In response to my post on nihilism as well as Graham’s there’s been some follow up around the blogosphere. Matt, over at Footnotes to Plato responds to Graham here and me here. Tom Sparrow of Plastic Bodies has a nice follow-up here. Over at After Nature, Leon follows up here. There Leon writes:
As to knocking God in favor of naturalism: process theology anyone? I am not sure that process theologians invoke God as a transcendental to “save” anyone, if anything value is contributed only retroactively. Hartshorne doesn’t even have a traditional doctrine of immortality, but rather contributionism. I can’t see why some OOO philosophers would cut short the theological implications of its own view. To my mind that is shortsighted. If you aren’t a theist, fine. But why speak condescendingly about those who are?
I confess that I’m perplexed by Leon’s remarks for a number of reasons. Before getting to that, it first bears noting that I know next to nothing about process theology so I can’t really respond to anything he might be claiming. That aside, in my post I’m quite clear that I’m referring to transcendent systems of norms inscribed in the fabric of existence. If there are religious frameworks that don’t posit such things (variants of Buddhism come to mind here) they aren’t a target of my remarks. Second, I’m not sure how I’m “knocking” such frameworks or being condescending about them. I am expressing my disagreement with such hypotheses and the reasons for that disagreement, just as I might express my disagreements with any other philosophical claims. Such disagreement doesn’t amount to “knocking” or “being condescending”. Finally third, I fail to see how OOO entails something like process theology (though, again, that might just be the result of my ignorance of what process theology is). I endorse a naturalistic framework and neither see evidence for the existence of any sort of God or divine being, nor what postulating such a being adds to our accounts of existence.
Larval Subjects . 
July 13, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Levi, you wrote:
“If I believe that a God is going to save me someday, that history will culminate in some final confrontation, etc., it’s easier to have no regard for the present, this world, other people, and the planet. If I believe that I am acting on behalf of a God, it’s easier to kick the shit out of a homosexual or destroy a group of people that practices a different religion.”
That is offensive, and you should not be surprised that it received a response. First, it generalizes some delusional radicals as if they were the whole of theism, and then it implies that theists feel entitled to dominate others. I presume that you did not mean to be so sweeping, but regardless the tone was inflammatory. I suspect that most people who say such things have right-wing American evangelical protestants in mind, but generalize regardless.
As for process theology, the connection is that it has variants that are friendly with naturalism. As for seeing evidence of God or not seeing what that would add, that is another matter and well debated elsewhere. I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments, so I won’t rehearse them.
July 13, 2011 at 3:51 pm
there are No theological implications of OOO, and I would go further and say, as Tim Morton may have if my memory serves, that ontology in general should have no necessary relationship to ontic/moral matters,
so if one would want a theology that draws no such conclusions than I see no limits at hand.
July 13, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Jason,
I believe the history of Christianity more than supports my claim here. Am I suggesting that it is always like this? No. I do believe, however, that this has been the dominant tendency throughout this history and that these sorts of behavior find their justication in Scripture and that the belief that people are doing God’s will. I don’t think this is some deviant, fringe, or minority position within that history. Things have gotten better since the Enlightenment along these lines, but I still believe these are dominant tendencies within this tradition.
July 13, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Jason,
Further I’m not sure where you’re getting the claim that I’m generalizing here. There is, after all, an “if” clause in front of all these statements. The closest I come to generalization would be in the point that if we believe in an afterlife the value of this life is cheapened and diminished precisely because it’s a transitory state. Here I recall a scene from The Color Purple where Whoopie Goldberg’s character justifies the brutal circumstances in which she exists and in which she places Oprah’s character with respect to her husband on the grounds of an afterlife where all this will cease. I think this attitude towards life and circumstances is more or less inscribed in frameworks that hold there is an afterlife. Note, however, that I also criticize Soviet forms of socialism for leading to this attitude towards life and existing conditions, ie, I don’t restrict it to theism.
