ABSTRACT
The use of the phrase “infinite speeds” in Deleuze and Guattari’s What Is Philosophy? is an unsettling choice of words to the reader with a background in contemporary physics. While Special Relativity denies the possibility of speeds faster than the speed of light, there is a history of complex problems involving the use of unbounded velocities, specifically the problem of indeterminacy in classical mechanics. In order to understand what Deleuze and Guattari mean by infinite speeds, we must understand the consequences of infinite speeds in these physical frameworks. This is not to claim that Deleuze and Guattari are promoting a physical theory, but to use the understanding of these frameworks in order to make sense of the phrase “infinite speeds”. I propose to do this by equivocating our understanding of physical space with space as a form of transcendental aesthetic. This is not an ontological claim, but a methodological one. This allows for the understanding of two parallel series that can be exemplified by the figure of Wronski. The first series is that of an intervention of indeterminacy within the deterministic framework of classical mechanics allowed by those very same deterministic laws; the second is that of practical reason (in the Kantian sense) to produce indeterminacy in a determinate subject.
