Thursday, November 30, 2017

Process versus object: Which does the metaphysics behind science support?

A philosopher of science/biology chimes in on the debate. He concludes the natural world is not composed of "things" but rather "dynamic processes." Interesting article linked below.

----
Science and metaphysics must work together to answer life's deepest questions | Aeon Essays
https://aeon.co/essays/science-and-metaphysics-must-work-together-to-answer-lifes-deepest-questions
----

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Aesthetics Today blog on Suzanne Langer

Interesting post wherein Susanne Langer (student of Whitehead) is discussed in quite abit of detail. I thought this was particularly interesting:
[Langer] emphasizes the “semblance of organism.” Dewey stresses that we are live creatures interacting with our environments. Langer tries to keep the two radically separate, but interestingly the value of art is that it reflects us by resembling ourselves as live organisms. “Living organisms maintain themselves, resist change, strive to restore their structure when it has been forcibly interfered with….organisms, performing characteristic functions must have certain general forms, or perish.” (229) Following Aristotle, once again, she stresses that life has necessity, that only life “exhibits any telos” and that the acorn strives to become the oak. Now she stresses that there is “nothing actually organic about a work of sculpture” (230) and yet is gives us “semblance of living form....As Langer puts it “the human environment, which is the counterpart of any human life, holds the imprint of a functional pattern; it is the complementary of organic form” which see sees in terms of the “metabolic pattern” of our both our feelings and our physical acts. But again as opposed to Langer, it is not just complementary or a counterpart; it is just exactly also where we live. To put it briefly: human life is in the human environment...
This brought to mind the Umwelten of Jakob von Uexküll, meaning the perceptual "worlds" in which various organisms exist as subjects, established by the achievement of form through sensuous interaction with their respective environments. I think Uexküll's notion of "significance" and how it functions midway between creature and environment is strikingly similar to Langer's notion of living form and John William Miller's notion of Midworld.

Link to the post at Aesthetics Today blog HERE. More on Langer from After Nature blog HERE. Corry Shore's entry on Jakob von Uexküll HERE.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Hume's Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation (NDPR Review)

For many years I have had an on-again / off-again fascination with Hume, mostly because of his naturalism and sometimes because of his views concerning skepticism and contingency. Always prompted by me teaching him in my intro to philosophy classes though.

This book looks quite interesting, for Hume scholarship. Remember, too, that we might say Quine was a twentieth century Hume in certain respects.

----
Hume's Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation
// Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // News


David Landy, Hume's Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation, Routledge, 2017, 278pp., $140.00, ISBN 9781138503137.
Reviewed by Hsueh Qu, National University of Singapore

If we are to view the Treatise of Human Nature as a systematic and cohesive work, we must see Hume's varied investigations as following a consistent and cogent methodology. What is the nature of this methodology? This is the question that David Landy looks to answer in his latest book. Broadly, this monograph argues for a novel take on Hume's understanding of scientific explanation, which undergirds his investigation of the human mind. Crucial to this methodology is the notion of a 'perceptible model' (p.4), involving an experiential model for theoretical posits, with the determinate respects of similarity and differences from concrete experience made clear (akin to Bohr's model of the atom). In arguing for this view, Landy rejects two interpretations:...


Read More

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Erich Hörl, James Burton (eds.): General Ecology: The New Ecological Paradigm

Note in Chapter 14 Brian Massumi's wonderful use of C.S. Peirce's concept of "Firstness." The other chapters were available to read too last time I checked.

