A concept is a brick (1)
Channel: vredenburger
Date: 2012-03-04

"A concept is a brick. It can be used to build the courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. What is the subject of the brick? The arm that throws it? The body connected to the arm? The brain encased in the body? The situation that brought brain and body to such a juncture? All and none of the above. What is its object? The window? The edifice? The laws the edifice shelters? The class and other power relations encrusted in the laws? All and none of the above. 'What interests us are the circumstances.' Because the concept in its unrestrained usage is a set of circumstances, at a volatile juncture. It is a vector: the point of application of a force moving through space at a given velocity in a given direction. The concept has no subject or object other than itself. It is an act."

Brian Massumi, "Translator's Foreword: Pleasures of Philosophy." A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia