a point that came up while writing

The dominant school of continental philosophy in the twentieth-century was almost certainly phenomenology, if we take that in the broad sense to mean the legacy of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, even Derrida.

But now I go through the Table of Contents of The Speculative Turn and count 21 authors in the collection.

Of those 21, how many could possibly be classified as phenomenologists? I would say only three at most: Martin Hägglund, John Protevi, and I.

What’s the problem with phenomenology? As I look through the list of 18 non-phenomenologists, I imagine most of them reacting negatively for something like “correlationist” reasons. Phenomenology is trapped in the correlationist impasse, freezes us in a situation of paralyzing finitude of the human-world correlate.

I can’t speak for Hägglund or Protevi. But my response to the “Gang of 18” would be: “yes, admittedly, the phenomenological tradition is entirely correlationist. But it doesn’t matter, because there’s another key virtue there that cannot be abandoned.”

an observation

While writing the response to Shaviro, I’m struck by the extreme clarity of the sentences as I write them. This is meant as praise not of myself, but of Shaviro… If you are able to respond very clearly to objections by others, it’s almost always a sign that the criticisms are striking on important points of divergence between oneself and the critic.

By contrast, it will usually be found that confusing, shouting interchanges are a sign that bedrock is not being struck in the dispute, and that it’s merely a question of a struggle for self-assertion.

good anthology

Looking over the Table of Contents to The Speculative Turn, I’m happier about it all the time. There are some really important articles in this collection, as well as some interesting crossfire. It does have the potential to be a sort of landmark anthology. And knowing re.press, it will be published as quickly as is humanly possible.

now writing

Now writing my “Response to Shaviro” for The Speculative Turn, and when that’s finished we’ll be just about ready to enter the final editing process, with only one other piece still missing (and we’re confident it will arrive soon).

The response to Shaviro will be slightly longer than planned, because I found that before dealing with his criticisms (which are perfectly interesting) I need to present a different model of what is now happening in continental philosophy than is implied by Shaviro. In particular (and he knows this) I think it’s a terrible mistake to pair Whitehead with Deleuze. There is a very basic and important problem when that is done.

Naturally, it’s always possible to pair just about any philosopher with just about any other. It all depends on what topic you choose. For instance, you could write something on “Abelard, Aquinas, Malebranche, and Derrida,” since they are all linked through residence in Paris. And maybe you could indeed come up with something interesting about the role of Paris in all of their writings, I don’t know. But when trying to present sweeping overviews of basic groups of philosophers, choosing exactly the right topic is crucial. And I just don’t see how both Whitehead and Deleuze belong together due to the topic of “process”. Whitehead is a philosopher of actual individuals, Deleuze really isn’t. Latour is a philosopher of actual individuals, Bergson, Simondon, and DeLanda really aren’t; in fact, the exact opposite is true.

Of course all of these people try to talk about process. Even I myself do, despite Shaviro’s belief that I only talk about stasis. Even Parmenides talks about process, he simply assigns it to the sphere of the senses. Change is a basic aspect of our world, and at least needs to be mentioned by every philosopher at some point. But there’s a big difference between saying that the world is made of actualities that produce time through their actions, and saying instead that concrete actual states are derivative of something else.

I’ve fought this battle mostly with Latourians so far. Many Latourians (and even Latour himself when in a combative mood) will say that I’ve caricatured his position, because of course he would never be so stupid as to say that individual states are frozen in their current conditions without pointing toward future states. The word “conatus” is usually invoked at this point. But you can’t invoke conatus as a vis dormitiva: “things change by means of a changing faculty.” You have to explain how the capacity for change is inscribed in the current actuality of a thing, or claim that the current actuality of a thing has something illusory about it, that it’s produced by consciousness as an abstraction due to practical needs, etc. You can’t do both. There’s a real problem here.