July 13, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Levi,
With all due respect, Jason H. is calling out my sentiments precisely. It is this comment which should be retracted:
“If I believe that I am acting on behalf of a God, it’s easier to kick the shit out of a homosexual or destroy a group of people that practices a different religion.”
This is an unfair generalization and inflammatory. It is highly offensive and in my mind border-line demands an apology. Period.
I’ll remain silent from here on out, and again, with all due respect I am hoping to hedge any ill feelings. Obviously I enjoy your website/blog and hope for propitious engagements in the future.
Sincerely,
Leon
July 13, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Levi,
The “if clause” claims that if one believes in salvation, as many religions let alone Christianity do, or if …, etc. That’s not a restrictive qualification, and therefore my point stands.
As far as the “history of Christianity,” that’s a red herring, since we could write “the history of humanity” and get similar results. The problem with such claims is that they impute Christianity or theism as essentially implicated in evil rather than engage the actual conditions. There is also a problem of selective emphasis.
Concerning your example from The Color Purple, it’s unfortunate that people believe such non-sense, but what Christians happen to believe and the proper tenets of the faith are two entirely separate things. That discussion requires specifics, but I do not think we need to go there.
In short, such imputations are unfair, aside from being logically invalid. Go after nutjobs, e.g., Phelps’ church, not abstract entities that whitewash whole classes of people. I responded, btw, not out of some need to respond to such things, but because I am a friend of Leon’s. I hope that the discussion can turn and show a constructive face.
July 13, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Leon,
Well I certainly didn’t intend it that way. All I meant was that if one believes that God commands certain things about women and homosexuals, it’s easier to oppress these groups. I believe this is obvious and non-controverssial and am not sure why you or anyone else would read it in a generalizing way to apply to all theists. I mean, c’mon, there are obviously all sorts of progressive theists that don’t believe these things.
July 13, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Jason,
I think your example of humanity and Christianity is apples and oranges. Humanity is not a belief system, whereas Christianity is. Within that belief system there have been dominant doctrines throughout history that have encouraged certain practices. This has begun to change in the last one hundred years, leading to different variants of Christianity that do not promote such things, but historically it is just not the case that there haven’t been certain doctrinal positions regarding women, sexuality, jews, etc., throughout Christian history. I personally think it’s a mistake to distinguish between what people happen to believe and “the proper tenents of the faith”. Religion should be approached sociologically and ethnographically in terms of what people actually do and believe, not in terms of second-order formulations by church leaders in the development of their formulations. We can, of course, investigate how second-order formalizations of immanent practices interact with those practices, but we shouldn’t dismiss these practices on the grounds that somehow they aren’t real and living exemplifications of the belief system.
July 13, 2011 at 5:00 pm
I will happily clarify that point so it’s more explicit, however.
July 13, 2011 at 5:07 pm
levi, do you imagine “belief systems” existing apart from practices/enactments?
July 13, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Great discussion here. I think the question of process theology in relation to OOO could use some further attention. In my mind OOO doesn’t necessarily have any theological implications. However, Harman, I think, is always opening doors to thinkers from other fields as if to say “have at it.” Levi, I’m looking forward to reading your book when it comes out, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about your own position once I’ve read it.
The relationship between humans and a given framework of knowledge is always, in my view, ecological in nature (i.e., any philosophy or framework can encounter and engage any other philosophy or framework and create new philosophical mixtures). That said, OOO and process theology do share overlapping knowledge territories, the “ecotone” metaphor is apt (I think the Claremont Conference could be one example). Of course I’m not saying that there is a necessary link between OOO and process theology, but it bears mentioning that Whitehead’s philosophy in the 20th century was carried, in large part, by theologians, or at least philosophers of religion. Thus when OOO theorists call on Whitehead, they can of course do so in which ever way they want, drawing upon whatever aspects of Whitehead’s thinking they find relavent. However, the connection to process theology shouldn’t be surprising given how much literature there is on Whitehead and the topic, and especially considering the role God plays in Whitehead’s metaphysics. Though again perhaps Whitehead plays a larger role in Harman’s version of OOO than in yours (Levi) or Morton’s, in which case the process question could be beside the point in this context.
