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{{Infobox philosopher
'''Pierre-Félix Guattari''' ([[April 30]], [[1930]] – [[August 29]], [[1992]]) was a [[France|French]] pioneer of [[psychiatric hospital|institutional]] [[psychotherapy]], as well as the founder of both [[Schizoanalysis]] and [[Ecosophy]].
| region = Western Philosophy
| era = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| image =
| name = Pierre-Félix Guattari
| birth_date = {{birth date|1930|4|30}}
| birth_place = [[Villeneuve-les-Sablons]], [[Oise]], France
| death_date = {{death date and age|1992|8|29|1930|4|30}}
| death_place = [[La Borde clinic]], [[Cour-Cheverny]], France
| institutions = [[University of Paris VIII]]
| school_tradition = [[Psychoanalysis]], [[postmodernism]]
| main_interests = [[Psychoanalysis]], [[politics]], [[ecology]], [[semiotics]]
| influences = [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Gilles Deleuze]]
| influenced = [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[Brian Massumi]], [[Antonio Negri]], [[Bryan Reynolds]]
| notable_ideas = Assemblage, [[desiring machine]], [[deterritorialization]], [[ecosophy]], [[schizoanalysis]]
}}
{{Semiotics}}
[[File:Tombeau guattari.JPG|thumb|right|200px|Grave of Guattari at [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], [[Paris]]]]

'''Pierre-Félix Guattari''' ({{IPA-fr|ɡwataʁi|lang}} {{audio|Félix Guattari.ogg|<small>(listen)</small>}}; April 30, 1930 – August 29, 1992) was a French [[psychotherapist]], [[philosopher]], [[Semiotics|semiologist]], and [[Militant (word)|militant]]. He founded both [[schizoanalysis]] and [[ecosophy]], and is best known for his intellectual collaborations with [[Gilles Deleuze]], most notably ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' (1972) and ''[[A Thousand Plateaus]]'' (1980), the two volumes of ''[[Capitalism and Schizophrenia]]''.


==Biography==
==Biography==


=== Clinic of La Borde ===
===Clinic of La Borde===
Guattari was born in Villeneuve-les-Sablons, a working-class suburb of north-west [[Paris]], France.<ref>Guattari (1989, ix).</ref> He trained under (and was analysed by) the [[psychoanalyst]] [[Jacques Lacan]] in the early 1950s. Subsequently, he worked (until his death from a heart attack in 1992) at the experimental psychiatric clinic of [[La Borde clinic|La Borde]] under the direction of Lacan's pupil, the psychiatrist [[Jean Oury]]. La Borde was a venue for conversation among many students of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and [[social work]].


One particularly novel orientation developed at La Borde consisted of the suspension of the classical analyst/analysand pair in favour of an open confrontation in [[Group psychotherapy|group therapy]]. In contrast to the [[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] school's individualistic style of [[Psychoanalysis|analysis]], this practice studied the dynamics of several subjects in complex interaction; it led Guattari into a broader philosophical exploration of, and political engagement with, a vast array of intellectual and cultural domains ([[philosophy]], [[ethnology]], [[linguistics]], [[architecture]], etc.).
Not very well known to the general public, Pierre Félix Guattari was in the [[1960s]] to become a central figure defining the events of [[May 1968]] and its aftermath. Born in Villeneuve-les-Sablons, Oise, [[France]], Guattari first made his way into the history of Psychiatry, Philosophy, and French [[Militancy]] with the meeting of [[Fernand Oury]], a craftsman engaged in the future movement of institutional [[pedagogy]]. Encouraged by the brother of Fernand, [[Jean Oury]], [[psychiatrist]], the young Guattari became impassioned from 1950 towards the practice of [[psychiatry]]. Due to his frustrations with the theories and methods of French [[psychoanalyst]] [[Jacques Lacan]] -- in relation to whom he was both student and patient ([[analysand]]) in the 1950s -- Guattari was further convinced that he needed to continue exploring as vast an array of domains as possible ([[philosophy]], [[ethnology]], [[linguistics]], [[architecture]], etc.,) in order to better define the orientation, delimitation and psychiatric efficacity of the practice. Psychoanalysis was too authoritarian in its insistence that the analyst was somehow closer to the Truth than the patient. Beyond this, as Guattari would later proclaim, psychoanalysis is "the best [[capitalist]] drug" because in it desire is confined to a couch: desire, in Lacanian psychoanalysis, is an energy that is contained rather than one that, if freed, could militantly engage itself in something different. He continued this research, collaborating in Jean Oury's private clinic of [[La Borde]] at Court-Cheverny, one of the main centers of institutional psychotherapy at the time. La Borde was a venue for conversation amongst innumerable students of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and [[social work]]. La Borde was Félix Guattari's principal anchoring until his death in [[1992]].