----
Erich Hörl, James Burton (eds.): General Ecology: The New Ecological Paradigm (2017)
// Monoskop Log



"Ecology has become one of the most urgent and lively fields in both the humanities and sciences. In a dramatic widening of scope beyond its original concern with the coexistence of living organisms within a natural environment, it is now recognized that there are ecologies of mind, information, sensation, perception, power, participation, media, behavior, belonging, values, the social, the political… a thousand ecologies. This proliferation is not simply a metaphorical extension of the figurative potential of natural ecology: rather, it reflects the thoroughgoing imbrication of natural and technological elements in the constitution of the contemporary environments we inhabit, the rise of a cybernetic natural state, with its corresponding mode of power. Hence this ecology of ecologies initiates and demands that we go beyond the specificity of any particular ecology: a general thinking of ecology which may also constitute an ecological transformation of thought itself is required.
In this ambitious and radical new volume of writings, some of the most exciting contemporary thinkers in the field take on the task of revealing and theorizing the extent of the ecologization of existence as the effect of our contemporary sociotechnological condition: together, they bring out the complexity and urgency of the challenge of ecological thought-one we cannot avoid if we want to ask and indeed have a chance of affecting what forms of life, agency, modes of existence, human or otherwise, will participate-and how-in this planet's future."

With texts by Erich Hörl, Luciana Parisi, Frédéric Neyrat, Bernard Stiegler, Didier Debaise, Jussi Parikka, Bruce Clarke, Cary Wolfe, David Wills, James Burton, Elena Esposito, Timothy Morton, Matthew Fuller and Olga Goriunova, and Brian Massumi.

Publisher Bloomsbury Academic, London/New York, 2017
ISBN 9781350014695, 1350014699
xv+384 pages

Publisher
WorldCat
HTML

music behind the writing: Transcendental Naturalism

Eight years ago today Cold Cave released its "Love Comes Close" through Matador Records. Here's to my love of Cold Cave with their new track "Glory" (2017) followed by "Love Comes Close" (2009) and an excellent cover of The Cure's "Plain Song."

All three tracks are fantastic, and in addition to their 2011 album Cherish the Light Years' "Confetti" and "Catacombs", these certainly are among my personal go-to favorites whether for grading, writing, etc. etc. etc. Enough music to last while accomplishing some task or another - for me, working on the mighty Transcendental Naturalism.

Hope you enjoy.







Sunday, November 19, 2017

The world of publishing work about speculative realism: are all really "welcome" as we are told?

My copy of Debaise's Nature as Event, just arrived the other day.

Let's call a spade a spade. The world of publishing about speculative realism in a purportedly "academic" context is simply this: we're happy to receive proposals of work having anything to do with "Speculative Realism" if we like you.

True story, and I left this out of my book about speculative realism in order to try to be polite, however due to a recent post that someone just wrote to me about: I feel it necessary in light of the total bullshit that this person just revealed in their email to me to share with the world some more truth in addition to Speculative Realism: An Epitome. What follows is abit of me venting and so if that is not your cup of tea please feel free to move on. However, the reason I am venting is because the words that just appeared on my screen are an insult to someone who has just spent three months researching a currently-being-written manuscript that is speculative realist philosophy yet the proposal for which won't be read due to personal politics despite the smiling face saying that any and all proposals are welcome. Not true, folks. Not true.

Again, what follows is an honest and heart-felt rant. But it is a rant, so if that isn't your thing then please feel free to peruse onward.

***

 Several years ago I was going to submit a proposal to Open Humanities Press. I won't reveal here what particular series in Open Humanities Press in order to keep polite the post that I am currently writing right now, and also, so as not to reveal specifically what series editor I am talking about. Afterall, it's not the person that I am concerned with here but rather their conduct in the particular situation that I am talking about, as well as the words that appeared in my friend's email to me today. So before we go further, from my end this is not personal. Sadly from their end it is.

A former friend of mine knew this series editor and actually was/is quite close with them, so I thought to have this person contact the editor to see how they'd like for me to submit the proposal, where to send it, and so on.  Well, the series editor promptly told my former friend that they refused to even receive the proposal. Yes, this Ph.D.'d scholar, entrusted with the power of supposed academic objectivity as a series editor, whose job it is to review manuscripts for their series to see which might be worth publishing and which not, on the basis of personal politics and not on the basis of the work itself, absolutely refused to read a proposal before it was even sent to them. True story.