For my own tastes I prefer to find the partial truths in multiple perspectives, and so am delighted to hear these topics being brought into conversation. Religion is one of those topics that is sure to raise debate, so it is no surprise at some of the responses here. I can see naturalistic and theistic versions of OOO playing out, its a highly generalizable mode of thought, and I don’t think OOO is inherently either (or nihilistic for that matter). I am a little worried that the nuances of some of the arguments that are being made are being lost (the emphasis on nihilism strikes me as on such example, I don’t think anyone in this dialogue has actually suggested the OOO necessarily implies nihilism- I’m thinking here of the rest of Footnotes2platos posts, which seem to not argue this). I guess thats the price we pay for the ability to blog and discuss though.
July 13, 2011 at 5:26 pm
dmf,
I believe there is a gap between belief systems and practices, such that they are entangled without being identical. Someone gave a nice example with respect to traffic laws a few weeks ago. Traffic laws did not always exist. It’s likely that when they didn’t exist people would still stop or slow down at crossroads out of habit, but that occasionally there would be accidents and disputes would emerge as to how to distribute culpability. At this point you get a second-order formalization of the habit creating a norm (“stop at crossroads before proceeding”). The practice is one thing and the norm another. In my view practices generally precede norms. The two then interact in a variety of complicated ways. This is how I see it with religion. On the one hand there are the living and immanent practices in a religion. On the other there are second-formalizations. Theology is what I would call a second-order formalization. I believe a lot of religion discussions get things backwards. They treat the second-order formalizations as the seence of the religion and the practices as derivative. I believe it’s exactly the reverse. Not only does practice precede formalization chronologically, but it is formalization that is derivative and it often departs substantially from the living practices of a religion.
July 13, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Levi,
I’m not sure if it is just a mistake pasting a link, or if you have not yet read my actual response to you: http://footnotes2plato.com/2011/07/13/srooo-and-nihilism-a-response-to-harman-and-bryant/ (the link in your post above navigates to my response to Adam over at Knowledge Ecology).
There is no necessary relationship between OOO (or ontology generally) and theology or morality, but certainly every ontology has theological and moral implications. To the extent that OOO has something in common with Whitehead’s process ontology, the possible role of a panentheist God should remain an open question. In Whitehead’s system, according to Stengers, “God is not what explains: he is what is required, in terms of the conceptual scheme, by the cosmological perspective” (‘Thinking With Whitehead,’ p. 424). Perhaps OOO differs sufficiently from the Whiteheadian scheme to avoid this requirement. But I don’t think it is fair to dismiss “God” in ontological discussions just because many believers have a philosophically immature picture of God (and I do agree with your criticisms of such pictures, Levi). Whitehead’s God is first a construction meant to solve a philosophical problem, and only secondarily an object of religious feeling.
“The concept of God is certainly one essential element in religious feeling. But the contrary is not true; the concept of religious feeling is not an essential element in the concept of God’s function in the Universe. In this respect religious literature has been sadly misleading to philosophic theory, partly by attraction and partly by repulsion” (‘Process and Reality,’ p. 207).
God’s “function” in the Universe may have very little to do with the way the majority of humanity has felt or believed that God relates to the Universe. The desire for personal immortality and for an all-powerful deity who insures that the good and the evil are properly sorted at the end of time is an example of our initial excess of subjectivity demanding something unreasonable. The function of Whitehead’s God is not to actively intervene in the course of natural events, but to gently influence the free decisions of actual occasions as an element in their prehension of the actual world. God allows actual entities to experience the relevance of eternal objects for their situation as temporal subjects. Without God, Reason would remain a floating abstraction, an ideal without reality; Whitehead argues that actual entities are the only reasons, and so God is that actual entity embodying Reason.
