The final work by the author before his death in 1992, Chaosmosis is a radical and challenging work concerned with the reinvention and resingularization of subjectivity. It attempts to embody affective change, the short-circuiting of signification and the proliferation of sense necessary to engage with non-discursive, artistic, poetic and pathic intensities. It includes critical reflections on Lacanian psychoanalysis, structuralism, information theory, postmodernism, and the thought of Heidegger, Bakhtin, Barthes, and others.

This interview is articulated around the following theses: capitalism must first be understood as a « libidinal economy » ; this libidinal economy is exhausted by the hyper-industrialization of contemporary capitalism : industrially treated desire leads to the destruction of desire ; whence the necessity of inventing a new form of public authority which can reactive, stimulate desire. Ecological damage is indeed the consequence of a symbolic poverty, a poverty of the forms of life and practices. The only response to (...) such damage is to propose a genuine ecology of mind. (shrink)

A critique of capitalism and a manifesto for a new way of thinking, this book is also an introduction to the work of one of Europe's most radical thinkers. This edition includes a chronology of Guattari's life and work, introductions to both his general philosophy and to the work itself and extended notes to the original text.

At the beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle contrasted made objects, which did not have the source of their own production within themselves, with beings formed by nature. This distinction persisted until Marx, who conceived of the possibility of an evolution of the technical object. This philosophy developed while industrialisation was in the process of overthrowing the contemporary order of social organisation, which highlighted technology's new place in philosophical enquiry. Bernard Stiegler goes back to the beginning of Western philosophy and revises (...) the Aristotelian assessment, developing a complex argument whereby the technical object can be seen as having an essential, distinctive temporality and dynamic of its own. The author engages the ideas of Rousseau, Husserl, and Heidegger, the paleo-ontologist Leroi-Gourhan, the anthropologists Vernant and Detienne, the sociologists Weber and Habermas, and the systems analysts Maturana and Varela. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valéry wrote of a "crisis of spirit", brought about by the instrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordination of culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearly that the stock of mind, or spirit, continues to fall. The economy is toxically organized around the pursuit of short-term gain, supported by an infantilizing, dumbed-down media. Advertising technologies make relentless demands on our attention, reducing us to idiotic beasts, no longer (...) capable of living. Spiralling rates of mental illness show that the fragile life of the mind is at breaking point. Underlying these multiple symptoms is consumer capitalism, which systematically immiserates those whom it purports to liberate. Returning to Marxʹs theory, Stiegler argues that consumerism marks a new stage in the history of proletarianization. It is no longer just labour that is exploited, pushed below the limits of subsistence, but the desire that is characteristic of human spirit. The cure to this malaise is to be found in what Stiegler calls a "pharmacology of the spirit". Here, pharmacology has nothing to do with the chemical supplements developed by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmakon, defined as both cure and poison, refers to the technical objects through which we open ourselves to new futures, and thereby create the spirit that makes us human. By reference to a range of figures, from Socrates, Simondon and Derrida to the child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Stiegler shows that technics are both the cause of our suffering and also what makes life worth living. -- Publisher description. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. (shrink)

This interview with the philosopher Bernard Stiegler was conducted in Paris on 28 January 2015, and first appeared in Dutch translation in the journal De uil van Minerva. The conversation begins by discussing the fundamental place occupied by the concept of ‘technics’ in Stiegler’s work, and how the ‘constitutivity’ of technics does and does not relate to Kant and Husserl. Stiegler is then asked about his relationship with Deleuze, and he responds by focusing on the concept of quasi-causality, but also (...) by arguing that there is a certain trajectory in Deleuze’s thought, situating his own philosophy in relation to its various moments. Stiegler is then asked to respond to the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks carried out three weeks prior to the interview. After making a couple of precautionary remarks, Stiegler relates such occurrences to the problem of what he calls ‘spiritual poverty’, to the intensification of ‘negative sublimation’ that can occur when there is a disconnection between the generations, and more generally to the growth of nihilism. All of these phenomena relate to the exploitation of technology by a virulent capitalism that irrationally believes that only the market is rational. After consideration of the complex historical relationship between Islam and modernization, and of both of these to Nietzsche’s ‘death of God’, and after recalling the destructive role played by the West in the rise of fundamentalism and jihadism, Stiegler concludes by reflecting on the fact that, ultimately, ‘intellectuals’ have failed to use technologies in ways that produce alternatives to consumerism. (shrink)