=== 1960s to 1970s ===
===1960s to 1970s===


From 1955 to 1965, Félix Guattari animated the [[trotskyist]] group ''Voie Communiste'' ("Communist Way"). He would then support [[anticolonialist]] struggles as well as the Italian ''[[Autonomists]]''. Guattari also took part in the movement of the psychological G.T., which gathered many psychiatrists at the beginning of the sixties and created the Association of Institutional Psychotherapy in November [[1965]]. It was at the same time that he founded, along with other militants, the F.G.E.R.I. (Federation of Groups for Institutional Study & Research) and its review research, working on philosophy, mathematics, psychoanalysis, education, architecture, ethnology, etc. The F.G.E.R.I. came to represent aspects of the multiple political and cultural engagements of Félix Guattari: the Group for Young Hispanics, the Franco-Chinese Friendships (in the times of the popular communes), the opposition activities with the wars in [[Algerian War of Independence|Algeria]] and Vietnam, the participation in the M.N.E.F., with the U.N.E.F., the policy of the offices of psychological academic aid (B.A.P.U.), the organisation of the University Working Groups (G.T.U.), but also the reorganizations of the training courses with the Centers of Training to the Methods of Education Activities (C.E.M.E.A.) for psychiatric male nurses, as well as the formation of Friendly Male Nurses (Amicales d'infirmiers)(in [[1958]]), the studies on architecture and the projects of construction of a day hospital of for "students and young workers".
From 1955 to 1965, Guattari edited and contributed to ''La Voie Communiste'' (''Communist Way''), a [[Trotskyist]] newspaper.<ref>Guattari (1989, x).</ref> He supported [[Anti-imperialism|anti-colonialist]] struggles as well as the Italian [[Autonomia Operaia|Autonomists]]. Guattari also took part in the G.T.P.S.I., which gathered many psychiatrists at the beginning of the sixties and created the Association of Institutional Psychotherapy in November 1965. It was at the same time that he founded, along with other militants, the F.G.E.R.I. (Federation of Groups for Institutional Study & Research) and its review ''Recherche'' (''Research''), working on philosophy, mathematics, psychoanalysis, education, architecture, ethnology, etc. The F.G.E.R.I. came to represent aspects of the multiple political and cultural engagements of Guattari: the Group for Young Hispanics, the Franco-Chinese Friendships (in the times of the people's communes), the opposition activities with the wars in [[Algerian War of Independence|Algeria]] and Vietnam, the participation in the M.N.E.F., with the U.N.E.F., the policy of the offices of psychological academic aid (B.A.P.U.), the organisation of the University Working Groups (G.T.U.), but also the reorganizations of the training courses with the Centers of Training to the Methods of Education Activities (C.E.M.E.A.) for psychiatric male nurses, as well as the formation of Friendly Male Nurses (Amicales d'infirmiers) (in 1958), the studies on architecture and the projects of construction of a day hospital of for "students and young workers".