Also, keep in mind that God is not ultimate in Whitehead’s system. God is a creature of creativity like every other creature, though unique in that the poles of God’s concrescence are reversed (finite actual occasions move from a physical to a mental pole, while God begins with a conceptual envisagement of the definite possibilities for actuality before moving on to physically feel and integrate the resulting decisions made by actual occasions).
So in short, there are philosophical reasons to think God and there are sociological/psychological reasons to believe in God. There are plenty of bad ideas about God, and as you point out, Levi, plenty of bad beliefs about God that lead to unethical behaviors. But I remain convinced that religious feelings, in one form or another, are here to stay. Humanity, it seems to me, will always be a spiritual animal. The question then becomes how we are to bring religious feelings into harmony with the demands of rigorous philosophical reflection and with scientific facts. I think Whitehead comes very close to doing both.
July 13, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Levi,
I will begin with my conclusion to make it clear. I disagree with your implied statement that sociological and ethnographical analysis is all that counts. If that’s not what you mean, then your argument has little merit left. Because it does not come across well in this media, I wil; say that I make these points not out of any fire of feeling, but because I wish for an understanding of positions, and ultimately, why one might rightly take certain comments as offensive.
My point is not a mismatched comparison. I was attributing the problem as a human one rather than just a Christian one. Humans do evil things whether Christian or not. I understand the argument that certain belief systems are more likely to lead to certain consequences rather than others, but I also counter that undue weight has been given to Christianity because it was hegemonic and is no longer. It is also unpopular. Why not mention all the non-Christian attrocities? Because those are easily forgotten. You mention a change in the last hundred years, but that is also a change in humanity. We would need to get specific to say much more, e.g., who did what when in the name of?
It is not a mistake to distinguish between what people believe and the proper tenets of the faith, especially when a religion actively combats the horrors of humanity. I once laughed hysterically when watching the Thai-box film Ong Bak, which has ben released domestically, because the lead character swore to fight for the Buddha! Your mistake is that the formulations by “church leaders” are not second-order, but first-order. They appear second-order only if actual practice is primary, but from standpoint, the church would disown them as well and be on your side. Who would you be arguing against then?
All that said, we should hold both a church and its followers to task for what they actually do. But that is separable from the tenets of the faith when the laity is violating those tenets in doing the evils you fear. Also, “living exemplifications”–you phrase–demonstrates why I continue to press the point. Any practice by anyone claiming to be Christian does not de facto count as an “exemplification,” but you’re eliminating the difference.
So, let’s rail against Roman Catholic stances against contraception as silly, or certain non-denominational American Protestant evangelical stances on faith-healing, etc. Or, to pick a secular one, against WWII German Socialist nationalism. They’re all belief systems.
In sum, I disagree with your implied statement that sociological and ethnographical analysis is all that counts. If that’s not what you mean, then your argument has little merit left. What does have merit, and I presume you’re thinking it, is to resist any move to totalize the discourse, e.g., either you’re a believer or your evil, either you’re with us or against us (American jingoism), etc.
Still fightin’ for tha Buhhda,
Jason
July 13, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I see ,this gap that you posit between belief systems and doings/practices (for me Christianity, or any other such reification, is like Morton’s Nature) is likely the lure for these process folks as they can take such as a trace/sign of the Theo-Logos. I would extend your critique of second-order formalizations of religion to all such sociological generalizations. The social world(s) just isn’t so orderly/systematic as those who study/practice management can tell you.
July 13, 2011 at 5:49 pm
[…] posted the following as a comment to Bryant’s short response. Adam Robbert has a nice comment there, too. There is no necessary relationship between OOO (or […]
July 13, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Jason,
I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that I claim that practices are all that matters. I explicitly state that there are complex interactions between the domain of the first and second-order levels of a social assemblage. I believe, however, that too many of these discussions place far too much of a premium on the second-order level, largely ignoring the first order. As for doctrine, you seem to suggest that there’s some set of doctrines that allow us to determine which practices are real and which aren’t. As I see it, by contrast, the various denominations more or less find scriptural justification for their positions. It’s difficult to see how we can decide between those variants of Christianity that claim that homosexuality is morally wrong and an abomination in the eyes of god and those that claim this isn’t the case. All variants find scriptural grounding for theirndoctrine on these issues.
