tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.comments2023-12-27T11:20:48.912-06:00An Un-canny OntologyNathan Galehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-66380389583570407622013-11-03T23:08:47.946-06:002013-11-03T23:08:47.946-06:00I'd love to see a follow on looking at the (po...I'd love to see a follow on looking at the (potential) relationship between synecdoche and the mereology of object-oriented ontology...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15539861612617957080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-41620008120159794192013-08-11T11:02:09.222-05:002013-08-11T11:02:09.222-05:00"To draw back to the original question: what ..."To draw back to the original question: what are the uses of object-oriented ontology? It seems to me that object-oriented ontology and speculative realism together reflect a worrying spirit of conservatism within philosophy. They discount the work of human activity and place it alongside a soporific litany of naturalised objects – a method that points less at the interconnected nature of things, and gestures more towards the infinity of sameness, the gigantic of objects, the relentless distanceless of a total confusion of beings (see Harman 2009a for a discussion of things and objects). In short, experience as passive, disoriented and overwhelming, what Heidegger described as the 'terror' of pure unmitigated flatness. And with that, philosophy becomes ‘cold’ philosophy, instead of understanding, we have lists and litanies of objects. Not so much philosophy as philosography, where rather than understanding the world, there is an attempt to describe it, and a worrying tendency towards the administration of things through a cataloguing operation. For some reason, object-oriented ontology is attracted to the ephemerality of certain objects, as if by listing them they doubly affirm their commitment to realism, or that the longer the list the more ‘real’ it is. There is also the tendency to attempt to shock the reader by the juxtaposition of objects that would normally be thought to be categorically different. These rhetorical strategies are interesting in themselves, but I do not see them as replacements for philosophy. This demonstrates that the speculative realists have not escaped the so-called ‘correlationist circle’ (Harman 2009b), nor provided a model for thinking about the anti-correlationist paradox which remains present in their own work. We should therefore ask object-oriented ontologist to move beyond merely staring at the objects they see around them and catch sight of what is being listed in their descriptive litanies. That is, examining the lists they produce, we can see what kind of objects they see as near, and which they see as far, and therefore question their claims to see objects all the way down (see Bogost 2012: 83-84). Yet as we examine these lists there appears to be a profound forgetting of Being, as it were, as they write both for and as subjects of Late Capitalism – a fact which remains hidden from them – and a seemingly major aporia in their work."<br /><br />David M. Berry, The Uses of Object-Oriented Ontology, 25th May, 2012.Alien Amunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17341091746870651737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-20238356248448955372013-08-11T11:01:27.128-05:002013-08-11T11:01:27.128-05:00"Graham Harman writes about objects. When con..."Graham Harman writes about objects. When considering two 'objects' he notes their interaction. For instance, he writes about cotton burning, 'the cotton burns stupidly.' If all objects are ontologically, or in their Being (Sein) 'democratised' or equal, then a certain philosophical ground arises from this proposition. Since these objects are equal, that is to say, the same ontologically, then it follows that they can be interchangeable - ontologically - with any other objects. Objects are objects. Moving from the 'objects' of cotton and fire, interacting as they are through what Harman calls a 'sensual vicar' - another object that is created from the interaction of the two objects, let us apply this proposition to another case. When a Monk in Tibet sets himself aflame, when he self-immolates in protest against China's occupation of Tibet, does the Monk too 'burn stupidly?' Since the Monk and the cotton are in-their-being totally equal, an Object is an Object, the Monk, just another 'object' can be said to 'burn stupidly.' Political ideologies to light to Monks and cotton are all 'objects' for Harman. The object withdraws, as 'we' or 'I' or another object can never fully know its being. This is a proposition he picks up from Martin Heidegger the Nazi philosopher. Harman associates himself so much with Heidegger that he says he is more of a Heideggerian than Heidegger himself. Given Heidegger's support for the discrimination and even extermination of Jews and other (objects), we can deduce via Harman's object-oriented ontology that he would, at an ontological level (that is at the level of Sein) find no problem with Nazi ideology, for it is simply another object that withdraws and relates with other objects. We must then ask, given Harman's fetishising of Heidegger and his objectification of everything, does 'the Jew burn stupidly?' That is to say, does the life of the Jewish person under the object of Nazism represent a mere interaction of equal objects via a 'sensual vicar?' ... Does the Jew get gassed stupidly under the object of Nazi philosophy which is entirely equal to the Jew and interacts with the Jew through the sensual vicar of another object that being the gas - the gas supposedly I would imagine an object that interacts with the Jew that's being killed and the gas chamber through a sensual vicar creating another object - everything is ontologically equal - what are the political consequences of that?"