One of the things I like most about Badiou is his thesis that the goal of philosophy is to think the present, or to grasp the compossibility of those truths that are both eternal but are the essence of the present. Is it a mistake that philosophy seems to flourish most in periods of profound scientific, technological, artistic, and political transformation? In this spirit, here are a few things characteristic of our present that seem unique to our time:
* We live in a period during which developments in mathematics dwarf all prior cumulative developments, yet philosophers are still talking about how we know that 7 + 5 = 12, as if this understanding of mathematics were in any way relevant to topology, set theory, category theory, and lots of other forms of general abstract nonsense that I can scarcely even imagine.
* Evolutionary theory has overturned the idea of fixed and eternal species, instead producing a picture of the world characterized by endless variation and the production of classes through the accumulation of individual differences, yet philosophers still seem to think in terms of essences and individuals.
* We are unlocking the genome, fundamentally transforming the very nature of how life is conceived, yet again we still seem to think in terms of species and individuals despite now being in a position to play “Magister Ludi’s glass bead game” with life.
* We have a physics that has both revealed that space and time are interlinked and curved in terms of mass, and that has revealed a world of subatomic particles that behave in ways that no a priori reasoning would have ever expected, but we still think of causality in terms of regularities among impressions.
* We have new sciences such as systems theory, complexity theory, and chaos theory that also reveal significant shortcomings in how we conceive causality, yet we still think of causality in terms of necessary succession.
* We have a neurology and cognitive science that are transforming our understanding of the nature of cognition and mental functioning, yet we philosophers still seem to think that folk psychological concepts like “belief”, “love”, “desire”, “will”, “intention”, etc., are adequate to discussing the nature of mind.
* We have new forms of media and communications technology that are transforming the very nature of our cognition by virtue of being fields of individuation, yet we still privilege the book as a model of media.
* Our economic and technological processes have produced the first genuinely global form of social organization, yet we rely on political models unconsciously premised on social relations organized around rather small populations.
The list could be multiplied indefinitely. The issue is not one of abandoning the tradition or ignoring philosophy that has come before, but of doing philosophy in a way that is directed at the present. There is a vast difference between philosophy that is about another philosopher, and philosophy that is directed at its present and the problems and questions posed by that present, drawing on a tradition to think this, while also creating concepts adequate to this present and its own problems and cultural texture.
Larval Subjects . 
January 28, 2009 at 4:25 am
Haha, I’m gonna start calling philosophy I like ‘general nonsense’. Glad you pointed out that rather odd quirk of category theory mathematics.
I think your list is great, but I’d add that physics today goes beyond even ‘particles’, which suggests some sort of atomic, fundamental base to reality.
And a question in regards to your work – if science (in all its multi-faceted senses) has shown us these things you list, why take empiricism at face value? To borrow an example you cited in an earlier post, what if a tree isn’t really a tree? Rather, it’s some (nearly) infinitely complex field of forces which happens to impinge on our visual system in such a way as to produce the illusion of an ‘object’. Not that I necessarily subscribe to that description of it either, but my point is that science is wildly at odds with our common sense, so why should we grant equal reality to phenomenal objects? I think this is one of the big questions for me about your emerging project. (That being said, it is general nonsense.)
January 28, 2009 at 7:05 am
I heartily agree with you.
I’ve often wondered how we can continue to think we are rational when we, in our “rational” institutions, (and rationality is very importantly presumed to be the basis of American institutions, at least in theory,) when we fail to take into consideration or to incorporate recent, contemporary developments within the very notion of rationality, (I’m thinking here in particular of the work of Kenneth Arrow.)
This blockage of the development of rationality, of its actualization, seems more to the point to me than worrying about the contamination of rationality by a weird and dark irrationality sullying it, especially because I believe most people nowadays, looking at these weird and dark irrational forces aren’t so afraid of them as weird, dark, or even irrational.