July 13, 2011 at 6:04 pm
There’s a very large methodological problem lurking in background of this discussion which Adam (Knowledge Ecology) touches upon in his comment. It is, unfortunately, the question: What is philosophy (supposed to be doing)? Adam seems to favor a style that takes from here and there and builds a view that is something like a patchwork of ideas. This way of going about things seems to be antithetical to the major variants of OOO, which, as I understand them, aspire to be systematic. Favoring the former approach leaves the door open for the fusion of OOO and process theology, or any theology for that matter, but if one is taking a particular iteration of OOO and trying to work out all of the metaphysical problems it raises, then it seems that these must be addressed internally. If a given problem can only be resolved by bringing God into the picture, then that system must admit God into the picture. If the problem can be resolved without naturalistically, then I think the system is obliged to choose the naturalistic route for its elegance.
Of course, I am assuming that what we want a philosophical perspective to do is minimize supernatural assumptions rather than multiply them. Admittedly, I am sympathetic to elegance, even though I do think that SR has the virtue of rendering reality more complex than the naive naturalist sees it.
July 13, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Hi Matthew,
I fixed the link. Sorry about that. As I more or less said in another remark in this thread or in the post itself, my remarks about the divine are only directed at theistic conceptions of God. I get the gist of what you’re saying with respect to Whitehead’s conception of God and do not think he’s guilty of the sorts of problems I outline in my earlier post on nihilism. With that said, however, I still fail to see what philosophical problem this conception of God solves, why it is needed, or why it is a good solution to that problem. What little I’ve understood of Whitehead’s conception of God has always struck me as a sort of ad hoc contribution that’s not really required. I have mixed feelings with respect to what you say about “religious feelings”. I experience wonder, awe, amazement at the interconnection of things, and occasionally feel one with things. However, I see no reason to describe these feelings as religious. It seems to me that we are perfectly capable of experiencing these sorts of states without anything like what we often refer to as religion. Supposing that there is something intrinsically religious about these feelings, however, I see this as no evidence for the truth of various religious claims, but rather see the task as one of giving a naturalistic account of these feelings. Some of the research I’ve seen seems to suggest that these feelings are closely connected to adaptations our brains underwent that played a key role in the development of intersubjectivity. I wrote about this a long while back here:
Under this view, religious feelings would be sort of transcendental illusion (and we’re speaking too broadly here when referring to “religious feelings”: which religions, what kind of theology?) produced as a side-effect of these sorts of adaptations. The rigorous philosophical reflection here would simply consist in showing how these feelings are generated, not in endorsing the ontological claims made based on these experiences. Here I follow Kant’s critical path. I’m just not persuaded by formal a priori arguments that infer the existence of God (regardless of how God is construed) and thus see no reason to endorse them or entertain them. Epistemologically, then, I’m agnostic where the existence of God is concerned (I don’t claim to be capable of proving that God doesn’t exist, though I see no compelling set of arguments or evidence to suggest that he/it does), while ontologically I am atheist (I do not believe that God exists).
July 13, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Jason, by what non-human/subjective means would one decide who is or isn’t in accordance with the “proper tenets”? certainly ‘they’ don’t tell us..
as Levi noted we will use whatever means/authority is available (some things may be at hand but will not afford us our desired extension) what Stanley Fish called doing what comes naturally, what I’m not sure of is why add another “level” to such events as opposed to just describing differing actions/reactions at different times, the use of scriptures doesn’t really “ground” the action just adds rhetorical oomph/authoritas.
