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Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – London 1992), and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 – Paris 1995), shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical (mechanistic) image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics andcontemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world (of classical science and daily experience) is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitaryand autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of thecorrespondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuzeshow that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowingmovement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating andaccomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thusresembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux thatgenerates and carries it away in a single movement with matter. ***************************************************************************************************************************Para além das diferenças de terminologia e de background cultural, tenta-se aqui mostrar que o físico quântico David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – Londres 1992) e o filósofo pós-estruturalista Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 - Paris 1995) tiverem um objetivo comum de pensamento: substituir a imagem clássica (mecanicista) da realidade, ainda dominante em nossa época, por uma metafísica finalmente de acordo com os conceitos e resultados da relatividade, da mecânica quântica e da biologia contemporânea. Para estes dois pensadores, o mundo das coisas bem individuadas no espaço e no tempo, e ordenadas conforme as relações mecânicas de causa e efeito, não é nada outro que a expressão momentânea de uma “Totalidade indivisa em devir” que constitui seu verdadeiro fundamento ontológico. Pelo meio desta nova metafisica, o mundo da experiência cotidiana e da ciência clássica aparece como a manifestação explicita ou desenvolvida da ordem implícita que a totalidade indivisa contém virtualmente nela mesma em níveis de envolvimento e de imbricação sempre mais profundos. O mundo explícito (da ciência clássica e da experiência cotidiana) é o resultado de um processo de repetição, desaceleração e estabilização temporal, desencadeado pela interação de nossos instrumentos de medição -- aparelhos técnicos, órgãos sensoriais e motores, formas “a priori” e categorias do entendimento – com uma totalidade movente no qual o sujeito pensante e observante representa um reflexo momentâneo e parcial ao invés de um fragmento solitário e autônomo. Ao criticar a imagem clássica da correspondência/adequação entre o ser e o pensamento, Bohm e Deleuze mostram finalmente que o pensamento que intenta capturar esta Totalidade em devir interage inevitavelmente com ela, modificando-a, recriando-a e realizando-a em uma direção ao invés de outra. O pensamento se aparenta assim a uma dança que tenta se harmonizar com o flux universal que o gera e o leva em um movimento só com a matéria.Palavras-chave: Bohm; Deleuze; totalidade indivisa em devir; física quântica; pós-estruturalismo; ontologia.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the “effects”, more or less expected, that the neotenic conception of human nature, proposed by Gould in Ontogeny and Phylogeny, produced and may still have on the human sciences. Showing that man is a primate characterized by a developmental Heterochrony—a primate who “was born a year too early” and that “overexposes” his plastic and premature brain to a social and natural environment for a very long period of development—Gould has opened the way for all a series of cognitive and neurobiological consequences, psychological and linguistic, anthropological and philosophical of which we have not yet taken full measure. As it has been done on the basis of Gould’s theories by many scientists, the human brain—because of its high neotenic plasticity—can be considered as an extremely powerful device for the refunctionalization (exaptation) of preexisting biological structures, for purposes other than those selected by evolution. However, it is also possible to show that humans can compensate for the disadvantages caused by this neotenic condition only by establishing a communicative relationship with himself and with the world. Through this communicative relationship, the eye and the hand, ear and voice come to entertain synesthetic intersensory relations, unavailable to any other animal, which the unusual structure of metaphorical human experience and the propositional structure of the human logos are based on. It follows a conception of human experience that transcends the traditional distinctions between Naturwissenschaften and Kulturwissenschaften, and that sheds new light on the condition of man in our times.