January 28, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I’ve a few quibbles about what LS means by the present. Evolutionary theory can be traced back into the early 19th century, for example, to people like Lemarck and subjects like comparative anatomy. So too there are many political problems characteristic of the current era which have rather distinct roots in the 19th century empires and the ways in which these empirers reworked the movements of people and goods, though this reworking of movement goes back further than that. The 19th century saw the emergence of large botanical gardens with species from all over the world as well as a system of weather reporting which contributed greatly to our being able to model globally. Of course, there is also very importantly an increase in the speed of all of these processes which connect people and places and send ideas around at the press of a button, or series of button in places we know not as those ideas go we know not where. And its not just philosophy which has missed these changes either, though I take your point about philosophy today–you would know better than I. Still, its a rather largish present, one in which (and here Yusef is very correct) lots and lots of folks from all over the place have bumped into each other enough that at least for second and third cultural people what counts for rationality is no longer what it once was even as other folks seek to build walls and fences around communities in an attempt to keep other folks out.
January 28, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Hi Nick,
I’m struggling with these sorts of questions myself. In beginning with difference as being, my ontology gets crowded pretty quickly as if I ask whether something makes a difference and it does, then I’m necessarily committed to the conclusion that it is or is real. This has gone all the way up to fictions, which is a rather strange conclusion to reach.
On the one hand, I think the concept of split-objects is able to respond to this sort of worry. The idea of a split-object is not the concept of an object split between its being as a phenomenon and its being as noumenon, but is rather the split between an object as a unity and an object as composed of other objects. All objects in my ontology, regardless of whether humans exist, would have this characteristic of being split-objects insofar as all objects are assemblages. Consequently, when we take into account differences in scale and duration, we can see how a tree can both be as you describe it and can be this global unity… I hope, anyway.
On the other hand, I think Roy Bhaskar’s arguments about emergence help to address this point as well. At one point in A Realist Theory of Science, Bhaskar argues that even if chemistry and other sciences gave us an account of how life emerges from non-living matter– and I hope we get this demonstration eventually –biology would not be divested of its object or become a subset of these other sciences. This would be because the objects studied by biology still have their own internal logos that can’t be deduced from the objects of these other sciences. Jerry made a similar point a while ago in one of the threads, where he argued that all cultural objects, are, of course, governed by the laws of physics, but that this doesn’t undermine their status as having unique logoi of their own. The conclusion that I draw from this line of reasoning, from the Principle of Irreduction, and the Ontological Principle, is that we must avoid the conclusion that there is one strata of being that is “really real” (I’ll henceforth refer to it as the “ultra-real”), such that the rest of being is merely derivative and without a difference of its own. Hopefully that’s a start in responding to your point, as underdeveloped as it is.
January 28, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Hi Jerry,
No disagreements here. Insofar as I hold that all objects are the result of a genesis, it follows that all objects will have a history. Often you’ll find a sort of hostility towards ontology in some quarters as there’s a way in which certain forms of ontology can be seen as “policing” what can be and what can’t be (epistemology often polices in a similar way). This can be seen, for example, in the debate between intuitionists and realists in philosophy of mathematics. Because the intuitionists begin with a certain thesis as to how we know mathematical objects and the limits of that knowledge, they’re led to exclude vast swaths of mathematical entities and operations because they don’t fit with this model. Ontologies often do something similar. They begin with a set of categories pertaining to what can be and what cannot be, and thus exclude certain forms of objects a priori that don’t fit with these categories. My point about thinking the present is simply that we need to be careful not to let the categories throughout history dictate what is, such that we become blind to the discovery of new types of objects and relations that are being found. Contemporary mathematics fits very poorly with Kant’s understanding of mathematics insofar as it far exceeds anything that can be intuited in time or space. Rather than the philosopher dictating what math should be by tracing it all back to pure forms of time and space, instead the discovery of things like Riemann spaces, transfinite mathematics, category, topology, etc., should lead the philosopher back to the drawing board as to the nature of what is and what is not.
January 30, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I recognize that freedom from the constraint of providing exhaustive evidence for your claims must be one major virtue of blogging. That said, some of your characterizations of contemporary philosophy make me wonder exactly who you’re talking about.