July 13, 2011 at 6:55 pm
dmf,
The issue is whether and when we judge a theory, belief system, logos, or theology by its practice or by its ideals. So far, we’re eliminating the is/ought distinction in this discussion. If we judge its practice, then I insist that we talk about specific practices, e.g., the rejection of contraceptive use by Pope John Paul II or Benedict, especially in the case of Africa as correlates with their ideals. Otherwise, we are generalizing a historic cases to include all of religion, which Levi is doing so far. Maybe not in his head, but in his current text, he is.
As for “determining which practices are real and which aren’t” (Levi), that’s another issue. The first issue should be whether, e.g., a given theology necessitates what we would call evil from another party’s perspective. The second issue is whether, even if the answer is no, specific practices of that theology or religion lead to that more than other practices. These two issues are separable. We do the same thing with cultures and other practices all the time, and I’m not asking for anything different. This also may mean that we can argue against a theology because it appears to lead to terrible practices even if they do not appear to be essential contained in the theology, but we actually have to give that argument to specific cases and neither assume it nor generalize. The problem is that when it comes to religion, some get touchy and jump to conclusions from either side.
See also the next response to Levi.
July 13, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Levi,
The claim that Christianity finds scriptural justification for its practices is strictly false, both for many contemporary and historical practices. About the only group that actually claims that is … surprise …. American Evangelical Protestant Fundamentalists. There’s a reason I’ve mentioned them already, although this time I specify fundamentalists. They’re behind the culture wars occurring in the U.S., e.g., creationism and biblical literalism. Biblical literalism is denied by most Christian sects, including many Jewish and Muslim. Don’t forget that “Christian” includes Quakers, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, and many others that have radically different practices. When was the last time Quakers started a war?
Pope John Paul II was famous for saying that the Catholic Religion must conform to science, although of course he noted that the moral and spiritual realms were not the domains of science. I intend to hold them to that.
Now that all this has been said, and I’m done unless there are more specific questions like dmf’s, I wanted to point out that your interlocutors may not hold the view that you think they do. I, for one, am not a theist, but I am a scholar. Hopefully that latter has been evident.
July 13, 2011 at 7:18 pm
Jason,
Please try to read me more carefully as you keep, ironically, generalizing my positions and attributing claims to me that I have not made. First, I did not generalize my remarks to all religions. Indeed, I mentioned Buddhism a few times as an example that doesn’t fit this model and was very explicit that I was referring to effects of cosmologies organized around transcendence. Second, I believe you are confusing deductive and inductive models of reasoning (as indicated by an earlier remark you made about logical fallacies). You seem to be suggesting that I’m make deductive claims to the effect that “if p is q, given p, q necessarily follows”. Discussions of social phenomena can never have this form because we’re talking about statistical regularities within a population. The model of reasoning is necessarily inductive and based on probabilities. Thus, if I say that “many Texans like bbq”, finding a handful of Texans that do not like bbq does not, in any way, refute the claim because the claim is statistical, not deductive. The way to refute should a claim is by showing that, in fact, a significant portion of the population does not possess that characteristic. Barring that, it’s perfectly appropriate to point to certain tendencies within a population.
Third, I have nowhere made the claim that all religion is evil or that all religious people. I have made the claim that certain forms of religiosity encourage certain ways of relating to the world, others, and life. You keep suggesting that I didn’t talk about particular examples and am unfairly generalizing, when in fact I was entirely specific in my earlier post on nihilism. Not only did I explicitly say that “if one believes God commands x…” a paragraph or two before my remark about homosexuality (a remark that I believe is enough to show that the suggestion that I was claiming that all theists are persecutors of homosexuals is mistaken), I also gave specific examples like believing in the end of days, final salvation, etc. That should be specific enough to meet the criteria you outline in your recent post. I am beginning to question the honesty of your participation here given that you keep attributing claims to me that I have repeatedly said I’m not making. Increasingly it looks like you’re trying to paint me as a bigot, when I’ve nowhere suggested that all theists believe such things or advocate such positions. This is not such a surprise as it occurs often in discussions about religion. No one bats an eye when someone claims “democrats believe x”. It is immediately understood that this is a statistical claim, that there are examples that don’t fit this characterization, and that this is anhistorically specific claim as democrats held very different positions decades ago. Yet when religion comes up everything suddenly becomes a night in which all cows are black in which any reference to commonly held positions is immediately rebutted with exceptions as if the person referring to those commonly held positions was making a claim about everyone. Belief in the end of days is a commonly held position. Likewise, there are many others that don’t believe such a doctrine. For those that do believe such a doctrine that belief has real world implications for how one relates to oneself, nature, and others. How is pointing that out a generalization?
