The Well-worn Knot:
How Gilles Châtelet thinks about the Formal

Instructor: Ben Woodard Date & Time: February 9th, 16th, 23rd, March 1st. 14:00-16:30 ET

DESCRIPTION: The philosopher Gilles Châtelet is an unfairly unknown thinker and activist. A contemporary of Gilles Deleuze, Châtelet synthesized extensive research in physics, philosophy, politics, and economics in order to develop a philosophy emphasizing formalization as something emerging from the natural while at the same time extending the wild creativity of mind found in the tail end of French Rationalism. In a similar fashion Châtelet extracted a theory of the formal from German Romanticism and Idealism (especially Schelling) by emphasizing an epistemic movement from intuition, to the gesture, to the diagram, and finally to the sign. Following the romantic tradition, Châtelet saw the actions of thought as processes of nature reflected back to itself in this broad understanding of the formal where the diagram is the capture of the gesture before it is frozen in a letter or number. This Seminar will introduce Châtelet’s work with a particular emphasis on the gesture, the diagram and how they bring him close to, but keeps him apart from, the works and thoughts of Deleuze, Cavailles, and Merleau-Ponty.

Session 1-The Last Romantic.
Preface and Introduction to Figuring Space

Session 2-The Philosopher of Science: Chapter 5 “Electromagnetic Space” from Figuring Space

Session 3-The Critic of Averages: “The Average Man as Statistical Degradation of the Ordinary Man” from To Live and Think Like Pigs
Optional texts: “We Lived and Thought Like Pigs” by Liam Gillick, available at https://www.e-flux.com/journal/100/268837/we-lived-and-thought-like-pigs-gilles-chtelet-s-
devastating-prescience/
“Intro to Chatelet” by Mohammad Salemy, available at http://thirdrailquarterly.org/wp-content/uploads/thirdrail_spring2015_final_msalemy.pdf

Session 4-The Angry Monist:
“Getting Hands on but with what?” from The Enchantment of the Virtual, Optional text: “Kant on Synthesis and Time,” Gilles Deleuze.

IMAGE: Heinz Hopf, Hopf Fibration, 1931

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