Now, pause.  If you are a series editor and are purporting to contribute to academic scholarship, receive and review any and all manuscripts, you're meaning to tell me, years later, that anyone is "welcome" to submit an ms to your series (now not at Open Humanities Press but elsewhere) when - in fact - on the basis of personal bias it is possible to refuse to even receive a manuscript or even look at a proposal simply because someone has personal issues? Simply because you don't like the person? And worse, you say "any and all proposals are welcome" but yet some proposals shouldn't even be sent because they were written by someone you don't like, you won't read those proposals anyway, based not upon the content of the proposal god forbid, but the name attached to it?  Bullshit.  I call bullshit. I am sorry, but it is is outright disgusting and sick that anyone would put out there with some happy smile on their face that they'll receive any and all proposals when, well, they have to like you first to even look at what you wrote. So, no, your work doesn't matter. The quality of your scholarship doesn't matter. The fact that you have good arguments doesn't matter. What matters is if you are personally liked rather than disliked by the editor. Give me an effing break.

So someone, like me for instance, can spend a year writing a manuscript about speculative realism - a good one - one that is much, much better than most of what's passed through by this person in their series, and I mean they've desperately put out books about everything under the sun and speculative realism, and now due to a lack of a pool of authors who write about the subject are even repeating authors who previously published through the series, but because of some obscure personal bias, when this person doesn't even know me, refuses to even read my work? Are you kidding me? And let me say outright - the personal bias? Based on gossip and hearsay. I was never even asked about the bs that this person said was the basis of their dislike for me. Unreal. Just, unreal.

Let me tell you a quick story to put this in perspective. This summer I spent several hundred hours researching a book which I plan to call Transcendental Naturalism. It's a follow up to Speculative Naturalism: Philosophy After Nature (a book re-written several times and actually the ms that I was originally going to send to this person back then. So, yes, it was Speculative Naturalism which was an ms that this person wouldn't even agree to receive by email based on their personal dislike of me.). Anyway, Transcendental Naturalism is probably the most complex and substantially argued book that I've written yet to date and takes on the arguments of Meillassoux, Brassier, Grant, etc. The book just isn't about speculative realism, it is speculative realist philosophy. (Now, note as an aside that if you've read my latest book Speculative Realism: An Epitome you will see how there can still even be speculative realist philosophy despite my existence claims regarding the name branded "movement" of it. So, the book engages the most contemporary arguments out there and is a direct contribution to the scholarship. But, moving on.)

Transcendental Naturalism is a book that is speculative realist philosophy, and once published I am confident that it will make an impact as it directly engages recent arguments and puts forward what I think, at least, is a novel thesis. I mean, it's still being written, but is mostly researched, I've outlined the chapters, and now am just waiting for December break to put it all together.

But the point is, this book will not be published through the series which claims to "welcome" any and all proposals because despite the caliber of the book personal politics will keep it from even being read.

That's not academic conduct by any stretch of the imagination. That's not professional conduct by any stretch of the imagination.

Don't believe the hype folks. The world of publishing about speculative realism is total bullshit. Obviously I'm irate and insulted because my hard work means absolutely nothing because of personal politics. My summer spent with my wife in Germany and Switzerland, toiling away day after day while she worked during the day and I stayed behind whether at the hotel or coffee shops and libraries to produce what is, with all due humility, the most challenging work I've created to date. It doesn't mean jack because a gatekeeper would refuse to read it. No, in the past I was told not even to bother sending it ahead of time. And now, today, this new book is three months of hard work is not allowed to proceed in the direction that, frankly, it should.  Think about it: how ridiculous is it, that, not just my work, but others (Terence Blake, Jason Hills, Pete Wolfendale) goes unmentioned, unsaid, when it is contributing to the exact same debate? It's like being in a room of about a dozen people (and that's literally about the number of people who work on this stuff, in the world) and some just squinch their eyes shut and put their fingers in their ears and start yelling because they don't want to hear your arguments. I mean, this is crazy. I have never, ever seen anything like this.

