Simon Mussell
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526105707
- eISBN:
- 9781526132253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526105707.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on ...
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Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on objects/things, especially within the much-hyped field of ‘object-oriented ontology’ or ‘speculative realism’. After drawing attention to the major social and political deficiencies of these contemporary approaches to objects, the chapter offers an account of early critical theory that draws out a more philosophically viable and socio-politically engaged orientation toward the object world. To make the case, the author recovers elements of Siegfried Kracauer’s materialist film theory, before exploring two complementary concepts from Adorno’s work, namely, the preponderance of the object, and mimesis. Offering a staunch critique of Habermas’s rejection of mimesis, the chapter considers critical theory’s emphasis on a political and affective aesthetics as playing a crucial part in how one conceptualizes and experiences objects. As a result, a key distinction is drawn between today’s avowedly post-critical, non-humanist ontologists on one side, and the critical proto-humanism that motivates the early Frankfurt School on the other.Less
Chapter 3 looks at how an affective politics underpins critical theory’s engagement with the world of objects. The chapter begins by outlining the recent upsurge in theoretical writing on objects/things, especially within the much-hyped field of ‘object-oriented ontology’ or ‘speculative realism’. After drawing attention to the major social and political deficiencies of these contemporary approaches to objects, the chapter offers an account of early critical theory that draws out a more philosophically viable and socio-politically engaged orientation toward the object world. To make the case, the author recovers elements of Siegfried Kracauer’s materialist film theory, before exploring two complementary concepts from Adorno’s work, namely, the preponderance of the object, and mimesis. Offering a staunch critique of Habermas’s rejection of mimesis, the chapter considers critical theory’s emphasis on a political and affective aesthetics as playing a crucial part in how one conceptualizes and experiences objects. As a result, a key distinction is drawn between today’s avowedly post-critical, non-humanist ontologists on one side, and the critical proto-humanism that motivates the early Frankfurt School on the other.
Adam S. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823251506
- eISBN:
- 9780823253005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251506.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The Introduction outlines the purpose of the book, which is to model an object-oriented approach to grace. Its approach is object-oriented in that it gives full metaphysical credit to the multitude ...
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The Introduction outlines the purpose of the book, which is to model an object-oriented approach to grace. Its approach is object-oriented in that it gives full metaphysical credit to the multitude of individual objects that compose the universe for the collective formation and continuation of their own existence. This book experimentally frames the meaning of grace in a post-Darwinian world. This book' experiment aims to follow an analogous path with respect to grace. It hopes to operationalize grace. The book wants to port it out of a traditional theistic framework and into the immanent domain of a non-theistic, object-oriented ontology. Doing so involves a shift from thinking about grace in terms of unavailable and transcendent “large-scale forces of cosmic progress” to treating it as a palpable, ubiquitous, and available “small-scale force.”Less
The Introduction outlines the purpose of the book, which is to model an object-oriented approach to grace. Its approach is object-oriented in that it gives full metaphysical credit to the multitude of individual objects that compose the universe for the collective formation and continuation of their own existence. This book experimentally frames the meaning of grace in a post-Darwinian world. This book' experiment aims to follow an analogous path with respect to grace. It hopes to operationalize grace. The book wants to port it out of a traditional theistic framework and into the immanent domain of a non-theistic, object-oriented ontology. Doing so involves a shift from thinking about grace in terms of unavailable and transcendent “large-scale forces of cosmic progress” to treating it as a palpable, ubiquitous, and available “small-scale force.”
J. Paul Narkunas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823280308
- eISBN:
- 9780823281534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823280308.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The chapter elaborates how the Object Oriented Ontology’s universe of things works too closely with financial capitalism, as both generate a posthuman reality. The OOO seems too preoccupied with the ...
