Conference programme - Session 2

Nick Gane

‘Empiricism and Concepts’
This paper re-visits Giles Deleuze’s idea of empiricism by examining the status of ‘concepts’ in his work. Through almost all of Deleuze’s writings, there is a fascination with the power of concepts. In Difference and Repetition, for example, Deleuze declares that ‘Empiricism is by no means a reaction against concepts...on the contrary, it undertakes the most insane creation of concepts ever seen or heard’. Elsewhere, he terms a Thousand Plateaus ‘a book of concepts’, and in What is Philosophy? argues that the very basis of philosophy is the creation of concepts anew. In the light of this, this paper will attempt to do three things. First, it will ask a basic question: what is a concept? Second, it will look at why concepts are pivotal elements of Deleuzian empiricism. And third, it will consider the possible crossover between such empiricism and sociological attempts at concept formation. A key point of interest here is whether Deleuze is indeed correct to claim that ‘the concept belongs to philosophy and only to philosophy’.

Biography
Nicholas Gane was born in Brighton in 1971. He grew up in North London before studying for a BA in Sociology and an MA in Social and Political Thought at the University of Warwick (1990-95). He returned to London to study for a PhD on Max Weber and Postmodern Theory, which he completed in 1999. Nicholas first joined the Department at York in 2002, before leaving for Brunel University in 2004. He rejoined the Department in September 2006. Nicholas is a board member of Sociology and Theory, Culture and Society, and is the editor of the Theory, Culture and Society Annual Review. His teaching and research interests lie broadly in the fields of social theory and the sociology of new media, and he is keen to supervise doctoral students working in any of the following areas: social and cultural theory; postmodern/post-structuralist thought; media theory; globalization; the sociology of Max Weber; art and aesthetics; the sociology of the 'posthuman'; social and cultural informatics.

Nicholas’ publications include:

• ‘Geodemographics, Software and Class’, Sociology, 40, 5, 2006, pp.793-812 (co-authored with Roger Burrows)
  
  
• ‘Speed-up or Slow Down?: Social Theory in the Information Age’. Information, Communication and Society, 9, 1, 2006, pp.20-38