Of Immanence and Becoming: Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy and/as Relational Ontology

Abstract

Starting from the famous statement by Deleuze and Guattari in What Is Philosophy? that ‘[i]mmanence can be said to be the burning issue of all philosophy’, this article explores their claim of an ontology of immanence and/as relational ontology in quantum terms. The theme of this special issue allows for a rereading of the terminology of different/ciation, which Deleuze developed in ‘The Method of Dramatization’ and Difference and Repetition, and I here relate it to the question of consistency of the plane of immanence, such as it is emphasised in the later work of Deleuze and Guattari. The article exemplifies the significance that the early issue of ‘dramatization’ as different/ciating passage has on an adequate understanding of both ‘immanence’ and ‘becoming’, and it shows their in/seperability for a relational ontology as onto-ethology. By making the Deleuze-Guattarian immanence resonate with Barad's (quantum) agential realism, the article zooms in on the specific quality of the ‘passage’ in order to do justice to the claim of a ‘mature’ philosophy that thinks immanence as immanent only to itself.