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The chapter elaborates how the Object Oriented Ontology’s universe of things works too closely with financial capitalism, as both generate a posthuman reality. The OOO seems too preoccupied with the industrial capital of modernity and its production of stuff (objects and services) to mark its postanthropocentric ontology to consider how financial capitalism, now accounting for over 33% of the profits in the economy despite 7% of the real economy and 4% of the jobs, operates ontologically not through physical objects but through leveraging debt and hoarding value. Indeed, the immaterial objects that the OOO celebrate may include derivatives and hedge funds (themselves often pools of immaterial value). The shift from industrial capitalism’s organization around the production of objects and capture of labor to financial capital’s debt and leveraging marks what I call a movement from the logic of the object and capture of labor to the logic of the derivative and hedging of debt/value. I discuss how the reification of life works in both these contexts, and show how reification is a necessary term for thinking humans rendered into a field of assets and shares of value.Less
The chapter elaborates how the Object Oriented Ontology’s universe of things works too closely with financial capitalism, as both generate a posthuman reality. The OOO seems too preoccupied with the industrial capital of modernity and its production of stuff (objects and services) to mark its postanthropocentric ontology to consider how financial capitalism, now accounting for over 33% of the profits in the economy despite 7% of the real economy and 4% of the jobs, operates ontologically not through physical objects but through leveraging debt and hoarding value. Indeed, the immaterial objects that the OOO celebrate may include derivatives and hedge funds (themselves often pools of immaterial value). The shift from industrial capitalism’s organization around the production of objects and capture of labor to financial capital’s debt and leveraging marks what I call a movement from the logic of the object and capture of labor to the logic of the derivative and hedging of debt/value. I discuss how the reification of life works in both these contexts, and show how reification is a necessary term for thinking humans rendered into a field of assets and shares of value.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology ...
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The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology studies, and pain medicine. In so doing, the conclusion argues for an end to the cycle of hypercorrections as disciplines oscillate from realist modernist positions to anti-realest postmodern theories. Additionally, the conclusion revisits the different modes of calibration, authorizing resources, and discursive instantiations explored in the book. This calibration suite is presented as a useful resource for future inquiry. And, finally, the conclusion closes with suggestions for future horizons of inquiry within a fully rhetorical-ontological idiom.Less
The conclusion to The Politics of Pain closes with a reflection on the many overlaps among new materialist, nonmodern, and biopsycosocial approaches to rhetorical studies, science and technology studies, and pain medicine. In so doing, the conclusion argues for an end to the cycle of hypercorrections as disciplines oscillate from realist modernist positions to anti-realest postmodern theories. Additionally, the conclusion revisits the different modes of calibration, authorizing resources, and discursive instantiations explored in the book. This calibration suite is presented as a useful resource for future inquiry. And, finally, the conclusion closes with suggestions for future horizons of inquiry within a fully rhetorical-ontological idiom.
Vladimir Dukić and Marie-Eve Morin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421140
- eISBN:
- 9781474438674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421140.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This introductory chapter provides a historical overview of the emergence of new realist movements in contemporary continental philosophy, focusing in particular on speculative realism and ...
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This introductory chapter provides a historical overview of the emergence of new realist movements in contemporary continental philosophy, focusing in particular on speculative realism and materialism, object-oriented ontology, and transcendental nihilism. Provided also is a conceptual introduction to recent realist critiques of the correlationism of post-Kantian philosophy as well as its supposed fideism, anthropocentrism, and anti-scientific bias. This introduction also contains an overview of the volume and the included chapters.Less
This introductory chapter provides a historical overview of the emergence of new realist movements in contemporary continental philosophy, focusing in particular on speculative realism and materialism, object-oriented ontology, and transcendental nihilism. Provided also is a conceptual introduction to recent realist critiques of the correlationism of post-Kantian philosophy as well as its supposed fideism, anthropocentrism, and anti-scientific bias. This introduction also contains an overview of the volume and the included chapters.
Anna Mudde
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421140
- eISBN:
- 9781474438674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421140.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter explores some of the ambivalent potential of Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology for thinking about human beings as objects and about being with human beings as objects. In ...
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This chapter explores some of the ambivalent potential of Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology for thinking about human beings as objects and about being with human beings as objects. In particular, it employs feminist phenomenological theories of objectification, such as those of Beauvoir, Young, and Bartky, as both already object-oriented and as already contesting the idealist tendencies opposed by Harman. Objectification often produces ‘double-consciousness’, and objectified human beings inhabit a site of ontological duality, often knowing themselves as objects for others. The chapter suggests that the absence of these analyses in object-oriented ontology constitutes an important oversight since such work not only draws attention to object relations among human beings but also points to ways of understanding human relations with non-human objects.Less
This chapter explores some of the ambivalent potential of Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology for thinking about human beings as objects and about being with human beings as objects. In particular, it employs feminist phenomenological theories of objectification, such as those of Beauvoir, Young, and Bartky, as both already object-oriented and as already contesting the idealist tendencies opposed by Harman. Objectification often produces ‘double-consciousness’, and objectified human beings inhabit a site of ontological duality, often knowing themselves as objects for others. The chapter suggests that the absence of these analyses in object-oriented ontology constitutes an important oversight since such work not only draws attention to object relations among human beings but also points to ways of understanding human relations with non-human objects.