In thinking the passage from the “all-human cerebrum” to what one might call the contemporary “all-too-human” cerebrum in neo-liberal societies and beyond to the “all-too-transhuman” cerebrum in the cybernetic society, in contrasting Wells’s idea of a new world order with the dystopia of the disordering un-world, in considering the prospects of a “world brain” faced with the realities of the “global mnemotechnical system”, in highlighting the differences between the global and authoritarian instrument of “control” in Wells and the descriptions of (...) the control society by Deleuze, and finally, in critiquing the “unifying of the general intelligence services of the world” in Wells and the capturing of the “general intellect”, this paper maps the contemporary prospects of the “world brain” against the backdrop of the worldweariness of the present. (shrink)

Suggests an open system of psychological exploration to cut through accepted norms of morality, language, and politics.

Over five hundred years since it was named, utopia remains a vital concept for understanding and challenging the world we inhabit, even in or rather because of the condition of post-utopianism that supposedly permeates them. In Rethinking Utopia David M. Bell offers a diagnosis of the present through the lens of utopia and then, by rethinking the concept through engagement with utopian studies, a variety of radical theories and the need for decolonizing praxis, shows how utopianism might work within, against (...) and beyond that which exists in order to provide us with hope for a better future. He proposes paying a subversive fidelity to utopia, in which its three constituent terms: good, place, and no are rethought to assert the importance of immanent, affective relations. The volume engages with a variety of practices and forms to articulate such a utopianism, including popular education/critical pedagogy; musical improvisation; and utopian literature. The problems as well as the possibilities of this utopianism are explored, although the problems are often revealed to be possibilities, provided they are subject to material challenge. Rethinking Utopia offers a way of thinking about utopia that helps overcome some of the binary oppositions structuring much thinking about the topic. It allows utopia to be thought in terms of place and process; affirmation and negation; and the real and the not-yet. It engages with the spatial and affective turns in the social sciences without ever uncritically being subsumed by them; and seeks to make connections to indigenous cosmologies. It is a cautious, careful, critical work punctuated by both pessimism and hope; and a refusal to accept the finality of this or any world. ". (shrink)

For those not yet acquainted with the work of this philosopher, this book provides a point of entry to his complex theories. For those more familiar with Deleuze, this collection should be useful in broadening their understanding of this influential thinker's journey in search of knowledge.

Molecular Revolution in BrazilFélix Guattari and Suely Rolniktranslated by KarelClapshow and Brian HolmesYes, I believe that there is a multiple people, a people of mutants, apeople of potentialities that appears and disappears, that is embodied in social, literary, andmusical events.... I think that we're in a period of productivity, proliferation, creation, utterlyfabulous revolutions from the viewpoint of this emergence of a people. That's molecular revolution:it isn't a slogan or a program, it's something that I feel, that I live....--from MolecularRevolution in (...) BrazilFollowing Brazil's first democratic election after two decades of militarydictatorship, French philosopher Félix Guattari traveled through Brazil in 1982 with Brazilianpsychoanalyst Suely Rolnik and discovered an exciting, new political vitality. In the infancy of itsnew republic, Brazil was moving against traditional hierarchies of control and totalitarian regimesand founding a revolution of ideas and politics. Molecular Revolution in Brazil documents theconversations, discussions, and debates that arose during the trip, including a dialogue betweenGuattari and Brazil's future President Luis Ignacia Lula da Silva, then a young gubernatorialcandidate. Through these exchanges, Guattari cuts through to the shadowy practices of globalizationgone awry and boldly charts a revolution in practice.Assembled and edited by Rolnik, MolecularRevolution in Brazil is organized thematically; aphoristic at times, it presents a lesser-known,more overtly political aspect of Guattari's work. Originally published in Brazil in 1986 asMicropolitica: Cartografias do desejo, the book became a crucial reference for political movementsin Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. It now provides English-speaking readers with an invaluablepicture of the radical thought and optimism that lies at the root of Lula's Brazil. Félix Guattari, post-'68 French psychoanalyst and philosopher, is the author of Anti-Oedipus, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, 2006), and other books. Semiotext haspublished the first two volumes of his complete essays, Chaosophy and Soft Subversions, and will publish the final volume, Chaos and Complexity, in 2008. Suely Rolnik is apsychoanalyst, cultural critic, and curator who lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. She was aclose collaborator of Guattari during her exile in Paris from the military dictatorship inBrazil. (shrink)

This collection of five articles and two interviews, compiled by the author himself as a kind of political testament, focuses on the ecological thinking he pioneered in Europe.

