I’ve been really delighted by the discussion that’s emerged in the blogosphere with Reid, Kvond, Jerry, Nick, Alexei, Mikhail, Nate, Graham, NrG, and others surrounding realism, speculative realism, correlationism, and object-oriented philosophy. The entire flavor of the discussion is entirely different than anything I’ve witnessed in the three years I’ve been writing here, as it’s revolved almost entirely around working through claims, counter-claims, and the development of positions, rather than already established positions. It’s a little surprising to see just how readily possible such discussions are and just how much thirst there seems to be for such an approach to philosophy.
Recently, responding to Nate’s queries about the notion of non-relational difference or difference in itself, I wrote:
I’m committed to the thesis that there is no bottom or top of the universe. As a result, it follows that objects contain other objects, somewhat like Russian dolls. Put differently, an object is an assemblage of objects. On the one hand, this requires me to give an account of how objects enlist other objects in the formation of their objecthood. Here I’m somewhat committed to the thesis that objects are more than the objects of which they’re composed. I think this follows from the Principle of Irreduction which states that nothing is either reducible or irreducible to anything else. On the other hand, this suggests that the idea of an internal difference or a non-relational difference is something of a rhetorical sleight of hand.
In the “Scheme of Translation” I introduced the thesis that internal difference is disequilibrium within an object, functioning as a ground for the acts of an actuality. Yet from whence do these inequalities or disequibriums arise if not clashes between the objects that make up an object? This, then, would seem to return the notion of internal difference or non-relational difference to the domain of relational difference. However, I think the characterization of these differences as internal or non-relational difference lies in the fact that they are intra-assemblic differences rather than inter-assemblic differences. In other words, non-relational difference tries to do the work of accounting for why an object cannot be reduced to its milieu or external conditions, such that the object becomes a mere vehicle of this milieu (for example, the thesis that as humans we are only products of our environment, contributing no difference of our own).
In a terrific, thoughtful comment, Nate responds:
I guess I’m having trouble seeing how to square difference in itself with all objects being assemblages of objects. It seems to me that to say the latter means that really what we think of as objects are assemblages of assemblages of assemblages of …. and so on, and as your post on objectiles suggests, all of these assemblages are in motion at various speeds along various vectors. That’s not necessarily a problem (I think I believe that this is true, actually, in the sense that I think your point speaks in a satisfying way to an intuition I have, so definitely not a problem).
read on!
But if that’s the case, then it seem to raise problems for the first – difference in itself defined as difference internal to an assemblage. You characterized “internal difference [as] disequilibrium within an object”, then as “intra-assemblic differences rather than inter-assemblic differences.” I think all of these formulations have a use, but I think the point I discussed a moment ago – objects as assemblages all the way down, so to speak, and all the way up (the universe having no top or bottom) – makes it hard to maintain these characterizations. It seems to me that the assemblages of assemblages of assemblages point means that internal/external or intra/inter become terms that do little work. It seems to me that these terms become, to use the terms you used in your post on objectiles, largely a matter of differing speeds. As such, I don’t know that the distinction between intra- and inter- can withstand the assemblages of assemblages point, such that I don’t know that intra- assemblage difference can serve as a philosophical hook to hold much weight. Because whether or not any giving trait or point is within or without an assemblage is largely a matter of perspective or, in your terms again, of speed. It seems to me that what the assemblages of assemblages of … point suggests is that any claim to something being external to an assemblage, any case of inter-assemblage difference can be translated into a case of difference internal to some assemblage (the difference between my heart and lungs, say, understood as separate systems, can be translated into a difference within my body), and vice versa.I don’t know that the breakdown (if I’m right, I may not be) of the non-relational or intra difference here really poses that much of a problem, though. I think your point about multiplicities/assemblages of assemblages/multiplicities (etc) may already do most of the work that you want from the idea of non-relational difference. You stated the goal, and I agree that it’s an important one, of “accounting for why an object cannot be reduced to its milieu or external conditions, such that the object becomes a mere vehicle of this milieu.” It seems to me that the multiplicity of assemblages etc point already rules out the sort of reduction you oppose. If I’m right, then difference here is still relational but the relational character of difference does not mean that there is any one final or overdetermining difference – thinking difference as relation doesn’t commit anyone to reductivism, as far as I can tell.
