"If you fake the funk, your nose will grow." — Bootsy Collins
I think that the differend between Kant and Hegel is still crucial, even from the point of view of speculative realism.Basically, Kant posits a limit beyond which thought cannot go — we cannot know things in themselves. Hegel’s critique of Kant is that, since thought is positing the limit, thought must always already be able … Continue reading “Kant and Hegel, yet again”
I just finished reading George Molnar’s extraordinary book Powers. Reading an analytic philosophy book like this one reminds me, once again, that I am not a philosopher, even though I frequently write about philosophical texts. Good analytic philosophy tries to provide basic logical grounds or arguments for all of its assertions — something that I … Continue reading “George Molnar, Powers”
The Speculative Turn, edited by Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, has now been published. This volume gives the fullest account to date of (so-called) “speculative realism” in all its varieties. There are articles by the four initial speculative realists (Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant, Quentin Meillassoux, and Ray Brassier), together with work by … Continue reading “The Speculative Turn”
I really worry that one tendency of the blogosphere is towards endless reiterations of the same arguments — because the temptation to instant reply and counter-reply is just too great. This is why I am generally not inclined — even aside from how ridiculously busy I have been recently — to jump into the current … Continue reading “More Debates”
Last week’s “Metaphysics and Things” conference, sponsored by the Whitehead Research Project, was one of the most intellectually intense conferences that I have ever been to. The keynote address was delivered by Isabelle Stengers, with a response by Donna Haraway. This was followed by a day and a half of presentations by several of my … Continue reading “Metaphysics and Things”
I am still working, up to the last minute, on my paper for the Whitehead Research Project’s Metaphysics and Things conference next week. My paper is called “Consequences of Panpsychism,” and it argues that we should take the panpsychist aspect of Whitehead seriously. Whitehead is not a vitalist — he doesn’t believe everything is alive. But … Continue reading “Panpsychism, Whitehead, and OOO”
Jeffrey Bell, in another one of his superb readings of Spinoza (or, more precisely, perhaps, of Deleuze’s Spinoza), discusses “Eternity and Duration”, by which he also means the difference between the virtual/problematic (which he associates with Spinoza’s substance) and the actual/determinate (which he associates with Spinoza’s modes). Bell says that, in Spinoza, the human Mind that is … Continue reading “Whitehead vs Spinoza & Deleuze on the virtual”
Levi Bryant says: The substantiality of an object is not to be found in its qualities, but rather in the ensemble of its powers or capacities.  This entails that we never directly encounter an object because no object ever actualizes the totality of its powers in all the ways in which those powers can become manifest.  Rather, … Continue reading “Still more about objects (sigh)”
Graham Harman, commenting on Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter: It is certainly true that context and relation can affect the reality of an individual thing. It does not follow that each last detail of a context or relation changes the thing that is involved with them. An individual is a kind of filter (or “firewall,†as I often … Continue reading “Filters, or Firewalls”
I will be speaking in Atlanta on Friday, in the Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium, alongside (among others)Â Graham Harman, Levi Bryant, and Ian Bogost. The title of my talk is “The Universe of Things”; unfortunately I haven’t quite finished writing it yet. Should be fun, though. I will post the text of my own talk here after … Continue reading “Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium”