Félix Guattari: biography of this French philosopher and psychoanalyst

Félix Guattari was a French thinker, philosopher and psychoanalyst of the 20th century, who conceived thought as a tool for social struggle. He was a disciple of Lacan and a leftist militant, and wrote numerous works on politics and philosophy.

In this article we will see a brief biography of Felix Guattari, and a summary of the contributions he made to the French society of that century. His legacy still lives on today.

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Félix Guattari: biography of this thinker and activist

Félix Guattari was born on April 30, 1930 in Villeneuve-les-Sabons (Oise), France. He was a leading psychoanalyst and philosopher, and a central figure in French intellectual life in the second half of the 20th century.

Félix Guattari began his pharmacy studies, pressured by his family, but quickly dropped out to study philosophy. In his formative journey, the two most important areas that will stand out are the factory and the psychiatric hospital.

In relation to the factory, as a young man Félix Guattari joined the union group made up of workers from Hispano-Suiza (a factory that produces luxury cars and airplane engines). The “Jóvenes de la Hispano” organize different activities for the young workers (study groups, trips to museums, volleyball games, singing classes, etc.).

Felix Guattari he is forged then as a militant, in this youthful environment of cooperation and community life, and he constitutes himself as one of the most important figures of the Hostels (where one of the activities was vacations there).

From that moment on, his militant activity never stops, and he goes through different groups (Trotskyism, entryism and the left opposition).

Intellectual trajectory

As for the psychiatric hospital, Félix Guattari deviates from his studies in philosophy and begins in Lacan's seminar (in the early 1950s) to become a specialist in the work of the Lacanian psychoanalyst. Later, however, he distanced himself from "Lacanism" from his collaboration with Gilles Deleuze (also a French philosopher).

His therapeutic experience goes further and at that time admitted to the psychiatric clinic of La Borde (prominent center of institutional psychotherapy), located in a castle among 18 hectares of forest, and became the right hand of Jean Oury, founder and director of the hospital. From that moment and for the next 20 years, he settles in the castle and the life of Félix Guattari passes and focuses on La Borde.

Félix Guattari approaches Freudian work through the thought of Jacques Lacan. After starting his psychoanalytic studies with Lacan himself, he ends up becoming one of the first non-medical doctors to participate in his seminar.

Years later, Guattari joined the Freudian School in Paris., created by Lacan, in which he obtains the title of Analyst Member of the School. He participated in such School until its dissolution, on January 5, 1980.

Finally, Guattari passed away at the age of 62, on August 29, 1992, at the La Borde clinic (also France).

• You may be interested in: "Guide to understand Jacques Lacan"

his written work

One of his most outstanding works is Psychoanalysis and transversality, from the year 1976. Is about a psychoanalytic critique of institutions. It is considered a heterogeneous work, since it compiles articles written during a period of time of 15 years (from 55 to 70). In addition, it is also because the articles are very diverse, both formally and thematically.

This work brings together different texts; from conferences that took place in university environments, such as newspaper articles or specialized magazines. The themes are diverse; there would be two specific areas: politics and psychoanalysis.

Other of his original works were: The molecular revolution (1977), The unconscious machinique (1979), The Winter Years 1980-1985 (1985), Schizoanalytical cartographies (1989), the three ecologies (1989)... All covering different topics of politics, philosophy and psychoanalysis.

Philosophy

Regarding his philosophical legacy, one of the contributions of Félix Guattari is that does not believe that it is possible to isolate the unconscious in language, nor structure it. On the contrary, it considers the unconscious present in many fields, such as the social, the economic and the political.

Félix Guattari seeks an answer to existential questions with the aim of reintegrating the complexity of individuals, their libido, dreams and inclinations in the political sphere; all of it he leads him to propose the so-called "ecosophy".

Ecosophy is characterized as a current of thought that promotes the search for wisdom to inhabit the planet, in the midst of the global ecosystem crisis facing humanity.

Legacy

The intellectual work of Félix Guattari is intermingled with his political militancy. Guattari He is considered a dissident Marxist, and conceives thought as a tool for social struggle. He is active in the Voie Communiste and in different leftist groups.

Guattari left a legacy, a very important intellectual production, highly influenced by May 68 (the chain of protests that took place in France and, especially, in Paris during the months of May and June of 1968).

For Guattari, this movement (which he characterizes for the first time as a molecular revolution) heralds the possibility of other modes of political subjectivation and microsocial struggle. Subjectivation is considered the process through which we constitute ourselves as subjects and manifest our subjectivity, and it was a concept widely used by Guattari.

Bibliographic references:

• Guattari, F. (1976[1972]). Psychoanalysis and transversality. Buenos Aires: Twenty-first century editors.
• Abadi, d. (2011). Félix Guattari and institutional analysis. An introduction. I Conference of Students of the Department of Philosophy