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Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

a symmetrical peace?

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , on May 4, 2010 | 5 Comments »

I should probably resist from critiquing blog posts, since these rarely capture one’s considered thoughts the way print articles and books do. So rather than replying in detail to Graham’s rejoinder to my previous post, I’ll agree to the cease-fire he proposes (though I hope we weren’t really sniping at each other!). At least after […]

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ontologizing

Posted in Philosophy, Process-relational thought, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2010 | 7 Comments »

I’m looking forward to Graham Harman’s forthcoming review of Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter, and I’m glad to see that this discussion between object-oriented philosophy and Bennett’s vibrant materialism (and, by extension, the other theoretical impulses she draws on, which this blog, for the most part, enthusiastically shares) is getting underway. That discussion will no doubt […]

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Isis takes Hadot

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , on April 25, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Pierre Hadot died yesterday. An important influence on the later Foucault, a classicist whose readings of ancient Greco-Roman philosophers made them seem relevant once again, and an astute defender of the Orphic (as opposed to the Promethean) approach to Nature, Hadot’s influence was felt by many for whom philosophy is more than just a conceptual […]

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the remainder…

Posted in Philosophy, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , on April 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

For an indication of why I’m interested in the “more” that object-oriented philosophers grapple with, the “remainder” beyond what can be accounted for of an object or phenomenon through relational accounts, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few paragraphs from my 2001 book Claiming Sacred Ground.

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subverting the subversives?

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , on April 13, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Graham Harman replies here and here to my last contribution, and Paul Reid-Bowen joins in with an interesting and original take on the debate at Pagan Metaphysics. I’ll try to keep my reply to both of them fairly brief in what follows. Graham writes that “You can’t find the cane toad by summing up all […]

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cane toads on Mars, firewalls on Pluto

Posted in Eco-theory, Philosophy, tagged , , , , on April 10, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Replying to me here, Graham Harman explains his objections to relational ontologies, arguing that they fail to make a distinction between the “two sorts of relations” in which an entity is involved. These are not “the famous ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relations,” but are what he “somewhat whimsically” calles the “domestic” and “foreign” relations of an object. (I like this distinction, though I’m not sure how it’s different from internal and external relations.)

GH: “Surely Adrian doesn’t want to claim that the cane toad is a set of all its relations? If Mars were five inches further along in its course than it currently is, would the cane toad be a different cane toad than it is now?” [. . .]

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subjects & objects, together or apart…

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , on April 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Levi Bryant’s detailed and generous replies to my critical queries, both in the comments section of this post and at Larval Subjects, and Graham Harman’s replies here (and in an e-mail exchange) have helped me get a much clearer sense of where the main differences lie between their respective “object-oriented” positions and my relational view. […]

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philosophy of the moment

Posted in Philosophy, tagged on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Jeff Carrera’s Philosophy is Not a Luxury has been posting some pithy articulations of the process-relational philosophies of James, Dewey, Peirce, and others in the American pragmatist tradition. It’s too bad that the word “pragmatism” in its everyday sense doesn’t do justice to these thinkers — rather like the terms “stoicism” and “epicureanism” don’t do […]

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space junk & the (relational) Real

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2010 | 5 Comments »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUYiOV2-kE?fs=1&hl=en_US (This post spun off from the last, where I concluded by noting the increasing amount of debris out in the upper atmosphere. Somehow I couldn’t resist pulling that image into the vortex of ecopolitics and the objects-relations debate, which is carrying on at hyper tiling, Object-Oriented Philosophy, Larval Subjects, and elsewhere.) Like the tail […]

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Deleuze/Guattari and Ecology (review)

Posted in Eco-theory, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , on April 2, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Seems someone else beat me to reviewing Bernd Herzogenrath’s anthology Deleuze/Guattari and Ecology for Deleuze Studies, and the reviews editor failed to tell me that (which he must have known for a few months now; I hope that’s not common practice for them). In any case, things like that happen, especially with academic journals that […]

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aesthetics & Peirce in the Santa Monica Mountains

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , , on March 26, 2010 | 3 Comments »

I like to follow extended think-fests (such as conferences) with brief flights away from cerebrality, at least for a couple of days where possible. So following the SCMS, I visited the Santa Monica Mountains, which included a hike up La Jolla Canyon and Mugu Peak at the northern end of the range, and another up […]

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toward a post-constructivist synthesis

Posted in Philosophy, Science & society, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2010 | 7 Comments »

I recently mentioned my belief, or hope, that the humanities and sciences are working their ways toward a post-constructivist synthesis, a paradigm in the making with the potential to become a powerful player in twenty-first century public discourse. “Post-constructivism” says little, and “post-representationalism”, “post-anthropocentric humanism,” and “post-Kantianism” — the other terms I used there — […]

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