The articles for Speculations are rolling in today.
Just wanted to post some updates. The first issue will likely appear in June/July after the peer-review process has been completed.
Alongside acquiring our ISSN number we might have to publish a physical copy. Since I'll have to do this anyway it might be worth printing a few more. If anyone is interested in the idea of a limited run (alongside the open access of course) then do let me know and I'll see how much it costs. I can then set up a paypal account and we can see whether such a thing is feasible.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
'Most Overrated'
Graham Harman has an interesting post on the thinkers his readers think are the most overrated philosophers. Graham does not reveal his own choice but he has posted the list of thinkers his readers have suggested so far:
McDowell, Derrida, Kripke, Sellars, Sartre, Russell
I must admit that I am absolutely flabbergasted by some of these names. I agree that Kripke and Sartre are overblown although I'm also pretty sure none of these thinkers can be considered popular today (maybe Kripke).
When it comes to McDowell I think he is not given nearly enough props never mind being overrated. Mind and World is a modern masterpiece and an example of positive philosophy that puts forward some damn fine solutions to some very old problems.
Derrida is perhaps the closest person on this list to a bona fide genius. I think the only way you can call Derrida overrated is if you have never really engaged with his work.
Sellars is more or less the backbone to Anglo-American thinking. Calling him overrated is to miss the point of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy in its entirety. This is a thinker who navigates the problems of philosophy like an old sea-hand guides a ship.
So who do I personally think is overrated? Like Harman I think I'll keep quiet on this one.
McDowell, Derrida, Kripke, Sellars, Sartre, Russell
I must admit that I am absolutely flabbergasted by some of these names. I agree that Kripke and Sartre are overblown although I'm also pretty sure none of these thinkers can be considered popular today (maybe Kripke).
When it comes to McDowell I think he is not given nearly enough props never mind being overrated. Mind and World is a modern masterpiece and an example of positive philosophy that puts forward some damn fine solutions to some very old problems.
Derrida is perhaps the closest person on this list to a bona fide genius. I think the only way you can call Derrida overrated is if you have never really engaged with his work.
Sellars is more or less the backbone to Anglo-American thinking. Calling him overrated is to miss the point of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy in its entirety. This is a thinker who navigates the problems of philosophy like an old sea-hand guides a ship.
So who do I personally think is overrated? Like Harman I think I'll keep quiet on this one.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Early Heidegger
I'm a major fan of Heidegger's Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity so it is great to see a it coming up in a blog post here. I just re-read HOF last week as part of my attempt to re-read Heidegger from the 20's onwards over the coming months in preparation for the make it-or-break it chapter of my thesis.
As I added in a comment over there the nicest bit in this lecture series* comes when Heidegger discusses the table in his home. It is not the Russellesque dry formal object but a centrepiece around which significance becomes attached...his wife reads there when the mood catches up late at night, the boys play there (and spill paint if I recall), Heidegger makes an important decision with a friend and so on. It is this table and not just any table.
* the book is basically a series of lecture transcripts from various hands and Heidegger's own notes for one-hour courses...this is why they are the best introduction to Heidegger for those who fear Being and Time
As I added in a comment over there the nicest bit in this lecture series* comes when Heidegger discusses the table in his home. It is not the Russellesque dry formal object but a centrepiece around which significance becomes attached...his wife reads there when the mood catches up late at night, the boys play there (and spill paint if I recall), Heidegger makes an important decision with a friend and so on. It is this table and not just any table.
* the book is basically a series of lecture transcripts from various hands and Heidegger's own notes for one-hour courses...this is why they are the best introduction to Heidegger for those who fear Being and Time
Friday, February 19, 2010
A Final Nod...
...to this post from Levi that is quite long and has generated a lot of back and forth in the comments. Take a look!
Dan R.'s questions
Dan R (who I assume to be a student in Gratton's class?) has a long series of questions on Heidegger, realism & so on that I will address as soon as possible. Soon my promised posts are going to start outweighing my real ones but this is something I will sort out tomorrow as Dan has clearly put some effort in thinking through these issues.
Two interesting posts worth checking out
Great post here from Michael Austin.
I would also add, as it might start to crop up from time to time, that I also have problems with the Zizekian Hegel and the way it transforms (or translates) Hegel into Lacan (and vice versa?) but a critique of this manoeuvre is something best left to someone better versed in Zizek.
Ben Woodard also raises some interesting issues and brings in some of the German idealist operative in this debate.
I would also add, as it might start to crop up from time to time, that I also have problems with the Zizekian Hegel and the way it transforms (or translates) Hegel into Lacan (and vice versa?) but a critique of this manoeuvre is something best left to someone better versed in Zizek.
