A quick word to say "hello" and "thanks" to new After Nature readers Gary Slater, Art Niewiadomski, Robyn Espinoza, and Chris Sharp. All have gotten in touch this past week to connect about interests and engage philosophically either through just asking questions, dropping a short note, etc. etc. etc.
When folks like the above decide to get in touch and write - folks who are cordial, open to collaboration, supportive, and who are just generally friendly, nice, and interesting - I really appreciate the positive feedback and interest. It's definitely encouraging to hear from After Nature readers and to know that blogging can have a positive impact.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
life before (and after) matter
Following the implications of the cosmic timeline as presented in the article, life is now not as rare as we think given just how common life, as a basic ingredient in the cosmos, is purported to be.
This makes me wonder: both the early and ending universes would be fairly dead places despite conditions where organisms could survive either ambient heat or extreme cold - organisms would be abundant if material complexity were just right. But the material complexity either just wasn't present, or in the future won't be capable of holding itself together as the universe accelerates and material bonds and matter itself begins to fly apart at the seams, eventually ending in cold, frozen death.
What a unique time to be living in the current universe. The article essentially states that humans may not be so special afterall, not because we could be extinguished at any moment, but rather because we possibly are one but of many living things in the cosmos at this time. It's "when" human beings are living (now, given the appropriate millions of years required for evolution to do what it does) which seems to be a special moment on not just an earthly scale, but a cosmic one. A Godiliocks time rather than zone.
Link HERE.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
more on Kacem's The Meillassoux Effect
The following are some thoughts prompted by a post from Terry of Agent Swarm blog HERE. Terry has given us some invaluable translations and presents in English for the first time just how important MBK's criticisms of Meillassoux truly are. Kacem is definitely a name you'll be hearing about in the future.
Kacem construes Meillassoux to be a problematic thinker due to his dual allegiance to Badiou and Deleuze. Badiou for the inspiration of ontology as mathematics (set theory), and Deleuze for surcontingency (and its virtual nature). It is not that Meillassoux veers toward subjectalism, vitalism, or even scientism, as someone who unites Badiou and Deleuze might. Rather, it is the noumenalisation of these factors that is problematic, according to Kacem.
In the past many philosophers have criticized moments in After Finitude where Meillassoux is just at a loss when proper citation, evidence, or support seems needed. In particular, there are, indeed, several instances of straw men in that book, particularly when it comes to criticisms of "correlationism." (In fact, many recent criticisms of the phenomenological method are put forward in the same vein as these straw men and come off as disingenuous for similar reasons.) Here Kacem states that QM is "hiding from himself" and is incapable of recognizing the fatal contradiction in his system.
The contradiction is not performative and actually does not involve a human correlate. It is much more dangerous, and hence, possibly truly a fatal error. In essence, Kacem points out that the "factial negation" of any form of surcontingency in QM's system is precisely the sort of mathematical necessity and universality which is required (and presupposed) for his argument concerning set theory to work. (QM's argument is that because no totalizable number of sets are possible one cannot say one coming-to-be "event" is any more likely than any other. There just isn't a closed total to draw from.)
The result is that QM has duplicated Absolutes. One in surcontingency, and one is the necessity required to either ground surcontingency or the logical and mathematical ontology needed to explain the nature of its existence.
In the past I've compared to QM to a Schellingean process philosopher on this account, where, instead of two there are three Absolutes within his system. The third Absolute holds true in temporal form, and hence there is a way to construe three modal operators at work in rotatory motion within his system ala Hegel, Schelling, and Bergson. But the "bluff," as Kacem points out, is that QM denies necessity, though requires it at each turn of the rotor: whether in the establishment of Worlds, the creation of an advent, or whathaveyou.
Kacem then goes on to critique the incompatibility of QM's statements with contemporary scientific findings concerning natural laws. Here Kacem seems to be neglecting a Peircean (and even Deleuzian) understanding of law as a natural feature of the world established by habit. There are laws, but they may change (rather slowly) over time. On the other hand, Kacem is right to state that the fact that QM states that these laws can change at any time, for any reason, seems to undermine his position that the laws governing surcontingency (or the necessity of it) *and* the proposed temporal order of the creation of Worlds, are a real possibility in the sense that their creation/event can be anticipated in any meaningful way.
