Virtual Structures, Material Emergences and Social Assemblages. From Gilles Deleuze to Manuel DeLanda

Abstract

In principle, this text consists of the development of the continuity that exists between two ontological structures, from which the historical formation of various processes and material emergences is explained. These structures are the virtual/actual pair, defined by Gilles Deleuze; and the space of possibilities, conceptualized by Manuel De Landa. Below, we explain why in De Landa’s philosophical project a relative naturalization of Deleuze’s ontology takes place. Then, a tentative explanation is presented on the formation of various social assemblages concerning animals and humans, through certain conditions, emergences and material accumulations, whose determinations occur from the virtual structure of the space of possibilities. To conclude this work, we ask about the limits and the universality of these virtual structures, in relation to their capacities to constitute the form in which the material history passes.