What is most characteristic of Latour and Whitehead as metaphysicians is their belief in the ontological principle: everything that happens has its reason in the constitution of some actual entity. And I don’t see how that could possibly be said about Deleuze, Bergson, or Simondon. And quite often, Latour does get the point and agree with me that my principle is true that “Latour is the anti-Bergson.” They are the polar opposites on virtually every issue of importance.

It follows as a corollary that trying to link Latour with Deleuze is also highly misleading, despite the admitted evidence of Anti-Oedipus on the early Latour. In fact, the early Latour was surely reading more Deleuze than he was Whitehead, but it turns out not to matter: the position Latour ends up
is a Whiteheadian position, not a Deleuzian one. Even Latour’s link of his own “plasma” with the Deleuzian virtual is ultimately unconvincing. Latour/Deleuze just doesn’t really work. Latour/Whitehead, however, clearly does. And that fact is very illuminating as to why Whitehead/Deleuze is a shaky union as well.

inspired by Ennis

Those Paul Ennis interviews inspired me, qua Associate Vice Provost for Research, to revamp the AUC Faculty Bulletin to contain an interview with a faculty member in each issue. Vice Provost Ali Hadi agreed with the plan, and here we are about to publish the first one. Thanks, Paul!

In a few days, I’ll post a link to my inaugural interview with SALIMA IKRAM, a star Egyptologist on our faculty who comes originally from Pakistan. I spent much of the morning editing that interview, and concerning the “lists of assorted objects” maneuver, I can promise that I had no stylistic influence on the following answer when I asked what she found while digging in the Kharga Oasis:

“ancient caravan routes, forts, temples, early churches, farmhouses, pigeon towers, elaborate underground aqueducts, small settlements, tombs, pharaonic inscriptions, prehistoric settlements, and a plethora of rock art”

(These finds were from the Roman Period, it turns out.)

Another interesting thing for me about the interview was trying to find out how Professor Ikram can write so much about the ancient Egyptian diet. Apparently they can do isotopic analysis of bones and figure out what they ate in that way. And there are some other methods.

Everyone loves Egyptology, right? It’s one of the darlings of the academic party.

Heidegger Vol. 76

So far, Volume 76 is a bit more interesting than most of these bottom-of-the-barrel new Heidegger releases. I may have more to say later in the week. But the volume covers a 20-year period from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, and is made up of interesting supplementary remarks to other works.

However, it does have perhaps the most boring title of any GA volume so far:

Leitgedanken zur Entstehung der Metaphysik, der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft und der modernen Technik

He left out the history of the opium trade and the fauna of the Amazon.

Roman Polanski arrested?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/movies/28polanski.html?_r=1&hp

Weird. I sort of figured that case would end up being allowed to slide. And just a few days ago was the death of the MANSON follower who stabbed his wife SHARON TATE to death, so it felt like a time of pity for Polanski. But the Swiss just arrested him in the old American case involving a 13-year-old girl. Sounds seedy indeed.

Cairo cabbies for Obama

Obama certainly doesn’t have 100% approval in Egypt or anything; I do know a few people here who actually hated his June speech in Cairo. But the cab drivers I meet certainly still seem enamored of the new U.S. President. Tonight it was my cabbie from the airport and a police officer just leaving airport duty who hitched a ride with us as far as the microbus station. When I said I was from Chicago (no point saying you’re from Iowa, they wouldn’t know) they went into a full-blown Obama-fest, and it clearly wasn’t faked. Both guys were around 60 years old.

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?

From a Bogost tweet, a bizarre webpage of

CATS THAT LOOK LIKE HITLER.

quick Paris thought

When you go to conference, it sometimes helps to ask afterward: “What do I know now that I didn’t know before going?”

In the case of this three-day Paris jaunt, one day of which was the conference proper, the main difference is that I now have a better sense of what the wider Paris philosophy scene looks like. In January I did field audience questions from Elie During and David Rabouin, but only on this trip did I hear their work first-hand. (And I never met Patrice Maniglier or Frédéric Worms before this.)

I already have some faint impressions of what distinguishes the Paris philosophical scene from the London scene at the moment, but want a few more doses of Paris before I try to put it into words.