. . . scribbled on a restaurant napkin: 1. Things are always already in process. 2. More complex things are more in process, or in more (and different) processes, than simpler things. 3. Growing/developing/evolving things tend to become more complex. Other things tend to become less so. 4. Being in process, things elude capture. Those […]
Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
things
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought on November 19, 2010 | 3 Comments »
philosophy, salvation, & the world
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, Spirit matter, tagged Buddhism, object-oriented philosophy on October 1, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Fabio Gironi has a very perceptive response to the recent posts at Larval Subjects, Ecology Without Nature, and here, over Buddhism, objects, and relations. I like his admission that “I have never been – nor [do] I plan to be—a practicing Buddhist or a ‘believer’ of any sort, but the encounter with Nāgārjuna’s philosophy was […]
post-Continental voices out
Posted in Philosophy, tagged post-continental on September 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Paul Ennis’s book of interviews with seven “post-Continental” philosophical “voices” is out now and orderable on Amazon. (The hard copy will be available in late October.) The seven are Graham Harman, Jeffrey Malpas, Lee Braver, Stuart Elden, Ian Bogost, Levi Bryant, and (gasp) myself. As (U of San Diego’s) Peter Gratton’s blurb says, “Pick up […]
Buddhist objects & processes
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, Spirit matter, tagged Bryant, Buddhism, Hartshorne, object-oriented philosophy, process philosophy, theology, Whitehead on September 29, 2010 | 6 Comments »
Does object-oriented ontology = Buddhism? Tim Morton has been making intriguing sounds to that effect, and Levi Bryant has begun to ask him the hard questions about how and whether that might be possible — of how to “square the circle” of independent substances (OOO) with Buddhism’s conditioned genesis (a.k.a. dependent arising, codependent origination). Tim’s […]
Posted in Philosophy, tagged Deleuze, immanence on September 16, 2010 | 2 Comments »
“immanence is itself real, or reality itself. It is nothing other than reality in the making. But this reality is not reducible to actuality: what is actual may be rational, as Hegel claimed, but reality is also virtual, and it is with virtual singularities that philosophy is concerned. As a result, to think immanently is […]
assemblages, species, genres, & cinema
Posted in Cinema, Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged Delanda, Deleuze, Ontology, epistemology, Peirce, Whitehead on September 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
(Warning: This is a long and involved post.) In reposting Steven Shaviro’s critique of DeLanda’s A New Philosophy of Society, Levi Bryant has reminded me of one of the impetuses (impeti?) that moved me to a Whiteheadian perspective. Steven’s review is excellent, and it prefigured what eventually became his book Without Criteria, which I think […]
DeLanda, Peirce, etc.
Posted in Philosophy, tagged Delanda, object-oriented philosophy, Peirce on September 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Larval Subjects and several other blogs have begun their reading group of Manuel Delanda’s small but ambitious book A New Philosophy of Society. It’s not my favorite of his books — that remains the brilliant A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, followed by the drier, but useful, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. But I think […]
biosemiotics news
Posted in Philosophy, tagged biosemiotics on August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
New Scientist has a nice article (“Searching for meanings in a meadow“) on the state of the field of biosemiotics, which I’ve mentioned here on a number of occasions (e.g., here and, in passing, here). The new Springer anthology Essential Readings in Biosemiotics looks like a very good overview of all things biosemiotic. The 77-page […]
strange strangers, or just weird friends?
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged object-oriented philosophy on August 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the challenges of blogging is that, if one is to do it respectfully and well, one must be prepared to respond to one’s critics, and in such a high-speed medium this can lead to a pace that is unsustainable over time. The coming days won’t allow me much time for such exchanges, but […]
in defense of relations (again)
Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged object-oriented philosophy, Whitehead on August 21, 2010 | 19 Comments »
In response to my last post, Levi is arguing, as Graham has before, that relational ontologies have had their day, that “it is relational and processual thought that has become a habit that prevents us from thinking, not object-oriented thought,” and that “For the last century we’ve repeatedly said ‘things are related’ to such a degree that claims about interdependence, relation, and interconnection have lost a good deal of meaning” and “become stale metaphors and worn coins.”
[…]
My belief, if it needs reiterating, is that we -– society at large -– still have not developed a nuanced enough understanding of the nature of relational process, including the many different kinds of relational processes that make up the world. This is why we still put animals in cages (as if the jaguar in a cage is the same as the jaguar in a forest) and dump toxins on our farms (as if the final product is the pest-free corn and not the health of the soil), still produce objects that are guaranteed to be obsolete junk in a few years (as if their making and disposal wasn’t an integral part of them), still buy those objects (as if they will satisfy our cravings for something new and exciting), still send soldiers to war and forget about them when they come back (leaving their partners and kids without health insurance, as is the case with a friend of ours who lives up the road), still expect that we can “win” wars (as if they won’t breed the resentment that will lead to even worse wars), still define people according to fixed gender identities and racial categories, and put people away for life (in this country at least) because they don’t have the means to live in ways that would exercise their creative potential, and so on and so forth. […]
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