I think Nate raises a number of difficult and important problems in this post. It might be that Nate (and others) are right and the notion of non-relational difference is incoherent and I should just jettison it, accepting instead a relational model of difference. It seems to me that lurking behind all of this is in the domain of ontology is a sort of antinomy that lies at the heart of both the various ontologies that have been proposed throughout history, and which informs or drives the debates between realisms and correlationisms. That is, at the heart of discussions of objects we get a contradiction between two positions that seem equally necessary and reasonable.
On the one hand, the concept of object seems to imply something that is independent or “for-itself”, without reference to anything else. An object is its “own” being, as it were. On the other hand, objects both share relations to the world, and contain relations within themselves. Throughout his work, Husserl develops this antinomy nicely (especially in texts like Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis). From one standpoint, objects can be approached in terms of their internal and external horizons. The internal horizon of an object is the way in which its profiles link together in a perceptual field. For example, I only ever see a few profiles of my desk at any one point in time or duration, but I also intend the absent profiles as being internally linked to these present profiles, as elements of a whole or a totality. Additionally, objects have an external horizon that pertains to both the relationship between foreground and background in time and space, as well as the linkage of the object to other objects. Thus, the cast iron pot in my kitchen is linked to a whole set of objects pertaining to cooking that are in turn linked to life, friendship, the domestic, etc.
With many entities it can be said that the entity shares a quasi-necessary relation to their external horizon. This would be the point of Margaret’s Pepper Principle. Margaret’s Pepper Principle underlines the manner in which objects are the result of a genesis and that the field in which this genesis takes place is an external horizon of the object. All who drink wine are familiar with this insofar as the regions and the year in which the wine is produced makes a big difference in the nature of the wine. In addition to genetic fields or fields of genesis, objects also remain tied to their external horizons as a condition of their ongoing existence or autopoiesis. Fortunately we often overlook this second type of external horizon because it tends to be relatively stable, but it is there nonetheless. My body is dependent on certain coefficients of gravity and pressure, without which it would either be crushed, would implode, or would explode. Similarly, I rely on certain temperatures, the presence of a variety of gasses, sunlight, etc. All of these elements belong to my external horizon as conditions for my being.
Finally, and this is perhaps my most contentious thesis in relation to object-oriented philosophy and speculative realism, there is no object that does not manifest itself in some manner, shape, or form. Now to be clear, this postulate is not the claim that all objects must manifest themselves to living beings or humans. Like Badiou’s understanding of appearing, where appearing is not appearing to a human, but to the world, objects necessarily manifest themselves in a world. Even the smallest, most insignificant particle of matter produces effects at the level of space-time. My thesis would be that there is no object so perfectly withdrawn that it does not announce itself to the world in some form or another.
Consequently, we get a couple of related, yet different, antinomies pertaining to the being of objects:
First, with respect to Husserl’s understanding of internal horizons– but now detached from the issue of presentations to us, and instead treated as an ontological feature of objects regardless of whether or not anyone intends an object –an object is both a unity and a plurality. We can equally well argue that objects are both composed of parts, and are unities. That is, we can argue that objects both are nothing but their parts, and that objects are unities. With regard to the latter thesis, it is pointed out that a scattering of marbles on a floor is not an object, even though we can refer to it as a set or collection. With regard to the first thesis, we can argue that objects are nothing more than their assembled parts. After all, the notion of the unity or One-ness of an object never seems to be encountered anywhere in the object itself. Hence we get those that emphasize the fact that objects are unities or totalities, minimizing the parts, and those who emphasize the diversity or plurality at work in objects– say Badiou –denying the unity of objects. How are we to resolve this antinomy?
