{"id":1478,"date":"2010-12-09T16:35:34","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T21:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2011-06-16T22:28:47","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T03:28:47","slug":"1478","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/09\/1478\/","title":{"rendered":"the mouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay, I’ll post this here as well<\/a>. (Why confuse people?)<\/p>\n

I feel like I’ve stepped into a hornet’s nest. My last post had three goals, and three main points:<\/p>\n

(1) To summarize, and to support, recent developments in the dialogue between object-oriented ontologists and process-relational philosophers (not relationalists<\/em>, who ostensibly say that objects are nothing more than their relations, but process-relationists<\/em>, who say that whatever there is, is in process and is involved in relations);<\/p>\n

(2) To respond to Ian Bogost’s characterization of Whitehead’s metaphysics as “firehose metaphysics,” a characterization I find not very consistent with what Whitehead’s followers get from that philosophy; and<\/p>\n

(3) To make a larger point about what Whiteheadians and other process-relational folks find most attractive about that tradition, which is, in part, the way it subverts a very prominent and well established way of thinking about the universe (which I characterized as Newtonian) and, in turn, proposes a fundamentally different one. In that different view, I don’t think it would be possible to say that a mouse shot out into space is still a mouse, because the definition of a mouse would include the kinds of processes (or “procedures”, to use Bogost’s term) that make up mouseness, and that<\/em> mouse would no longer have any of them. It’s mouse-like form would start decaying quickly, and any internality that was characteristic of the mouse as a whole would no longer be there. To put it in OOO terms, once that internality has withdrawn from the mouse, it has withdrawn for good. (Of course, we can argue about whether the mouse’s fur, its teeth, its spleen, etc., have their own internalities, their own withdrawability. Whitehead would probably say that the “society,” the mouse assemblage, is no longer there, but that other actual occasions may continue. Those don’t constitute a mouse — except for someone looking at it from the outside<\/em> who thinks it’s a mouse because it still has fur, teeth, and other mouse-like features, for a while.)<\/p>\n

Both Levi and Graham have now responded to my post, but only to the part about Newton (in point #3). As I mentioned in my comment on Levi’s blog<\/a>, I probably overreacted to the mouse. In turn, I seem to have triggered a set of overreactions by dragging in Newton. That was a rash move, and I will readily acknowledge that OOO is generally far <\/em>from Newton. Graham <\/a>now suggests that I might not have read his books at all, despite my having spent 8000+ words reviewing his Tool-Being <\/a>and Prince of Networks<\/a>, and then replying to dozens of his own posts (which I don’t think I could have done without reading them) in the months following. Obviously, bringing in Newton hit a nerve.<\/p>\n

But the mouse stands. (And, anyway, I wouldn’t be writing about Graham’s and Levi’s work if I didn’t think it was worth spending a lot of time on.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I’ll post this here as well. (Why confuse people?) I feel like I’ve stepped into a hornet’s nest. My last post had three goals, and three main points:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977],"tags":[16806],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","tag-object-oriented-philosophy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4IC4a-1478","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1262,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/05\/12\/between-whitehead-peirce\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":0},"title":"between Whitehead & Peirce","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The case has often been made -- by John Cobb, David Ray Griffin, and others -- that Alfred North Whitehead's process metaphysics provides an account of the universe that is, or could be, foundational to an ecological worldview. This is because it is an account that is naturalist (or realist),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/05\/process-relational-theory-primer\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":1},"title":"Process-relational theory primer","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the tasks of this blog, since its inception in late 2008, has been to articulate a theoretical-philosophical perspective that I have come to call \u201cprocess-relational.\u201d This is a theoretical paradigm and an ontology that takes the basic nature of the world to be that of relational process: that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7055,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/11\/30\/lava-lampy-whitehead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":2},"title":"Lava lampy Whitehead?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"While I find much to admire in Tim Morton's writings (and in him personally, as I've recently related), I'm sure he knows that his writing on what he calls \"lava lampy materialism\" leaves me unconvinced. (I've discussed that topic here, here, and elsewhere.) I haven't read his Realist Magic yet,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1442,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/09\/the-attractions-of-process-metaphysics\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":3},"title":"the attractions of process (metaphysics)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"With Whiteheadian process philosophers and object-oriented ontologists meeting minds in Claremont, Chris Vitale softening up to OOO, Levi Bryant declaring himself a process philosopher -- more precisely, that he's \"always been, [is], and will always be a process philosopher\" -- and Ian Bogost sharing a very sympathetic attempt to develop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1117,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/09\/08\/harmans-object-oriented-philosophizing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":4},"title":"Harman’s object-oriented philosophizing","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been reading Graham Harman\u2019s Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects and Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. More accurately, I\u2019ve been dipping into and sipping from the first and systematically digesting the second. Given the amount of blogging that goes on under the rising star(s) of \u2018object-oriented\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4151,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/25\/the-beatnik-brotherhood\/","url_meta":{"origin":1478,"position":5},"title":"The beatnik brotherhood","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Graham Harman's note reiterating his position that Whitehead, Latour, Deleuze, Bergson, and Simondon (among others) do not make up a coherent philosophical \"lump\" -- \"pack\" or \"tribe\" might be more colorful terms here (if philosophers were cats, how herdable would they be?) -- makes me want to clarify my own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/tumblr_ljsf0kvMnF1qgjltdo1_500-275x248.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}