Ben Woodard also raises some interesting issues and brings in some of the German idealist operative in this debate.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Crisis and Philosophy
Fabio has a bunch of interesting points most of which I agree with but he has made me think a little bit more about our age as an age of crisis on the cusp of, but not quite there yet, revolution. Almost all of the great philosophical epochs are preceded by a crisis of some sort. In many ways crisis is one of the major motifs of Western metaphysics (think even about the crisis of the European sciences as outlined by that most sober of thinkers Husserl). Our own crisis is, as Fabio notes, tied up with the encroachment of the natural sciences and in many ways philosophy since Kant has seen its task of finding a place for philosophy within the remit of the sciences (grounding, founding, supplementation, or plain old carving out a space free from it...manifest versus scientific image). When philosophers engage with science badly, and I think Sokal was damn right to point out the flaws in much postmodern ‘science’, it can be downright embarrassing but mostly because thinkers like Deleuze or Lacan don’t even need to buttress their arguments with science. They are masterful conceptual thinkers already. That being said it can also be done right and for all the abuse Churchland gets (and he brings much of it on himself) his engagement with science is far from sloppy (ditto Dennett).
I leave aside the question of technology and technics since whatever the phenomena of technics is today I do not feel up to the task of such an analysis!
I leave aside the question of technology and technics since whatever the phenomena of technics is today I do not feel up to the task of such an analysis!
Harman on the Interview
Graham Harman has a response to the interview that brings up some interesting issues that I’ve been pondering lately. First of all I agree that some chaos and rapid change is indicative of opportunity. We really do seem to be in the midst of a kind of conceptual upheaval and here Fabio is also worth reading (I hope to respond to that post as well). At least one way to think of the backlash against correlationism is that in turbulant times many retreat to familiar terrain, and at least for us graduate students there is an important path we have to travel before getting on board with anti-correlationism (because we still getting used to the old terrain).
Graham is also right to note, and he has pointed this out a long time before I did, that both Brassier and Meillassoux are not really anti-correlationists. So when we casually lump together the four speculative realists as all committed to anti-correlationism we are doing them a disservice. I think the defining feature they share is a commitment to some form of realism although different types of realism (mathematical, metaphysical, scientific and so on). We should not forget that this alone is a major shift for continental thinking.
Regarding the Hegelian backdrop this is very much the issue. I think even more than Kant Hegel should be the object of anti-correlationism because it is Hegel who most strongly defends the ‘if you think something outside thought, you’ve thought it...’ trope. With Zizek increasingly occupying the 'great thinker of our times' position neo-Hegelianism will begin to become the background noise of continental thinking (replacing Heidegger). As for being a Hegelian myself I think this is simply a product of the Hegelian reading group we are having here...it is in the air, but I think this in itself proves that Harman is right about many of us seeing the ‘declawing’ of the in-itself as the solution. Although if I were to see myself as Hegelian this would be more in line with the Meillassoux style Hegelianism as opposed to the Zizekian form which I tend to disagree with – and even find it hard sometimes to locate what is Hegel, what is Lacan and what is Zizek but then again this is the joy of reading Zizek!
So it is really is today a ‘confrontation with Hegel’ that is at work – the ‘Hegelian flavour’ of the continental tradition which can even incorporate Heidegger but here I also agree that the lineage is tenuous. Heidegger is a good reader of German Idealism and there are German idealist moments (his Hegel and Schelling readings) but for the most part the differences are greater than the similarities.
It is my recent engagement with Hegel that allowed me to make sense of Harman’s desire to start working on the classical thinkers. In his talk in Dublin Harman talks about many Heideggerians being ‘Husserl illiterates’ which is true but I also think that continental philosophy is in many ways illiterate about pre-transcendental philosophy and so the best space in which to operate a successful ‘carpet bombing’ of correlationism is outside the coordinates (the assumptions that guide continental thinking) of the transcendental turn itself. This way we might get a glimpse of other pathways and even discover that many of our default positions have already been taken out. For the future of OOO this is a very interesting development indeed and will allow Harman to avoid a common critique that is set up about his work (its source in the tool-analysis, Heideggerian background) and goes to the roots of our tradition itself (I think it will also appeal more broadly to our entire discipline since we can all get a grip on Aristotle and Plato without bringing too much baggage to the scene).
I want to make a final note regarding the Hegelian backdrop of continental thinking. The reason why I said that the Zizekians are best placed to defend correlationism is that they are today the most committed Hegelians around and since I think Hegel is the true target of anti-correlationism we should see a pretty strong defence of both positions. This is why I’m really looking forward to seeing all the speakers (and hopefully getting a chance to talk to them since delivering papers can be a bit too formal) and why I think the conference will be a little more than interesting than most conferences where we are all sort of aware beforehand what the coordinates are and what can be admitted and what cannot. I don’t think we are in danger of that happening at this conference.
I’m still trying to think what note my paper should conclude on. Since the paper is no longer on OOO, and since there is very little need for such a paper if Harman is there (and since the hard work in OOO will likely happen at the OOO conference in April) I think I might serve some purpose is showing how continental assumptions are still operative.
