Re: BwO


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.

Phil

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