Do Deleuze and Guattari Have an Organology?

Abstract

The most extensive recent work on mechanism, organicism and organology is in Yuk Hui’s Recursivity and Contingency (2019). Of interest to me is the concept of a general organology, first introduced by Georges Canguilhem to reverse the relationship between mechanism and organism by inscribing the mechanical within the organic without sacrificing a theory of technicity. More recently, the notion of an organology has been taken up by Bernard Stiegler, particularly as it relates to the exteriorisation of memory into digital artefacts. Both Canguilhem and Stiegler are discussed by Hui, and though he mentions the work of Gilles Deleuze, this is never developed in relation to organology. In this paper I ask: “Do Deleuze and Guattari have an organology?” My aim is not to critique Hui, but to supplement his work by arguing that Deleuze and Guattari do indeed have an organology, and that it is one adequate to contemporary life.