Plasticity of the Virtual and the Problem of the Continuum

Abstract

This article investigates the ontological significance of the concept of plasticity of the virtual, as proposed by Sarti, Citti, and Piotrowski in Differential Heterogenesis, in order to determine whether describing the dynamics underlying perception through a mathematics of the continuum necessarily entails an ontological continuism. To this end, the analysis connects the authors’ heterogenetic morphodynamics with Leibniz’s thesis of obscure perceptions, which influenced Deleuze’s conception of the intensive. Through this historiographical line of inquiry, the article examines the problem of the actualisation of sensation from a virtual field in light of Leibniz’s treatment of the continuum, thereby demonstrating the possibility of conceiving the plasticity of the virtual beyond the opposition between continuity and contiguity.