Yes, Félix Guattari’s emphasis on the aesthetic as central to ethics and subjectivity was influenced by Michel Foucault, though Guattari extended and transformed Foucault’s ideas in significant ways. Their overlapping concerns about ethics, creativity, and the formation of subjectivity show clear connections, particularly in Foucault’s later work on ethics as an aesthetics of existence. Let’s explore how Foucault’s influence shaped Guattari’s thought:
1. Foucault’s “Aesthetics of Existence”
• In his later works (The History of Sexuality, especially The Care of the Self), Foucault argued that ethics is about the care of the self—a practice through which individuals shape their lives as a kind of artwork.
• Foucault saw the self not as a pre-given entity but as something actively created through practices of freedom, discipline, and reflection. This aestheticization of life emphasized the creativity and artistry involved in constructing one’s existence.
Guattari’s Extension:
• Guattari drew from this idea but expanded it beyond the individual to include collective subjectivity and broader assemblages (e.g., ecological, social, and technological systems).
• For Guattari, this “aestheticization” was not limited to self-care but extended to the way we create social and environmental worlds, making it a collective, multi-dimensional process.
2. Ethics as Creativity
• Both Guattari and Foucault rejected universal, rule-based notions of ethics, focusing instead on ethics as a creative process.
• Foucault explored how individuals and societies could invent new ways of being that escape domination and normalization.
• Guattari emphasized the transformative power of aesthetics in this process, seeing art and creativity as central to ethical and political life.
Why Aesthetic?
• Foucault’s interest in resistance through creation resonated with Guattari’s belief that aesthetic practices (broadly conceived) are essential for reimagining subjectivity and social systems.
3. Subjectivity as a Construct
• Both Foucault and Guattari viewed subjectivity as a construct shaped by historical, cultural, and social forces:
• Foucault analyzed how subjectivity is produced through disciplinary systems and power relations.
• Guattari, influenced by his work as a psychoanalyst, emphasized the molecular and machinic processes involved in the creation of subjectivity, including unconscious and pre-conscious forces.
• Guattari’s emphasis on aesthetic practices aligns with Foucault’s claim that individuals must engage in practices of freedom to create themselves differently.
4. Breaking Free from Normativity
• Foucault’s later works focused on how individuals could resist the normative systems of power that govern them by experimenting with new forms of life, much like an artist experiments with materials.
• Guattari’s ethics-aesthetic paradigm builds on this by insisting that such experimentation must occur not only on the personal level but also across social, ecological, and machinic systems.
• Guattari went further to suggest that aesthetic practices—because they involve open-ended experimentation and the creation of new possibilities—offer a unique way to resist oppressive systems.
5. A Shift from Power to Creation
• While Foucault’s work often centered on power—how it operates, and how individuals can resist it—Guattari shifted the emphasis toward creation and invention:
• For Guattari, aesthetics is about producing new forms of subjectivity, new social relations, and new ways of inhabiting the world.
• This creative focus aligns with Foucault’s aesthetics of existence but is more expansive, connecting the aesthetic to broader ecological and collective processes.
6. The Role of Assemblages
• Guattari’s focus on assemblages (complex systems of relations between individuals, objects, environments, and machines) takes Foucault’s ideas into a different dimension:
• Foucault’s work often emphasized how subjects are constituted within systems of power.
• Guattari, while influenced by this, emphasized how assemblages can be reconfigured aesthetically to open up new possibilities for life and thought.
• Aesthetics, for Guattari, becomes a way to transform not just the self but the entire assemblage of relations within which the self exists.
7. Transversality: Guattari’s Key Difference
• Guattari’s concept of transversality—the capacity for connections and flows across different domains (e.g., the personal, social, and ecological)—goes beyond Foucault’s more individual-focused approach.
• For Guattari, the aesthetic paradigm is inherently transversal, encompassing:
• The subjective (individual creativity).
• The collective (social and political transformation).
• The environmental (rethinking humanity’s relationship with nature).
This broader scope differentiates Guattari from Foucault, even as their ideas resonate.
Why “Aesthetic” for Guattari?
• Foucault provided the groundwork by framing ethics as an aesthetic practice focused on creativity and transformation.
• Guattari took this idea and expanded it into a paradigm that includes:
• The re-creation of subjectivity.
• The transformation of collective systems (social, political, and ecological).
• The integration of art, ecology, and ethics as tools for reshaping life itself.
In Summary
Guattari’s ethics-aesthetic paradigm was undoubtedly influenced by Foucault’s concept of an aesthetics of existence, but Guattari broadened the idea. While Foucault focused on the self’s creative resistance to power, Guattari extended the aesthetic to include collective, ecological, and machinic systems, emphasizing the transformative power of creativity on a much larger scale. For Guattari, aesthetics was not just about living beautifully but about reimagining and recreating the entire fabric of existence.