The issue comes down to stability. There is a "meta" level of stability whose appearance seems unjustified if his theory concerning surcontingency and set theory is true. Kacem thinks that it is QM's Kantian noumenalisation of surcontingency that allows the positing of this "meta" level to take place. (I am not sure I agree.) On Kacem's account, surgcontingency is nowhere to be seen, and thus there is no way to account for surcontingency's real properties save for the mathematical ontology whose necessity surcontingency denies. Deleuze does not suffer this problem because the Deleuzian mathematical ontology is fundamentally a description of empirical conditions (albeit an empirical transcendental method, e.g. "transcendental empiricism"), whereas QM's is a "demonstration" only in the sense that it relies on mathematical ontology to achieve phenomenal expression of an unfalsifiable hypothesis ("transcendental materialism"). This is to say that whatever surcongtingency is or does, we can never know so directly or according to a method that can make sense of its necessity, despite Meillassoux's own claims. That necessity is presupposed rather than proven given the contradiction in the system. Ironically, I think this is because Meillassoux, despite denying that there is a transcendental core to his dismantling of correlationism, utilizes a transcendental core and then keeps it. Thus, QM is not a philosopher of immanence, but of transcendence. For me, personally, philosophically, this is not especially problematic because of my own theological commitments.
In the end, Kacem finds that Meillassoux noumenalises what ought to be (and can be) adequately described within a rationalist, materialist ontology. Just as Harman, so says Kacem, cannot explain the interior of whatever he presupposes to be an already eternally individuated item (and thus is a philosopher of transcendence in two ways: that of an unknowable inner core and that of failing to provide a meaningful account of individuation), Meillassoux cannot explain the noumenal Absolute that his phenomenal Absolute presupposes, and thus also is a transcendental philosopher. In this way Kacem states QM is still stuck in finitude (and indirectly in correlation) despite his rationalist materialism and mathematical ontology.
Kacem construes Meillassoux to be a problematic thinker due to his dual allegiance to Badiou and Deleuze. Badiou for the inspiration of ontology as mathematics (set theory), and Deleuze for surcontingency (and its virtual nature). It is not that Meillassoux veers toward subjectalism, vitalism, or even scientism, as someone who unites Badiou and Deleuze might. Rather, it is the noumenalisation of these factors that is problematic, according to Kacem.
In the past many philosophers have criticized moments in After Finitude where Meillassoux is just at a loss when proper citation, evidence, or support seems needed. In particular, there are, indeed, several instances of straw men in that book, particularly when it comes to criticisms of "correlationism." (In fact, many recent criticisms of the phenomenological method are put forward in the same vein as these straw men and come off as disingenuous for similar reasons.) Here Kacem states that QM is "hiding from himself" and is incapable of recognizing the fatal contradiction in his system.
The contradiction is not performative and actually does not involve a human correlate. It is much more dangerous, and hence, possibly truly a fatal error. In essence, Kacem points out that the "factial negation" of any form of surcontingency in QM's system is precisely the sort of mathematical necessity and universality which is required (and presupposed) for his argument concerning set theory to work. (QM's argument is that because no totalizable number of sets are possible one cannot say one coming-to-be "event" is any more likely than any other. There just isn't a closed total to draw from.)
The result is that QM has duplicated Absolutes. One in surcontingency, and one is the necessity required to either ground surcontingency or the logical and mathematical ontology needed to explain the nature of its existence.
In the past I've compared to QM to a Schellingean process philosopher on this account, where, instead of two there are three Absolutes within his system. The third Absolute holds true in temporal form, and hence there is a way to construe three modal operators at work in rotatory motion within his system ala Hegel, Schelling, and Bergson. But the "bluff," as Kacem points out, is that QM denies necessity, though requires it at each turn of the rotor: whether in the establishment of Worlds, the creation of an advent, or whathaveyou.
Kacem then goes on to critique the incompatibility of QM's statements with contemporary scientific findings concerning natural laws. Here Kacem seems to be neglecting a Peircean (and even Deleuzian) understanding of law as a natural feature of the world established by habit. There are laws, but they may change (rather slowly) over time. On the other hand, Kacem is right to state that the fact that QM states that these laws can change at any time, for any reason, seems to undermine his position that the laws governing surcontingency (or the necessity of it) *and* the proposed temporal order of the creation of Worlds, are a real possibility in the sense that their creation/event can be anticipated in any meaningful way.