Graham is also right to note, and he has pointed this out a long time before I did, that both Brassier and Meillassoux are not really anti-correlationists. So when we casually lump together the four speculative realists as all committed to anti-correlationism we are doing them a disservice. I think the defining feature they share is a commitment to some form of realism although different types of realism (mathematical, metaphysical, scientific and so on). We should not forget that this alone is a major shift for continental thinking.
Regarding the Hegelian backdrop this is very much the issue. I think even more than Kant Hegel should be the object of anti-correlationism because it is Hegel who most strongly defends the ‘if you think something outside thought, you’ve thought it...’ trope. With Zizek increasingly occupying the 'great thinker of our times' position neo-Hegelianism will begin to become the background noise of continental thinking (replacing Heidegger). As for being a Hegelian myself I think this is simply a product of the Hegelian reading group we are having here...it is in the air, but I think this in itself proves that Harman is right about many of us seeing the ‘declawing’ of the in-itself as the solution. Although if I were to see myself as Hegelian this would be more in line with the Meillassoux style Hegelianism as opposed to the Zizekian form which I tend to disagree with – and even find it hard sometimes to locate what is Hegel, what is Lacan and what is Zizek but then again this is the joy of reading Zizek!
So it is really is today a ‘confrontation with Hegel’ that is at work – the ‘Hegelian flavour’ of the continental tradition which can even incorporate Heidegger but here I also agree that the lineage is tenuous. Heidegger is a good reader of German Idealism and there are German idealist moments (his Hegel and Schelling readings) but for the most part the differences are greater than the similarities.
It is my recent engagement with Hegel that allowed me to make sense of Harman’s desire to start working on the classical thinkers. In his talk in Dublin Harman talks about many Heideggerians being ‘Husserl illiterates’ which is true but I also think that continental philosophy is in many ways illiterate about pre-transcendental philosophy and so the best space in which to operate a successful ‘carpet bombing’ of correlationism is outside the coordinates (the assumptions that guide continental thinking) of the transcendental turn itself. This way we might get a glimpse of other pathways and even discover that many of our default positions have already been taken out. For the future of OOO this is a very interesting development indeed and will allow Harman to avoid a common critique that is set up about his work (its source in the tool-analysis, Heideggerian background) and goes to the roots of our tradition itself (I think it will also appeal more broadly to our entire discipline since we can all get a grip on Aristotle and Plato without bringing too much baggage to the scene).
I want to make a final note regarding the Hegelian backdrop of continental thinking. The reason why I said that the Zizekians are best placed to defend correlationism is that they are today the most committed Hegelians around and since I think Hegel is the true target of anti-correlationism we should see a pretty strong defence of both positions. This is why I’m really looking forward to seeing all the speakers (and hopefully getting a chance to talk to them since delivering papers can be a bit too formal) and why I think the conference will be a little more than interesting than most conferences where we are all sort of aware beforehand what the coordinates are and what can be admitted and what cannot. I don’t think we are in danger of that happening at this conference.
I’m still trying to think what note my paper should conclude on. Since the paper is no longer on OOO, and since there is very little need for such a paper if Harman is there (and since the hard work in OOO will likely happen at the OOO conference in April) I think I might serve some purpose is showing how continental assumptions are still operative.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Speculative Realism Reading Group
Speculative Realism Reading Group
Nottingham Trent University will present its fourth reading group on Speculative Realism on February 25th, in Room 215 of the George Eliot, Clifton Campus at 2pm. The reading for this session will be Graham Harman's Prince of Networks. This time the reading group will be led by Austin Smidt a graduate student from University of Nottingham's Dept. of Theology
Contact: patrick.oconnor@ntu.ac.uk
Nottingham Trent University will present its fourth reading group on Speculative Realism on February 25th, in Room 215 of the George Eliot, Clifton Campus at 2pm. The reading for this session will be Graham Harman's Prince of Networks. This time the reading group will be led by Austin Smidt a graduate student from University of Nottingham's Dept. of Theology
Contact: patrick.oconnor@ntu.ac.uk
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Turning the tables. (Someone interviews me)
Peter Gratton has posted an interview with yours truly over on his blog as part of the Heidegger section of his Speculative Realism course. Some definite grammar errors there on my part but hopefully they can be sorted out soonish.
Quite fun!
Quite fun!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Heidegger/Speculative Realism
I'm missing out on a lot of blog activity (and Derrida is coming up a bit too...and I really need to discuss my recent engagement with Derrida at some point) but I have to point readers to Peter Gratton's Speculative Realism class as it comes to terms with Heidegger. Realism and Heidegger seems to be in the air lately. This is something else I'll have to address.
So my promises for the weekend are:
Derrida
Heidegger and realism
There...now I'm said it I'll have to do it!
