Guattari \ Heidegger: On Quaternities, Deterritorialisation and Worlding

Abstract

In his final writings Guattari designed a four-functor meta-model with which to map subjective resingularisation against the backdrop of what he saw as the late-modern admixture of ecological collapse, social deterioration and subjective decomposition. I examine here Guattari’s fourfold in neo-structuralist terms and then engage in a discussion on the difference between worlding and deterritorialisation, reassessing in this sense Guattari’s concept of machinic indices in conversation with the works of anthropologists. Further, I show that Guattari’s fourfold is reminiscent of Heidegger’s Geviert, which I place at the very core of Heidegger’s project of overcoming the modern Ge-stell. Lastly, from the fact that Guattari’s fourfold opens onto the question of worlding and that Heidegger points to our incapability to tune in and sing back to the earth’s song, I draw the conclusion that they put forward an eco-cosmo-poetics that points beyond the flat ontology of today’s new materialism and the subtractive logic of speculative realism.