Can you cite a contemporary philosopher of mathematics, for example, who talks about “how we know 7+5=12” and who is also a major representative of their field? I suspect that your hypothetical Kantian would, at any rate, have far less influence than someone like Quine, to whom your comments on math don’t apply. Of course, my knowledge of that field is limited, so I will be interested to learn whether, on your account, the problem of mathematical certainty is still as pressing as you make it out to be.
I could pose the same question about most of your bullet points. For example, your claim that “we philosophers” still think folk-psychology is “adequate to discussing the nature of the mind” is a glaring misrepresentation of the ongoing debates in philosophy of mind. It is all too obvious that folks like Dennett would not fit into your picture of contemporary philosophy. It is equally clear that those who have mounted philosophically rigorous defenses of “folk-psychology” in some manner or other (e.g. Chalmers and Fodor) do not do so unwittingly, in complete ignorance of the state of modern brain science. And if you think that a project like Brassier’s, premised as it is on “the metaphysical radicalization of eliminativism,” is even possible without the _philosophical_ work carried out by people like Dennett and the Churchlands, I would urge you to reconsider.
I do not disagree with you that the relation between philosophy and science is a pressing one, but I would suggest that it doesn’t really help us to describe this relation when we misrepresent the state of philosophical knowledge or make (in my view) indefensible generalizations about what most philosophers believe (as in, most philosophers “still think in terms of essences and individuals”). I think you’ve committed a mistake that is increasingly characteristic of the rhetoric surrounding speculative realism. To wit: your image of the current state of philosophy is largely determined by your (rebellious) relation to it. For all of your vehement skepticism about founding philosophy on norms dictated by human thought, language, or experience, you paradoxically risk describing philosophy, as it were, “for you,” not in itself.
January 30, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Malevich,
Context is required to understand this post and what it is directed at. This post is a rejoinder to a drawn out and very acrimonious discussion in the blogosphere as to whether or not it’s justified to critique Kant and whether philosophy can move on after Kant. I do not at all disagree with your thesis that the philosophers you cite are grappling with the sorts of issues I outline in this post. Of course, in the tradition of Continental philosophy, this is not so much the case (though it has begun to change with philosophers like Deleuze, Badiou, etc). Nor, I think, is the issue one of Speculative Realism simply being “rebellious”. Speculative Realism is, in part, responding to a set of issues internal to Continental philosophy as it relates to realism. Figures like Dennett would be heroes from a Speculative Realist perspective. Certainly, in the case of Brassier, for example, the Churchland’s become heroes precisely because of how they take neurology seriously. Anyway, repeating your point back at you, “it doesn’t really help us to describe this relation when we misrepresent what a person is claiming and the context in which it is claimed.”
January 30, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Levi,
Thanks for your reply. In fact, I can’t imagine that even your most casual readers would miss the context that your post addresses. I certainly don’t wish to be drawn into the ongoing Kant debate here, but if I may do so, I will stand by my earlier remarks. Perhaps I should have picked better examples: I think Stiegler would disagree with you that research in evolutionary biology has been insufficiently assimilated in Continental philosophy, just as Malabou and Zizek (and his more lucid side, named Adrian Johnston) would have rather more nuanced things to say about their views on the philosophical implications of neuroscience. Let me be clear that I am not defending any of these people from the objections you level; I simply wonder about the applicability of your general picture of Kant’s contemporary inheritance. That’s why I asked whether you had citations in mind.
And, don’t get me wrong about SR. I think the work done by, e.g., Meillassoux and Brassier is of exceptional value, and I recognize the institutional context in which it aims to intervene. I was just commenting on the rhetoric that has often accompanied this intervention, if only on the blogs (and, admit it, in Brassier: “philosophy should not be a sop for the pathetic twinge of human self-esteem”!). I didn’t want to imply that speculative realism is exhausted by its “rebellious” stance, just that we can’t always deny the possibility that our picture of our opponents is colored by the fact that they are, indeed, our opponents.
