Deleuze, Darwin and the Categorisation of Life

Eckstrand, Nathan

doi:10.3366/dls.2014.0164

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In the last decade, Deleuze Studies has seen a rekindled interest in the intersections between Deleuze and Guattari's writings and those of their scientific contemporaries. The deep influence of biological thinkers like Jacques Monod, François Jacob, Lynn Margulis, Ilya Prigogine, and Mary Jane West-Eberhard is still coming to light (Eckstrand 2014;Clark 2012;Marks 2006;Bonta 2004). The two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia are particularly indebted to Monod's Chance and Necessity, for several concepts in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus are explicitly built upon Monod's work.…”

Section: No Spheres: Monod and Althussermentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling the Mechanosphere: Monod, Althusser, Deleuze and Guattari

Dukes

2016

Deleuze Studies

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While the ‘mechanosphere’ is a concept mentioned only six times in A Thousand Plateaus, it is fundamental to the way Deleuze and Guattari construct their geophilosophy. In this article, I argue that the mechanosphere solves what Louis Althusser calls the idealist coupling of mechanism and spiritualism implicit in Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere and in Jacques Monod's appropriation of the term. My contention is that the mechanosphere must be contextualised within Althusser's critique of Monod, delivered during the ‘Philosophy Course for Scientists’ at the École normale supérieure rue d'Ulm in 1967. Reading A Thousand Plateaus (1980) against Monod's Chance and Necessity (1970) and Althusser's Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists (1967), I argue that the mechanosphere evacuates the spectre of an ‘idealist tendency’ latent in Monod's molecular science. By refashioning Teilhard's Omega point, Deleuze and Guattari create a sphere that serves as an asymptote on the horizon of ecological history – a projected point of complete destratification between the production of human subjects and planetary ecology. Ultimately, the mechanosphere nuances contemporary treatments of the Anthropocene, asking us to consider not only how humanity is overwhelming natural forces, but also how the former category is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the latter.

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Section: No Spheres: Monod and Althussermentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling the Mechanosphere: Monod, Althusser, Deleuze and Guattari

Dukes

2016

Deleuze Studies

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“…In ornithology, the species is a "biological entity" (Kammermeier & Billerman, 2022), meaning it is the unit of evolution and granted an "ontological stability" (Eckstrand, 2014). While it is understood that the categories of higherlevel taxonomy are "human constructs… meant to help us group and understand the diversity of life on the planet" (Kammermeier & Billerman, 2022), the species is still taken to be a subject which can be collectively acted upon.…”

Section: Chapter 3 -Taxonomiesmentioning

confidence: 99%