Although heavily influenced by the work of Lacan, he would later come to take many distances with respect to the theoretical elaboration of certain concepts and practices. He was one of the actors in the events of May 1968, starting from the [[Movement of March 22]]. It was at this time that Guattari met [[Gilles Deleuze]] at the University of Vincennes and began to lay the ground-work for the soon to be infamous ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' (1972), which Michel Foucault described as "an introduction to the non-fascist life" in his preface to the book. Throughout his career it may be said that his writings were at all times correspondent in one fashion or another with sociopolitical and cultural engagements. In 1967, he appeared as one of the founders of OSARLA (Organization of solidarity and Aid to the Latin-American Revolution). It was with the head office of the F.G.E.R.I. that he met, in [[1968]], [[Daniel Cohn-Bendit]], [[Jean-Jacques Lebel]], and [[Julian Beck]]. In [[1970]], he created C.E.R.F.I. (Center for the Study and Research of Institutional Formation), which takes the direction of the Recherches review. In 1977, he created the CINEL for "new spaces of freedom" before joining in the 1980s the [[ecological]] movement with his "[[ecosophy]]".
In 1967, he appeared as one of the founders of OSARLA (Organization of solidarity and Aid to the Latin-American Revolution). In 1968, Guattari met [[Daniel Cohn-Bendit]], [[Jean-Jacques Lebel]], and [[Julian Beck]]. He was involved in the large-scale [[May 1968 in France|French protests of 1968]], starting from the [[Movement of March 22]]. It was in the aftermath of 1968 that Guattari met [[Gilles Deleuze]] at the [[University of Vincennes]] and began to lay the ground-work for the soon to be infamous ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' (1972), which [[Michel Foucault]] described as "an introduction to the non-fascist life" in his preface to the book. In 1970, he created [[:fr:CERFI]] (Center for the Study and Research of Institutional Formation), which developed the approach explored in the ''Recherches'' journal. In 1973, Guattari was tried and fined for committing an "outrage to public decency" for publishing an issue of ''Recherches'' on homosexuality.<ref>{{cite book |author=Massumi, Brian |title=A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1993 |page=144 |isbn=0-262-63143-1 |oclc= |doi= |accessdate=}}</ref> In 1977, he created the CINEL for "new spaces of freedom" before joining in the 1980s the [[ecological]] movement with his "[[ecosophy]]".


=== 1980s to 1990s ===
===1980s to 1990s===


In his last book, ''Chaosmose'' ([[1992]]), the topic of which is already partially developed in ''What is Philosophy?'' (1991, with Deleuze), Félix Guattari takes again his essential topic: the question of subjectivity. "How to produce it, collect it, enrich it, reinvent it permanently in order to make it compatible with mutant Universes of value?" This idea returns like a leitmotiv, from ''Psychanalyse and transversality'' (a regrouping of articles from [[1957]] to [[1972]]) through ''Années d'hiver'' ([[1980]] - [[1986]]) and ''Cartographies Schizoanalytique'' ([[1989]]). He insists on the function of "a-signification", which plays the role of support for a subjectivity in act, starting from four parameters: "significative and [[semiotic]] flows, Phylum of Machanic Propositions, Existential Territories and Incorporeal Universes of Reference."
In his last book, ''Chaosmosis'' (1992), Guattari returned to the question of subjectivity: "How to produce it, collect it, enrich it, reinvent it permanently in order to make it compatible with mutant Universes of value?" This concern runs through all of his works, from ''Psychoanalysis and Transversality'' (a collection of articles from 1957 to 1972), through ''Years of Winter'' (1980–1986) and ''Schizoanalytic Cartographies'' (1989), to his collaboration with Deleuze, ''[[What is Philosophy?]]'' (1991). In ''Chaosmosis'', Guattari proposes an analysis of subjectivity in terms of four dimensions: (1) material, energetic, and semiotic fluxes; (2) concrete and abstract machinic [[phylum]]s; (3) [[Virtual (philosophy)|virtual]] universes of value; and (4) finite existential territories.<ref>Guattari (1992, 124).</ref> This scheme attempts to grasp the heterogeneity of components involved in the production of subjectivity, as Guattari understands it, which include both signifying [[Semiotics|semiotic]] components as well as "a-signifying semiological dimensions" (which work "in parallel or independently of" any signifiying function that they may have).<ref>Guattari (1992, 4).</ref>


