Guattari's Machines and The Original Perspectives

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2021-9
Kut, Engin
Although Felix Guattari extensively incorporated the terminology from the Freud-Lacan line of psychoanalysis, he employs those terms in a revolutionary way in his philosophical outlook. Besides central concepts such as desire, libido and Oedipus, he employed the machine as a core concept to form an original perspective. A term reflecting the multiplicity and political novelty, its psychoanalytic background is an indispensable aspect for Guattari’s machines’ origins, their function and temporal progression. Through Freud’s and Lacan’s theories, psychoanalytic political line and related criticisms are investigated in this thesis to provide a background for Guattari’s machines. Then, the particularities of the machine concept are followed in Guattari’s texts to see what kind of problems and original solutions it addresses. Those insights indicate that the machinic approach itself functions in a machinic fashion to develop the multiplicity in the relatively rigid field of psychoanalysis. Additionally, the thesis strives to answer the question “How does Guattari and his machine concept manage to construct an original perspective?” To answer these questions, the final part of the thesis will investigate the theoretical approaches to physics corresponding to Freud’s, Lacan’s and Guattari’s peculiarities along with their views on time and temporality. The ultimate aim of the study is to discuss the background of philosophically original perspectives brought about by Guattari’s machine concept and its machinic function through the field of psychoanalysis.

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Citation Formats
E. Kut, “Guattari’s Machines and The Original Perspectives,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2021.