So, obviously I wouldn't bother to send my "proposal" there to have that smiling face just step on my work by telling me a priori, no, it won't be read. That is disgusting and that is sick. I am so insulted if only because my hard work means nothing in this case. Nothing. And we're talking three months of my life working on this book. Over the summer I put nothing less than one hundred and ten percent of my effort into this project. And some smiling face will smugly say to the world that they're willing to look at any and all proposals? I don't even know what to say to that, except, in terms of academic scholarship and the integrity that is supposed to go behind editorialship, I've never been so insulted in my life. Who knows, maybe that was this person's goal and they're laughing right now. Well, good. Good for them. Joke's on me.

Don't believe the hype and move on to more professional series where hard work does amount to something and proposals are accepted, any and all. Not just some idle hand waiving and smiling when in fact there are more insidious motives at play. I have nothing to "prove," and am not lobbying for acceptance. I am not lamenting that I am unable to publish in this series. Obviously the book can and will be published elsewhere. And obviously, yet again, the world will be confused as to the great silence that will surround what I think will amount to a fantastic game-changing book. In this post I am asking though that in the world hard work should be reviewed for its merit, not for the politics surrounding who wrote it. That is just shallow and absurd. Judge work for its quality, for what it says, not just by the name on its cover. If you accept anything based on a name, or refuse anything based on a name, then that is not professional editorialship. It's censorship, and it's blatant personal politics.

Venting done, and I move on. Do look out for Transcendental Naturalism though soon enough. I hope that the book accomplishes what I wanted it to. And, for the record, Debaise's book Nature and Event is the better of his most recent two, so ignore the other and buy Nature and Event. It is through Duke University Press which is a legitimate and reputable press whose vetting process is as fair and objective as can be, and the editors are actual human beings rather than monsters with a grudge. (Note that this is not his book through the Edinburgh University Press Speculative Realism Series where, well, much of what I said above applies. And shame on Edinburgh University Press if they support this kind of editorialship. They ought to rethink what they're doing. You now have a blog post which will probably hit seven or eight hundred-plus readers this week alone so maybe they'll listen and change a thing or two.)



Saturday, November 18, 2017

quote of the day


"Just what is it we sense so poignantly below the heart, absorbing the zephyr of sadness, soft as a prevailing breeze? Are you pleased with us, darksome night?...You brace the wings of our sentient being."

- Novalis, Hymns to the Night

Friday, November 17, 2017

Dernière Volonté (Last Will, in English)



French cold-wave/darkwave synthpop band Dernière Volonté has hit the nail on the head with its 2012 "Mon Meilleur Ennemi" album. Released by the Tesco label of Germany, Dernière Volonté (Last Will, in English) has evolved over the years into something like a more dark and brooding Dépêche Mode, one who isn't afraid of venturing out to explore the more melancholic nature of human existence not knowing what one might find.

Favorite track?

On any given night recently, you might find me dancing alone in my living room with the lights low to "J'oublie Que Tu Existes" (embedded above, or click HERE). At least until my wife comes home.

Highly recommended. The entire album, which I'll link HERE is absolutely fantastic.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Karl Jaspers (SEP entry update)

SEP entry update on Karl Jaspers.

----
Karl Jaspers
// Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Revised entry by Chris Thornhill and Ronny Miron on November 15, 2017. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) began his academic career working as a psychiatrist and, after a period of transition, he converted to philosophy in the early 1920s. Throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century he exercised considerable influence on a number of areas of philosophical inquiry: especially on epistemology, the philosophy of religion, and political theory.
----

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics

I am at the mercy of German romanticism and classicism before bed these days, hence I post this. My god, of what beauty is Stephan George. Philosophically, THIS book always proves invaluable.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Louis C.K., Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche on How to Suffer and Be Happy

Partially Examined Life considers why happiness so often presents itself as a problem. HERE.

