"If you fake the funk, your nose will grow." — Bootsy Collins
I find that my position on speculative realism is close to that of Dylan Trigg, in his article in Speculations 4. Trigg seeks to expand phenomenology beyond the human — to devise an unhuman phenomenology, through recourse to early Levinas (Existence and Existents, and Time and the Other). There is something in experience that is … Continue reading “Trigg, Levinas, Harman”
I have just a few quick notes on Graham Harman’s article on Thomas Metzinger, recently published in the latest issue (volume 7, # 1) of the open-access journal Cosmos and History (available here). I should mention first of all that I have not read Being No One, which is Metzinger’s magnum opus, and the book … Continue reading “Harman on Metzinger”
Here’s my talk from the Whitehead Research Project’s conference on Rethinking Symbolism. Whitehead discusses symbolism – among other reasons – in order to get a handle on the problem of error. This, of course, is something that has preoccupied Western philosophy for a long time. Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy begins with his worries about … Continue reading “Whitehead on Causality and Perception”
The new issue of Speculations (#5) is now out, dealing with speculative realism and aesthetics. It includes an article of mine, which is really a preview of a section of my forthcoming book, The Universe of Things. But the whole issue is interesting, with articles by, among others, Graham Harman, N. Katherine Hayles, Jon Cogburn and … Continue reading “Rethinking Modernism, Somewhat”
Here are the notes that formed the raw material for my presentation at SLSA on Muriel Combes' book on Gilbert Simondon (newly translated by Thomas Lamarre, and to be published by MIT Press in October). I guess I don't have the time & energy to write them into more finished form; but hopefully they will … Continue reading “Notes on Muriel Combes’ book on Simondon”
Here is the text of one of my talks from the SLSA conference this weekend. It was for a panel (part of a stream) on "Towards a Stengers-Whitehead Lexicon of the Nonhuman." Alfred North Whitehead writes in "Civilized Universe," the sixth lecture in his book Modes of Thought, that "we have no right to deface … Continue reading “Value Experience”
Here is the text of the talk I gave twice last month: at the OOO III conference in New York, and at the SLSA conference in Kitchener, Ontario. PANPSYCHISM AND/OR ELIMINATIVISM Today I would like to think, in a cosmopolitical frame, about the recent philosophical movement known as Speculative Realism. It would be better, actually, … Continue reading “Panpsychism And/Or Eliminativism”
I’m back home from the Object Oriented Ontology symposium in New York. My own talk, “Pantheism And/Or Eliminativism” is not quite finished — I had to wing it a bit there at the end. And in any case, I am now reworking it for the SLSA conference next week (where I will be delivering it … Continue reading “Speculative Realism talk”
A few days ago, Ben Woodard put up a provocative and interesting post on the intersections between, as well as the differences between, process philosophy and OOO (object-oriented ontology). Ben (rightly) questioned the dismissal of process by OOO folks as “lava-lamp materialism” or as “lump ontologies.” (He could have added, as well, Bogost’s describing process … Continue reading “Processes and Powers”
Today I read The Prince and the Wolf, the short book from Zer0 that transcribes a discussion between Graham Harman and Bruno Latour, held at the London School of Economics in 2008, and organized and introduced by Peter Erdelyi. I found the book very helpful in further pursuing the questions about Harman’s object-oriented ontology that … Continue reading “The Prince and the Wolf”