Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 12:39:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Erik Davis <erikd-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: Guattari & Smoothing Out
To: deleuze-AT-world.std.com
Cc: deleuze-AT-world.std.com, technology-AT-world.std.com




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 []      Erik Davis     (oo)  Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only  []
 []   erikd-AT-panix.com    __   thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes.  [] 
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]  

On Tue, 17 May 1994, D. Ronan Hallowell wrote:

> 
> I've be trying to deal with G's "Machinic Heterogenesis" in _Rethinking 
> Technololgies_
> 
> I've also glanced "The Smooth & the Striated" in MP.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone can help explain what is meant by smoothing out 
> for example in this quote:
> 
> "We must also surpass logic based on the principle of the excluded third 
> term and on sufficient reason. Through smoothing out, a being beyond 
> comes into play, a being-for-the-other, which makes an existing being 
> take consitency outside of its strict delimitation in the here and now."
> 
> Thanx,
> Ronan
> 
By "logic based on the principle of the excluded third term" I believe 
our man is referring to binary logic which refuses the so-called 
"excluded middle" (very important to Crying of Lot 49). This, in its 
simplest terms, is the logical insistence that A is either like B or not 
like B. "Sort of" doesn't count--it destroys the efficiency of 
sufficient reason, the apparent clarity of logical consistency. Guattari 
seemingly is pointing to a "fuzzy logic" that would "smooth out" these 
rigid distinctions and categories, and spill over into a becoming, a 
being-for-the-other, a fuzzy grasp towards the other.

Just a stab.