Second, we get an antinomy between objects as individuals and objects as necessarily attached to external horizons as conditions of both genesis and ongoing adventures in time-space. Those emphasizing the first dimension of objects tend to subtract all relational features of objects. Likewise, those emphasizing the second dimension of objects, tend to reduce objects to their relations. That is, an object becomes nothing more than its vectors or relations. Yet if an object is nothing more than its vectors or relations, objects seem to disappear altogether as we are left with a tangled mess of relations without any individual entities. If, by contrast, we affirm the sovereign individuality and independence of objects, our ability to analyze objects in terms of their real conditions tends to get truncated and even erased in important ways. How, then, are we to reconcile the antinomy between individual and autonomous objects and their conditions?
This brings me back to Nate’s post. I think one of the things that needs to be avoided is 1) the idea that any assemblage forms an object, and 2) the idea that all assemblages are contained within one another at different levels of scale. With respect to the first issue, it is important to note that not all assemblages are objects. This raises all sorts of questions as to the conditions under which an assemblage counts as an object. At what point, we might ask, do we reach the threshold at which a collection or set becomes an objetile unity? With respect to the second question, and for a variety of reasons, I think it is important to recognize that all objects are not related and that all assemblages are not connected. Assemblages certainly contain other assemblages, but it is not the case that all assemblages are contained within a mega-assemblage called the universe. I think that if we do not posit something like this we’re left without the means of accounting for the individuality and autonomy of objects.
Larval Subjects . 
January 24, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I wonder if you could avoid some of the problems by distinguishing between a variation of kairos and chronos? So that any discussion of an object qua object is by default a discussion of an object in relation to a specific moment in time as kairos (perhaps the singular and opportune moment – the flower in bloom), and that any discussion of an object qua assemblage (or as assemblage qua assemblage) would necessarily be under the concept of time as chronos (i.e., continuously changing).
Understood this way, could we not then discuss some assemblages as objects? The trick would be to recognize that in doing so we have switched our temporal discussion, as well.
I don’t know…just a thought so please correct me if I misunderstood.
January 25, 2009 at 1:52 am
NrG, I’m not sure I follow.
January 25, 2009 at 5:13 am
Sorry for the confusion. I guess what I was trying to say was, when we talk about an object qua object (or an assemblage qua object), can we speak of it as still changing? Doesn’t any discussion or inter-action with the object put the object in a sort of momentary stasis, so that objects can only interact with each other on a certain basis at a certain point at a certain time?
If we think of the object as a vector curve, then any one interaction would mean one line crossing the vector curve at a given point. I am in no way trying to limit the types, methods, or amount of relations between objects, or lines across the vector curve, but instead am merely trying to suggest that any line only crosses it at a single point; and any interaction with/discussion of an object also takes place at a single point. Therefore, to talk of the object qua object is to momentarily talk about it outside of its assemblages/changes/differences-to-other-objects. This is what the object is at that time (hence kairos) and not necessarily what the object IS.
On the flip-side, can we discuss assemblages qua assemblages without leaving room for future changes? What I was thinking in my first comment was simply that we have to be aware that temporally speaking, talking about objects qua objects (or assemblages qua objects) is different than talking about assemblages qua assemblages (or objects qua assemblages).
I apologize if this still doesn’t make sense…but any discussion of the temporality of objects and assemblages would be helpful.
January 25, 2009 at 5:39 am
hi Levi,
Glad the comments were helpful, and glad you’re also finding the conversation enjoyable. I can say for me one thing I’m enjoying about this is getting to be part of live thought, working out ideas in real time. And particularly that it’s philosophical thought. I have a background in philosophy but have changed disciplines. I’m glad I did that but I do often miss a lot about philosophy. So this is really nice for me too.
Back on topic –
about 2), what if one said that for any assemblage it can’t be ruled out that it exists at least partially within another assemblage and has some other assemblage existing at least partially within it? That seems to get at the issue of overlap but doesn’t commit you to any stronger claims. Then if someone did want to claim something about a totality that everything adds up to the onus would be on them (actually, I think what I’ve said may already rule out what you called the mega-assemblage containing everything – because the mega-assemblage would still be contained at least partially in something else, which would make it not really a mega-assemblage after all). Not sure I’m making sense here, sorry if not.
