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Seen by many as a landmark in modern continental philosophy, A Thousand Plateaus is as challenging as it is revolutionary. Spanning across an enormous range of registers (cosmic, geologic, evolutionary, developmental, ethological, anthropological, mythological, historical, economic, political, literary, musical, and even more), the book challenges the fundamental assumptions underlying our traditional ways of thinking. In it, Deleuze and Guattari offer an 'open system' that is extraordinarily rich and complex. Throughout the fifteen interconnected chapters or 'plateaus' a philosophical milieu emerges that construes reality as a dynamic, material process whose capacity to become-different is fundamentally inexhaustible. 

 

A Thousand Plateaus is a book of strange new questions: “Who Does the Earth Think It Is?,” “How Do You make Yourself a Body Without Organs?,” “How does the war-machine ward off the apparatus of capture of the State?” and so on.  Deleuze and Guattari apply the idea of self-organizing material systems—those with no need of transcendent organizing agents such as gods, leaders, capital, or subjects—to the social, linguistic, political-economic, and psychological realms. The resultant “rhizome” or de-centered network that is A Thousand Plateaus provides tools for creative experimentation with the more and more de-regulated flows of energy and matter, ideas and actions—and the attendant attempts at binding them—that make up the contemporary world.

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We will discuss this fascinating text in a minimum of four sessions at Restaurant de 4 Heeren in Nijmegen every other Tuesday night. If you want to join these sessions, you can send us an email at contactmagicians@gmail.com

While the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon is mostly known for his work on technology, he also has something important to say about the relation between man and animal. Two Lessons on Animal and Man is a very short collection of lectures, where Simondon talks about the idea of animal life throughout intellectual history. He starts the 2 lectures by explaining the topic himself:

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"Today we will be studying the history of the notion of animal life within the area of psychology. It is, in effect, one of the sources for the formation of concepts between the natural sciences and humanities, which becomes manifest through the very long development of the notion of animal life. It is, via other forms, the problem of the relation between intelligence, habit, instinct, and life."

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The book is incredibly short and we hope this makes it easier for people to join the group! It is a great introductory work to a very interesting thinker and perhaps even to philosophy in general. The reading group will be in English and held online.

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We will discuss it in three sessions, on sunday evenings at 19:00, on the 29th of september, and the 6th and 13th of oktober. For practical reasons there is a maximum amount of participants. ​​

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You can registrate by sending an email to contactmagicians@gmail.com

The reading group concerns the Dutch translation of Heidegger's Die Frage nach der Technik, hence the description will also be in Dutch. 

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Volgens Heidegger is techniek niet een middel waar de mens gebruik van maakt. Techniek voor Heidegger is eerder een wijze waarop we de wereld altijd al impliciet interpreteren en begrijpen. In het tijdperk waarin de opkomst van nieuwe technologie zoals AI onvermijdelijk lijkt, blijft Heideggers tekst uiterst relevant. Deze korte maar zeer krachtige tekst gaan we behandelen in een reeks van 3 à 4 sessies, die bijgewoond zullen worden door een expert op het gebied van Heideggers werk. Deze sessies zullen plaatsvinden op woensdag avonden op de Radboud Universiteit. De eerste sessie staat gepland op 1 november 2023. 

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Meld je aan door een mail te sturen naar contactmagicians@gmail.com