As I read Fisher’s (aka of K-Punk fame ) brilliant Capitalist Realism, I find myself wondering just what constitutes radical theory. And the conclusion that I come to is that radical theory is not so much a body of political propositions as it is a repudiation of actualism of that being and the actual are identical to one another. Radical theory is any theory that treats being as in excess of what I have called “local manifestation“. Wherever being is treated as identical to local manifestation we have thought serving as a handmaiden of the State. It is only where local manifestation is treated as fissured by an excess where the possibility of the new, only where the actuality of local manifestation is actively sought to be fissured– a question so vital to Fisher’s analysis of hedonic melancholia –that something like radical theory is possible. Here it matters little whether the thinker makes determinate political prescriptions. Rather what matters is that demonstration of the contingency of the actual, that it could, in principle, be otherwise, that is important. And in this respect, Fisher punches a hole in the real and speaks truth. The aim of theory is not to provide the answer but to rigorously establish the possibility. Read this book.
February 6, 2010
February 6, 2010 at 10:39 pm
As a practicing secondary teacher I found Capitalist Realism excellent fodder for developing an ethic of disrupting what you call the seduction of a strong local manifestation. I am engrossed with your work and ideas (as well as Graham Harmans) and it sets an interesting dilemma for somebody trying to teach metaphysics to fifteen year olds. OOO spins my head, imagine when I start to talk of ontological status to adolescents. And here is the nub of my response. I know you have written of the irreducibility of ontology to ethics that there is an incommensurable gap between them. In the end does that not designate metaphysics to the interesting but ultimately unproductive basket? Can we begin to develop some bridge between this gap that allows us (as teachers) to usefully deploy both.
Regards
Russell
February 7, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Russell,
I won’t speak for Levi, who has stated that he is still feeling this question out. I will say that he once agreed that “ethics cannot be deduced from an ontology.”
One of the goals of all the humanist ethical theories is to find a guarantee for their criteria of judgment in a godless universe. They propose such axioms as “maximizing general utility” or such amendments as “…except in the case of x.”
Realist metaphysics is concerned with what is real. And if there are any real things/ideas/traditions/institutions called “ethics” (and there are), then they are most certainly subject to historical change, disruption, contingency. Like other human knowledges, we will come up against their limitations at some point, and then modify them or cast them off.
I think analogies with geography (discovering new territory), or physics (the need for relativistic or quantum theories to accommodate new measurements) might be instructive, if thought through carefully. I believe that our knowledge practice called “ethics” is being similarly disrupted at this historical moment due to our discovery/realization of our own post-humanity. Humanist ethics might become as irrelevant as phlogiston.
February 7, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Just to follow-up, I believe all of the above while maintaining that questions of right and wrong are important ones for philosophy. But when searching for what is right or wrong, I’ll look to the world before I look to humanist theories that mostly obscure the world.
February 8, 2010 at 7:21 am
Thanks anxiousmodernman
But now we are left with an indivisble remainder? There is an excess to reality which we cannot reduce to an ethic or an ontology. Makes the former frustrating and the latter interesting I suppose.
Russell
February 8, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Russell,
Don’t miss Levi’s reply to you here which was posted to the wrong comment thread.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘remainder’. I will say that there is always a kind of excess that cannot be incorporated into knowledge systems. Metaphysically, object-oriented ontology would have us think of those shortfalls as constitutive of the object itself. The object is “withdrawn” and our best attempts with art or language or codes do not reach it. This withdrawal also occurs in relations between the objects themselves, and not just between the humans and objects. We can speak of “codes” in relations between objects, too.
Your students are no doubt going to be frustrated that philosophy has failed to offer a fool-proof calculus of determining correct action on their part in any situation. In a sense, the frustration itself is the lesson to be learned. It is very obvious that there is no fool-proof calculus. But the bright spot is this: in general, we do not need to consult ethical theory in most situations.
Maybe I am really an “intuitionist” regarding these things. If we take stock of the actors in any situation of real consequence, analyze the realtionships, etc. what seems morally correct will be obvious, and will probably be justifiable under more than one of the traditional ethical theories. It is only in the very unlikely or utterly fantastic thought-experiment scenarios where one’s hand is forced into a “utilitarian” or “Kantian deontological” position or whatever. I think the distance that these situations have from reality should give us serious pause.
My main concern is politics, which is about consciously attempting to structure the situations themselves. If we are over and over confronted with something that is traumatic or morally troubling, our concern should be the re-arrangement of actors in the situation to minimize or eliminate those effects.
“But how do you judge which effects ought to be minimized?” one might legitimately ask. I don’t have an answer beyond my intuitionist leanings.
February 8, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Analytic philosophers have done plenty of ground work here.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/
May 25, 2012 at 11:27 am
i love your responses but i want to know the name(s) of Radical theorists