In 1995, the posthumous release ''Chaosophy'' featured Guattari's first collection of essays and interviews focuses on the French anti-psychiatrist and theorist's work as director of the experimental La Borde clinic and collaborator of philosopher Gilles Deleuze. ''Chaosophy'' is a groundbreaking introduction to Guattari's theories on "schizo-analysis", a process meant to replace [[Sigmund Freud]]'s interpretation with a more pragmatic, experimental, and collective approach rooted in reality. Unlike Freud, Guattari believes that [[schizophrenia]] is an extreme mental state co-existent with the capitalist system itself. But capitalism keeps enforcing [[neurosis]] as a way of maintaining normality. Guattari's post-Marxist vision of capitalism provides a new definition not only of mental illness, but also of micropolitical means of subversion. It includes key essays such as "Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines," cosigned by Deleuze (with whom he coauthored Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus), and the provocative "Everybody Wants To Be a Fascist."
In 1995, the posthumous release ''Chaosophy'' published essays and interviews concerning Guattari's work as director of the experimental [[La Borde clinic]] and his collaborations with Deleuze. The collection includes essays such as "Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines," cosigned by Deleuze (with whom he coauthored ''Anti-Oedipus'' and ''A Thousand Plateaus''), and "Everybody Wants To Be a Fascist." It provides an introduction to Guattari's theories on "[[schizoanalysis]]", a process that develops [[Sigmund Freud]]'s [[psychoanalysis]] but which pursues a more experimental and collective approach towards analysis.


''Soft Subversions'' is another collection of Félix Guattari's essays, lectures, and interviews traces the militant anti-psychiatrist and theorist's thought and activity throughout the 1980s ("the winter years"). Concepts such as "micropolitics," "schizoanalysis," and "becoming-woman" open up new horizons for political and creative resistance in the "postmedia era." Guattari's energetic analyses of art, cinema, youth culture, economics, and power formations introduce a radically inventive thought process engaged in liberating subjectivity from the standardizing and homogenizing processes of global capitalism.
In 1996 another collection of Guattari's essays, lectures, and interviews, ''Soft Subversions'', was published, which traces the development of his thought and activity throughout the 1980s ("the winter years"). His analyses of art, cinema, youth culture, economics, and power formations, develop concepts such as "micropolitics," "schizoanalysis," and "becoming-woman," which aim to liberate subjectivity and open up new horizons for political and creative resistance to the standardizing and homogenizing processes of global capitalism (which he calls "Integrated World Capitalism") in the "postmedia era."


== Works ==
==Works==


===Works translated into English===
*''Molecular Revolution''
*''Communists Like Us'' ([[1985]]), with [[Antonio Negri]]
*''Cartographies Schizoanalytiques'' ([[1989]])


* ''Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics'' (1984). Selected essays from ''Psychanalyse et transversalité'' (1972) and ''La révolution moléculaire'' (1977).
Books written in collaboration with Gilles Deleuze:
* ''The Machinic Unconscious'' (1979)
* ''Schizoanalytic Cartographies'' (1989).
* ''The Three Ecologies'' (1989).
* ''Chaosmosis: an Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm'' (1992).
<BR/>
* ''Chaosophy'' (1995). Collected essays and interviews from 1972 - 1977.
* ''Soft Subversions'' (1996). Collected essays and interviews from 1977 - 1985.
* ''The Guattari Reader'' (1996). Collected essays and interviews.
* ''The Anti-Oedipus Papers'' (2004). Collection of texts written between 1969 and 1972.
<BR>
In collaboration with [[Gilles Deleuze]]:


*''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' ([[1972]])
* ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' (1972).
*''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature''
* ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'' (1975).
*''[[A Thousand Plateaus]]'' ([[1980]])
* ''[[A Thousand Plateaus]]'' (1980).
* ''On the Line'' (1983). Contains translation of "Rhizome" (1976).
*''What Is Philosophy?'' ([[1991]])
* ''Nomadology: The War Machine.'' (1986). Translation of chapter 12 of ''A Thousand Plateaus''.
(these are the English translations; dates are from French editions.)
* ''[[What is Philosophy?]]'' (1991).


==Other books==
Other collaborations:
*''Chaosmosis'' ([[1992]])
*''Chaosophy'' ([[1995]])
*''Soft Subversions'' ([[1996]])
*''The Guattari Reader'' ([[1996]])
*''Three Ecologies'' ([[2000]])
*''The Anti-Œdipus Papers'' ([[2006]])


* ''Communists Like Us'' (1985). With [[Antonio Negri]].
==Introductory texts==
* ''Molecular Revolution in Brazil'' (1986). With Suely Rolnik.
* ''The Party without Bosses'' (2003), by Gary Genosko. Features a 1982 conversation between Guattari and [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva]], the former [[President of Brazil]].


