Chaosmosis
 | |
| Cover of Chaosmosis | |
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| Author | Félix Guattari |
| Original title | Chaosmose |
| First published | 1992 |
| English translation | Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis (1995) |
Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (French: Chaosmose) is a book by the French psychoanalyst and philosopher Félix Guattari, first published in 1992, the year of his death. It was his final major work, and it gathers many of the themes of his later work: the production of subjectivity, the role of art, and the relationship between ecology, society, and the mind. The English translation by Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis was published by Power Publications in Sydney in 1995.[1]
Contents
The book argues that subjectivity is not a fixed inner core but something produced, collectively and individually, through social relations, language, technology, media, and art. Guattari proposes an "ethico-aesthetic paradigm" in which the creative processes of art serve as a model for reinventing subjectivity, as opposed to what he saw as the standardized subjectivity produced by mass media and capitalism.[1]
The title combines "chaos", "cosmos", and "osmosis", reflecting Guattari's interest in how order and new forms emerge from chaotic processes. Chaosmosis engages critically with psychoanalysis and with theories of information and communication, and develops the concerns of his writing on ecosophy, set out three years earlier in The Three Ecologies (1989).[1][2]
Context
Guattari worked for most of his career at the psychiatric clinic La Borde, a center of institutional psychotherapy, and his clinical experience informs the book's account of how subjectivity can be transformed through collective settings.[3] It follows his collaborations with Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980).[4]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm". University of Washington Press. Retrieved October 13, 2026.
- ↑ "The Three Ecologies". Bloomsbury. Retrieved October 13, 2026.
- ↑ L. d'Abbadie de Nodrest, M. Piette, H. Bardi, and T. Gozé (2026). "Institutional psychotherapy: a conceptual review and clinical toolbox". Frontiers in Psychiatry. Retrieved October 15, 2026.
- ↑ "Gilles Deleuze". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 16, 2026.