File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1996/d-g_Jun.96, message 63


From: Goodchild P <p.goodchild-AT-ucsm.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BwO encore
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 16:55:00 BST



What is a body without organs?

Definition:

By body without organs 'I understand that which is in itself and is 
conceived through itself: that is, that the conception of which does not 
depend on the conception of another thing, from which conception it must be 
formed.'  (Spinoza, Ethics I, Def. III)

Problem 1:  But what does it mean to 'be'?  What does it mean to 'conceive'?

Proposition 1:  The body without organs is a presupposition about the nature 
of thought and the material of being.  From the definition.

Axiom 1 (of multiplicity):  There are an indeterminate number of solutions 
to Problem 1.
The concept of the body without organs is insufficiently determined.

Proposition 2:  If there are several manners of thinking and modes of 
existing, there are several bodies without organs.  From axiom 1 and 
proposition 1.

Corollary:  If one thinks or exists, then one already has one.  If one 
questions what it means to think or be, then one makes one.

Comment: Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the 'Earth' is a body without 
organs: Alliez defines it as 'the Deterritorialized par excellence: the 
concept of the concept of the concept'.  The body without organs is created 
reflexively - it is a fractal of philosophy.

Proposition 3:  The body without organs is unconscious.
>From axiom 1, and proposition 2: if one thinks, then one has a body without 
organs that is insufficiently determined.

Proposition 4:  The body without organs has a self-positing force.
>From definition, problem 1 and proposition 3.

Comment: The body without organs is the unthinkable within thought that 
causes thought, and that thought must necessarily think.  As pre-existent, 
it is a pure past.  As still to be created, it is yet to come.  As a 
self-positing yet not present cause, it generates thought and action.  It is 
desire.

When one thinks, desires, exists, one necessarily has a body without organs. 
 It is the site or horizon of living and thinking.  It is an ethos.

Problem 2: What is the body without organs of Deleuze and Guattari?

Possible solution: an exercise in geometrical constructivism.  A problematic 
logic.
There is fire in logic.  The bwo of logic is fire.  What's burning?

Phil

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