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What connects thinking and poetry [Dichten] is metaphor. In philosophy one calls concept what in poetry [Dichtkunst] is called metaphor. Thinking creates its “concepts” out of the visible, in order to designate the invisible.

-Hannah Arendt, Denktagebuch, vol. 2, p. 728

Does this connect to Deleuzes idea of philosophy as he wrote in What is Philosophy?

philosophy is the art of forming, inventing & fabricating concepts.

One notes that poetry comes from the greek poesis which means simply fabrication.

Can at least one distinction be made that the material poetry proper is poesis of the sensual, whereas philosophy is poesis of the abstract?

Is mathematics, when considered as a form of philosophy, poesis? A cheap metaphor for example, is to put number & geometry together to produce the real line; a metaphor more dearly bought is to put number & geometry together and produce sheaf theory. (One does rather note, that poets are quick & many with their metaphors whereas mathematics is slow & few with theirs).

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  • I'm not exactly sure what the headline is asking; and as far as whether maths are "poesies", isn't this asking in a way whether math is invented or discovered? --Is there any chance you can specify a little more clearly what you're exploring here, what problem you're encountering in your reading, etc.?
    – Joseph Weissman ♦
    Dec 2, 2013 at 1:57
  • @weissman: Shelley, in his defence of poetry, does say that the interior of mathematics is poesis, with a calculative exterior;
    – Mozibur Ullah
    Apr 24, 2014 at 11:25

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Thinking creates its “concepts” out of the visible, in order to designate the invisible. .. Does this connect to Deleuzes idea of philosophy as he wrote in What is Philosophy?

The answer to this must be no, it does not connect. What is Philosophy draws 3 clear distinctions - Art; which he describes as the creation of percepts and affects; science; which he describes as the creation of functions; and philosophy, which he describes as the creation of concepts. The conditions of emergence for each three domains have a qualitatively distinct character, and each domain has a fundamentally different goal. Simpy put sensibility is not the origin of concepts. Although Deleuze always considered himself a philosopher of the virtual, which I assume you (i suppose not entirely unfairly) equate with the invisible, the important distinction to focus on to make this clearer is the difference between Deleuzian Ideas (which are always virtual, see his chapter Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference from Difference and Repetition) and concepts (which are actual, see What is Philosophy). The aim of concepts is not to designate the structure of Ideas, since to Deleuze this is impossible as they are not clear and distinct as in Descartes, (rather 'vague-destinct', as in Leibniz). Simply put concepts rather specify new ways for ideas to become actualised. The best text I can recommend for clarification of this is What is Philosophy?.

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