<br /><br />Eilif Verney-Elliott, Graham Harman's Object-oriented ontology, 2013.Alien Amunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17341091746870651737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-50175913049998928662013-08-11T11:00:01.483-05:002013-08-11T11:00:01.483-05:00I enjoyed your image at the top but there is no su...I enjoyed your image at the top but there is no such thing or rather no such being as: 'object-oriented-ontology'as objects are not beings and as Harman has not understanding of Heidegger or of what being means: objects exist in the world but are not being in the world for they have no being and are just things; Levi banned mean from Lavel Subjects because I had the affront and temerity to criticize him and Harman and their object-oriented occultism which is a fascism turning objects into beings and beings into objects which is exactly what capitalism and Nazism do in objectifying-being. objects do not have an ontology but an obology. Levi banned me and Eilif Verney-Elliott from his blog for criticizing O.O.O. and Speculative Realism.Alien Amunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17341091746870651737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-84158316931457506712012-12-03T15:53:30.721-06:002012-12-03T15:53:30.721-06:00Hello eben,
Thanks for reading. As to the Lacania...Hello eben,<br /><br />Thanks for reading. As to the Lacanian aspect of OOO, I find that Lacan helps me to better understand Levi Bryant's objects and his OOO in general. Perhaps this is because Levi, himself, was a practicing analyst or because his object is essentially split (much like Lacan's subject). But more than anything, I think what Lacan brings to the OOO table is a structural understanding of relations that deal with withdrawal -- or perhaps a relation that is a non-relation. <br /><br />Whether or not you can divorce the fundamental notion of being born into the symbolic order from a reading of Lacan and objects is a great question; and one that I don't have a definite answer to. <br /><br />As to why OOO exists...well, if you've read Graham Harman, Levi Bryant, Timothy Morton, and Ian Bogost and still don't see a reason/purpose, I'm not sure how much help I can be. OOO, for me, is perhaps more than anything a broad posthumanist way of thinking about the world. Instead of tranhumanism (or cyborg posthumanism) and animal studies, OOO works from a flat ontological plane -- placing all things, humans and nonhumans, on the same ontological status. As Bogost has said, this does not mean that all things exist equally but that all things equally exist. A copper coin is just as real (and just as much of an object in the world) as a Dachshund. If the goal of posthumanism is to blur the boundary between culture and nature, human and nonhuman, subject and object, then OOO is about as extreme as you can get.<br /><br />I hope this helps,<br /><br />NathanNathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-30679105834800395362012-12-03T11:29:07.123-06:002012-12-03T11:29:07.123-06:00Hi Nathan, great blog! I'm a little confused o...Hi Nathan, great blog! I'm a little confused on this: you haven't established why it might be useful to try to understand OOO by "translating" it from Lacanian concepts. And from what I read here, so appears to be lost in the translation (not least of which is the fundamental role of lack) that it leaves me wondering, 1) what is the use of this translation/comparison? and 2) does OOO really have any bearing on Lacan's topology of desire, considering OOO makes no mention of the subject, and appears (to my limited knowledge) to not distinguish between "objects" who use language (subjects who are incorporated into the chain of signification) and "objects" who do not. <br /><br />I'm not totally dumb, but I struggle every time I attempt to get some basic sense of why OOO exists at all from texts written by its champions. Of course, to read Lacan is to struggle with esotericism as well, but speaking as someone coming from a much more pronounced Lacanian background, this post leaves me "lacking" as to a basic understanding of what OOO is supposed to be/do. I'll keep reading and trying, of course. But does Lacan's philosophy really have anything to do with OOO?ebenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02452661153702089150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-66043744822720924412012-08-17T09:54:12.655-05:002012-08-17T09:54:12.655-05:00http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=844
-dmf...http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=844<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-823157478364650052012-05-18T10:39:03.758-05:002012-05-18T10:39:03.758-05:00http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/why-other-worlds-isnt...http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/why-other-worlds-isnt-the-real-one-enough/<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-16484528656628491422011-12-05T09:01:07.694-06:002011-12-05T09:01:07.694-06:00Thanks, Jason. I'm currently developing a resp...Thanks, Jason. I'm currently developing a response to both Harman and Robert Jackson's posts:<br /><br /><a href="http://doctorzamalek2.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/nathan-gale-on-hacking-and-allusion/" rel="nofollow"> Harman </a><br /><br /><a href="http://robertjackson.info/index/2011/12/on-ooo-and-hacking/" rel="nofollow"> Jackson </a>Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-27786402354336861212011-12-05T08:42:19.309-06:002011-12-05T08:42:19.309-06:00FYI, Graham Harman has responded to this on his Ob...FYI, Graham Harman has responded to this on his Object-Oriented Ontology.khadimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12960757465883819380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-15948657731590266572011-09-30T13:20:25.605-05:002011-09-30T13:20:25.605-05:00dmf,