The issue comes down to stability. There is a "meta" level of stability whose appearance seems unjustified if his theory concerning surcontingency and set theory is true. Kacem thinks that it is QM's Kantian noumenalisation of surcontingency that allows the positing of this "meta" level to take place. (I am not sure I agree.) On Kacem's account, surgcontingency is nowhere to be seen, and thus there is no way to account for surcontingency's real properties save for the mathematical ontology whose necessity surcontingency denies. Deleuze does not suffer this problem because the Deleuzian mathematical ontology is fundamentally a description of empirical conditions (albeit an empirical transcendental method, e.g. "transcendental empiricism"), whereas QM's is a "demonstration" only in the sense that it relies on mathematical ontology to achieve phenomenal expression of an unfalsifiable hypothesis ("transcendental materialism"). This is to say that whatever surcongtingency is or does, we can never know so directly or according to a method that can make sense of its necessity, despite Meillassoux's own claims. That necessity is presupposed rather than proven given the contradiction in the system. Ironically, I think this is because Meillassoux, despite denying that there is a transcendental core to his dismantling of correlationism, utilizes a transcendental core and then keeps it. Thus, QM is not a philosopher of immanence, but of transcendence. For me, personally, philosophically, this is not especially problematic because of my own theological commitments.
In the end, Kacem finds that Meillassoux noumenalises what ought to be (and can be) adequately described within a rationalist, materialist ontology. Just as Harman, so says Kacem, cannot explain the interior of whatever he presupposes to be an already eternally individuated item (and thus is a philosopher of transcendence in two ways: that of an unknowable inner core and that of failing to provide a meaningful account of individuation), Meillassoux cannot explain the noumenal Absolute that his phenomenal Absolute presupposes, and thus also is a transcendental philosopher. In this way Kacem states QM is still stuck in finitude (and indirectly in correlation) despite his rationalist materialism and mathematical ontology.
Tags:
Meillassoux,
soustractivism
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Phèdre
From the album review from Resonancity HERE.
Electronic music in Toronto is presently enjoying some serious love (see Trust, Austra, Azari & III etc.). Jumping into the party is Phèdre, a collaboration between April Aliermo and Daniel Lee of Polaris Prize-nominees Hooded Fang, and Airick Woodhead of Doldrums fame. Eschewing the surf rock feel of Hooded Fang’s critically acclaimed release, Tosta Mista, Phèdre comes off like an ode to electronic decadence. It’s a lush, sensual album, and you’re likely going to want to get your dance on soon after hearing it.
By way of a quick primer for those of us without access to Wikipedia (it’s not the 18th again, is it?), Phèdre is named for Phaedra, one of Greek mythology’s crazier, angst-y heroines. Phaedra’s story is pretty classic: She meets a guy, in this case Theseus, slayer of minotaurs, subject of the shitty film Immortals, and marries him. Unfortunately for her, she falls in love with her stepson, who would rather spend time with his horses than his lusty stepmom. So Phaedra does what anyone would do – she accuses her stepson of rape and then commits suicide to drive the point home.
Ah, Greek mythology. There are lessons everywhere.
What the myth of Phaedra has to do with the band Phèdre is pretty clear from the first track. The album is loaded with sensuality while simultaneously sounding schizophrenic and strange. Layers of effects and elements are piled on top of the band’s vocal tracks, which have a crisp, clear, and innocent sound to them. Phèdre’s first single, ‘In Decay’, is a perfect example of the band’s aesthetic.
‘In Decay’ combines lyrics revolving around a few brutal murders with a perfectly jangly pop melody. The overall feel of Phèdre is something akin to a disco party in an insane asylum. It’s a good thing.
The rest of the album borrows liberally from new-wave and dreamy pop tunes. The band claims their sound was at least partially inspired by the ’67 Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra tune “Some Velvet Morning”, another slightly off-putting (also in a good way) pop song about a mysterious woman named Phaedra.
Strange and beautiful though it is, there are plenty of tracks on the album that are simply fun to dance to. After all, we know that Hooded Fang and Woodhead can create great electronic music independently. This kind of collaboration simply cements the fact that Toronto’s electronic scene has some impressive artists at work.
