What Concepts Do: Preface to the Chinese Translation of <i>A Thousand Plateaus</i>

Abstract

This essay suggests an approach to the reading of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, grasped as a philosophical event that is as directly pragmatic as it is abstract and speculative. A series of key Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts (in particular, multiplicity, minority and double becoming) are staged from the angle of philosophy's relation to its disciplinary outside. These concepts are then transferred to the relation between the authors' philosophical lineage and the new cultural outside into which the Chinese translation will propel their thought. Emphasis is placed on the writing – and reading – of philosophy as a creative act of collective import and ethical force.