Jon Cogburn
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474415910
- eISBN:
- 9781474434942
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415910.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
In Chapter III contains an explication Garcia’s model of objects as differentiators between that which they comprehend and that which comprehends them. Garcia’s model is then contrasted with other ...
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In Chapter III contains an explication Garcia’s model of objects as differentiators between that which they comprehend and that which comprehends them. Garcia’s model is then contrasted with other canonical theories in the new continental metaphysics, showing how a defining feature is the manner in which metaphysicians can be interpreted as responding to an enclosure paradox concerning metaphysical explanation. This allows the foregrounding of Garcia’s dialetheist paradoxico-metaphysics, and also one to see clearly how Garcia’s achievement should be interpreted alongside related meta-metaphysical developments by Graham Harman and Graham Priest, as well as other recent speculative philosophers such as Alain Badiou, Markus Gabriel, and Paul Livingston. In addition, it allows one to begin to appreciate the fact that Garcia is contributing to contemporary analytic metaphyics.Less
In Chapter III contains an explication Garcia’s model of objects as differentiators between that which they comprehend and that which comprehends them. Garcia’s model is then contrasted with other canonical theories in the new continental metaphysics, showing how a defining feature is the manner in which metaphysicians can be interpreted as responding to an enclosure paradox concerning metaphysical explanation. This allows the foregrounding of Garcia’s dialetheist paradoxico-metaphysics, and also one to see clearly how Garcia’s achievement should be interpreted alongside related meta-metaphysical developments by Graham Harman and Graham Priest, as well as other recent speculative philosophers such as Alain Badiou, Markus Gabriel, and Paul Livingston. In addition, it allows one to begin to appreciate the fact that Garcia is contributing to contemporary analytic metaphyics.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of ...
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The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of modernist and postmodernist dualisms. The book offers a hybrid rhetorical-ontological analysis of interdisciplinary debates in pain medicine and pain-related American pharmaceuticals policy. In so doing, the book reflects on the synergies between pain specialists’ attempts to found a new hybrid body-mind unified approach to pain science and practice and science and technology studies’ efforts to develop a nonmondern/ new materialist foundations for inquiry. Integrating insights from ontologically-oriented rhetorical studies and new materialist science and technology studies, The Politics of Pain provides a detailed analysis of the material and discursive instantiations and effects of cross-ontological calibration in pain science and medicine. This analysis traces the calibrating activates of a local interdisciplinary pain management organization, the history of neuroimaging technologies and their role in legitimizing marginalized pain disorders, as well as deliberations over cross-ontological conflicts at the Food and Drug Administration.Less
The Politics of Pain documents the author’s exploration of simultaneous efforts by interdisciplinary pain specialists and scholars of science and technology studies to transcend the limits of modernist and postmodernist dualisms. The book offers a hybrid rhetorical-ontological analysis of interdisciplinary debates in pain medicine and pain-related American pharmaceuticals policy. In so doing, the book reflects on the synergies between pain specialists’ attempts to found a new hybrid body-mind unified approach to pain science and practice and science and technology studies’ efforts to develop a nonmondern/ new materialist foundations for inquiry. Integrating insights from ontologically-oriented rhetorical studies and new materialist science and technology studies, The Politics of Pain provides a detailed analysis of the material and discursive instantiations and effects of cross-ontological calibration in pain science and medicine. This analysis traces the calibrating activates of a local interdisciplinary pain management organization, the history of neuroimaging technologies and their role in legitimizing marginalized pain disorders, as well as deliberations over cross-ontological conflicts at the Food and Drug Administration.
Elsa Högberg
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780990895800
- eISBN:
- 9781781382400
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780990895800.003.0020
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This essay proposes that Virginia Woolf’s foregrounding of objects exposes the threat posed by human technology between the World Wars. It suggests that the most unsettling depictions of object ...