July 13, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Jason,
You’re all over the place here and are making extraordinary claims. The claim that a denomination finds scriptural justification for its positions is not the claim that all denonominations are literalist. It is only the claim that all denominations find some support for their positions in scripture and can equally refer to scripture to support their positions. Whether they interpret scripture literally, allegorically, metaphorically, etc, is another matter entirely. Are you really claiming that the theology Episcopals advocate, the theology Catholics advocate, and the theology Pentacostals advocate shares no relationship to scripture? Pointing out that there are a variety of denominations of Christianity is equally bizarre given 1) I explicitly refer to the existence of various denominations in earlier remarks, and that 2) my whole point was that these denominations read scripture differently such that we’re unable to ultimately decide which group has the true reading and which doesn’t. One denomination, say certain Pentacostals, find passages about speaking in tongues (following the release of the holy spirit) and handling snakes, reads it literally, and concludes that these are practices we should engage in. Another reads the story about speaking and tongues as a metaphor for the overcoming of particularisms produced with the fall of Babel and sees this as a metaphor for a new universal kingdom. Baptists read the prohibitions against alcohol in Leviticus and believe we are commanded not to drink. Catholics note that Jesus turned water into wine at the Wedding at Cana and conclude that God approves of drinking. They all find justification for their interpretations. How are we to decide who is right? Given your odd remarks throughout this thread your scholarship is far from evident.
July 13, 2011 at 7:28 pm
[…] to Footnotes2plato’s post regarding OOO, theology, and nihilism. Levi Bryant (here and here) Tim Morton (here – love the phrase “theism-nihilism tango” BTW) Tom Sparrow (here and […]
July 13, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Levi,
I apologize if I have not been sufficiently circumspect in my words or reading. I do believe that I have, but I may of course be wrong. I have, however, been genuine, honest, and have tried my best. Please do read my first post to recall what quotation and conditional I was addressing, as I think that was when we were least talking past each other.
Best Wishes,
Jason
July 13, 2011 at 10:07 pm
[…] discussion continues over on Levi Bryant’s […]
July 15, 2011 at 2:03 am
Firstly, I should say that I agree with Plastic Bodies’ analysis of values and nihilism. Values, in keeping with OOO spirit here, are objects in their own rights, so the nihilistic assertion that the universe is devoid of values is patently false. It is of little difference to me whether these morals are true or not (we can reference Mackie and Joyce for these issues), the fact is that they produce effects anyway and are real actors in the universe. What is important to me is that all variants of SR support the overcoming of human finitude and break from correlationism. If this is the case, that human thought can surpass its own embodiment and supposed limitations (such as calculating numbers in trillions that can be represented but not comprehended), then it leaves open the door that human thought can be, to borrow words and tropes from Reza Negarestani, complicit with inhuman, inorganic, and nonvital materials. Human thought can ACT against its own interest and transform itself in the process. For instance, in an extensive discussion on Dominic Fox’s Cold World, Splintering Bone Ashes discusses the paradox of a dysphoria that somehow leads to political militancy. He instead suggests a dysphoria that becomes militant in itself and generates its own discontent: thus feeding off of negativity and hatred, desiring horror and destruction and never wishing it away. In this altered state of consciousness, the cosmic contingency of the universe, the eventual destruction of the earth, and the extinction of humanity becomes a strange theme of celebration and enjoyment. Herein lies the issue then: OOO offers the possibility of thinking and even desiring a world entirely indifferent or at odds with human value and flourishing without necessarily stating that somehow human values is well…without value.