January 30, 2009 at 9:41 pm
The fact that Malabou and Zizek are doing this sort of work is one of the reasons that we’re including contributions by them in our forthcoming edited collection on speculative materialism. Stiegler, who I mention now and again on this blog, is certainly doing this sort of work as well. Latour and Stengers would be others you could add to this list. But are you really claiming that this sort of work is common, widespread, or dominant among Continentalists? Moreover, look at this list of thinkers– Would you find any of them having pride of place or taken very seriously in Continental philosophy departments throughout the country?
January 31, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I won’t continue to post the same point, but I will say that I never claimed that the (hardly marginal) figures I mentioned are represent what is “common, widespread, or dominant.” I was reiterating that your characterization of the philosophical present — which I suppose is now limited to a characterization of those philosophers taken seriously in Continental philosophy departments in the United States — is rather too general for me. I’m suspicious of your implied claim that this characterization of philosophy exhausts everything taken seriously in Continental philosophy departments. But this is not the same issue as the contemporary viability of critical philosophy. If that is really what’s at stake, then specific responses to Kant’s (or Husserl’s, Heidegger’s, Derrida’s — I assume the latter are your main targets) most sophisticated defenders, precisely those who you fear have rendered your own position marginal, would be more valuable than a general description bordering that borders at times on caricature. I would be very interested to see someone from the emerging speculative realist crowd taking on a phenomenologist like Dan Zahavi, just to give an example. I realize that something like that is not even close to your intent in this post, but you can at least see why I asked for more specific references; I thought, that way, you might avoid the charge that you present a view of all post-Kantian philosophy that is, at best, uncharitable and, at worst, not entirely applicable to the field you aim to survey.
January 31, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Malevich,
I’m really not certain what your point or motive is. If you have any doubts about what I’m saying, I invite you to take a look at the proceedings for SPEP for the last ten years. And yes, the post did pertain to Continental philosophy departments in the States because philosophy can’t be separated from it’s places of inscription, as I argued in my post on philosophy and institutions. What exactly is the claim that you’re making? That there are legions of Anglo-American Continentalists in philosophy departments grappling with shifts in mathematics, the sciences, neurology, and technology, or that it is easy for graduate students to write dissertations on such topics, land positions, present papers, or get published? Really? That’s what you’re claiming with respect to Suny, Penn State, Loyola, DePaul, Villanova, and Memphis? Really?!? I can’t say that I’ve seen a rage of classes offered on Latour, Stengers, Stiegler, Simondon, etc., in Continental philosophy departments. Nor have I seen piles of publications and conference papers given on these sorts of things. But that could just be my own ignorance. If you’re asking for statistical evidence (and it is a statistical question based on what’s more or less the case, not on what is universally the case without exception) based on courses offered, dissertations supervised, articles published, papers given, etc., then you’re right, I don’t have it. All I can plead is my own anecdotal experience based on my familiarity with Continental journals, Continental conferences, graduate programs, Anglo-American books, etc. So take it with a grain of salt. The situation is changing, especially with the emergence of figures such as Badiou who has made it easier to ask such questions in a philosophical framework in Continental departments, but it is still a highly wretched environment across the board. I have often heard Badiou denounced as an “analytic philosopher” by very well respected Continentalists, for example. I’ll let you have the last word as discussions where others object saying “but you’re generalizing!” as in the case of religious discussions that gesture towards some common (again a statistical claim) feature of religion are usually all about some ill conceived defensiveness that doesn’t want to acknowledge or recognize the issue at all, rather than any substantive point.