So my promises for the weekend are:
Derrida
Heidegger and realism
There...now I'm said it I'll have to do it!
Conferences
Since I’m heading to two conferences over the next two months and going through the organization phase I got to thinking about some old conference experiences. My first proper conference (i.e. abroad) was in Amsterdam and I was less than six months into my PhD. Looking back on that time I had no idea what I was talking about really, but I suspect I must have inadvertently made sense since the response was OK (nobody threw up anyway). The talk was on Heidegger and disengagement. I was still deep into the later Heidegger (fourfold, letting-be, dwelling etc) and my paper argued for a quietist position in regard to the environmental crisis – this is still a position I hold in modified form today. Human interference is almost always muddled and short-sighted. Quick-fire solutions are just future problems in disguise. Anyway I don’t want to talk about the paper since giving a paper is almost always the most mundane part of attending a conference. The best part is finding yourself in Amsterdam, with very little money, and times on your hands. Arriving a day before the conference (being a little travel-green at the time I was worried about finding my way around) I arrived at my hotel too early and so couldn’t check in. So there I was wandering around with my (oversized) backpack in the middle of Amsterdam looking very much like a tourist...
Like most people I was interested in seeing the famous Red Light District and ‘cafes’ and whether the enlightened model of Dutch society worked. So I spent my first free day trying to find where all this was happening. When I finally found myself wandering into this area I ventured into a cafe (at 12am) only to be faced by an onslaught of weed-smoke and reggae music. The place was full of British and Irish tourists, young men between the ages of 18-21, and most of them looked like they’d be there for a day or two. After a quick glance about the place I realized the place had become a kind of faux-vision of Amsterdam full of tourists and with not a single Dutch person to be found – excluding the police who seemed to spend their time busily shuffling naive tourists away from dodgy looking dealers. I decided to just wander freely and soon came upon a small market. I picked up some weird pieces, as is my want, and then went back to the hotel to prepare for my paper – this being a time when giving a paper was seen as an immense ordeal. Since I had no contacts in the city I turned up the next day, fresh-faced and full of zing, and after a nervous cup of coffee I found myself, name-tag faithfully attached to jumper, giving my first paper with a creaky voice and shivering hands. But I managed to get through it and without having some kind of terrible incident.
The next interesting conference experience I had was at Harvard and here I was perhaps a little out of my depth in terms of travel experience. Although I was taking the well-worn Irish route from Dublin to Boston I still felt nervous about all the horrors stories I’d heard about US airport security. Amazingly our plane stopped in Mayo, Ireland and we entered a kind of twilight customs areas armed with Americans who proceeded to fingerprint us all and fill in a form declaring we were good guys. When we got to American we sailed through the security area and with a quick question regarding my intended business I found myself in the good ol’ USA. I took a taxi out of curiosity. I’d seen too many TV shows with US cabs and just wanted to ride in one. I got the usual queries about Ireland and stories about the Boston Irish (being Irish means you are everything to all people – to many Americans you remind them of JFK or the Boston Irish, to an Indian cab driver you share a colonial history, or to a Chinese guy you remind them of folk-music). Arriving at the hotel I was informed that I would need to leave a credit card with them...and despite my explanation (Hey I’m a graduate student...who would give me a credit card? About two months later I proved myself wrong when the bank sent one out the blue). I frantically called home and my brother in law faxed over his card. Since he is a police officer his badge popped up alongside. From then on I got the distinct impression that the hotel staff thought I was some kind of spy.I did feel sort of lost in this sprawling hotel. I’d been given funding for this trip so I was staying somewhere nice as opposed to a hostel shared with 7 guys on a stag- weekend. I have never felt right in hotels. I spent most of my time exploring the local area and being in awe of the Boston skyline. It might be a cliché but America does have a sense of vastness. It is an impressive place.
Like most people I was interested in seeing the famous Red Light District and ‘cafes’ and whether the enlightened model of Dutch society worked. So I spent my first free day trying to find where all this was happening. When I finally found myself wandering into this area I ventured into a cafe (at 12am) only to be faced by an onslaught of weed-smoke and reggae music. The place was full of British and Irish tourists, young men between the ages of 18-21, and most of them looked like they’d be there for a day or two. After a quick glance about the place I realized the place had become a kind of faux-vision of Amsterdam full of tourists and with not a single Dutch person to be found – excluding the police who seemed to spend their time busily shuffling naive tourists away from dodgy looking dealers. I decided to just wander freely and soon came upon a small market. I picked up some weird pieces, as is my want, and then went back to the hotel to prepare for my paper – this being a time when giving a paper was seen as an immense ordeal. Since I had no contacts in the city I turned up the next day, fresh-faced and full of zing, and after a nervous cup of coffee I found myself, name-tag faithfully attached to jumper, giving my first paper with a creaky voice and shivering hands. But I managed to get through it and without having some kind of terrible incident.
