they move and through which they exist and communicate. Illusion of the universal.
The plane of immanence escapes empirical determinations; it is located outside concepts. Although it is not defined as eternal, it is timeless, lacking spatial and temporal dimensions, like a kind of pure form that allows concepts to exist within it, even though it is not itself a concept nor is it conceptualizable. Illusion of eternity.
Finally, the illusion of discursivity. After all, even if it is through negative theology, DG manages to intuitively express the truth of the plane of immanence, not because it is thinkable, but because we feel its presence as a philosophical ether modulating the movement of concepts.
In this way, DG's text
leads philosophical reflection into a dead end; there, the question of
immanence and its relationship to transcendence remains unresolved. Instead of
avoiding a return to transcendence, it causes it to become the horizon that
makes all thought possible.
Bibliography
Althusser, L. (2002). Para un materialismo
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Deleuze y Guattari. (2002). Mil mesetas.
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Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1993). ¿Qué es
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Deleuze, G.,
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University Press Ltd.
Fontanille, J. (2015). Formas de vida. Lima:
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Zinna, A. (2016). El concepto de forma en Hjelmslev.
deSignis, 25, págs. 121-134.