===Untranslated works===
*Gary Genosko, ''Felix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction'' ([[2002]])
Note: Many of the essays found in these works have been individually translated and can be found in the English collections.
* ''Psychanalyse et transversalité. Essais d'analyse institutionnelle'' (1972).
* ''La révolution moléculaire'' (1977, 1980). The 1980 version (éditions 10/18) contains substantially different essays from the 1977 version.
* ''Les années d'hiver, 1980-1985'' (1986).
* ''Un Amour d'UIQ. Scénario pour un film qui manque'', edited and with a visual essay by Graeme Thomson & Silvia Maglioni (Paris, Editions Amsterdam, 2012. The edition contains various screenplays and a selection of unpublished archives)

Other collaborations:

* ''L’intervention institutionnelle'' (Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Payot, n. 382 - 1980). On [[institutional pedagogy]]. With Jacques Ardoino, G. Lapassade, Gerard Mendel, Rene Lourau.
* ''Pratique de l'institutionnel et politique'' (1985). With [[Jean Oury]] and Francois Tosquelles.
* ''Desiderio e rivoluzione. Intervista a cura di Paolo Bertetto'' (Milan: Squilibri, 1977). Conversation with Franco Berardi (Bifo) and Paolo Bertetto.

==See also==
*[[Deleuze and Guattari]]
*[[History of capitalism]]
*[[Becoming (philosophy)|Becoming]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Sources==

===Primary sources===
* [[Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze, Gilles]] and Félix Guattari. 1972. ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]''. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 1 of ''[[Capitalism and Schizophrenia]]''. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of ''L'Anti-Oedipe''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8264-7695-3.
* ---. 1975. ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature''. Trans. Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature 30. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1986. Trans. of ''Kafka: pour une litterature mineure''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8166-1515-2.
* ---. 1980. ''[[A Thousand Plateaus]]''. Trans. [[Brian Massumi]]. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 2 of ''[[Capitalism and Schizophrenia]]''. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of ''Mille plateaux''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8264-7694-5.
* ---. 1991. ''[[What Is Philosophy?]]''. Trans. Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson. London and New York: Verso, 1994. Trans. of ''Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?''. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-86091-686-3.
<br>
* Guattari, Félix. 1979. ''The Machinic Unconscious: essays in schizoanalysis''. Trans. Taylor Adkins. Los Angeles, CA : Semiotext(e), 2011. Trans. of ''L'inconscient machinique: Essais de schizo-analyse''. Paris: Recherches. ISBN 2-8622-201-08
* ---. 1984. ''Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics''. Trans. Rosemary Sheed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-055160-3.
* ---. 1989a. ''[[Schizoanalytic Cartographies]]''. Trans Andrew Goffey. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Trans. of ''Cartographies schizoanalytiques''. Paris: Editions Galilée ISBN 978-2718603490.
* ---. 1989b. ''[[The Three Ecologies]]''. Trans. Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton. London and New York: Continuum, 2000. Trans. of ''Les trois écologies.'' Paris: Editions Galilée. ISBN 1-84706-305-5.
* ---. 1992. ''Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm''. Trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1995. Trans. of ''Chaosmose''. Paris: Editions Galilee. ISBN 0-909952-25-6.
* ---. 1995. ''Chaosophy (Texts and Interviews 1972 to 1977 )''. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-57027-019-8.
* ---. 1996. ''Soft Subversions (Texts and Interviews 1977 to 1985)''. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Trans. David L. Sweet and Chet Wiener. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-57027-030-9.
* ---. 1996. ''The Guattari Reader''. Ed. Gary Genosko. Blackwell Readers ser. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19708-7.
* ---. 2006. ''The Anti-Oedipus Papers.'' Ed. Stéphane Nadaud. Trans. Kélina Gotman. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-58435-031-8.
<br>

* Guattari, Félix and [[Antonio Negri|Toni Negri]]. 1985. ''Communists Like Us: New Spaces of Liberty, New Lines of Alliance''. Trans. Michael Ryan. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990. Trans. of ''Nouvelles espaces de liberte''. Paris: Bedon. ISBN 0-936756-21-7.
* Guattari, Félix, and Suely Rolnik. 1986. ''Molecular Revolution in Brazil.'' New York: Semiotext(e), 2008. Trans. of ''Micropolitica: Cartografias do Desejo.'' ISBN 1-58435-051-2.


