{"id":4692,"date":"2011-06-17T08:33:16","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T13:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=4692"},"modified":"2011-06-17T08:39:51","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T13:39:51","slug":"those-objects-in-the-rearview-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/06\/17\/those-objects-in-the-rearview-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"Those objects in the rearview mirror…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Differences are starting to emerge in our group reading of Integral Ecology<\/em>, with Tim Morton taking a grumpy stance from the back of the car<\/a> while others are measured but generally more positive in their assessments. Tim’s main criticism seems to be the Object-Oriented Ontological one that E\/Z’s categories “map perfectly onto normal everyday human prejudices,” and specifically prejudices against non-sentient beings. Tim writes:<\/p>\n

I must protest as an object-oriented ontologist. Nothing about what a sponge or even a pencil<\/a> does differs very much, at an ontological level, from what a human does when she cognizes.<\/p>\n

And further:<\/p>\n

the difference between my use of interobjectivity and E\/Z’s use of the term is that for them, \u201cobject\u201d just means \u201csomething that isn’t social, human, sentient or noetic\u201d or something like that. Whereas for me, \u201cobject\u201d can mean the Pope, wallabies, the Oort Cloud and flapjacks.<\/p>\n

This difference is worth expanding on. Integral Theorists are quite insistent on the point that all <\/em>entities — all holons, in their terms — include some kind of interiority<\/em> (which ranges from simple prehension and irritability to consciousness and beyond) and are characterized by some kind of sociality<\/em>. Their use of the term “interobjectivity” refers to the relations between things in their objective<\/em>, that is externally observable<\/a>, dimension. So this doesn’t refer to objects<\/em> per se, but to a particular perspective on things.<\/p>\n

IT here is consistent with a Whiteheadian usage, where objectivity is something that arises relationally (co-arising alongside subjectivity); it is not something that is simply given. This makes both of these perspectives different from that of OOO, which uses the term “object” to refer to all<\/em> real and perceived entities.<\/p>\n

But back to Tim’s flapjacks. Since I’m not sure if he means a British flapjack (a syrupy granola-ish oat bar) or an American one (a pancake), I’ll substitute it with the better known American example of a Hostess Twinkie. Is a Twinkie really ontologically no different, or little different, from Tim Morton?<\/p>\n

If your ontology says “yes, they are no (or little) different,” then this may just make you an Object-Oriented Ontologist. (There’s something to be said about minimalism, philosophical or otherwise.) If, on the other hand, you have some way of accounting for significant differences between Tim and the Twinkie — Integral Theory’s is to speak of level\/depth of interiority (among other things), but one could also speak of internal and\/or relational complexity, capacity, virtuality, structure, and so on — then you probably aren’t.<\/p>\n

But then maybe I’m just all wrong about OOO yet again<\/a> \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Differences are starting to emerge in our group reading of Integral Ecology, with Tim Morton taking a grumpy stance from the back of the car while others are measured but generally more positive in their assessments. Tim’s main criticism seems to be the Object-Oriented Ontological one that E\/Z’s categories “map perfectly onto normal everyday human […]<\/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":[688977,4422],"tags":[17856,16806,423],"class_list":["post-4692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","category-process-relational-thought","tag-integral-theory","tag-object-oriented-philosophy","tag-whitehead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1dG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5586,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/02\/28\/process-objects-at-the-nonhuman-turn\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":0},"title":"Process-objects at The Nonhuman Turn","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The preliminary schedule is out for The Nonhuman Turn in 21st Century Studies. The list of speakers reads like a \"who's who\" of the neo-ontological, speculative-realist crowd in cultural and media theory: Steven Shaviro, Jane Bennett, Brian Massumi, Erin Manning, Mark Hansen, Ian Bogost, and Tim Morton are among the\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":7055,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/11\/30\/lava-lampy-whitehead\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":1},"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":2582,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/08\/integralism-climate-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":2},"title":"Climate change as a \u2018multiple object\u2019","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"integralists\" have waded into the climate change debate with an impressive looking article entitled An Ontology of Climate Change: Integral Pluralism and the Enactment of Multiple Objects (click for an excerpt). It's by Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, one half of the duo that authored the mammoth Integral Ecology. (The other half\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5333,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/10\/02\/mortons-poetry\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":3},"title":"Morton’s poetry","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Tim Morton writes beautifully. His \"Objects as Temporary Autonomous Zones,\" published in the most recent issue of Continent, is a beautiful illustration of this. I could say he writes poetically, but that would be suggesting that his writing is not itself poetry, but only looks and feels like poetry --\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":3126,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/04\/08\/eco-onto-politics-2-integralism-climate-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":4},"title":"Eco-onto-politics 2: Integralism & climate change","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the second post in a series on the intersections between ecology, ontology, and politics. (The first reviewed Andrew Pickering's The Cybernetic Brain.) Here I focus on integral ecologist Sean Esbj\u00f6rn-Hargens's article An Ontology of Climate Change: Integral Pluralism and the Enactment of Multiple Objects. This post can also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/04\/immanence-275x98.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1308,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/06\/29\/sr-whitehead-etc\/","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":5},"title":"SR, Whitehead, etc.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm just catching up with this interesting exchange between Gary Williams (Minds and Brains), Graham Harman, and Tom Sparrow (Plastic Bodies). Williams takes issue with Harman's and others' portrayal of Speculative Realism as \"revolutionary.\" \"The narrative of 'finally' moving beyond the 'Kantian nightmare'\", he writes, \"is tired and overplayed.\" He\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692","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=4692"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4703,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692\/revisions\/4703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}