The time has come for my posts here to become far less frequent. I really need to get cracking on The Democracy of Objects: An Essay in Object-Oriented Ontology and believe that the major contours of my position are outlined and ready to be worked through in written detail. At present this is what the general structure of the book, chapter by chapter, looks like. It will, of course, change as I work through it in more detail. So without further ado:
The Democracy of Objects: An Essay in Object-Oriented Ontology
Projected Table of Contents
1. Introduction– What is the relation between relations and relata? The relation between relations and relata as a key problem in contemporary epistemology and ontology as a result of the anti-realist turn which argues that philosophy should interrogate our mode of cognition of objects rather than objects themselves (i.e., our relation to objects); The problem with relational conceptions of being; realism as a four letter word, the difference between realist epistemology, anti-realist epistemology, anti-realist ontology, and realist ontology; not your daddy’s realism; a respectful nod to Lee Braver; outline of the book.
2. Copernican Revolutions– What is humanism?; A diagnosis of the Ptolemaic orientation of contemporary philosophy; the call for a true Copernican ontology, arguments for a transcendental realism; the difference between transcendental realism, empirical realism, and transcendental idealism; the problem with epistemological and ontological relationism. Here I will rework a number of Bhaskar’s arguments for realist ontology while distinguishing my ontology and, more broadly, object-oriented ontology from Bhaskar’s position. In addition to this I’ll probably take up some of Harman’s critique of the arguments of transcendental idealism as well. What is a transcendental argument? Transcendental realism and transcendental idealism; blackboxes. Surprise.
Part I: The Onticological Analytic– Doctrine of the Endo-Relational Structure of Objects
Preface– The question of what must belong to beings or objects by right (quid juris) in order to render our praxis or relation to the world intelligible, i.e., the need for an analytic of objects in isolation from their relations. The difference between a knowledge of objects, questions of access to objects, and a philosophical ontology of objects. Why ontological questions are not exhausted by epistemological inquiries or questions of access.
3. The Principles of Onticology– The Categorical Scheme: Whitehead and the idea of a categorical scheme, the principles of onticology (the ontic principle, the principle of translation, the principle of irreduction, etc) along with their deduction.
Intermezzo– The ontological grounds of anti-realist epistemology (follows directly from the principles of chapter 3). How anti-realist epistemology nonetheless leads to a realist ontology of objects.
4. Spectral Objects– The Endo-Relational Structure of Objects: Here I try to rehabilitate a version of substantial forms and distinguish the proper being of objects from material or physical being. A critique of Locke’s and Kant’s critique of substance. Roughly this is where I treat the being of objects as systems of notes composed of attractors in a phase space. This allows me to articulate the relationship between substance and qualities as well as what persists in objects changing across time.
Intermission– Platonic Reminiscences: For a pluralist ontology, i.e., the domain of being is broader than the domain of natural or material objects. The role that time has played in our conception of what counts as real; Plato’s ontological levels in the divided line and how these grades of reality map on to temporal determinations ranging from the eternal and unmediated to the fleeting and mediated; the problems with equating being with eduring; in defense of “artificial” (i.e., produced) objects and their autonomy.
5. Strange Mereologies: Basically the arguments I’ve been making about mereological relations of parts to wholes, objects containing other objects, the independence of objects from one another, the meaning of the term “independence”, and the necessity of this sort of mereology; a friendly response to Shaviro on becoming.
Part II: The Onticological Dialectic: Doctrine of Exo-Relations Between Objects
Preface– The question of how, in light of the arguments and analysis of Part I, we must conceive relations among objects; the idea of ontological dialectic; Kant’s transcendental dialectic; objects are independent of their relations but this does not entail that objects do not enter into relations, nor that through entering into relations objects are not affected in a variety of ways.
6. The World is Flat: The case for flat or immanent ontology that refuses overmining and undermining explanations (against both reductivism and anti-reductivism); a single plane of being ranging from the least powerful or consequential to the most powerful and consequential in which signs and minds have no less a status to the real than stars and planets and where stars, planets, DNA, etc., are not reduced to minds.
7. Objects of Interpretation: Latour’s thesis that all objects interpret one another, not just humans interpreting the world about them or texts interpreting texts; the theory of translation among split or withdrawn objects; Doctrine of black boxes; the “withdrawal” of objects. Basically an account of what happens when objects interact with one another and how no object is a vehicle for other objects in-forming another object through a transparent, frictionless medium; entropy and work; the problem of ports and firewalls or how do objects communicate?; the doctrine of selectivity or “not all objects communicate!”
Intermezzo 2 Remarks about anti-realist epistemologies again and ontological confirmation of these positions; critique of their excesses and detrimental impact on inquiry. Why anti-realist epistemology nonetheless requires a realist ontology.