==External links==
==External links==
{{commons category}}
<!--{{wikiquote}}-->
*[http://fractalontology.wordpress.com Fractal Ontology] (with unpublished English translations of Guattari and others)
*[http://www.revue-chimeres.org/guattari/guattari.html Chimeres site on Guattari (in French)]
*[http://www.revue-chimeres.org/guattari/guattari.html Chimeres site on Guattari (in French)]
*[http://multitudes.samizdat.net/_Guattari-Felix_.html Multitudes page on Guattari (in French)]
*[http://multitudes.samizdat.net/_Guattari-Felix_.html Multitudes page on Guattari (in French)]
*[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n24/adam-shatz/desire-was-everywhere Desire Was Everywhere], Adam Shatz, ''London Review of Books'', Vol. 32 No. 24 · 16 December 2010

{{Deleuze-Guattari}}


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[[Category:1930 births|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:1992 deaths|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:French anarchists|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Postmodern theory|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Psychoanalytic theory|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysts|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Anti-psychiatry|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Psychotherapy|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:French non-fiction writers|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:French philosophers|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Political philosophers|Guattari, Felix]]
[[Category:Deleuze-Guattari| Guattari, Felix]]


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[[Category:1992 deaths]]
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[[Category:French political philosophers]]
[[Category:French psychoanalysts]]
[[Category:French communists]]
[[Category:Anti-psychiatry]]
[[Category:Critical theorists]]
[[Category:Postmodern theory]]
[[Category:Psychoanalytic theory]]
[[Category:Analysands of Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:20th-century French philosophers]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]

Revision as of 15:16, 12 October 2015

Pierre-Félix Guattari
Born(1930-04-30)April 30, 1930
Villeneuve-les-Sablons, Oise, France
DiedAugust 29, 1992(1992-08-29) (aged 62)
La Borde clinic, Cour-Cheverny, France
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern Philosophy
SchoolPsychoanalysis, postmodernism
InstitutionsUniversity of Paris VIII
Main interests
Psychoanalysis, politics, ecology, semiotics
Notable ideas
Assemblage, desiring machine, deterritorialization, ecosophy, schizoanalysis
Semiotics
 
General concepts
Fields
Methods
Semioticians
Related topics
Grave of Guattari at Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Pierre-Félix Guattari (French: [ɡwataʁi] (listen)ⓘ; April 30, 1930 – August 29, 1992) was a French psychotherapist, philosopher, semiologist, and militant. He founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy, and is best known for his intellectual collaborations with Gilles Deleuze, most notably Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Biography

Clinic of La Borde

Guattari was born in Villeneuve-les-Sablons, a working-class suburb of north-west Paris, France.[1] He trained under (and was analysed by) the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in the early 1950s. Subsequently, he worked (until his death from a heart attack in 1992) at the experimental psychiatric clinic of La Borde under the direction of Lacan's pupil, the psychiatrist Jean Oury. La Borde was a venue for conversation among many students of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and social work.

One particularly novel orientation developed at La Borde consisted of the suspension of the classical analyst/analysand pair in favour of an open confrontation in group therapy. In contrast to the Freudian school's individualistic style of analysis, this practice studied the dynamics of several subjects in complex interaction; it led Guattari into a broader philosophical exploration of, and political engagement with, a vast array of intellectual and cultural domains (philosophy, ethnology, linguistics, architecture, etc.).