The next interesting conference experience I had was at Harvard and here I was perhaps a little out of my depth in terms of travel experience. Although I was taking the well-worn Irish route from Dublin to Boston I still felt nervous about all the horrors stories I’d heard about US airport security. Amazingly our plane stopped in Mayo, Ireland and we entered a kind of twilight customs areas armed with Americans who proceeded to fingerprint us all and fill in a form declaring we were good guys. When we got to American we sailed through the security area and with a quick question regarding my intended business I found myself in the good ol’ USA. I took a taxi out of curiosity. I’d seen too many TV shows with US cabs and just wanted to ride in one. I got the usual queries about Ireland and stories about the Boston Irish (being Irish means you are everything to all people – to many Americans you remind them of JFK or the Boston Irish, to an Indian cab driver you share a colonial history, or to a Chinese guy you remind them of folk-music). Arriving at the hotel I was informed that I would need to leave a credit card with them...and despite my explanation (Hey I’m a graduate student...who would give me a credit card? About two months later I proved myself wrong when the bank sent one out the blue). I frantically called home and my brother in law faxed over his card. Since he is a police officer his badge popped up alongside. From then on I got the distinct impression that the hotel staff thought I was some kind of spy.I did feel sort of lost in this sprawling hotel. I’d been given funding for this trip so I was staying somewhere nice as opposed to a hostel shared with 7 guys on a stag- weekend. I have never felt right in hotels. I spent most of my time exploring the local area and being in awe of the Boston skyline. It might be a cliché but America does have a sense of vastness. It is an impressive place.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Laruelle Event
Anthony Paul Smith just reminded that there will also be a Laruelle One-Day Conference taking place in Nottingham on the 5th of March so technically one could end up seeing Laruelle speak twice in the space of a few days. Good stuff all around. I'm very impressed by the organization skills of all the guys involved in these conferences although this event only compounds my jealousy of not living in the UK. So close and yet so far!
See the poster with details here.
See the poster with details here.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Lots of Speculative Events
Some great stuff seems to be going on at Warwick (oh how I envy the Warwick people - all the best events seem to happen there and it is also the home of Pli). The Laruelle workshop will have no less than three bloggers involved (Reid, Anthony Paul Smith and Nick S.) which must be a kind of first. Also hinted at is a workshop on Brassier and transcendental realism which will surely be something to look forward to and I hope it is on at a time when I can attend.
via deontologistics:
''For all of you budding non-philosophers out there, I here that the paper reworks a number of the core ideas of his earlier work. And for everyone familiar with our little section of the blogosphere, Laruelle’s talk will be preceded by a series of presentation on non-philosophy by none other than Nick Srnicek (Speculative Heresy / Accursed Share), Anthony Paul Smith, and Reid Kotlas (Planomenology). It promises to be lots of fun all round.
There is also another event that we’re organising at Warwick, a small workshop on Transcendental Realism, headlined by Ray Brassier. I will post more about this when all the details have been worked out. Anyway, here is the announcement about the Laruelle event that just went out on Philos-L, which provides more of the logistical details.
Warwick Symposium on the Non-Philosophy of Francois Laruelle
The Warwick University Philosophy Society, in association with Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, is pleased to announce a short symposium on the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle on Wednesday the 3rd of March. This will take place in H0.52, in the humanities building, on Warwick main campus, from 3.30pm to 7.00pm.
Programme
3.30 – “Non-Philosophy in English” – Nick Srnicek (LSE), Anthony Paul Smith (Nottingham), Reid Kotlas (Dundee) – Three presentations introducing the central features of non-philosophy followed by a joint question and answer session.
5.00 – Break
5.30 – “From the First to the Second Non-Philosophy” – Francois Laruelle – Paper in French, with English translation provided by Anthony Paul Smith, followed by a question and answer session interpreted by Marjorie Gracieuse (Warwick).
Free to all, no registration required. For further enquiries contact t.k.osborne@gmail.com''
via deontologistics:
''For all of you budding non-philosophers out there, I here that the paper reworks a number of the core ideas of his earlier work. And for everyone familiar with our little section of the blogosphere, Laruelle’s talk will be preceded by a series of presentation on non-philosophy by none other than Nick Srnicek (Speculative Heresy / Accursed Share), Anthony Paul Smith, and Reid Kotlas (Planomenology). It promises to be lots of fun all round.
There is also another event that we’re organising at Warwick, a small workshop on Transcendental Realism, headlined by Ray Brassier. I will post more about this when all the details have been worked out. Anyway, here is the announcement about the Laruelle event that just went out on Philos-L, which provides more of the logistical details.