On a related note, my First Year Writing Seminar, a first year writing seminar developed for first semester college freshmen, is going wonderfully. What a great, great bunch of kids this year. All doing the readings, all have plenty to say, all intelligent and polite. Wow. Blown away by this bunch. The seminar is called "What is the Good Life?"  Basically faculty pick whatever topic they'd like to teach and then follow the basic outlines of a writing course with that content serving as the main center of reading and discussion. We are using Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Epicurus' The Art of Happiness, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

Great class, fun to teach.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Two fantastic SEP entries: "Logic and Ontology" and "Bradley's Regress Argument"

The "Bradley's Regress Argument" obviously draws from Hegel in several important ways. As is well known, Bradley was a British idealist and the example using the the sugar cube comes directly from Hegel's Phenomenology.

"Logic and Ontology" entry HERE and "Bradley's Regress Argument" HERE.

New tag "Logic."

Friday, November 10, 2017

What does it mean to be an idealist?


Interesting article HERE in the October issue of Epoché . I've linked the table of contents because there are a few other good articles (one on Kant in particular) that are quite good.

Creating new tag "Kant." There are many posts about Kant, not sure why I've never formally done that before.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Hegel futuriste - à propos de "Logique de la science-fiction" de Jean-Clet Martin / Mickaël Perre


« Il faudrait arriver à raconter un livre réel de la philosophie passée comme si c’était un livre imaginaire et feint. »
(Deleuze, Différence et répétition, p. 4)

« La Logique (…) se place au-dessus de l’art de son temps, sans doute au-delà de toute esthétique humaine, annonçant des modes d’expression qui n’existaient pas à l’époque de Hegel, des médiations imageantes que son texte appelle, très en avance sur lui-même, vers des créations qu’il ne manquera pas d’inspirer. »
(Jean-Clet Martin, Logique de la science-fiction, p. 132)

« Quoi de plus gai qu’un air du temps ? » demandait Gilles Deleuze peu avant la parution de Différence et répétition[1]. Cette question n’est pas seulement l’expression d’une certaine modestie visant à atténuer l’originalité de sa pensée en la référant à un mouvement d’ensemble dont elle dépendrait. La référence à l’air du temps dissimule en réalité une thèse sur l’origine des problèmes philosophiques : comment expliquer que des penseurs différents, appartenant à des générations différentes, évoluant dans des espaces théoriques différents, puissent poser les mêmes problèmes ? Comment rendre compte de ces convergences ? Si les problèmes doivent être construits et ne se posent jamais d’eux-mêmes, on peut parfois avoir l’impression qu’ils évoluent dans un temps virtuel et participent d’un « esprit du temps »[2]. Cela ne veut pas dire qu’ils sont déjà là, disponibles, n’attendant qu’un penseur volontaire pour les cueillir et les exposer. Les problèmes participent peut-être d’un « air du temps », mais il faut encore être capable de les « reconnaître » ; il faut d’abord être sensible aux virtualités d’une époque avant d’en actualiser les problèmes. Les grands penseurs sont tous des « voyants » en ce sens[3] : ils voient les problèmes là où les autres se contentent de répéter ce qui a déjà été dit ; ils ne s’en tiennent pas à l’histoire des problèmes mais scrutent l’invisible, quitte à revenir les « yeux rouges », fatigués par l’effort d’une vision attentive aux devenirs. Comme le remarque Deleuze dans son texte sur le « structuralisme », c’est seulement parce qu’ils permettent de décrire l’appartenance à un « air libre du temps » que les « mots en -isme sont parfaitement fondés », « tant il est vrai qu’on ne reconnaît le gens, d’une manière visible, qu’aux choses invisibles et insensibles qu’ils reconnaissent à leur manière. »[4]