1960s to 1970s

From 1955 to 1965, Guattari edited and contributed to La Voie Communiste (Communist Way), a Trotskyist newspaper.[2] He supported anti-colonialist struggles as well as the Italian Autonomists. Guattari also took part in the G.T.P.S.I., which gathered many psychiatrists at the beginning of the sixties and created the Association of Institutional Psychotherapy in November 1965. It was at the same time that he founded, along with other militants, the F.G.E.R.I. (Federation of Groups for Institutional Study & Research) and its review Recherche (Research), working on philosophy, mathematics, psychoanalysis, education, architecture, ethnology, etc. The F.G.E.R.I. came to represent aspects of the multiple political and cultural engagements of Guattari: the Group for Young Hispanics, the Franco-Chinese Friendships (in the times of the people's communes), the opposition activities with the wars in Algeria and Vietnam, the participation in the M.N.E.F., with the U.N.E.F., the policy of the offices of psychological academic aid (B.A.P.U.), the organisation of the University Working Groups (G.T.U.), but also the reorganizations of the training courses with the Centers of Training to the Methods of Education Activities (C.E.M.E.A.) for psychiatric male nurses, as well as the formation of Friendly Male Nurses (Amicales d'infirmiers) (in 1958), the studies on architecture and the projects of construction of a day hospital of for "students and young workers".

In 1967, he appeared as one of the founders of OSARLA (Organization of solidarity and Aid to the Latin-American Revolution). In 1968, Guattari met Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jean-Jacques Lebel, and Julian Beck. He was involved in the large-scale French protests of 1968, starting from the Movement of March 22. It was in the aftermath of 1968 that Guattari met Gilles Deleuze at the University of Vincennes and began to lay the ground-work for the soon to be infamous Anti-Oedipus (1972), which Michel Foucault described as "an introduction to the non-fascist life" in his preface to the book. In 1970, he created fr:CERFI (Center for the Study and Research of Institutional Formation), which developed the approach explored in the Recherches journal. In 1973, Guattari was tried and fined for committing an "outrage to public decency" for publishing an issue of Recherches on homosexuality.[3] In 1977, he created the CINEL for "new spaces of freedom" before joining in the 1980s the ecological movement with his "ecosophy".

1980s to 1990s

In his last book, Chaosmosis (1992), Guattari returned to the question of subjectivity: "How to produce it, collect it, enrich it, reinvent it permanently in order to make it compatible with mutant Universes of value?" This concern runs through all of his works, from Psychoanalysis and Transversality (a collection of articles from 1957 to 1972), through Years of Winter (1980–1986) and Schizoanalytic Cartographies (1989), to his collaboration with Deleuze, What is Philosophy? (1991). In Chaosmosis, Guattari proposes an analysis of subjectivity in terms of four dimensions: (1) material, energetic, and semiotic fluxes; (2) concrete and abstract machinic phylums; (3) virtual universes of value; and (4) finite existential territories.[4] This scheme attempts to grasp the heterogeneity of components involved in the production of subjectivity, as Guattari understands it, which include both signifying semiotic components as well as "a-signifying semiological dimensions" (which work "in parallel or independently of" any signifiying function that they may have).[5]

In 1995, the posthumous release Chaosophy published essays and interviews concerning Guattari's work as director of the experimental La Borde clinic and his collaborations with Deleuze. The collection includes essays such as "Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines," cosigned by Deleuze (with whom he coauthored Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus), and "Everybody Wants To Be a Fascist." It provides an introduction to Guattari's theories on "schizoanalysis", a process that develops Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis but which pursues a more experimental and collective approach towards analysis.

In 1996 another collection of Guattari's essays, lectures, and interviews, Soft Subversions, was published, which traces the development of his thought and activity throughout the 1980s ("the winter years"). His analyses of art, cinema, youth culture, economics, and power formations, develop concepts such as "micropolitics," "schizoanalysis," and "becoming-woman," which aim to liberate subjectivity and open up new horizons for political and creative resistance to the standardizing and homogenizing processes of global capitalism (which he calls "Integrated World Capitalism") in the "postmedia era."

Works

Works translated into English

  • Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics (1984). Selected essays from Psychanalyse et transversalité (1972) and La révolution moléculaire (1977).
  • The Machinic Unconscious (1979)
  • Schizoanalytic Cartographies (1989).
  • The Three Ecologies (1989).
  • Chaosmosis: an Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (1992).


  • Chaosophy (1995). Collected essays and interviews from 1972 - 1977.
  • Soft Subversions (1996). Collected essays and interviews from 1977 - 1985.
  • The Guattari Reader (1996). Collected essays and interviews.
  • The Anti-Oedipus Papers (2004). Collection of texts written between 1969 and 1972.


