Skip to main content

More on necessity as immunity

Being thinking about necessity and immunity and trying to organize ideas around substances, substrata and relations. The idea of necessary connections is part of the idea that something subsist unaffected by whatever else takes place. Something is necessary if it is independent of all the others. It is the thus and so comes what may. The virtual, in contrast, as Deleuze understands it in in Difference et Répétition and up to Le Pli, is something that depends on the whole world to become actual. The necessary is independent from anything else, somehow protected from anything else – it is immune. It is not open to whatever else exists.

Immunity can be understood to have four different kinds:

With respect to things they can be:

1. The immunity of something over its qualities. This is the immunity that makes a substratum capable of keeping its identity in different worlds. A particular is the same no matter the different (universal) qualities attributed to it. A substractum is preserved from the changes in qualities – from modal changes. Gregor Samsa would carry on being the particular it is if it were turned into a roach. This type of immunity is the one Kripke points at when he connects a necessity with the act of naming – the name-giving act directed to a particular.

2. The immunity of something over its changes in time. This is related not to modal change but rather to temporal change. This is the immunity that makes a substance capable of keeping its identity in different times. A substance underlies its changes. Leibniz’s monads contrast with Whitehead’s actual entity in that the former are immune to whatever happens to them over time while the latter are relative to a time. Leibniz’s monads are substances without substractum because what makes them resist to change in time is related to a single world, they are individuated by the infinite qualities that they had, have and will have over time. Substances are postulated to be immune, they subsist comes what may.

With respect to relations they can be:

3. The immunity of relations between things. Here is no longer about a single thing (and its substratum or substance) but rather about relations. This is the immunity that makes a relation indifferent to the possible world in which it is – indifferent to whatever else exists or relates to it. Causal relations are often thought to be like this – if the white ball causes the red one to move, this will happen in all possible worlds, no matter what other relations are also in place. Logical relations are even moe often thought to be independent of the world around them. Relation like that would be immune to whatever else is relating around – the relation stands on its own.

4. The immunity of relations between things over time. If the previous kind was about resilience of the relation in different possible worlds, this one is about its subsistence over time. Immune relations of this kind are not built and not destroyed – they are eternal. They could be dependent on a possible world (like Leibniz’s monads or Lewis’ individuals) but not relative to a time where they were instituted and not affected by other relations in the world where they belong.

Comments

Post a Comment

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
1 comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more