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transcendent concepts of morality with immanent concepts of ethics. A Thousand Plateaus is one
illustration of how this may be done.
The final activity of Deleuzian constructivism is to lay out a system of concepts and
principles that resonates with the machinic assemblage and its concepts: the plane of immanence.
Kant, we saw, seeks precision and certainty in his moral codes. Kant believes such a system is
possible because of his faith in the existence of a noumenal world. For Deleuze, however, there
is no such thing as a noumenal world. Does that mean that Deleuze disputes the value of
systems? No: “Systems have in fact lost absolutely none of their power” (N, 32). For Deleuze, a
realization of Kant’s Copernican revolution requires the rethinking, rather than the abandonment,
of systems. Deleuze indicates his view on systems in the term “transcendental empiricism.”
“Transcendental” implies a system of categories and ideas; “empiricism” connotes that this
system is open. Transcendental empiricism, unlike transcendental idealism, envisions systems
composed of events rather than essences. Rather than reactivate the term “metaphysics of
morals,” Deleuze proposes a new term for an open system: a plane of immanence. How, for
Deleuze, does one actualize a plane of immanence?
The field of immanence or plane of consistency must be constructed. This can
take place in very different social formations through very different assemblages
(perverse, artistic, scientific, mystical, political) with different types of bodies
without organs. It is constructed piece by piece, and the places, conditions, and
techniques are irreducible to one another. The question, rather, is whether the
pieces can fit together, and at what price (AATP,157).
Several features of the plane of immanence are worth noting. It is not constructed from
pure reason. “Reason is only a concept, and a very impoverished concept for defining the plane
and the movements that pass through it” (WP, 43). A plane of immanence is constructed from
the diversity of bodies that affect the machinic assemblage. In Plateau 6 of A Thousand Plateaus,
for example, Deleuze constructs a system using the resources of Taoism, American literature,
Convention