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This essay proposes that Virginia Woolf’s foregrounding of objects exposes the threat posed by human technology between the World Wars. It suggests that the most unsettling depictions of object encounters appear in her experimental inter-war writing and Between the Acts (1941) because the risk of a second devastating war was very much present—real but incalculable—in the years following the Versailles Treaty. There is an ethical dimension to her object-oriented writing of risk and crisis; such an ethics, this essay argues, can be traced notably in the “Time Passes” section of To the Lighthouse (1927), the interludes of The Waves (1931), and in Between the Acts.Less
This essay proposes that Virginia Woolf’s foregrounding of objects exposes the threat posed by human technology between the World Wars. It suggests that the most unsettling depictions of object encounters appear in her experimental inter-war writing and Between the Acts (1941) because the risk of a second devastating war was very much present—real but incalculable—in the years following the Versailles Treaty. There is an ethical dimension to her object-oriented writing of risk and crisis; such an ethics, this essay argues, can be traced notably in the “Time Passes” section of To the Lighthouse (1927), the interludes of The Waves (1931), and in Between the Acts.
Ian Bogost
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816678976
- eISBN:
- 9781452948447
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816678976.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Humanity has sat at the center of philosophical thinking for too long. The recent advent of environmental philosophy and posthuman studies has widened our scope of inquiry to include ecosystems, ...
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Humanity has sat at the center of philosophical thinking for too long. The recent advent of environmental philosophy and posthuman studies has widened our scope of inquiry to include ecosystems, animals, and artificial intelligence. Yet the vast majority of the stuff in our universe, and even in our lives, remains beyond serious philosophical concern. This book develops an object-oriented ontology that puts things at the center of being—a philosophy in which nothing exists any more or less than anything else, in which humans are elements but not the sole or even primary elements of philosophical interest. And unlike experimental phenomenology or the philosophy of technology, this book’s alien phenomenology takes for granted that all beings interact with and perceive one another. This experience, however, withdraws from human comprehension and becomes accessible only through a speculative philosophy based on metaphor.Less
Humanity has sat at the center of philosophical thinking for too long. The recent advent of environmental philosophy and posthuman studies has widened our scope of inquiry to include ecosystems, animals, and artificial intelligence. Yet the vast majority of the stuff in our universe, and even in our lives, remains beyond serious philosophical concern. This book develops an object-oriented ontology that puts things at the center of being—a philosophy in which nothing exists any more or less than anything else, in which humans are elements but not the sole or even primary elements of philosophical interest. And unlike experimental phenomenology or the philosophy of technology, this book’s alien phenomenology takes for granted that all beings interact with and perceive one another. This experience, however, withdraws from human comprehension and becomes accessible only through a speculative philosophy based on metaphor.
S. Scott Graham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226264059
- eISBN:
- 9780226264196
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated ...
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The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated non-dualist approaches to inquiry and practice. Specifically, this section introduces readers to the calls for a biopsychosocial approach to pain medicine and a nonmodern or new materialist approach to rhetoric of science and science and technology studies. In so doing, the introduction argues that the time is right for renewed inquiry into pain from a hybrid rhetorical-ontological perspective. Such an approach offers great potential for reciprocal engagement between the differing areas’ overlapping calls for new foundations for inquiry and practice.Less
The introduction to the Politics of Pain traces the recent history of simultaneous efforts in pain science as well as rhetoric of science and science and technology studies to develop new integrated non-dualist approaches to inquiry and practice. Specifically, this section introduces readers to the calls for a biopsychosocial approach to pain medicine and a nonmodern or new materialist approach to rhetoric of science and science and technology studies. In so doing, the introduction argues that the time is right for renewed inquiry into pain from a hybrid rhetorical-ontological perspective. Such an approach offers great potential for reciprocal engagement between the differing areas’ overlapping calls for new foundations for inquiry and practice.
James I. Porter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198805670
- eISBN:
- 9780191843624
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198805670.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter considers the relevance of speculative realism and object-oriented ontologies to Greek and Roman thinking, focusing on the phenomena known as hyperobjects. Are these theories of the ...