On 1) I’m not sure I understand (or maybe I disagree with) the distinction between assemblages and objects. I don’t see why objectiles must be unified to be objectiles (maybe that’s not what you meant and I misread you). And I don’t know what a non-objectile assemblage would be. According to the ontic principle (correct me if I get this wrong), anything that makes a difference is real. I assumed that “is real” is roughly synonymous with “is an objectile”, is that a mistake on my part? If this isn’t a mistake then it seems to me that any real assemblage is an object. Another reason for this – anything that makes a difference is real (is an object), then all assemblages are real (are objects) because they have the property of being notable by someone speaking about assemblages. Perhaps that’s overstated, here’s an attempt to reframe – any assemblage anyone speaks, writes, or thinks of, or perceives, makes a difference to that someone; as such these assemblages are real (are objects).
Have I made a mistake here?
take care,
Nate
January 25, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hi NrG,
I see what you’re getting at now. While I’d certainly agree with you at the level of epistemology or how we relate to objects, my worry is that it doesn’t get at the problem at the level of ontology or what objects are. That is, the questions that I raised in this post are not about how we relate to or talk to objects, but pertain to how objects are in themselves and how we’re to think properties of objects such as the relation between the whole and its parts, predicates and substances, qualities and objects, conditions and objects, and the question of “when” an object is. Ultimately, however, it is my hope that the sort of distinction you’re drawing at the level of the epistemic or talk of objects helps us to avoid reifications of objects premised on our own epistemic needs.
January 25, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Hi Nate,
I like your way of putting things with regard to the second point. As to your response to the first point, I don’t think the issue is that non-object assemblages are not real– clearly they involve relations among objectiles which are real –but when we pass from a mere set of relations among objectiles that don’t themselves form an aggregate object, to being an aggregate object. The relationship between me, my desk, and my computer forms an assemblage composed of objectiles (myself, the desk, the computer, the chair), but this aggregate doesn’t itself, I don’t think, form an objectile… Then again, I’ll have to think about that, some more. Perhaps I need a terminological distinction between aggregates and assemblages where assemblages are always objectiles in addition to being composed of objectiles, and where aggregates are interactions among objectiles without yet forming an objectile in their totality.
January 26, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Thanks for the reply, and you’re right, I was moving the conversation into the epistemological realm. So, back to the ontological discussion (hopefully):
In Badiou’s “Towards a New Concept of Existence” he differentiates between the Thing and the Object. For Badiou the Thing exists between the objectivity of the World and the indifference of nothingness. He says that the Thing “is always the pre-objective basis of objectivity” (65). The object, on the other hand (and as you have pointed out) exists in the world, so that what the world does is distribute degrees of identity to Things and makes objects out of them.
What I think is interesting in Badiou’s conception of the thing is that there is a pre-world entity (the Thing or das Ding), an “object” without really being an Object.
In your thought, though (and again, correct me if I get it wrong), there is no object which does not show itself in the world. In other words, there is no Thing as Badiou describes it. Instead, everything that IS, is an object (a difference that makes a difference). Yet, there appears to be a problem at the same level as Badiou’s configuration – that there must be an object without an assemblage, a being that does not make a difference (just yet). Or, to put it another way, we haven’t found a way to talk about the object-in-itself without denying its assemblages, right?
In your last comment to Nate you state, “Perhaps I need a terminological distinction between aggregates and assemblages where assemblages are always objectiles in addition to being composed of objectiles, and where aggregates are interactions among objectiles without yet forming an objectile in their totality.”
But, I wonder if this aggregate would be just another form of Badiou’s Thing, that is, an entity with the potential to become an object?
January 26, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Hi NrG,
Interesting parallel you’re seeing here. I think my position would differ from Badiou’s, in that my ontology admits of nothing like the pre-ontic, or something that isn’t an ob-ject. Following what I call Whitehead’s Principle, I hold that all objects are to be explained in terms of other actual objects (Whitehead calls this the “Ontological Principle”, but since I’ve used the term “Ontological Principle” for something else, I refer to it as “Whitehead’s Principle”). This would be something that distinguishes my ontology from ontologies such as DeLanda’s, Iaian Hamilton Grant’s, or perhaps Deleuze’s. Where these three thinkers assert the existence of something like a pre-objectal or pre-individual field, I hold that it’s objects all the way down. To think of this pre-individual or pre-objectal field you might think of something like Plato’s chora in the Timeaus, where there is this sort of unformed matter out of which things are forged, or the creation narrative of the Bible where God seems to create the world out of an unformed matter. For me the universe comes in discrete or lumpy packets that are objects.
Thus, my nervousness with something like Badiou’s distinction between object and thing would be that it suggests something that isn’t ob-ject-al in character, or something that is anterior to ob-jects such that all ob-jects are posterior to this ultimate, yet chaotic, ground. For me, all ob-jects are assemblages, but not all assemblages are ob-jects. For example, on the floor of my study I currently have a desk that has not yet been assembled (from Ikea). These elements are all object-als in their own right, and they are also assemblages insofar as each of the parts is composed of further parts, yet these pieces laying there on the floor do not yet form together an assemblage. By contrast, after I finally getting around to assembling these elements, I will have a new object-al that isn’t just an aggregate but that is also an object-al in its own right. It is not that a transition has been made from pre-object to object, thing to object, but rather that a transition has been made from object-als as an aggregate, to object-als as an assemblage. That is, a transition has been made from objects to object. Following Whitehead’s Principle, the being of the object is to be explained in terms of other actual objects. But the ontological question is that of what accounts for this difference between a mere aggregate of objects, to an object. Or put differently, what is an object over and above the parts or other objects that make it up or compose it?
January 27, 2009 at 6:43 am
hi Levi,
Question I’m not sure how to phrase un-awkwardly (I’ve tried a few time, keeps getting clunkier, I’m sorry). Is the following statement true according to the work you’re developing here?
For any x, if the ontic principle applies to x, x is an objectile.
Sorry if the answer should be obvious, I’m having trouble with the assemblage/object distinction.
take care,
Nate
January 27, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Interesting…so ALL ob-ject-als are assemblages, but NOT ALL assemblages are ob-ject-als. (And I’m sorry you had to repeat yourself, but it does help.)
I like the example of the desk parts that are not yet a desk but (and perhaps I read this wrong) are you saying that every aggregate has the availability (and I like this word instead of potentiality because potential carries with it a notion of motive or purpose – but, as I see it, if no one put together the desk, that purpose or potential would never come to fruition) to become an assemblage? If so, this means that in order for an aggregate to become an ob-ject-al, what is needed is the inter-action with an actor that responds directly to this availability. Or, to put it another way,those desk parts (ob-ject-als and assemblages in their own right, as you pointed out) which now form an aggregate are available for forming an assemblage that is an ob-ject-al (a desk); however, what is needed is an actor (in this case someone who can put together the parts of the desk) who responds directly to this availability.
Thanks again for your thoughtful answers and comments.
January 27, 2009 at 6:36 pm
[…] Object-Oriented Philosophy, Ontic, Ontology, Organization, Populations Developing a comment I made in “The Antinomy of Objects”, NrG asks, ALL ob-ject-als are assemblages, but NOT […]
January 28, 2009 at 5:26 am
hi again Levi,
I’m a little unsure of where to put this comment, since it’s partly about this post and partly about your most recent post, From Aggregates to Assemblages. To quote a comment a moment ago, you’re interested here in “the problem at the level of ontology or what objects are” such that your questions here “are not about how we relate to or talk to objects, but pertain to how objects are in themselves and how we’re to think properties of objects such as the relation between the whole and its parts, predicates and substances, qualities and objects, conditions and objects, and the question of “when” an object is.”
It seems to me that there’s a problem in defining the being of objects. In an earlier post you talked about some things being a matter of differentials in speed, which I take to be in part (but only in part) an epistemological matter: effects for observers. It seems to me that similarly the distinction between object-assemblage and nonobject-assemblage is a problematic one. For instance, the assemblage you form with your desk, one which for you is not an object, and the assemblage-objects which compose that assemblage (you, the desk, and the component object-assemblages of each). Let’s say I’m a scientist and assassin who uses high technology to kill people with radiation and so on and for some reason I have to kill you at your desk. I study the properties of you and your desk (I don’t know what – maybe how much radiation your desk will absorb, as part of calculating how much I need to bombard the room with; or maybe I’m going to go a bit more simply and weaken the floorboards such that the weight of you plus desk plus the small movements you make while at the desk add up to enough to cause you to come crashing through the floor and die). Another example, my wife and I form an assemblage in our relationship. Our relationship is not an object, in an important sense. But say we were going to a marriage counselor, or participating in a psychological study, or that some government agency was trying to break up our marriage for some reason. In all those examples, the assemblage of my wife and I would be an object of study and manipulation. Likewise the scientist-assassin would take the assemblage of you and desk as an object of study then object of manipulation. Maybe this is just a grammatical problem and I’m using object in a way that you’re not.
Your most recent post seems to suggest that the United States forms an object of sorts. I don’t know that there’s much of a difference in kind between the United States and the assemblage of you and your desk (I mean “difference in kind” solely in terms of being an object or not). One last comment, you commented to Glen that assemblages are not or not only perceptual artifacts, I think this is in keeping with your earlier remarks that difference is not reducible to cognitive difference. You also comment that you probably would say the solar system is an object in part because “of the way in which it holds together in time.” This seems to me to be an implied appeal to perception. The solar system will in all likelihood eventually cease to exist due to internal dynamics within the sun, barring outside influences doing the job first. I say this because your appeal to persistence in time seems to me to suggest that there might be a lower temporal limit – some duration or lack of duration which is so small that something is not an object. (I know I’m over-reading an offhand remark, it’s just that I find this discussion provocative.) That seems to me to smuggle in a normative or observer dependent carving up of time in a way which isn’t just a matter of objects in themselves.
take care,
Nate
January 28, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Hi Nate,
Nice thought experiment. My thesis, I think, is subtly different than the way in which you seem to be portraying it. My thesis isn’t that there aren’t objects that are dependent on perception, language, society, etc., but that perception, language, or society aren’t essential conditions for counting as an object. Thus, where the correlationist argues that mind, for example, is universally included like the empty set as a condition for all objects, I reject the thesis that mind is universally included as a condition for all objects. The example of the desk would be an example where mind, language, society or some combination thereof would necessarily be a condition for this entity being-a-desk. This is because tools are tools only for beings such as ourselves (then again, Stiegler’s work on technology complicates this significantly). In a world without humans my desk would probably still count as an object because of the differences this assemblage is able to produce as a unity, but it would be a desk. The existence of the United States would be similar. This is an assemblage that can only sustain itself as an object with reference to human beings in some form or another.
I am not sure I understand your point about the solar system and time. I’m committed to the thesis that all objects come to be and pass away. The fact that the solar system had to come into being and that it will, at some point, pass out of being, does not strike me as demonstrating that being-the-solar-system is observer dependent. Unlike the desk or the United States, the bodies that make up the solar system both are and relate to one another in a particular way regardless of whether or not anyone observes it. These relations maintain themselves in the order of time or duration, without anyone there to observe it. Rather, the destruction of the solar system would just be the end of this assemblages adventure in time. Presumably, the destruction of the solar system assemblage simply entails that the other objects that make up the solar system– particles, for example –now begin a new adventure and enter into new assemblages.
I’ll have to think more on your remarks about different kinds of relations and whether something like the relation formed by you and your wife form an object or not. The example of the United States coupled with the fact that you and your wife can produce a difference as an assemblage on other things, suggests that it is an assemblage or object.
I feel fortunate that as a denizen of Texas we don’t have basements, so your evil scientist would be unlikely to kill me by causing me to fall through the floor!
January 29, 2009 at 6:34 am
hi Levi,
Thanks for clarifying. I actually had already understood from your prior comments and posts that you meant everything in your first paragraph, so none of that’s a surprise to me. That’s not a criticism, just saying that at least on this point I’ve failed to convey what I’ve tried to say, since I got all of that already.
Here’s the thing, on that. As you say, mind or something is needed to make an entity a desk per se. It seems to me that in what you’ve laid out thus far, there’s little grounds for contesting any claim to an object’s existence. I mean, you could say “you don’t believe that” and show that to be true, or you could say “the object does not have the properties you ascribe to it” but it seems to me that your system as laid out thus far means that any perceived object is an actual object. That is, there is no such thing as false perception or cognition of an object – though there may be false perceptions of qualities of objects – because you hold that cognitive objects are real objects. (I like that point a lot, actually, that cognitive objects are real objects.) So, if I perceive spirits that no one else perceives, they make a difference for me, they’re real, they exist. They don’t have the qualities I think they have, but they do have some ontological status and do exist. As usual, I may have misunderstood you, let me know if so – my point is that you hold that cognitive objects are real objects, while you don’t hold that *all* objects are cogntive objects (“cogntive objects” is a subset of “objects”).
Given that that’s so, I don’t understand how you can hold that an assemblage is not an object. It seems to me at the very least that any assemblage must have the potential to be an object, because an object cognized is an object; thus an assemblage cognized as an object is an object-assemblage. (Again, this doesn’t involving any commitment to properties of the assemblage-object other than it’s being an object; my point is only to say that I’m not sure about the assemblage vs object distinction.) This ties in to the issue of relations as objects, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on that.
Re: the solar system, I think I was just being clumsy there in both expression and in reading you. I took you in your comment to Glen to be saying something about duration as an aspect of the solar system being an object (or assemblage, sorry, tired and jumbled just now). I took (mistook, I think) your remark to imply a minimal temporal threshold for object-being, a minimum duration below which something can’t be called an object. That would seem to me to freight in observer dependent qualities. I no longer think you were saying or implying any of that, sorry for the confusion.
take care,
Nate
ps – Just so we’re clear, if I happen to meet any evil scientists is the absence of basements in Texas something I should tell them about or something I should keep to myself? ;)
January 29, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Hi Nate,
I ask that you keep information about the absence of basements in Texas close to your chest when encountering evil scientists.
I think that you’re right in claiming that I’m committed to the thesis that something like a delusion (your spirit example) must count as real for me insofar as the delusion produces differences. However, it seems to me that worries about this consequence of the Ontic Principle can be addressed by reference to what I’ve called the Principle of Reality.
The Principle of Reality states that the degree of power or reality belonging to an object is a function of the extensiveness of the differences it makes. The reason that we’re intuitively inclined to grant spirits a lower degree of reality than, say, hurricanes is because generally spirits introduce very little difference into the world. Unlike puppies that knock over vases, pee on carpets, and bark in the middle of the night, spirits generally don’t make much of a ruckus to anyone but those encountering them. As a consequence, we tend to hold that the difference produced by a spirit is ultimate a difference produced by the mind cognizing the spirit rather than the spirit itself. Of course, in suggesting this, I’m perilously close to some form of positivism, so I’ll need to think on it a bit more as presumably we want to maintain mechanisms that are at work in nature without manifesting themselves to human perception.
January 30, 2009 at 6:19 am
hi Levi,
I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this. One quick reply in the mean time. I think I said this, but I think it’s a good thing that your system accords some ontological status to what others might say are not real things (I mean, I think spirits aren’t real but I say that with a different use of the word “real” than the way I use the term in discussions of ontology).
I notice that the principle of reality uses the word “objects.” I assume that you don’t mean to the principle of reality to refer to some restricted class called objects and not referring to non-objects. That is, I take it that the word “objects” in the principle as you phase it here is something like “any X”, is that right?
take care,
Nate
May 15, 2009 at 8:17 pm
[…] schematic forms in my post Principles of Onticology (and here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). In developing this ontology it should be noted that I proceed experimentally in […]