February 1, 2009 at 1:30 am
Levi,
Thanks for the last word. Here it is:
I can see why you are unclear about my remarks. I read your post as an indictment of a perceived Kantianism in Contintental philosophy. I asked for clarification because I can think of philosophers who adhere, in some manner, to the critical paradigm (and who would thus be targeted by your post), but who don’t really fit into your characterization (e.g. Stiegler). I posted my original remarks not because of a sinister motive but because, like you, I am interested in how a contemporary materialism would actually overcome (among other things) the objections posed by Kant and his successors — so not only the Kant of 1781, but also, as it were, of 2009. I am not saying anything about how bad it sucks for graduate students in (the few and far betweeen) Continental philosophy departments in the States. I grant you every point in this regard. I’m not trying to argue with you about the state of philosophy in the academy. I certainly have no interest in a statistical analysis of who falls into your characterization and who doesn’t. As I tried to say earlier, whether or not some version or other of critical philosophy is still viable has, in my view, nothing whatsoever to do with the orthodoxy at DePaul or the New School and the travails of object-oriented graduate students working therein. Either it’s viable, or it’s not. So, you see, it isn’t for me a question of statistical dominance; rather, I wondered (perhaps too implicitly) whether a project like Stiegler’s undermined some of your assumptions by incorporating research in evolutionary biology into a philosophical framework (inspired by Heidegger and Derrida) that is indeed part of the philosophical orthodoxy that you are working against. Fine, Stiegler and Stieglerians (!?) are not at all dominant in philosophy departments — but my point is about whether a more robust account of contemporary developments in science from within an essentially critical paradigm is possible, not about how many graduate students are publishing on Malabou. But before you accuse me of being defensive (again), let me say that if I pressed you for specific examples it is not because I think your post is completely off the mark or something. I am just interested to see how emerging forms of speculative materialism will deal with more sophisticated arguments coming out of the tradition that it dismisses. I think it’s fair to at least wonder whether speculative realism, etc., has been occasionally guilty of misrepresenting its enemies. Because I wonder about this, I was curious about the specific people you had in mind in the post above. If you’re only talking about the state of affairs in philosophy departments, then my point doesn’t really apply; I’m sure you can at least see how I didn’t originally think that was the case.
February 2, 2009 at 9:08 am
Another inspiring post. How would you envisage constructing a complete undergraduate syllabus in philosophy that could take account of the unique features that characterise our present? What topics would need to be taught (which books? which articles?) and how might it be taught (what forms of assessment?) Would greatly appreciate your thoughts on these matters.
February 2, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Hi Lars,
Nice to hear from you. I hope all is well.
This is a difficult question. I think there are a few ways in which you could approach such a course. Regardless of how it was approached I suspect you’d want a strong historical component to both serve as a model and to bring the present into relief in contrast to other periods. In other words, I would envision such a course as being organized in much the same way that Whitehead organizes his lectures entitled Science and the Modern World. There Whitehead carefully unfolds prior conceptions of motion, entity, the universe, and so on, showing how the new physics poses a series of ontological questions and also changes our conception of the social. Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment is an excellent text for such a purpose as it shows the way in which the early Enlightenment thinkers were struggling to draw out the implications of the new physics with regard to new concepts of motion, the infinite universe, etc. in the development of their metaphysical systems. The problem is that the text is massive. Koyre’s From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe might be another good text for such a purpose. These texts might just serve for the instructor (not being assigned) as a way of picking out salient differences in world conceptions and generating questions.
As for the bulk of the class itself, it could either be approached from a strictly philosophical perspective, or a perspective that was more science, math, art, and social oriented. The former approach would focus on thinkers such as Badiou, DeLanda, Malabou, Brassier, etc., that are trying to think the implications of the present in terms of truths or developments in other areas. The latter approach would work with popularizations in various fields in the sciences and with respect to phenomena like globalization and new communications technologies (texts by Gould and Dawkins, perhaps Gleick’s Chaos, Green’s Elegant Universe, David Foster Wallace’s book on mathematics and infinity, perhaps something by McLuhan on modern media, texts by Harvey on globalization and geographical distribution or maybe Negri and Hardt’s Empire, etc). In the latter approach the instructor would have to mould the material in philosophical terms as a series of challenges to concepts handed down throughout the history of philosophy. Student essays would then be organized around these themes. That’s just what comes to mind as an initial reaction to your question. If you decide to teach such a course let me know. I’d love to hear how you approach it.
February 3, 2009 at 10:29 am
Thanks, that’s a generous response and a lot to think about. Will track down the books you mentioned and see what can be done.