Warwick Symposium on the Non-Philosophy of Francois Laruelle
The Warwick University Philosophy Society, in association with Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, is pleased to announce a short symposium on the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle on Wednesday the 3rd of March. This will take place in H0.52, in the humanities building, on Warwick main campus, from 3.30pm to 7.00pm.
Programme
3.30 – “Non-Philosophy in English” – Nick Srnicek (LSE), Anthony Paul Smith (Nottingham), Reid Kotlas (Dundee) – Three presentations introducing the central features of non-philosophy followed by a joint question and answer session.
5.00 – Break
5.30 – “From the First to the Second Non-Philosophy” – Francois Laruelle – Paper in French, with English translation provided by Anthony Paul Smith, followed by a question and answer session interpreted by Marjorie Gracieuse (Warwick).
Free to all, no registration required. For further enquiries contact t.k.osborne@gmail.com''
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Hegel as anti-correlationist
[I'm really enjoying the debate over at Cogburn's blog and I want to keep this posts here to since they have been so helpful in bringing these issues out personally].
Meillassoux intimates to the singular complexity involved in making Hegel a correlationist at times. Now clearly Hegel can be seen as a thinker who stresses the correlation between thought and being. However this is only one aspect of Hegel's dialectic (it is to argue against Hegel only in terms of the discussion of the natural consciousness which is, of course, superseded early on in the POS).
Hegel thinks the correlation *as* a problem and sets out to reconcile the issue. So he knows that the correlation is a problem (this is the content of the section on natural consciousness) and that Kantian noumena make little sense (because it would mean something is not known) and that if the correlation held everything then we would have the problem of the real left over - and that objects would be outside the known (hard correlationism in Meillassoux). So he shows how in the next step the subject 'goes outside itself' (nothing more than when we start to self-reflect and we sort of step outside ourselves) and in doing so we come to see that we are objects. We then return back to ourselves at a new level - one that includes an awareness of objects as activity and similar to ourselves - and so we come to see objects as limited subjects. So in a sense one could say that Hegel solved the problem albeit Meillassoux updates the problem to what Hegel could not have known (and did not know well) i.e. the time when this process didn't happen *in this sense* [I mean that the activity still happened but at a 'lower' level for want of a better term ]but once again I think there are ways around this that I elaborate in my own work but which risks sounding out of place on the blog.
Meillassoux intimates to the singular complexity involved in making Hegel a correlationist at times. Now clearly Hegel can be seen as a thinker who stresses the correlation between thought and being. However this is only one aspect of Hegel's dialectic (it is to argue against Hegel only in terms of the discussion of the natural consciousness which is, of course, superseded early on in the POS).
Hegel thinks the correlation *as* a problem and sets out to reconcile the issue. So he knows that the correlation is a problem (this is the content of the section on natural consciousness) and that Kantian noumena make little sense (because it would mean something is not known) and that if the correlation held everything then we would have the problem of the real left over - and that objects would be outside the known (hard correlationism in Meillassoux). So he shows how in the next step the subject 'goes outside itself' (nothing more than when we start to self-reflect and we sort of step outside ourselves) and in doing so we come to see that we are objects. We then return back to ourselves at a new level - one that includes an awareness of objects as activity and similar to ourselves - and so we come to see objects as limited subjects. So in a sense one could say that Hegel solved the problem albeit Meillassoux updates the problem to what Hegel could not have known (and did not know well) i.e. the time when this process didn't happen *in this sense* [I mean that the activity still happened but at a 'lower' level for want of a better term ]but once again I think there are ways around this that I elaborate in my own work but which risks sounding out of place on the blog.
Hegel was no pantheist
Just a quick note via a comment in reply to Jon Cogburn's blog.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding regarding Hegel is that he is an idealist. The reason why the mind ‘syncs’ up with substance (his word for the real, ‘great outdoors’, the object and so on) is that they both arise from the same self-organizing activity. So in a way there in no split between us and things because we are, in this deeply primitive sense, made of the same ‘stuff’ and so we can recognize each other easily (Hegel was way ahead of Churchland and co :0). Now since events happen this leads to more and more layers of activity building on top of each other and some are quite sophisticated. Human consciousness, for instance, is perhaps the most obvious example and it adds an important layer but this is an addition that does not go ‘above and beyond’ or cause a separation. It occurs immanently (Schopenhauer of course follows this to the end). So in my view the connection is one of recognition at some primal level (this is the basic identity) but we also have the complications that arise from the events so there is also differentiation. So we have, famously, identity-in-difference. This, I think, saves Hegel from being a pantheist or perhaps it opens up the possibility for a non-pantheistic reading of Hegel. For Hegel nature and God are not identical (pantheism) but consciousness and substance share a basic identity but one characterized by differentiation itself.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding regarding Hegel is that he is an idealist. The reason why the mind ‘syncs’ up with substance (his word for the real, ‘great outdoors’, the object and so on) is that they both arise from the same self-organizing activity. So in a way there in no split between us and things because we are, in this deeply primitive sense, made of the same ‘stuff’ and so we can recognize each other easily (Hegel was way ahead of Churchland and co :0). Now since events happen this leads to more and more layers of activity building on top of each other and some are quite sophisticated. Human consciousness, for instance, is perhaps the most obvious example and it adds an important layer but this is an addition that does not go ‘above and beyond’ or cause a separation. It occurs immanently (Schopenhauer of course follows this to the end). So in my view the connection is one of recognition at some primal level (this is the basic identity) but we also have the complications that arise from the events so there is also differentiation. So we have, famously, identity-in-difference. This, I think, saves Hegel from being a pantheist or perhaps it opens up the possibility for a non-pantheistic reading of Hegel. For Hegel nature and God are not identical (pantheism) but consciousness and substance share a basic identity but one characterized by differentiation itself.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Heidegger and the realism/antirealism debate
Some great posts on Heidegger and realism/antirealism. I've copied a comment I made here too since it is a little bit long.