Tags:
music
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Ecstatic Naturalism 2014 Conference
The Fourth International Congress on Ecstatic Naturalism
April 11th & 12th
Campus of Drew University
Madison, New Jersey - USA
(Institute for Ecstatic Naturalism website HERE)
SCHEDULE
Friday, April 11, 2014
10:30 AM Registration
in Seminary Hall – Second Floor
11:00 – 1:00 PM
“Don’t Touch That!”: The Terra Impulse and the Ontological Wound
Theresa M. Ellis –
The University of Redlands
Humor and Selving: A Psychological Theory of Humor and its Relation to
Involution and Evolution
Kwang Yu Lee – Drew
University
Journeys into the Abyss: Nature, Psyche and Authenticity in a
Comparison Between Jung’s the Red Book and Ancient Gnosticism
Jean Felipe de Assis
– Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1:15—3:15 PM
Doing Justus to Nature and Psyche: Buchler and Yalcin’s Poetic
Engagement of Sacred Folds and Thoreau’s Morning Work
Robert King – Utah
State University
Finding Nature: Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Daniel Mininger –
Drew University
Love in the Modern World: An Ordinal Psychoanalytic Reading of Personal
Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and Romance in Spike Jonze’s Her
Lydia York – Drew
University
3:30—5:30 PM
Ever Not Quite: William James at the Nexus of Nature and Psyche
AJ Turner – Union
Theological Seminary
Our Hearts Are in The Trim: Corrington And His Promise
Guy Woodward –
Independent Scholar
Mindfulness (Besinnung) in Heidegger and Corrington
Rose Ellen Dunn –
Princeton Theological Seminary
5:45 – 6:15 PM Group
photograph
6:30 PM dinner
8:00 PM Plenary
Address by John J. Thatamanil – Union Theological Seminary
Saturday, April 12, 2014
9:15 AM Breakfast in
the Atrium
10:00 – 12:00 AM
Moral Aesthetics and the Psyche: An Opening
Inquiry into an Ethics for Ecstatic Naturalism
Nicholas
Wernicki – Peirce College
Neoplatonic Theurgists as Aesthetic
Naturalists
Marilynn
Lawrence – Immaculata University
Humor and Joy in Ecstatic Naturalism: A
Contrary Look at Robert Neville’s Reading of Nature’s Religion
Joseph
M. Kramp – Florida Gulf Coast University
Lunch 12:15 – 1:15
1:30 – 3:00 AM
Centennial Recognition of Justus Buchler’s Birth
Discussion as a Form of Query: A Perspective
on Buchler’s Educational Theory and Practice
Pamela
Crosby – NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
“Where Did Buchler’s Metaphysics Come From?”
Lawrence
Cahoone – College of the Holy Cross
3:15 – 4:45 PM
Evolutionary Love and Ecstatic Naturalism
Adam
Crabtree – Centre for Training in Psychotherapy, Toronto
Charles Peirce’s Semiotic Theory of the
Self: An Ecstatic Naturalist Interpretation
Thurman
Willison – Union Theological Seminary
5:00—6:30 PM
Natura Naturans: Two Conceptions of its
Character, Importance, and Relations
Donald
A. Crosby – Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University
Speculative Naturalism: A Bleak Theology in
Light of the Tragic
Leon
J. Niemoczynski – Immaculata University
6:30 PM dinner on your own
8:00 PM arts evening
followed by wine and cheese
Tags:
ecstatic naturalism
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Hip Philosophers: Short List for 2014
Though last year's was deleted, "Hip Philosophers: the Short List" is brought back by demand with an all new line up.
This is, of course, *tongue in cheek* so no one should get worked up. So relax, it's just snarkiness mode "lite." But, an After Nature reader said I had to do it because last year's list was, to use his language, "so f'n future." Happy to oblige.
1. Mehdi Belhaj Kacem. (Enough said.)
2. Catherine Malabou. (Originally you might say she is so "two year's ago" but her continued emphasis on Hegel has her making a strong comeback. Someone to be reckoned with, bet on it.)
3. Adrian Johnston. (Easily could have taken the number two spot but putting out a book with you-know-who's series has too many folks rolling their eyes and walking right by that one. Stll, the Northwestern UP trilogy of books ought to prove incredible, the first part is geat. )
4. Ray Brassier. (Naturalism and a "post" SR vibe never goes out of style. Brassier is the man.)
5. Tie between Iain Grant and Robert Corrington. (Iain's work continues to amaze - German idealism, Schelling and Hegel are "hot" right now, he edges out others working in German idealism as he is delivering a number of talks on that and nature, which is - it seems - what folks want to hear about. Corrington who? He's now on the map at that "Jane Bennett" level, alot of curiosity about him, again, because of the Hegel/Schelling/nature/realism connection.)