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This chapter considers the relevance of speculative realism and object-oriented ontologies to Greek and Roman thinking, focusing on the phenomena known as hyperobjects. Are these theories of the posthuman entirely postclassical, or do they have ancient counterparts? Porter responds in the affirmative, showing that, beyond the inspirations occasionally cited in support of the new materialisms (most frequently, Aristotle’s theory of substance and ancient atomism), there are solid grounds to support this claim in numerous thinkers, including Empedocles, Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. He investigates three trajectories: views of nature in which we encounter some conception of a hyperobject; a collection of materialist and sensualist perspectives on nature in which matter is conceived as operating independently of a human phenomenology; and object-oriented philosophies of nature that treat human phenomena as one object among others.Less
This chapter considers the relevance of speculative realism and object-oriented ontologies to Greek and Roman thinking, focusing on the phenomena known as hyperobjects. Are these theories of the posthuman entirely postclassical, or do they have ancient counterparts? Porter responds in the affirmative, showing that, beyond the inspirations occasionally cited in support of the new materialisms (most frequently, Aristotle’s theory of substance and ancient atomism), there are solid grounds to support this claim in numerous thinkers, including Empedocles, Lucretius, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. He investigates three trajectories: views of nature in which we encounter some conception of a hyperobject; a collection of materialist and sensualist perspectives on nature in which matter is conceived as operating independently of a human phenomenology; and object-oriented philosophies of nature that treat human phenomena as one object among others.
Marie-Eve Morin (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421140
- eISBN:
- 9781474438674
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
A new realist movement in continental philosophy has emerged to challenge philosophical approaches and traditions ranging from transcendental and speculative idealism to phenomenology and ...
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A new realist movement in continental philosophy has emerged to challenge philosophical approaches and traditions ranging from transcendental and speculative idealism to phenomenology and deconstruction for failing to do justice to the real world as it is ‘in itself’, that is, as independent of the structures of human consciousness, experience, and language. This volume presents a collection of essays that take up the challenge of realism from a variety of historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives. This volume includes essays that engage the fundamental presuppositions and conclusions of this new realism by turning to the writings of seminal figures in the history of philosophy, including Kant, Schelling, and others. Also included are essays that challenge anti-realist readings of Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and Nancy. Finally, several essays in this volume propose alternative ways of understanding realism through careful readings of key figures in German idealism, pessimism, phenomenology, existentialism, feminism, and deconstruction.Less
A new realist movement in continental philosophy has emerged to challenge philosophical approaches and traditions ranging from transcendental and speculative idealism to phenomenology and deconstruction for failing to do justice to the real world as it is ‘in itself’, that is, as independent of the structures of human consciousness, experience, and language. This volume presents a collection of essays that take up the challenge of realism from a variety of historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives. This volume includes essays that engage the fundamental presuppositions and conclusions of this new realism by turning to the writings of seminal figures in the history of philosophy, including Kant, Schelling, and others. Also included are essays that challenge anti-realist readings of Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and Nancy. Finally, several essays in this volume propose alternative ways of understanding realism through careful readings of key figures in German idealism, pessimism, phenomenology, existentialism, feminism, and deconstruction.
Marcel O’Gorman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816695706
- eISBN:
- 9781452950662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816695706.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Here, the author presents a critique of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology (OOO). His primary argument is that some flavors of OOO are not philosophy at all, but a form of poetic ...
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Here, the author presents a critique of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology (OOO). His primary argument is that some flavors of OOO are not philosophy at all, but a form of poetic discourse that is at once nihilistic and animistic. The author compares this type of OOO discourse with Romantic idealism and surrealist fantasy.Less
Here, the author presents a critique of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology (OOO). His primary argument is that some flavors of OOO are not philosophy at all, but a form of poetic discourse that is at once nihilistic and animistic. The author compares this type of OOO discourse with Romantic idealism and surrealist fantasy.
J. Allan Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816689965
- eISBN:
- 9781452949529
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689965.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
A provocative historical inquiry into human becoming, this book consists of a set of idiosyncratic essays on embryology and infancy, play and games, manners, meals, and other messes. Inspecting a ...