This very topic came up in nothing less than a Hegel reading group we have going in my own department. I am talking, of course, about the realism and antirealism debate. The reason Jon has not seen much of it in the literature is that it really isn’t there all that much. Gary’s thesis and later work should he go on to PhD level (I suspect he will!) will be filling a gap. Further despite Harman’s work on Heidegger it is clear that Harman jettison’s Heidegger in most of his work – a necessary move if he is to develop object oriented ontology free from the Heideggerian world. Gary on the other hand tends to defend Heidegger and posit nothing less than a Heidegger that can incorporate realism. This is very interesting stuff in my eyes.
Shahar notes that Heidegger is perhaps best understood within the German idealist tradition and I could not agree more. Phenomenology is, in some way, a kind of supplanting of neo-Kantianism and so it operates within the Kantian field – that is Heidegger is always thinking within or against the problematics of the Kantian inheritance: noumena, categories, and so on. Husserl actually goes in the opposite direction by increasingly adopting the language of neo-Kantianism until it is quite reasonable to suggest that Husserl becomes a kind of Kant of the twentieth century meaning that, as many have said before, Heidegger is the Hegel of the twentieth century. Like Hegel Heidegger wants the best of both worlds whilst retaining for Dasein the actualizing force that, in his language, gives voice to beings (Heidegger’s equipmental actualizing is a pragmatic rendering of Hegel’s conceptual actualizing). In both the question is of activity – an emphasis so strong that Heidegger will dedicate his career to showing how Dasein and things are always actualizing one another (in the event – ereignis). The Kehre is where Heidegger tries to go one better than Hegel by seeing how this occurs from the other end. This always leave the problem of whether the things have any potency prior to or outside of the encounter with a Dasein (nature, Heidegger wonders from time to time, might be impotent without Dasein). Heidegger is a good Hegelian – he always posits this non-potent, inert ontic realm of presence that is the ‘real’ and so one is forced to admit that Heidegger is both ontic realist and and a transcendental idealist (an unusual one of course) [I should also mention that Husserl calls Descartes an 'absurd transcendental realist' in the Cartesian Meditations!].
But I also agree that Gary is right that Heidegger does not simply conflate being with thought (this Hegel openly admits is what he is after, see the intro to PoS on self-externalization and substance/subjects which come to belong to the activity of thinking: substance for Hegel is subject!). Heidegger always already has us in the world and a la Hegel it is only those who seek origins that need argue for a transcendental subject that exists in the real and nonetheless never 'knows' [this is important since the realist 'to know' is clearly different from either the Hegelian 'to know' i.e. activity of knowing [Wissen] in an interplay or the Heideggerian 'to know' which is an attempt to think the question of the meaning of being and not the question of beings] it ‘in itself’ (a term perhaps not even applicable in Heideggerian terms).
I realize this post is muddled but like Jon the debate just provoked me a little and although I do not have an answer yet I suspect unpacking the nature of the question would require a bunch of context - and context can often be dry and look as if it fails to address the argument (or to put one forward) but on this point I think one needs to see around the edges of Heidegger's approach - the ontic always seemed to me a terribly underdeveloped area of Heidegger's thinking - something posited rather than phenomenological uncovered (and is this even possible?).
This very topic came up in nothing less than a Hegel reading group we have going in my own department. I am talking, of course, about the realism and antirealism debate. The reason Jon has not seen much of it in the literature is that it really isn’t there all that much. Gary’s thesis and later work should he go on to PhD level (I suspect he will!) will be filling a gap. Further despite Harman’s work on Heidegger it is clear that Harman jettison’s Heidegger in most of his work – a necessary move if he is to develop object oriented ontology free from the Heideggerian world. Gary on the other hand tends to defend Heidegger and posit nothing less than a Heidegger that can incorporate realism. This is very interesting stuff in my eyes.
