Skip to main content

Object-oriented ontologies vs materialisms: what is at stake 2 (the transcendental)


Following up on the frictions between the object and the matter pole, I was thinking a bit about the transcendental, which is somehow connected to the previous post on objects and concepts, matter and non-conceptual contents.

There is a similarity between those who appeal to matter and those who posit a transcendental level that makes whatever appear possible. Hamilton Grant endorses Deleuze's transcendental volcanism and claims that matter is the stuff that folds and unfolds itself in things. Object-oriented ontologies, on the other hand, posit no special dedicated realm of the transcendental - the conditions of possibility for objects are to be found among objects, maybe among other objects but still among objects. There is no transcendental refuge beyond them, ontogenesis - and this means mainly the origin of objects - is to be done in an object-oriented manner: which objects give rise to which objects. In this sense, the absence of a transcendental promotes a flat ontology where there are no layers other than that of objects. The transcendental that matter provides is that of Schelling's transcendental nature, one that is beyond everything and carries the potentialities for everything that exists while registering history. It is like the layers of the planet that allow for future tectonics while keeping track of previous eruptions. Matter is like the Earth: it harbours a transcendental genealogy, a transcendental geology and a transcendental ginecology. Of all - including morals.

Now, McDowell once said that his disagreement with Davidson was not in any matter of justification - that beliefs justify beliefs - but rather in the transcendental role experience has on our beliefs. He thought that experience makes belief possible and there is a story to be told about that - albeit for him it was clearly a conceptual story. (Notice that the main tract of experience according to McDowell is its passivity, the scope of experience for his has to be one of conceptual passivity and not of non-conceptual ingredients; even though concepts are present, they are present in a passive manner - and passivity is often predicated of matter, or at least of non-formed matter.) Beliefs, he claims, cannot be spinning in the frictionless void as they respond to experience in a form that is external to the realm of beliefs. Here experience has a transcendental role for beliefs to be compared with that of matter for objects: here there ought to be a separate level that makes receptivity possible, there there ought to be a separate level that makes ontogenesis possible. The analogue of the McDowell's position in the object vs matter debate would be that there should be some sort of primeval or primordial level of objects responsible for other objects. Those are not necessarily different objects, but objects that play a different role, a connecting role, an ontogenesis role. In contrast, Davidson's position is that beliefs are grounded on further beliefs - and they are not devoid of any contact with the world because they are intrinsically tied with truth. The analogue of such position would be that objects are the origin of other objects and objects are not devoid of ontogenetic capabilities because they are intrinsically active and animated. A fully object-oriented position.

Here beliefs seem to be like objects for epistemology as I believe the debate replicates in different regions. In any case, there is a difference between postulating a transcendental beyond the object-level (even if it is itself object-oriented) and insisting that objects need no conditions of possibility but the ones provided by further objects.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hunky, Gunky and Junky - all Funky Metaphysics

Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev

Talk on ultrametaphysics

 This is the text of my seminar on ultrametaphysics on Friday here in Albuquerque. An attempt at a history of ultrametaphysics in five chapters Hilan Bensusan I begin with some of the words in the title. First, ‘ultrametaphysics’, then ‘history’ and ‘chapters’. ‘Ultrametaphysics’, which I discovered that in my mouth could sound like ‘ autre metaphysics’, intends to address what comes after metaphysics assuming that metaphysics is an endeavor – or an epoch, or a project, or an activity – that reaches an end, perhaps because it is consolidated, perhaps because it has reached its own limits, perhaps because it is accomplished, perhaps because it is misconceived. In this sense, other names could apply, first of all, ‘meta-metaphysics’ – that alludes to metaphysics coming after physics, the books of Aristotle that came after Physics , or the task that follows the attention to φύσις, or still what can be reached only if the nature of things is considered. ‘Meta-m

Memory assemblages

My talk here at Burque last winter I want to start by thanking you all and acknowledging the department of philosophy, the University of New Mexico and this land, as a visitor coming from the south of the border and from the land of many Macroje peoples who themselves live in a way that is constantly informed by memory, immortality and their ancestors, I strive to learn more about the Tiwas, the Sandia peoples and other indigenous communities of the area. I keep finding myself trying to find their marks around – and they seem quite well hidden. For reasons to do with this very talk, I welcome the gesture of directing our thoughts to the land where we are; both as an indication of our situated character and as an archive of the past which carries a proliferation of promises for the future. In this talk, I will try to elaborate and recommend the idea of memory assemblage, a central notion in my current project around specters and addition. I begin by saying that I