Here is a diagrammatic summary of the ontological perspective I work with, derived from Whiteheadian process philosophy with an admixture of Peircian semiotics, Buddhist metaphysics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, pragmatism, Deleuzo-Spinozan joy, and whatever else. (This builds on previous iterations like those found in Shadowing the Anthropocene, The New Lives of Images, Ecologies of the Moving Image, and the sequence of readings listed here.) In the past, I have called this perspective “process-relational ecosophy-G,” “Ecosophy-G,” or simply “pre-g” (the “G” standing in for a number of things including the place where I happen to be writing this, Greensboro, Vermont). When I focus more on images and meanings, as with The New Lives of Images, I call it a “process-semiotic” framework. Comments and suggestions welcome.
1
R = E
Reality = Experience
Reality (R), for us humans at least, consists of Experience (E). That is all we can know and have access to. There is no way to know if it consists of anything else for anyone or anything else.
2
E = (Sub)+(Ob)
Experience = Subjectivation+Objectivation
Experience consists of the arising of subjectivity with respect to objectivity or objectivities, where
- “Subjectivity” (Sub) refers to a sense of “whoness,” “interiority,” “withness,” or “there-being” (Dasein), the “experiencing” that (at least in some circumstances) is felt to be “mine” in relation to what is “other.” It is the subjective pole of any experience.
- “Objectivity” (Ob) refers to the “whatness” of what is experienced — things, perceived entities, space, and so on, i.e., the objective pole of any experience.
- And the “with respect to” (+) means “through specific kinds of relating,” i.e., feeling, sensing, “accessing,” making sense of, responding to, and so on.
This bipolarity of the subjective and the objective, or the “subjectivating” and the “objectivating” (since these are forms of becoming), united through a form of relating, accessing, or what Whitehead calls “prehending,” is the basic structure of every act of experiencing, every being-becoming. It is the basic kernel of reality.
3
E = ~CE~DE
Experience is Continuous & Discontinuous
Experience, in its ongoing form, is characterized by continuities (C) and discontinuities (D), flows that maintain consistencies (continuities) and events that break up or rearrange consistencies (discontinuities), whose seamless mixes follow each other sequentially and durationally in more or less rhythmic, interconnected open wholes. They are “whole” because their parts can scarcely be separated; they are gestalts. They are “open” because their horizons are indistinct — they blur into backgrounds whose accessibility to us is variable.
4
CE -> CE
Continuous Experience determines Continuous Experience
Experience that is fully (durationally) continuous (CE) determines ongoing experience through its felt force, or what Whitehead called its “causal efficacy.” We feel the world coursing through us and we move with it, immanently. Its momentum is a flow that can be felt and enjoyed, but not stopped.
5
DE*S -> CE
Discontinous Experience is made Continuous Through Recognition (Signification)
Experience that is discontinuous (DE) or novel is made continuous (CE) through significations (S), or felt recognitions, meaning-makings that bring present conditions into a wider context (generally that of the remembered or sedimented past) with the aim of action toward a potential future. These recognitions come in three basic types:
- Recognitions by virtue of resemblance (S1) to things known from previous experience. Experience in this sense builds up a predictive capacity for responding to novelty. For sentient beings like us, this is a primary mode of responding to our environments.
- Recognitions through causal tracing (S2), as with the recognition that A caused B (indexical forms of meaning-making), which is a more intentional, “conscious,” or “gapped and bridged” variant of #4 above. (In other words, where #4 describes an “automatic” process, here the automatism is disrupted by a gap that is bridged by cognition.)
- Recognitions through synthesis (S3), which is second-order cognition (for instance, combining and synthesizing recognition by resemblance, S1, with recognition by causal tracing, S2) that may entail more complex systems of sense-making, such as manipulable symbols (utterances, language, et al.).
These three types are the basic forms of signification that Peirce calls “iconic,” “indexical,” and “symbolic” forms of meaning-making — signification via a relationship of firstness (resemblance), secondness (causation), and thirdness (interpretation). Since these are re-cognitions, cognitive events building on prior cognitive events of similar nature, they work on the basis of plausibility and harbor room for error, and, by the same token, for creativity. In reconstructing they enable transformation. Signification-as-(and)-response constitutes a basic form of action in the world.
6
CE*S -> World(s) [SE-PE-ME]
Continuous Experience times Recognition (Signification) produces Worlds, which consist of Perceptually Mediated Continua of Sociality and Materiality
Continuities in the flow of experience, as woven through recognitions/significations, enable us to develop coherent and more or less sustainable perceptions/conceptions of the world (World) as made of
- Social “others,” i.e., subjectivities akin to ours with whom specific, negotiated relations are called for;
- Material “givens,” i.e., things that remain consistent and relatable as they are, taken to be the “furniture of the world,” objects for our use, territory, etc.;
- And mediating, perceptual conditions and relations by which the others are distinguished into one or the other type.
Together these make up the three relational ecologies that make up the world for us: material ecologies (ME), or ecologies of objects, which are taken to simply be there; social ecologies (SE), or ecologies of subjects, which are taken to be negotiated with; and perceptual ecologies (PE), or ecologies of sensory-perceptual mediation, which are the ways by which the “taking” occurs, and which today include complex forms of technical enhancement and modification, or mediatization.
This continuum makes up the worlds we live. Learning how to properly and responsibly account for these ecologies can be the work of a lifetime. Over human history these worlds have taken multiple forms — cultural forms that bring together percepts, concepts, and practices that unfold over time, integrating social groups in patterned relationships with the more-than-human worlds they inhabit. This is where the work of culture takes place, and where today’s efforts for reconstituting more habitable relationships needs to take place if humanity is to survive in more or less civilization-sustaining forms. (This is the main focus of The New Lives of Images, Ecologies of the Moving Image, and the majority of my other writings.)
7
DE*I -> Real
Discontinuous Experience times Insight gives Reality
Discontinuities in the flow of experience (DE) can elude, evade, or disrupt the continuities by which our social and material worlds are made. Those discontinuities may remain hidden or obscure, but they are there, everywhere, to be found simply by looking (though it is a looking that may require training, or rather, untraining). Those discontinuities afford the possibility of glimpsing the real nature of Experience (E), that is, of Reality (R), as “empty” of the inherent self-existent objectivity we tend to ascribe to it, and therefore as elusive to our grasp (Real). In this sense, neither the subjectivity (Sub) nor the objectivity (Ob) in our perception is graspable, containable, or encompassable in the ways that they appear. Instead, both arise out of the continuously self-arising nature of Reality (Reality) as Subjectivating+Objectivating Experience. (This is the Buddhist insight, most fully developed within the Yogācāra philosophical tradition, and which is deeply resonant with the key insight of Lacanian psychoanalysis.)
8
Real -> 🙂
Reality produces bliss
This recognition of Reality as Elusive, when added to the sense, meaning, and feeling of the continuity of Reality, liberates our experience (E) of Reality (R) to be more coherent and satisfying. This in turn liberates our potential to co-liberate other experience(rs) of Reality/Reality, others with whom we share this nature as co-Subjectivating-Objectivators who are neither Subject and not Object (SubOb), nor Object and not Subject (SubOb), nor Neither Subject nor Object (SubOb), nor Both Subject and Object (SubOb), but who are fully Real and Real, the first (R) unfolding through the complete recognition of the second (Real) and vice versa. (This is the worldly Tiantai/East Asian derivation of Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy. The key insight is well expressed in the Tathagatagarbha, or the concept of Buddha-nature.)
This goal of liberation of sentient beings is a good guide to life as ongoing worldly experiencing, i.e., to “R = E,” which brings us back to where we started from.
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
