Levi on short-circuits and Triple-O

LEVI RESPONDS TO THE CRITICS AT GREATER LENGTH THAN I DID, HERE.

As Levi points out, it’s less a matter of “if you’re pissing people off then you must be doing something right,” since any smart-aleck or troll can piss people off with limited effort and limited fruitfulness. Instead, the point is “if you’re pissing people off for opposite and contradictory reasons then you must be doing something right.” This suggests that you’re doing something that’s so misunderstood that it can appear in opposite guises depending on the prejudices of the critic.

Also, Levi comes up with a nice little trick in referring to object-oriented ontology. This is a nice term because the OOO acronym is aesthetically pleasing and mysterious, it avoids the accusation of theft from the OOP of object-oriented programming, and it also avoids the annoying temptation to make “oops” jokes.

“Ontography” was amusing to me mostly because of its occurrence in the great M.R. James ghost story. But while writing L’objet quadruple, use of that term has felt a bit forced for some reason, and I’ve found myself using “object-oriented philosophy” instead, even though it’s going to be a pain to render into French, I’m sure.

But I like the Triple-O. And if we make an Organization dedicated to it, then we have the Quadruple-O, or Organization for Object-Oriented Ontology.