Capital and Spirit: The Physics of the Universal

Abstract

The article will examine the status of capital and spirit—two conceptual forces, as analysed by Deleuze and Guattari, and Hegel, respectively. Capital, the decoded flow of money and labour, and spirit, the persistent rhythm of negation, will both be considered as embodiments of the universal, which I want to define as material expansiveness of the concept. Contrary to the common conception, Deleuze and Guattari do not renounce the idea of universality but alter and accommodate it in accordance with their theoretical agenda. The text will explore the idea of history as an arena of the expansion of thought. In both the dialectical and schizoanalytical frameworks, history becomes a field in which conceptual energies are distributed. I propose to understand universality precisely as this distribution and its dynamics. I will consider spirit and capital as material processes transforming historical codes. The seemingly paradoxical physical interpretation of meaning will serve to examine its constitution and mechanism outside the relation of representation. Representation is a structure of meaning functioning on a molar level. Meanwhile, both dialectical and schyzoanalytical methods work with the molecular properties of codes, examining their conceptual density, energetic flows and relational intensities. Deleuze and Guattari, and Hegel approach meaning as a conceptual substance which literally makes history, eliciting material properties of thought as it makes its way into being.