July 15, 2011 at 12:43 pm
for folks who didn’t follow this debate over to tom’s (http://plasticbodies.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/process-theologians-please-respond/#comments)
this bears repeating:
“Matt,
When you appeal to autopoietic theory in your post over at your blog I think you’re conflating twvery different senses of teleology (the premodern and the modern). In the premodern framwork the teleological cause ofman entity consists in what it is designed for by a divine being. In this framework, the species as a type or kind precedes the individual and is the goal towards which the individual develops. Maturana and Varela, by contrast, understand teleology in cybernetic terms as feedback mechanisms in an organism wherein the organism regulates itself homeostatically within a particular range. While more complex, there’s nothing markedly different here from how the thermostat functionsnin your house. The temperature at which the thermostat is set is the teleological goal or cause, and the air conditioner turning off and on is the feedback mechanism by which that state is goal is actualized. The goal itself has no causative power. It is just the basin around which actions settle. In organisms, moreover, this teleological dimension is produced through evolution, not design, and is produced out of processes that are not themselves teleological, ie, there is no goal towards which evolution is striving or tending.
With Tom, I fail to see what Whitehead’s conception of god adds to our metaphysics. It introduces a number of highly contentious and troubling postulates (that god influences so things to produce certain aesthetic contrasts) that can neither be verified in any way and that seem deeply arbitrary. I fail to see what evolutionary and autopietic theory gains from such an approach. Your theory says that polar bears exist because they are an aesthetically pleasing contrast for god. My theory says polar bears exist because, at a particular time in natural history, climate change occurred, leading to ampolar landscape. Within this landscape there was a population of bears in which some bears had lighter coats then others. These bears had a greater advantage hunting because they blended in more, thereby got fat, were appealing to potential mates, reproduced, and passed on their genes. Within my framework I’m able to explain the existence of these bears and their qualities naturalistically without appealing to a vacuous thesis like god.
With Tom, I’m perplexed as to why you would suggest that naturalists can have no meanings or ideas. Basically you confirm what I wrote in my original post, by arguing that for you meaning is impossible without god. First, it is simply not true that all naturalists reject the existence of formal and final causes. They just argue that formal and final causes are not the result of design or a god and rject the notion that there is some final cause that all beings are tending towards (that there’s a cosmic plan). As Tim remarks, final causes are goals that only exist within entities. There are no goals that exist outside of entities (a plan) towards which entities are being drawn. Second, it seems to me that you’re conflating naturalism with 17th and 18th century mechanism. I think this is a strawman. Third, I don’t see what God gives us by way of explanation. Saying “because of God” is really no explanation at all but is really simply an announcement of ignorance. Here I’m reminded of Hegel’s concept of “tautological ground”. A tautological ground is a ground that appears to ground a phenomenon, when it merely repeats what is to be explained. One asks “why do things fall to the ground?” and responds “because of gravity!”. It sounds like they’ve explained something, but “gravity” is just shorthand for “things falling to the ground”. At best such tautologies indicate that something needs to be explained. They don’t themselves explain. And this is exactly what your god explanation is doing. It’s just shorthand for “I don’t know”.
Finally, fourth, it does no good to say that meaning and ideas don’t exist for naturalist when all you’re doing is providing a tautological explaation (this world exists because God finds it to be composed of aesthetically pleasing contrasts!). As Tom pointed out, there’s no qualitative difference between Lucretius’s swerve and your God. Both are equally arbitrary and without reason. By contrast, there is abundant evidence for naturalism and it grows every day. Given that meaning and thought are facts, this means naturalists are obligated to give an account of these phenomena within a naturalistic framework. The fact that this doesn’t make sense to you within your theological framework has no bearing on whether or not such an account can be given. Copernicus’s universe made no sense to the church, but that made it no less true.”