Runners up:
1. Philippe Descola; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (both likely on for next year, we just need more from them).
Knocked off the list:
1. Quentin Meillassoux. (A book mostly about Issac Asimov just won't cut it. Sorry.)
2. Tristan Garcia. (Owned by Kacem. Besides, no one's doing "flat ontology" since Buchler grabbed that one quite awhile ago. Ante up TG.)
As a blog that I like to read (seriously) states, "You've been fed!"
This is, of course, *tongue in cheek* so no one should get worked up. So relax, it's just snarkiness mode "lite." But, an After Nature reader said I had to do it because last year's list was, to use his language, "so f'n future." Happy to oblige.
Hip Philosophers: The Short List for 2014
1. Mehdi Belhaj Kacem. (Enough said.)
2. Catherine Malabou. (Originally you might say she is so "two year's ago" but her continued emphasis on Hegel has her making a strong comeback. Someone to be reckoned with, bet on it.)
3. Adrian Johnston. (Easily could have taken the number two spot but putting out a book with you-know-who's series has too many folks rolling their eyes and walking right by that one. Stll, the Northwestern UP trilogy of books ought to prove incredible, the first part is geat. )
4. Ray Brassier. (Naturalism and a "post" SR vibe never goes out of style. Brassier is the man.)
5. Tie between Iain Grant and Robert Corrington. (Iain's work continues to amaze - German idealism, Schelling and Hegel are "hot" right now, he edges out others working in German idealism as he is delivering a number of talks on that and nature, which is - it seems - what folks want to hear about. Corrington who? He's now on the map at that "Jane Bennett" level, alot of curiosity about him, again, because of the Hegel/Schelling/nature/realism connection.)
Runners up:
1. Philippe Descola; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (both likely on for next year, we just need more from them).
Knocked off the list:
1. Quentin Meillassoux. (A book mostly about Issac Asimov just won't cut it. Sorry.)
2. Tristan Garcia. (Owned by Kacem. Besides, no one's doing "flat ontology" since Buchler grabbed that one quite awhile ago. Ante up TG.)
As a blog that I like to read (seriously) states, "You've been fed!"
Tags:
academic politics
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
good retro article on Nick Land and CCRU
Pointer to Eigenlicht, HERE.
Tags:
accelerationism,
soustractivism
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
cold materialism
Shadows black out the horizon in a single stroke. Morbid expectations of apocalypse. Ledgers kept in minute detail plot the geometries and timescales of the end of the world. Vertigo and nausea proliferate, requiring that the stomach expands to accommodate ever greater magnitudes of sickness. Pulsing chaos tears apart the fabric of the universe...
So what was it that ruined this passional gothic theatre of obliteration? What was it that robbed us of the cosmic spectacle of all sinners falling to their knees, hands outstretched in terror, before being wiped out in the final holocaust of divine judgment? It was this: something like divine order without God."
Deleuze writes that "God..[is]...himself a modification of modifications." Or, in Schelling's words, the Absolute involves a divine game of chance, but also love. Wrath precedes love. Darkness precedes light.
Sublime unconscious, immanent life, divinity. Schizophrenic God that is "impenetrably dark." H.P. Lovecraft's "Outsider abominations."
Ungrund, Urgrund, Abgrund. The Dark Pleroma. The depth of the world, the abyss, home of countless "little divinities." Surplus and abundance of intensity, not just light and life; sorrow, darkness, and death.
Metamorphosis. Creation.
"Such a becoming God as the becoming depth of nature is not a fundamentally singular God, but rather an elohimic multiple,' an originating beginning as difference, a multiplicity of differences-in-relation, a multiplicity that as such is the relational..."
Unrecognizable, a dark origin. A self-expressing dark origin, "out of which all comes to be and into which all things pass, as into an ultimately inarticulate night."
A bright abyss that overreaches thought. The vital negative, intensive "0" or Being of zero degree. Fecund non-existence that may give birth even to a God (Meillassoux), the virtual πλήρωμα.
[Notes from "Deleuze and Theology" reading group, December-January 2013/14.]
Caputo's review of Watkin's Difficult Atheism book at NDPR
John D. Caputo reviews Christopher Watkin's Difficult Atheism: Post-Theological Thinking in Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Quentin Meillassoux HERE.
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