Le livre de Jean-Clet Martin semble s’inscrire lui aussi dans un « esprit du temps ». Mais cet « air du temps » ne correspond plus tout à fait à celui que Deleuze décrit dans l’Avant-propos de Différence et répétition, à savoir celui d’un « anti-hégélianisme généralisé »[5]. Logique de la science-fiction relève d’une dynamique comparable à celle qui anime le livre de Mark Alizart, Informatique céleste[6] : que signifie lire Hegel aujourd’hui ? Comment penser avec lui ? Comprendre Hegel n’est-ce pas « penser Hegel contre Hegel »[7] ? Ces deux livres, parus à quelques mois d’intervalle, nous donnent à découvrir un autre Hegel et cherchent à savoir, selon les mots de Foucault, « jusqu’où Hegel, insidieusement peut-être, s’est approché de nous »[8]. Celui-ci nous parle encore aujourd’hui parce qu’il était déjà en son temps un penseur « futuriste ». C’est du moins ce que ces deux auteurs ont vu à leur manière : non seulement la Science de la Logique déploie l’ontologie de notre modernité informatique[9] mais ce « livre extraordinaire » (p. 19) est aussi la machine philosophique à laquelle s’alimentent toutes les œuvres de science-fiction. L’air du temps est donc peut-être celui d’un « hégélianisme futuriste » s’efforçant de rendre la Logiqueà son incroyable puissance visionnaire et prospective : texte « très en avance sur lui-même » (p. 132) dont nous commençons à peine à mesurer les effets.

Continued HERE.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey (NDPR Review)

See the below.

----
Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey
// Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // News


Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam, Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey, David Macarthur (ed.), Belknap Press, 2017, 496 pp., $49.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780674967502.

Reviewed by David Boersema, Pacific University

When Hilary Putnam (HP) passed away in 2016, obituaries appeared in the New York Times and other venues. He was called a "giant of modern philosophy," and, indeed, among academic philosophers he was universally recognized as having been influential in a variety of areas, with a number of his articles anthologized in a wide range of publications. While known to some philosophers, HP's wife, Ruth Anna Putnam (RAP) has not received the level of recognition or accolade as HP. This current book is in part an attempt to address and respond to this discrepancy. The book contains a brief introduction by the editor, David Macarthur, followed by twenty-seven essays. Ten of the essays were authored by HP, fifteen by RAP,...


Read More

----

Sartre and Camus

Speaking of analytic philosophy and its latching onto the interesting merits of Continental philosophy (yesterday's post), Brian Leiter reports on an interesting article on Sartre appearing in TLS, HERE.

Incidentally in my Existential Philosophy class we're covering Sartre, after having just finished up Camus, then Dostoevsky, and now Sartre. Thus the below is also appropriate for today's post.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

The Logic of Being: Realism, Truth, and Time (NDPR review)

NDPR review of a new book The Logic of Being: Realism, Truth, and Time by Paul Livingston. This is, odd.

I know that in recent years analytic philosophy has, well, "analyticized" metaphysics, and then ethics, and then began on Continental philosophy - knowing perhaps that the history of analytic philosophy itself was too boring of a subject to dwell upon, and its traditional subjects of philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and all things logic - as practiced by analytic philosophers, at least (and I love logic, by the way) weren't grabbing many converts. Keep in mind that this is also not to say that all of analytic philosophy is that bad. It's not. Quine's From a Logical Point of View, abit of Wittgenstein here and there, even the history of mathematical logic whether in Frege or today by the mighty Paul Benacerraf. I mustn't forget that I will be running an independent study on the topic of mathematical logic as well. So it is not like it is outright disdain.

So, at first the analytics started on Deleuze. Then it was Hegel. And now, their arch-nemesis himself, Martin Heidegger.

Yes, my friends. We live in times when an author writes about Heidegger and Frege in the same book. Again, not that in itself this is necessarily evil or wrong. It's just that, ugh.

I do appreciate the clarity of the book and for years have argued that, indeed, ambiguity is not the hallmark of Continental philosophy, nor impenetrable language for the sake of it. Rather, even if the writing style is more prosaic - the topics of ethics, politics, values, power and knowledge, etc. are intrinsic to philosophers in this tradition rather than found as passing topics of curious interest. My experience is that whatever analytic philosophy might mean, its general approach is ok with me - but just not how that approach is actually pulled off sometimes.