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A provocative historical inquiry into human becoming, this book consists of a set of idiosyncratic essays on embryology and infancy, play and games, manners, meals, and other messes. Inspecting a wide range of textual, visual, and artefactual evidence in and beyond medieval England, Mitchell argues that humanity issued from a dense material matrix that is barely human. Congeries of animate and inanimate objects expose the extent to which the human learned to dwell among a welter of things. Becoming (ontogeny) turns out to be a better category than being (ontology) for capturing the conjugated modes of existence required for sustaining life at various scales. While Mitchell makes important contributions to medieval scholarship on the body, sexuality, family, medicine, and material culture, his work is also in dialogue with recent developments in the posthumanities. The book theorizes what can be called a medieval ecological imaginary, offering a longer historical perspective on the fate of the human than is usually found in modern discussions. Mitchell returns to early understandings of epigenesis, virtuality, natality, chaos, animation, and cosmogony to trace the inheritance of modern speculative and scientific notions usually considered in isolation from the past. He explores a broad array of phenomenal objects, and in the process rediscovers and reanimates distinctly medieval ontologies. In addressing the emergency of the human in the later Middle Ages, Mitchell identifies ideas of becoming in the past where humanity is and remains at risk.Less
A provocative historical inquiry into human becoming, this book consists of a set of idiosyncratic essays on embryology and infancy, play and games, manners, meals, and other messes. Inspecting a wide range of textual, visual, and artefactual evidence in and beyond medieval England, Mitchell argues that humanity issued from a dense material matrix that is barely human. Congeries of animate and inanimate objects expose the extent to which the human learned to dwell among a welter of things. Becoming (ontogeny) turns out to be a better category than being (ontology) for capturing the conjugated modes of existence required for sustaining life at various scales. While Mitchell makes important contributions to medieval scholarship on the body, sexuality, family, medicine, and material culture, his work is also in dialogue with recent developments in the posthumanities. The book theorizes what can be called a medieval ecological imaginary, offering a longer historical perspective on the fate of the human than is usually found in modern discussions. Mitchell returns to early understandings of epigenesis, virtuality, natality, chaos, animation, and cosmogony to trace the inheritance of modern speculative and scientific notions usually considered in isolation from the past. He explores a broad array of phenomenal objects, and in the process rediscovers and reanimates distinctly medieval ontologies. In addressing the emergency of the human in the later Middle Ages, Mitchell identifies ideas of becoming in the past where humanity is and remains at risk.
Marcel O’Gorman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816695706
- eISBN:
- 9781452950662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816695706.003.0012
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
In this final chapter, the author speaks out against what he calls “horror philosophy,” a type of discourse that threatens the ontological dignity of the human being for the sake of celebrating a ...
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In this final chapter, the author speaks out against what he calls “horror philosophy,” a type of discourse that threatens the ontological dignity of the human being for the sake of celebrating a speculative sort of animism. The author admits the humanist taint of his claims while suggesting that a recognition of the vulnerability of all things must not come at the expense of human vulnerability. The chapter is bookended by discussions of two video art projects: Dust by Herman Kolgen and Datamatics v2.0 by Ryoji Ikeda.Less
In this final chapter, the author speaks out against what he calls “horror philosophy,” a type of discourse that threatens the ontological dignity of the human being for the sake of celebrating a speculative sort of animism. The author admits the humanist taint of his claims while suggesting that a recognition of the vulnerability of all things must not come at the expense of human vulnerability. The chapter is bookended by discussions of two video art projects: Dust by Herman Kolgen and Datamatics v2.0 by Ryoji Ikeda.
J. Allan Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816689965
- eISBN:
- 9781452949529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689965.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The second essay takes up both physical and literary examples of childish things. The anarchic forces of miniature matters are palpable even as such small-scale things articulate with human fantasy. ...
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The second essay takes up both physical and literary examples of childish things. The anarchic forces of miniature matters are palpable even as such small-scale things articulate with human fantasy. Mitchell also explores literary miniaturization in Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Usk.Less
The second essay takes up both physical and literary examples of childish things. The anarchic forces of miniature matters are palpable even as such small-scale things articulate with human fantasy. Mitchell also explores literary miniaturization in Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Usk.
J. Allan Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816689965
- eISBN:
- 9781452949529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689965.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The third essay proposes that the condition of human dependency and self-estrangement at the dining table. Otherwise incommensurable matters (mineral, vegetable, and animal) are incorporated at ...
