Abstract
The concepts of metric and nonmetric have been previously developed by Manuel DeLanda in his book Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. This chapter discusses DeLanda’s project by concentrating on two major ideas: multiplicity and assemblage. As critique, the chapter contends that DeLanda does not take full advantage of the concepts of metric and nonmetric. Finally, the said concepts are developed and articulated around four dichotomies: (1) whether a difference between member and non-member is distinguishable or not; (2) the opposition between reversible and irreversible; (3) whether a difference between micro and macro is distinguishable or not; and (4) the opposition between “structure as agency” and “agency as structure.” Overall, the chapter shows that, in sociological research, there are no units of analysis that remain absolutely constant across social reality. By setting up the metric/nonmetric distinction, we can determine rigorously how these units happen to vary.
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Rigorously speaking, this presentation mixes topology with differential geometry, something that professional mathematicians might object to. I am solely responsible for any confusion arising in the text, of course, and yet parts of this “bricolage” originate from DeLanda or else from Deleuze. While Deleuze published many books (either as a single author or in collaboration with his friend Félix Guattari), he did not hold on to one consistent vocabulary throughout his writings. DeLanda himself found it necessary to adjust and adapt this vocabulary to suit his own needs (2002: 202–223). For example, Deleuze uses the concept of singular point. This refers to the differential calculus in mathematics, which went on to provide the framework for differential geometry. DeLanda also talks about singular points, or singularities, to describe strange attractors in a state space. But this changes the model from differential geometry to topology per se. As for myself, I tone down the difference between differential geometry and topology or lump them together inasmuch as both of them stand at the other extreme to Euclidean geometry in the symmetry scale.
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Guy, JS. (2019). DeLanda and the Metric/Nonmetric Distinction. In: Theory Beyond Structure and Agency. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18983-9_3
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