In case anyone wondered, Graham is not guilty of anything I claim. I have adopted the term “object-oriented philosophy” to describe my own position, which, while sympathetic to Graham’s position, is not, as has become increasingly evident, Graham’s position. I use the term “object-oriented philosophy” to name any ontology that affirms realism or the independence of objects in their own right. When the term object-oriented philosophy is evoked– and given remarks he’s made about his own position, my position, and Latour’s position, I think Graham would agree –it should be understood as being similar to evocations of empiricism, rationalism, or idealism. There are vast differences between Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, as well as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, as well as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Yet these thinkers belong to the traditions of empiricism, rationalism, and idealism respectively (with some overlap). This is also the way in which Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Philosophy should be understood… Not as a particular position, but rather as a general orientation of thought and a shared set of enemies.
February 25, 2009
Brief Note on Object-Oriented Philosophy
Posted by larvalsubjects under Object-Oriented Philosophy, Speculative Realism[4] Comments
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February 25, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Hi Levi: in using “object-oriented philosophy” as the term for any realist (anti-correlationist) position, isn’t there the danger of absolutising the object as realist ontological unit? I’m uncertain that, say, Brassier would want to limit himself in such a way for example, especially given recent critiques of metaphysical schema which rely upon objects as their basic structural component (I’m thinking particularly of Ladyman’s “Who’s Afraid of Scientism” in the latest Collapse). Indeed whilst it makes perfect sense to talk on a folk-metaphysical level about giving objects their proper attention (as you and Graham Harman do), to think at least as much about the interactions between inanimate non-human actants as human ones, does this not remain overly wedded to the very level of correlated folk-knowledge any realist must attempt to escape from? If the crucial component of science for realist philosophies lies in its anti-intuitive findings, leading to a continual disenchantment of the manifest image, why ought we to continue to think in terms divorced from these findings (i.e.- to remain at the level of “objects all the way down…”). Ladyman’s “Ontic Structural Realism” for example strikes up a radically eliminativist approach to objects tout court, in contrast OOP seems to remain overly in hoc to the visualisable structure of the objectal.
February 26, 2009 at 1:35 am
Hi Splintering,
I wouldn’t classify Brassier as an object-oriented philosopher for exactly the reason you cite. He is, in my view, a realist philosopher without being an object-oriented philosopher. I’m a little unclear as to why talk of objects remains tied to folk-psychological ontology. To clarify the point, it might be better to use Brassier’s term in his critique of phenomenology– Phenomenology is problematic because it treats mid-level objects (the objects of phenomenological lived experience) as the paradigm of objects. I think this is a move we are well to be done with. However, within the scope of my ontology, things like quarks, protons, neutrons, atoms, neurons, cells, etc., are objects. Moreover, I endorse the thesis that many objects are dependent on other objects. Perhaps the place where Brassier and I differ– and I haven’t read enough of his work yet to say for sure –lies in our respective positions with respect to assemblages. In Brassier’s thought I sense a strain of strong reductivism. But in my view this strong reductivism fails to account for many aspects of the world. When objects enter into assemblages there are properties of these networks that emerge from relations among these objects and that can only be approached through an analysis of the relations among the objects upon which the larger scale object is dependent. I do agree that Graham’s OOP is often overly visual in its formulations, but I’m not Graham and do not share this phenomenological paradigm of objects (i.e., I do share Brassier’s points about disenchantment).
February 26, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Yes, the difference with Brassier lies in his strongly reductionist tendencies.
Also, I don’t grant splinteringboneashes the term “folk-metaphysical”. Indeed, I’ve already used the term “folk ontology” for materialism.
I guess I should post this on my blog as well.
March 2, 2009 at 9:15 pm
[...] “object” should be retained within realist orientations of thought. Thus, in a recent post, Alex of Splinteringbonestoashes writes, In using “object-oriented philosophy” as the term for [...]