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The third essay proposes that the condition of human dependency and self-estrangement at the dining table. Otherwise incommensurable matters (mineral, vegetable, and animal) are incorporated at mealtime. Conduct literature trains the young to become deeply involved in the material medium, and romance and allegory is equally invested in the objective mess.Less
The third essay proposes that the condition of human dependency and self-estrangement at the dining table. Otherwise incommensurable matters (mineral, vegetable, and animal) are incorporated at mealtime. Conduct literature trains the young to become deeply involved in the material medium, and romance and allegory is equally invested in the objective mess.
Thomas Nail
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190908904
- eISBN:
- 9780190908942
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190908904.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
This chapter lays out a methodology of transcendental realism and new materialism based on motion. Transcendental realism is the study of the real minimal ontological conditions for the actual ...
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This chapter lays out a methodology of transcendental realism and new materialism based on motion. Transcendental realism is the study of the real minimal ontological conditions for the actual emergence of the historical present. The purpose of this method is to give a description of what previous being must at least be like given that it appears as it does today: in motion. The chapter offers critiques of constructivism, empiricism, metaphysics, and transcendental idealism. It also offers a critique of vitalist new materialism, negative materialism, object-oriented ontology, formalism, and all ahistorical methods of thinking about matter and materialism. It concludes with a theory of “process materialism.”Less
This chapter lays out a methodology of transcendental realism and new materialism based on motion. Transcendental realism is the study of the real minimal ontological conditions for the actual emergence of the historical present. The purpose of this method is to give a description of what previous being must at least be like given that it appears as it does today: in motion. The chapter offers critiques of constructivism, empiricism, metaphysics, and transcendental idealism. It also offers a critique of vitalist new materialism, negative materialism, object-oriented ontology, formalism, and all ahistorical methods of thinking about matter and materialism. It concludes with a theory of “process materialism.”
Marcel O'Gorman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816695706
- eISBN:
- 9781452950662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816695706.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
In Necromedia, media activist Marcel O’Gorman takes aim at “the collusion of death and technology,” drawing on a broad arsenal that ranges from posthumanist philosophy and social psychology to ...
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In Necromedia, media activist Marcel O’Gorman takes aim at “the collusion of death and technology,” drawing on a broad arsenal that ranges from posthumanist philosophy and social psychology to digital art and handmade “objects-to-think-with.” O’Gorman mixes philosophical speculation with artistic creation, personal memoir, and existential dread. He is not so much arguing against technoculture as documenting a struggle to embrace the technical essence of human being without permitting technology worshippers to have the last word on what it means to be human. Inspired in part by the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, O’Gorman begins by suggesting that technology provides humans with a cultural hero system built on the denial of death and a false promise of immortality. This theory adds an existential zest to the book, allowing the author to devise a creative diagnosis of what Bernard Stiegler has called the malaise of contemporary technoculture and also to contribute a potential therapy—one that requires embracing human finitude, infusing care into the process of technological production, and recognizing the vulnerability of all things, human and nonhuman. With this goal in mind, Necromedia prescribes new research practices in the humanities that involve both written work and the creation of objects-to-think-with that are designed to infiltrate and shape the technoculture that surrounds us.Less
In Necromedia, media activist Marcel O’Gorman takes aim at “the collusion of death and technology,” drawing on a broad arsenal that ranges from posthumanist philosophy and social psychology to digital art and handmade “objects-to-think-with.” O’Gorman mixes philosophical speculation with artistic creation, personal memoir, and existential dread. He is not so much arguing against technoculture as documenting a struggle to embrace the technical essence of human being without permitting technology worshippers to have the last word on what it means to be human. Inspired in part by the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, O’Gorman begins by suggesting that technology provides humans with a cultural hero system built on the denial of death and a false promise of immortality. This theory adds an existential zest to the book, allowing the author to devise a creative diagnosis of what Bernard Stiegler has called the malaise of contemporary technoculture and also to contribute a potential therapy—one that requires embracing human finitude, infusing care into the process of technological production, and recognizing the vulnerability of all things, human and nonhuman. With this goal in mind, Necromedia prescribes new research practices in the humanities that involve both written work and the creation of objects-to-think-with that are designed to infiltrate and shape the technoculture that surrounds us.