8. Networks, Assemblages, and Categories: (I need a better title here) The distinction between an object and a network of objects (the question of when we shift from separated objects to a new object); dependency relations between networks where objects nonetheless remain independent; and the theory of categories I’ve developed in terms of Lacanian discourse theory and Badiou’s understanding of categories; networks as dynamic and ongoing systems. Note on where both Badiou and Lacan go wrong in reducing objects to their categorical or dialectical relations.
Conclusion: The end of nature and culture; implications for epistemology; keeping track of work; asking better questions, the end of narcissism and the affirmation of the wound; the re-construction of the history of ontology with realism as its guiding clue.
November 10, 2009 at 12:51 am
Can we pre-order?!!
November 10, 2009 at 1:12 am
Looking good, Levi. Looks like this is the year for OOO.
November 10, 2009 at 6:25 pm
And you’re at Ground Zero in Atlanta, Levi.
November 10, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I wish you luck in this endeavour!
Badiou’s theory of objects is quite peculiar; one thing to bear in mind is that an “object” in LOW is not exactly the same thing as an “object” in category theory: Badiou’s “objects” have a transcendental indexing which articulates them internally. An “object” in this sense can be seen as a category-theoretic object (the “support set” A) plus an arrow from AxA (the product of A with itself) to ω. (I suppose there must also be a category in which these “ω-sets” are objects, but let’s not confuse things…).
I’ve found it helpful recently to compare ω-sets to “fuzzy” sets. A fuzzy set is a set in which each element of the set is more-or-less a member of it – some elements absolutely 100% belong, some belong so little they’re hardly there at all, some sort-of 50% belong. You can represent a fuzzy set as an ordinary set plus a function which assigns to each element of that set a real value between 0 (minimally there) and 1 (like, totally there). An ω-set is like that, except that instead of a function from single elements to real values, you have a function from pairs of elements to positions in a particular kind of order structure. This function tells you, for each pair of elements in the set, how their “degree of identity” with each other sits in relation to all the other “degrees of identity” in the order structure. (Note that it’s not just a matter of “greater” and “lesser” degrees arranged on a sliding scale: the order structure in question is a potentially very complex lattice).
Without getting any further into it (and betraying my terrible ignorance and confusion), this way of indexing pairs of elements enables a very (topologically) sophisticated analysis of the ways in which the constituent parts of the set are organised: Badiou’s “objects” have a mathematically rich inner life, which is the point one might miss if one assumed they were just the same as “objects” seen from a purely categorical perspective.
Anyway, it’s a fairly tangential point. But, you know, the Badiou-sign was flashing in the clouds, and I just had to…
November 11, 2009 at 11:05 am
“the difference between transcendental realism, empirical realism, and transcendental idealism”
in relation to this part, it just struck me that in case you didn’t know, Henry Allison, perhaps the most renowned Kant commentator in the angloamerican context, has a recent article called “transcendental realism, empirical realism, and Transcendental Idealism”.
I haven’t actually read the article, but it might be worth looking into with respect to positioning yourself versus kantianism….
November 11, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Well get on with it Levi or else I’ll hand in my thesis only for your book to alter OOO forever a month later or something :) Sounds good although I can’t imagine it’ll be easy reading I’m sure it’ll be fruitful.
November 12, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Regarding Dominic’s discussion of Badiou’s ‘objects’, just read a relevant article yesterday, Talia Morag’s “Alain Badiou within Neo-Pragamatism: Objectivity and Change”.
Click to access MORAG.29.5.pdf
For me, this gave a nice, quick intro to LOGIC OF WORLDS and, particularly, Badiou’s concepts of ‘bodies’ and ‘objects’. Morag has some nice diagrams of “deliberative democracy” vs. “dialectical materialism” at the end of the article.
On the other hand, the attempt to situation Badiou with regard to Neo-Progamatism (Hilary Putnam in particular) didn’t seem that successful to me. It seems like Putnam’s “ontological pluralism” leads to “social monism” (neo-liberalism), while the “ontological monism” of OOO leads to “social pluralism”. Is this related to what you (Levi) mean by “anti-realist epistemology nonetheless requires a realist ontology” or am I off here?
November 17, 2009 at 4:39 pm
[…] who actually used the term ’speculative realism’ on a blog? I guess Harman? How would Levi’s Democracy of Objects have been had he not been a blogger and engaged in discussions with others? When looking at a […]
April 26, 2010 at 8:41 pm
[…] It’s not “the digital” that marks the future of the humanities, it’s what things digital point to: a great outdoors. A real world. A world of humans, things, and ideas. A world of the commonplace. A world that prepares jello salads. A world that litigates, that chews gum, that mixes cement. A world that rusts, that photosynthesizes, that ebbs. The philosophy of tomorrow should not be digital democracy but a democracy of objects. […]