In Deleuze's essay "The Actual and the Virtual," he discusses his concept of actual and virtual. In particular, he writes about Leibniz's view that force is virtual until it is actualized in space and that space is virtual until it is filled with real matter, and this made me wonder if this line of thought suggests that the virtual is the source of everything because he further states that "the actual falls from the plane like a fruit, whilst the actualization relates it back to the plane as if to that which turns the object back into a subject". This led me to question whether something can be at the same time real but not actual until it passes through virtuality and gets actual through the process of actualization?
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1Deleuze's virtualization means possibility, if there's no possibility or vis viva then through what comes the actuality?...– Double KnotMay 12 at 3:11
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1 Answer
In Deleuze's philosophy, the virtual and the actual are two sides of reality, but they are not identical. His concept of the virtual is not synonymous with the possible; rather, the virtual is fully real, but it is not actual. The virtual, for Deleuze, is a dimension of reality that is real but not actual, a kind of dynamic and generative 'field' from which actualized things emerge.
When something is actualized, according to Deleuze, it is not simply that a pre-existing possibility is realized, but rather that a virtuality is made actual through a creative process of differentiation. The virtual, in Deleuze's thought, is not a realm of mere possibilities that are waiting to be actualized; instead, it is a realm of productive differences, a kind of dynamic and productive 'field' from which actual things emerge through processes of actualization or differentiation.
Thus, it would be correct to say that, in Deleuze's thought, the actual is always actualized from the virtual, but this does not mean that the actual simply realizes a pre-existing possibility that was contained in the virtual. Instead, the actual emerges from the virtual through a creative process of actualization or differentiation.
Regarding your question about whether something can be at the same time real but not actual until it passes through virtuality and gets actual through the process of actualization, Deleuze would likely affirm this. For him, the virtual is fully real, but it is not actual. When a virtuality is actualized, it becomes actual, but this does not mean that it was not already real as a virtuality. Rather, its reality is transformed or 'translated' from the virtual dimension into the actual dimension through the process of actualization.
This understanding of the virtual and the actual allows Deleuze to develop a philosophy that is dynamic and open-ended, one that emphasizes the creative emergence of new realities rather than the realization of pre-existing possibilities. It also allows him to theorize the production of novelty and change in the world.
