Calculating Matter and Recombinant Subjects: The Infinitesimal and the Fractal Fold

De Freitas, E (2016) Calculating Matter and Recombinant Subjects: The Infinitesimal and the Fractal Fold. Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, 16 (5). pp. 462-470. ISSN 1532-7086

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Abstract

Because different mathematical practices are aligned with different ontologies, it matters what kind of mathematics we bring to bear in social theory. This article explores the open and urgent question as to whether and how calculation becomes an inventive practice that doesn't simply serve the control society. In search of a non-axiomatic mathematical problematic, I examine the infinitesimal for its enigmatic role in calculation and show how Deleuze and Guattari use the infinitesimal to (a) rethink the relationship between matter and meaning, and (b) describe a recombinant fractal subject well suited to our digital times. The infinitesimal is a sort of changeling number with one foot in the virtual and one foot in the actual, and thus pivotal to considerations of vitalist new mixtures of number and matter.

Item Type:	Article
Peer-reviewed:	Yes
Date Deposited:	10 Mar 2017 09:58
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Additional Information:	This is an Author Accepted Manuscript of a paper accepted for publication in Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, published by SAGE Publications and copyright The Author.
Divisions:	Faculties > Health and Education
Subject terms:	1303 Specialist Studies In Education, 2001 Communication And Media Studies, 2002 Cultural Studies, Sociology
URI:	https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/617981
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616655764
ISSN	1532-7086

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