Deleuze Guattari: Systems & Self-organisation

Deleuze and Guattari take up the insights of dynamical systems theory, which explores the various thresholds at which material systems self-organize (that is, reduce their degrees of freedom, as in our previous example of convection currents). Deleuze and Guattari then extend the notion 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 hints for 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.


Massumi 1992 and DeLanda 2003 attempt to show that Deleuze's epistemology and ontology can be brought together with the results of contemporary dynamical systems theory (popularly known as “chaos” and “complexity” theory). Bell 2006 follows up on this work. Protevi 2001 looks at the accompanying notions of hylomorphism and self-organization in the history of philosophy; Bonta and Protevi 2004 treat Deleuze and dynamic systems theory with regard to its potentials for geographical work. For other issues on Deleuze and science, see the essays in Marks 2006. Finally, Ansell Pearson 1999 brought attention to Deleuze and biology; see also Toscano 2006 in this regard.


Deleuze, Systems Theory and Emergence
http://protevi.com/john/Emergence.pdf


Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy