Over at Complete Lies Mikhail and I have been having a rather pleasant conversation about object-oriented ontology. Even though he is leveling criticisms at my position, I am deeply appreciative of the manner in which he has expressed them. At any rate, at one point in our exchange I think we really get to a fundamental difference between our respective philosophical intuitions. These issues are of potential interest to a wider audience so I thought I’d post them here. Mikhail, of course, is welcome to respond here too if he likes. At any rate, at one point in our exchange, I write:
It seems to me that you’re conflating theory with the world. An ontology is not the world but a theory of the world. It is possible for that theory to be mistaken. Noting that there are different ontologies is merely pointing out that there are different competing theories of what being is. Each of these theories are trying to get at the truth and each of these theories critiques other positions and offers arguments in favor of its position. I am not “polishing my perspective”, but presenting a position or theory of the being of beings. In other words, I am trying to get at reality or the being of objects.
To this Mikhail responds,
I might be conflating theory with the world since I don’t think there’s a pre-theoretical world and that I can ever compare a theory with a world it theorizes and therefore see how it does or does not fit. So for me there is no one true theory of the world, since that presupposes that I have an access to this world and so on.
I think this is a fantastic remark– offhand as it is –on Mikhail’s part because it really gets at the fundamental difference between realisms and anti-realisms. I think this is one major point on which I disagree with anti-realisms. In my view this position undermines the possibility of any fallibilism so we’re left without the means of determining why we should choose one theory over another. Because everything is already immanent to theory and because any criteria by which we might choose among rival theories is itself already an element of theory, we are unable to provide any “non-theory laden” criteria for choosing among theories. Now, this observation does not undermine Mikhail’s thesis because this could just be the way things are, but it is nonetheless an issue worth thinking about.
read on!
Additionally, this position, I think, leaves us without the means of determining why theories change over time, instead leaving us in the position of holding that theories just spontaneously bloom out of nowhere. Because there is nothing other than theories and because everything that we experience, talk about, or think about is already defined by a theoretical framework, it follows that any change a theory undergoes must itself be the spontaneous result of the theory or the mind from which the theory is spawned. In this respect, we become like Atlas, having to hold the entire weight of the universe on our shoulders.
Finally, evoking a line of argument from Andrew Collier in his book Critical Realism, it seems to me that every theorist, whether realist or anti-realist, is realist about something. The question is one of determining where the realism lies. It is with respect to this observation that delicious paradoxes of self-reflexivity arise with respect to anti-realism. In other words, anti-realisms, I believe, tend to forget to apply their own thesis to their own position.
In the claim that Mikhail’s making it seems that he holds that theories (not what they’re purportedly about) are real. But here we can ask the question “how do we have any more access to theories than we do to the world?” For example, we can argue that Kant has a theory and that it is possible for a person to be a Kantian. But what is it that gives the anti-realist access to Kant’s theory? No doubt the anti-realist will say “I read his books, the secondary lit, etc.” Good! But still this problem of access emerges with respect to the anti-realist’s relationship to Kant’s theory. Within the framework of the anti-realist’s thesis– that there is no world to which we can compare a theory to judge it –it seems to follow that there is no independent text to which the anti-realist can compare his interpretation of Kant. So what is it that warrants us in saying that Kant’s text (or any other theoretical text) exists at all?
The anti-realist could respond by saying “Yes, of course this is true! This is precisely what Derridean deconstruction and Gadamerian hermeneutics has taught us about texts!” But note, the problem now emerges with respect to Gadamerian hermeneutics and Derridean deconstruction because they are texts and we must account for how we have access to them. In other words, we are led to the conclusion that the thesis that Derrida’s text or Gadamer’s text exists is a unwarranted and dogmatic assertion because it fails to interrogate our access to these texts and the limits belonging to that access. As a consequence, we inevitably seem led to a solipsistic position where we can no longer claim anything exists but ourselves. But wait! Here I am reminded of a classic philosophy joke that really isn’t very good. “Descartes goes to a restaurant and has a wonderful and very filling meal. After his meal the waiter comes up to his table and asks ‘Would you like dinner, Monsieur?’ to which Descartes responds ‘I think not’ and promptly puffs out of existence.” In other words, applying the principle of parity, we must apply the question of access to ourselves as well and here we find that there is no real self to which we could compare our theory of ourselves. Therefore it would be dogmatic to claim that our selves exist!
At the beginning of his book Critical Realism Collier makes a profound observation:
Don’t worry, I am not going to argue for realism along the lines of ‘ten million sun readers can’t be wrong’– or the well-known bit of graffiti that parodies such statements. The point is rather that this apparent obviousness [of realism to the layperson outside of academia] presents a problem for realists. Two opposite problems, in fact: it might be thought that realism is too obviously true to be worth saying; or it might be thought that anything so obvious to commensense is probably false, like the ideas that the sun rises, that pigs sweat, that men are more rational and women more emotional, and so on. Oddly, these two objections are often combined: realism is both dismissed as obvious, and replaced by a non-realist account which is supposedly less ‘naive’.
But the following considerations suggest that the ordinary person’s realism is not necessarily more naive or likely to be wrong than the non-realism of some academics. Let us look at what might be called regional non-realisms. By this phrase I mean views that some particular group of phenomena or of natural or social forces, which are generally taken to exist, do not. An example would be the “Christian Science’ view that pain and illness are unreal. We will generally find that they are held by people who have no practical dealings with the region concerned. I am not, of course, claiming that all regional non-realisms are false. But a great many that are false sustain themselves by practical disengagement from the aspect of the world about which they are non-realists. I doubt whether any surgeons have been converted to Christian Science. Now academics, at least in the arts, are mainly engaged in meta-discourse– that is, talking about talking –and do not, in their professional capacity, interact much with extra-linguistic realities. They are therefore prone to non-realism about such things. (3 – 4)
Because academics in the arts primarily traffic in meta-discourse or talk about talk, they are realists about talk and non-realists about the extra-discursive regions with which they don’t deal. This is a suggestion worth pondering as we engage in these debates.
Alright, it’s been a long day so I’m done for the evening. Tomorrow is pretty hectic so it’s likely I won’t get to any comments before tomorrow evening or Friday, i.e., failure to post right away doesn’t mean your comment has been deleted.
Larval Subjects . 
November 19, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Levi, I think I would not disagree with any of your comments, just with some transitions you make, I don’t know if this comment will get through, so I can, of course, respond a bit later, if you are interested. I think to keep the conversation interesting (for me), I wouldn’t want to go back to our “realism wars” but only to point out some very basic things (if allowed, of course).
November 19, 2009 at 4:40 pm
It’s absolutely the case that the Kantian framework cannot be disproven in any satisfactory way. However, as a theory, we must simply abandon it [who suggested this in those terms? Harman? Latour?] to avoid the fate of the ontological Atlas.
Given what we know about the other sciences (including the so-called human sciences) and the investigations of their respective objects (material or immaterial), it seems altogether modest (to me) to grant these objects the kind of reality described by Harman and Bryant.
Is it not also the case that the Kantian insight is preserved in OOO, but without the human-centeredness? This is part of my understanding of the “withdrawal” of objects (from each other). In this concept, isn’t there a parallel with a mind’s inability to reach the noumena, the “things” themselves? OOO just says the same goes for orchid and wasp. Forgive me if that’s a crude reading.
A perfectly reasonable criticism would highlight the desire of the object-oriented ontologist to avoid the fate of Atlas, and how this desire serves as an impetus for the adoption of the theory. Some have criticized Harman in particular for “aestheticism,” or the desire for a “beautiful” theory or a pretty picture of reality. However, if this criticism holds for Harman, it seems to me it should hold for the physicist as well. And the statistician, and everyone else seeking to create a theory, a representation that somehow relates to reality.
November 19, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Great post, although my initial response was a grumpy desire to reduce what you were saying to an analytical sound-bite. Namely, it just simply seems to be the case that most realisms commit to some version of a correspondence theory of truth, whereas most antirealisms commit to some version of coherence theory (or sometimes a deflationary or pragmatist one).
That said, though, you quickly get to the very interesting question of what makes a better theory and how do theories change and even get started in the first place. In the case of OOO and its various theoretical instantiations there is clearly the sense in which these theories are thought to be – or one day hopefully will be capable of – providing a better account of reality than most of the alternatives. But nearly everything seems to pivot here upon how one defends and defines “better” (e.g. better qua truer, better qua more coherent, better qua more applicable to the world). Antirealists can enter the debate here and quite forcefully argue that we do not have access to any criteria of better without reaching for further criteria and theories (ad absurdum and probably ad nauseum too). Thus the limits of correlationism come to the fore.
Usefully, to my mind at least, you then make the valuable point that antirealists do not avoid being realists about at least one thing, the trick is discovering precisely what that is. This seems to be a point that requires repeating to antirealists and also exploring further. Obviously some antirealists are realists about a great many things and Collier’s point about the regional nature of anti- and non-realisms seems very plausible in this regard. There also seem to be parallels here with the limits of global scepticism, one must stand somewhere and cannot doubt everything at once. Unfortunately, though, I’m not too sure how much purchase this recurrence of the real in antirealist arguments and theories grants one. Can you clarify what do you think can be done with it?
Oddly, and this is my more substantive point, I find it strange and worrying how convincing undergraduate philosophy students find antirealist arguments to be, particularly when this gives rise to an attitude that often seems to be detrimental to their long term engagement with and/or passion for philosophy. Once students have learnt some of the sceptical and anti-realist turns in epistemology and meta-ethics, and studied some of the problems of human access, for many this very quickly becomes their preferred default position. More specifically, they find it remarkably difficult to take ontology, metaphysics and realism seriously; and often cannot, or are unwilling to, sustain systematic thinking and theorising in these areas without playing the “how can we know?” card and then sitting back as if the matter is settled. This is, I must add in my case, in a broadly analytic context where one might expect realism to be more deeply entrenched. Now, not a problem one might respond, particularly when academia is populated by plenty of philosophers with similar antirealist commitments. Scepticism, doubt and antirealist arguments (whether Derridean, nominalist or other) are wonderful philosophical tools to have at one’s disposal. However, for many undergraduates (and I add the rather obvious caveat that this is only in my experience of teaching UG philosophy in the UK), this seems to lead to a certain degree of philosophical disillusionment. That is, once students feel competent with an arsenal of sceptical and antirealist tools, they then consider themselves unable to investigate many of the metaphysical problems that initially captured their interest in philosophy (free will debates, mind-body body relations, could a machine be conscious, personal identity, the nature of time etc.). The restraints imposed by epistemology and the Kantian bubble foreclose the pursuit of questions and lines of enquiry that in many cases originally fired them up. I’m not sure if this coheres with other people’s experiences. This could I admit be a geographical and regional problem – and I admit that many students do sustain an interest in philosophy, generally, and some of the more metaphysical topics, specifically. But part of my own interest in SR and OOO is that it is endeavouring to move beyond the constraints and problems of access and correlationism, problems that many UG philosophy students find ultimately paralysing. Metaphysical enquiry, construction and ontological theorizing is no bad thing if nurtures and sustains student interest.
November 19, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I prefer “non-realism” to anti-realism since it does not suggest an orientation of simple opposition or antagonism. This is important too since, non-realism seems less bound to certain terms or concepts that may be then understood dialectically, since a non-realist may subscribe to a totally different view. Now realism itself, as you often point out, in many forms, so any definition is distortive. Let me give one necessarily flawed and simplistic definition: “Things exist independent of our knowledge.” For me, every element in this definition is misleading and/or flawed in ways that make further coherent discussion nearly impossible: the terms act or tend to act axiomatically in what follows and thus to perpetuate a space in which other concepts can only appear as contradictory or silly. Thus, I prefer “non-realist.” The point here however is not to spell out my non-realism but to interact with Levi’s beliefs about non-realisms. While they differ as much as realisms, the post seems to state shared liabilities: “In my view this position undermines the possibility of any fallibilism so we’re left without the means of determining why we should choose one theory over another. ” As the post notes, the NR is not thereby caught in an inconsistency, but I would like to add that it does not keep one from choosing a theory for the nonce, not because one has an infallible meta-theory that determined the one at hand was permanently correct, but because other considerations were at issue: most common among these is accepted practice. Realists often portray NRs as obliged to be paralyzed by there doubts about ontic absolutes. This does not follow and is a shadow cast by their commitments. I can play Monopoly without believing I am in Atlantic City: I can even win. Just because I operate within the ontic obligations of others does not mean that I think that their working hypothesis is valid or true.
Similarly, Levi states “Additionally, this position, I think, leaves us without the means of determining why theories change over time, instead leaving us in the position of holding that theories just spontaneously bloom out of nowhere.” This seems to presuppose much about NR which is not made clear. Cannot a NR believe, for instance, in theory laden causation? In simulated causes? Further, cannot one believe that becoming is a contiguous process without thinking that what we call objects do not accurately characterize that process? If reasons are always already theory bound, why does that disadvantage the NR since she accepts that as a matter of course? Then again you say “it seems to me that every theorist, whether realist or anti-realist, is realist about something. ” I do not know exactly what that means: perhaps it means “I see you operating, Ms. NR, as if something were the case!” The answer to this is “Yes, so?” If I have a temporary contingent belief or a dependent practice for the time being, how does that make me realist? In short, note the “as if.” This does not mean that “theories are real” but that they have established practices which are largely semiological in nature and which appeal to certain human habits of response but none of these traits make them real in the R sense: indeed, they go opposite. The post seems to think that for the NR “that there is no world to which we can compare a theory to judge it.” Certainly one can judge a theory by another theory and not “by the world” whatever that might mean. Further, this remark may be meant to smuggle in two attributes of one or more pictures of NR which need not be in one’s kit: 1. that NR ‘s necessarily do not believe the reality of becoming (as opposed to the reality of objects and fixity) and/or 2. That NR is a traditional solipsism or idealism. The self Descartes and others postulate is a theoretical self: as such it poses a problem as yet unsolved for the Rs, not the NRs. Since NRs need not believe in the subject or the object as other than the epiphenomena of their theoretical interpellations, it is not incumbent on NRs to explain these delusions. Oddly, I think the rejection of some NR positions are not that they are less realistic than R, but because they are more so since they accept that every theory and practice of the real is necessarily insufficient just as any finite number is absurd next to the infinite and every fixity next to the dynamic. The quote from Collier is a case in point in its circularity and its straw man of NR. Even if one excepts as unproblematic the possibility of fair or even meaningful comparisons between versions of the real that are not as front loaded as this one (I do not), one need not eschew the possibility of adopting one set of criteria for local purposes that determine a winner but this has no bearing on whether a global theory has merit other than in its own criteria.