Shahar notes that Heidegger is perhaps best understood within the German idealist tradition and I could not agree more. Phenomenology is, in some way, a kind of supplanting of neo-Kantianism and so it operates within the Kantian field – that is Heidegger is always thinking within or against the problematics of the Kantian inheritance: noumena, categories, and so on. Husserl actually goes in the opposite direction by increasingly adopting the language of neo-Kantianism until it is quite reasonable to suggest that Husserl becomes a kind of Kant of the twentieth century meaning that, as many have said before, Heidegger is the Hegel of the twentieth century. Like Hegel Heidegger wants the best of both worlds whilst retaining for Dasein the actualizing force that, in his language, gives voice to beings (Heidegger’s equipmental actualizing is a pragmatic rendering of Hegel’s conceptual actualizing). In both the question is of activity – an emphasis so strong that Heidegger will dedicate his career to showing how Dasein and things are always actualizing one another (in the event – ereignis). The Kehre is where Heidegger tries to go one better than Hegel by seeing how this occurs from the other end. This always leave the problem of whether the things have any potency prior to or outside of the encounter with a Dasein (nature, Heidegger wonders from time to time, might be impotent without Dasein). Heidegger is a good Hegelian – he always posits this non-potent, inert ontic realm of presence that is the ‘real’ and so one is forced to admit that Heidegger is both ontic realist and and a transcendental idealist (an unusual one of course) [I should also mention that Husserl calls Descartes an 'absurd transcendental realist' in the Cartesian Meditations!].
But I also agree that Gary is right that Heidegger does not simply conflate being with thought (this Hegel openly admits is what he is after, see the intro to PoS on self-externalization and substance/subjects which come to belong to the activity of thinking: substance for Hegel is subject!). Heidegger always already has us in the world and a la Hegel it is only those who seek origins that need argue for a transcendental subject that exists in the real and nonetheless never 'knows' [this is important since the realist 'to know' is clearly different from either the Hegelian 'to know' i.e. activity of knowing [Wissen] in an interplay or the Heideggerian 'to know' which is an attempt to think the question of the meaning of being and not the question of beings] it ‘in itself’ (a term perhaps not even applicable in Heideggerian terms).
I realize this post is muddled but like Jon the debate just provoked me a little and although I do not have an answer yet I suspect unpacking the nature of the question would require a bunch of context - and context can often be dry and look as if it fails to address the argument (or to put one forward) but on this point I think one needs to see around the edges of Heidegger's approach - the ontic always seemed to me a terribly underdeveloped area of Heidegger's thinking - something posited rather than phenomenological uncovered (and is this even possible?).
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Hegel knew a thing or two
In section’s §11-14 of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit I cannot help but notice certain similarities to our own age. Since the sections are quite long together I’ve linked to a copy. Hegel argues that in times when the philosophical (or what he would call scientific) configurations are in flux there is a qualitative leap that is difficult to articulate. The slow accretion that precedes such a time can be characterized by foreboding and so on but it also arrives unannounced – even unexpected but not as a shock and one day comes as a flash, an illumination. I suppose this is the moment when we all wake up to find our cognitive coordinates have shifted: that something unimaginable now appears mundane and accepted by all. What is strange is that Hegel thinks it comes first in an immediate sense – a kind of pre-reflective clarity (or general understanding).
Now this newly arrived Notion tends to be explained by its roots (where did it come from?) but this is not what one desires to know: rather one wants an explanation for the fully formed Notion in its current manifestation – this being a notoriously difficult task requiring new work rather than exegesis of heroes (despite the fact that no one more than Heidegger has undergone a kind of formalized posthumous exegesis in his own reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit Heidegger takes the work on its own terms attempting to be true to Hegel’s hopes that the reader would undergo the journey for themselves without recourse to secondary literature). The danger is that this shift can lead to a kind of disarray and without the proper engagement or attempt at articulation this is how things will remain but even more worrying it would mean that nothing new will happen – there would be no development which is always onwards and upwards for Hegel. This sounds suspiciously like our task today.
Now this newly arrived Notion tends to be explained by its roots (where did it come from?) but this is not what one desires to know: rather one wants an explanation for the fully formed Notion in its current manifestation – this being a notoriously difficult task requiring new work rather than exegesis of heroes (despite the fact that no one more than Heidegger has undergone a kind of formalized posthumous exegesis in his own reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit Heidegger takes the work on its own terms attempting to be true to Hegel’s hopes that the reader would undergo the journey for themselves without recourse to secondary literature). The danger is that this shift can lead to a kind of disarray and without the proper engagement or attempt at articulation this is how things will remain but even more worrying it would mean that nothing new will happen – there would be no development which is always onwards and upwards for Hegel. This sounds suspiciously like our task today.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Speculative Realism overview
I just came across an excellent overview of Speculative Realism by speculum criticum traditionis. Do check it out.
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