Anyway, link to the review HERE.

Monday, November 6, 2017

Galloway's Break Up with Deleuze + Pluto [Updated]

Because I am currently considering some aesthetic changes for this blog - changes that probably will occur just before the migration to YouTube - I am thinking that a more "cosmic-looking" layout for After Nature would be most appropriate to match some of the more "sparse" or "bleak" abstract problems I'll be working on.

We'll see, as the current After Nature design is now two years old, which is the maximum I tend to leave a layout go for without being updated. So, we're due for an update - the final one I am sad to say; but, onward to other places deeper in the cosmos.

 This update and eventual migration to the After Nature YouTube channel will really will fit with the research into speculative and systematic philosophy that I'll be doing for the next two years - whether re-reading Hegel's Science of Logic, two of Kant's critiques, Fichte, Schelling, and so on. All bright life will be drained into the singularity of the Hegelian black hole of negativity, pace Alex Galloway's recent post (see HERE) opining the general consensus that a break-up with Deleuze ought to take place. So I am moving from Deleuze over to the ranks of Kant, Hegel, German idealism, et al.

I commend Galloway though, as his arguments are far and away from the dumb "Deleuze is old wine in a new bottle" complaints that have been made by others critical of Deleuze (mostly by the "object ontologists," so called). The "old wine new bottle" complaint is, by the way, only matched in its stupidity by the claim (also made by object ontologists incidentally) who cry "We ought a priori not read Whitehead because Whitehead is a theist!" But to this I respond: look at how that has turned out! Whitehead scholarship is on the rise moreso than ever before. People read Whitehead, whether Whitehead was a theist or not, whether his metaphysics entails God or not.

Moreover, the anti-Deleuzian object ontologists of whom we speak also somehow believe in the rather disturbing angle of "philosophy as bloodsport." They claim that the Deleuzeans, rather than themselves, are somehow the ones carrying "billieclubs" and looking for a fight - this to match the fact that they believe philosophy is justifiably a "bare-knuckle" sport. That is sick in my opinion. I'm sorry. Absolutely sick. Perhaps violence is intrinsic to their ethic-less ontology? Who knows, or frankly, at this point, who cares. I just cannot but help be very disturbed sometimes by any philosopher (object ontologist or otherwise) who calls philosophy bloodsport or refers to "striking back" with "bare knuckles." Billieclubs, knives, shots fired, dodging bullets, etc. etc. etc. Keep in mind that these are pudgy late 40-something year olds with their threats of intellectual violence, usually (of course) male, and usually having something to prove in order to try to stay relevant. Is this what has become of what it means to say that one intellectual camp has challenged another? When we speak of, say, Deleuzians versus Heideggereans, or whathaveyou?

Back to the matter at hand: I've argued, in THIS post, that synthesis between Deleuze and Hegel is possible. Calls to such intellectual violence (or otherwise, apparently) are not necessary. Synthesis is more productive than divisiveness and derision when it comes to scholarship and behaving like a mature adult.  It's just that when I hear of these divisions cast in such ways I wince.  On the other hand, you do have people like Galloway out there who are producing excellent work and furthering the debate in productive ways. Like I said, in ways that are far and away from the inanity perpetrated by some of these other folks.

'll soon be off to confront Hegel yet again to see if this is truly possible, as much as I believe that it is, I should say. Research into the cosmos of Hegel, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling proceeds in 5...4...3...2...1...

What Darwin Can Tell Us About Aliens

Scientists have published a paper speculating what aliens living upon other worlds might look like. Mostly devoid of anthropocentric trappings, the forms of life imagined are said to have been subjected to natural selection - yet what exactly things turn out to be obviously depends upon to what environment the form of life is adapting.

Fascinating article. Link HERE.