In collaboration with Gilles Deleuze:

  • Anti-Oedipus (1972).
  • Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1975).
  • A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
  • On the Line (1983). Contains translation of "Rhizome" (1976).
  • Nomadology: The War Machine. (1986). Translation of chapter 12 of A Thousand Plateaus.
  • What is Philosophy? (1991).

Other collaborations:

Untranslated works

Note: Many of the essays found in these works have been individually translated and can be found in the English collections.

  • Psychanalyse et transversalité. Essais d'analyse institutionnelle (1972).
  • La révolution moléculaire (1977, 1980). The 1980 version (éditions 10/18) contains substantially different essays from the 1977 version.
  • Les années d'hiver, 1980-1985 (1986).
  • Un Amour d'UIQ. Scénario pour un film qui manque, edited and with a visual essay by Graeme Thomson & Silvia Maglioni (Paris, Editions Amsterdam, 2012. The edition contains various screenplays and a selection of unpublished archives)

Other collaborations:

  • L’intervention institutionnelle (Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Payot, n. 382 - 1980). On institutional pedagogy. With Jacques Ardoino, G. Lapassade, Gerard Mendel, Rene Lourau.
  • Pratique de l'institutionnel et politique (1985). With Jean Oury and Francois Tosquelles.
  • Desiderio e rivoluzione. Intervista a cura di Paolo Bertetto (Milan: Squilibri, 1977). Conversation with Franco Berardi (Bifo) and Paolo Bertetto.

See also

References

  1. ^ Guattari (1989, ix).
  2. ^ Guattari (1989, x).
  3. ^ Massumi, Brian (1993). A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. p. 144. ISBN 0-262-63143-1.
  4. ^ Guattari (1992, 124).
  5. ^ Guattari (1992, 4).

Sources

Primary sources

  • Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1972. Anti-Oedipus. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 1 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of L'Anti-Oedipe. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8264-7695-3.
  • ---. 1975. Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature 30. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1986. Trans. of Kafka: pour une litterature mineure. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8166-1515-2.
  • ---. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 2 vols. 1972-1980. Trans. of Mille plateaux. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-8264-7694-5.
  • ---. 1991. What Is Philosophy?. Trans. Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson. London and New York: Verso, 1994. Trans. of Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN 0-86091-686-3.


  • Guattari, Félix. 1979. The Machinic Unconscious: essays in schizoanalysis. Trans. Taylor Adkins. Los Angeles, CA : Semiotext(e), 2011. Trans. of L'inconscient machinique: Essais de schizo-analyse. Paris: Recherches. ISBN 2-8622-201-08
  • ---. 1984. Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics. Trans. Rosemary Sheed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-055160-3.
  • ---. 1989a. Schizoanalytic Cartographies. Trans Andrew Goffey. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Trans. of Cartographies schizoanalytiques. Paris: Editions Galilée ISBN 978-2718603490.
  • ---. 1989b. The Three Ecologies. Trans. Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton. London and New York: Continuum, 2000. Trans. of Les trois écologies. Paris: Editions Galilée. ISBN 1-84706-305-5.
  • ---. 1992. Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm. Trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1995. Trans. of Chaosmose. Paris: Editions Galilee. ISBN 0-909952-25-6.
  • ---. 1995. Chaosophy (Texts and Interviews 1972 to 1977 ). Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-57027-019-8.
  • ---. 1996. Soft Subversions (Texts and Interviews 1977 to 1985). Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Trans. David L. Sweet and Chet Wiener. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-57027-030-9.
  • ---. 1996. The Guattari Reader. Ed. Gary Genosko. Blackwell Readers ser. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19708-7.
  • ---. 2006. The Anti-Oedipus Papers. Ed. Stéphane Nadaud. Trans. Kélina Gotman. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 1-58435-031-8.


  • Guattari, Félix and Toni Negri. 1985. Communists Like Us: New Spaces of Liberty, New Lines of Alliance. Trans. Michael Ryan. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990. Trans. of Nouvelles espaces de liberte. Paris: Bedon. ISBN 0-936756-21-7.
  • Guattari, Félix, and Suely Rolnik. 1986. Molecular Revolution in Brazil. New York: Semiotext(e), 2008. Trans. of Micropolitica: Cartografias do Desejo. ISBN 1-58435-051-2.
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