Who Thinks Abstractly? Deleuze on Abstraction

Abstract

ABSTRACT In his well-known essay “Who Thinks Abstractly?” Hegel argues that abstraction is in fact the sign of nonphilosophical thought. Despite the common misconception, only philosophical thought is truly concrete. In fact, thought itself, according to Hegel, is the movement from the abstract to the concrete. I argue that the crucial difference here is that Deleuze does not think abstraction on the same axis as Hegel. Whereas Hegel (and people generally) think of the abstract in opposition to the concrete, Deleuze thinks of the abstract in opposition to the discrete.