OOR is different than what I'm doing her...dmf,<br /><br />OOR is different than what I'm doing here. It's the difference between a rhetoric of objects (or OOR) and the rhetoric of OOO (what I'm doing in this post).Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-232005075222710942011-09-30T13:13:48.180-05:002011-09-30T13:13:48.180-05:00I see, when you talk about OORhetoric is this some...I see, when you talk about OORhetoric is this something different than, in addition to, an analysis of the rhetorical stylings of OOO'ers?<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-83163896259997207022011-09-29T16:41:47.811-05:002011-09-29T16:41:47.811-05:00That is strange, Tim, because apparently this post...That is strange, Tim, because apparently this post also spoke to work Levi was struggling through.Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-64532503285031191282011-09-29T16:22:02.028-05:002011-09-29T16:22:02.028-05:00And I was just writing about Olympia today, when I...And I was just writing about Olympia today, when I came across this. Now that's uncanny!Timothy Mortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05067377804366363020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-82445605036951946012011-09-29T08:05:58.382-05:002011-09-29T08:05:58.382-05:00dmf,
I can't speak for Harman or Bryant, but ...dmf,<br /><br />I can't speak for Harman or Bryant, but what I was attempting to point out here is the reliance of each on two specific forms of the uncanny (Freudian and Lacanian, respectively). Whether or not their objects really are uncanny, that seems to be an ontological question that they would be best suited to answer. Check out Bryant's post:<br /><br />http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/rhetoric-of-the-uncanny-in-ooo/<br /><br />But from a purely rhetorical standpoint, I see the difference between the two philosophies as part of this uncanny fourfold structure.Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-11118646460380622832011-09-29T07:55:13.889-05:002011-09-29T07:55:13.889-05:00would the same object be uncanny for all who see/e...would the same object be uncanny for all who see/encounter it or does it bear some particular relationship of identity to the viewer to become uncanny?<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-50015534779432310462011-09-29T07:48:59.882-05:002011-09-29T07:48:59.882-05:00congrats and welcome back, if time and interest al...congrats and welcome back, if time and interest allows I would be interested in your take on Levi's use of "strategic" which I interpret as rhetorical but in a way which suggests that all speculation/philosophy/thinking/writing is rhetorical and so strategic.<br />http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/strategic-vitalism-and-the-wilderness/<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-16316730607521428162011-09-28T20:25:20.232-05:002011-09-28T20:25:20.232-05:00Hello Blake,
These are all good questions, and to...Hello Blake,<br /><br />These are all good questions, and to be honest I'm not sure if I could answer them in a short comment. I've been looking at the uncanny for a while now, and usually my go-to source for questions like these is Nicholas Royle's _The Uncanny: An Introduction_ . Royle's does an excellent job comparing the Freudian unheimliche to Derrida (and possibly Kierkegaard, but I might be mistaken). As for the extimate, I'd suggest Dolar's article and this one by Jacques Miller:<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">http://www.lacan.com/symptom/?p=36</a>Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-45685547748526564662011-09-28T19:36:42.520-05:002011-09-28T19:36:42.520-05:00Nathan, very interesting explanation. As one who ...Nathan, very interesting explanation. As one who is relatively new to OOO and Harman could you clarify what, if any, connection concepts like uncanny and extimacy have to the absurd, paradox, and mystery. Extimate sounds like a descriptor that would be very appropriate for Kierkegaard in his religious moments.Blakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-52481648484231101862011-08-11T14:55:05.482-05:002011-08-11T14:55:05.482-05:00http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BjB6ox6CFY&fea...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BjB6ox6CFY&feature=relatedAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-80516839180782319222011-07-26T13:18:33.530-05:002011-07-26T13:18:33.530-05:00Thanks, Steve! I have a copy of Permanence and Cha...Thanks, Steve! I have a copy of Permanence and Change sitting on my shelf, but I must admit, it's been a while since I've opened it. I'll have to take another look.Nathan Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04326939633169223993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-8968023522784895582011-07-26T12:35:04.327-05:002011-07-26T12:35:04.327-05:00There is a lot of resonance here with K. Burke'...There is a lot of resonance here with K. Burke's notion of "perspective by incongruity" (see Permanence and Change, p. 69 and following), especially the role of "impiety" and "gargoyles" (the reframing/deterritorializing disruptions that happen when of our expectations about "what goes with what" are violated).<br /><br />SteveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-12318993699298229152011-07-14T10:46:12.323-05:002011-07-14T10:46:12.323-05:00http://dietsoapcast.com/?p=67http://dietsoapcast.com/?p=67Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-25839047419146707182011-06-24T09:15:26.185-05:002011-06-24T09:15:26.185-05:00Sorry, I have an off-topic question. Didn't De...Sorry, I have an off-topic question. Didn't Deleuze write somewhere that "you should only write about what you love"? I am sure I remember reading this somewhere, but do not remember where, can anyone help? Thank you so much.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-891233110443244524.post-79774445997172985232011-06-20T12:00:28.003-05:002011-06-20T12:00:28.003-05:00http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2011/j...http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2011/jun/14/clockwork-miracle/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com