Dedicated to educators who are not philosophy specialists, this book offers an overview of the connections between Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and his own training and practice as an educator. Arguing for the centrality of education to Wittgenstein’s life and works, the authors resist any reduction of Wittgenstein’s philosophy to remarks on pedagogy while addressing the current controversy surrounding the role of training in the enculturation process. Significant events in his education and life are examined as the background for successful interpretation, (...) without lending biographical details explanatory force. The book discusses the importance of Wittgenstein’s training and dismissal as an elementary teacher in light of his later, frequent use of many ‘scenes of instruction’ in his Cambridge lectures and notebooks. These depictions culminated in his now famous Philosophical Investigations -- a counter to his earlier philosophy in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein came to distinguish between empirical inquiries into how education, language or mathematics might ideally work, from grammatical studies of how we learn on the rough ground to normatively go-on as others do – often without explicit rules and with considerable degrees of ambiguity, for instance, in implementing new guidelines during a curriculum reform or in evaluating teachers. The book argues that Wittgenstein’s reflections on education -- spanning from mathematics training to the acquisition of language and cultivation of aesthetic appreciation -- are of central significance to both the man and his pedagogical style of philosophy. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler works systematically through the current crisis in education and family relations resulting from the mesmerizing power of marketing technologies. He contends that the greatest threat to social and cultural development is the destruction of young people's ability to pay critical attention to the world around them. This phenomenon, prevalent throughout the first world, is the calculated result of technical industries and their need to capture the attention of the young, making them into a target audience and reversing the (...) relationship between adults and children. _Taking Care_ exposes the carelessness of these industries and urges the reader to re-enter the "battle for intelligence" against the drive-oriented culture of short-term attention characteristic of the negative aspects of the new technologies. Long-term attention, Stiegler shows, produces retentions of cultural memory mandatory for social development—and for the counteracting of ADD and ADHD. Examining the history of education from Plato to the current quagmires in France and the United States, he tracks the notion of critical thinking from its Enlightenment apotheosis to its current eradication. Stiegler is unique in combining the most radical of theoretical constructs—such as "grammatization"—with quite traditional values, values he proposes we re-address in our not-so-brave new world. (shrink)

According to geologists and Earth System scientists, we are now living in the age of the Anthropocene, in which humans have become the most important geoforce, shaping the face of the planet more decisively than all natural forces combined. This brings with it a huge and unprecedented responsibility of humanity for the future of the biosphere. Humanity’s impact on the planet has been largely destructive until now, causing a rupture of the Earth System which completely changes the planetary conditions that (...) characterized the Holocene, the generally benign period of the last 11,000 years in which human civilization as we know it has emerged and was able to flourish. In the Anthropocene these conditions can no longer be taken for granted. On the contrary, humanity itself will have to become responsible for the preservation of the biosphere as its ultimate life-support system. This means that its influence on the Earth System has to become a constructive one, among other things by inventing a cleaner and more sustainable modus vivendi on the planet. In this article it is claimed that such a transformation presupposes the invention of a global noösphere that allows humanity as a planetary collective to perceive and monitor the Earth System and interact more intelligently and sustainably with it. The response-ability required for taking responsibility for the Earth System presupposes the existence of a global noösphere that can both support a permanent collective awareness of our embedding in and critical dependence on the biosphere and function as a collective action platform. Based on a Stieglerian diagnosis of our current predicament, a case will be made for the huge potentials of digital media for our future task of caring for the earth. (shrink)

One of the terminological constants in the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze is the word 'immanence', and it has therefore become a foothold for those wishing to understand exactly what 'Deleuzian philosophy' is. Deleuze's philosophy of immanence is held to be fundamentally characterised by its opposition to all philosophies of 'transcendence'. On that basis, it is widely believed that Deleuze's project is premised on a return to a materialist metaphysics. Christian Kerslake argues that such an interpretation is fundamentally misconceived, and (...) has led to misunderstandings of Deleuze's philosophy, which is rather one of the latest heirs to the post-Kantian tradition of thought about immanence. This will be the first book to assess Deleuze's relationship to Kantian epistemology and post-Kantian philosophy, and will attempt to make Deleuze's philosophy intelligible to students working within that tradition. But it also attempts to reconstruct our image of the post-Kantian tradition, isolating a lineage that takes shape in the work of Schelling and Wronski, and which is developed in the twentieth century by Bergson, Warrain and Deleuze. (shrink)