Bryant/Faber question period

12:00. Nathan Brown. The two papers are potentially in a profound dialogue with Derrida. Especially his late work “Touching” on Nancy. Brown asks Faber what he thinks about Derrida, and asks Levi more specifically about iterability and its connection with Deleuze.

12:04. Faber responds by speaking of Derrida’s remarks on negative theology, messianism, and justice.

12:06. Levi. Hegel jokes that if identity were identical, why would we need to repeat it? Substance is similar. It’s not a brute rock that just sits there. It’s a process.

12:07 In response to a question from Nathan Brown, Levi says that he uses “substance” and “system” (in Luhmann’s sense) as synonyms.

12:09. In response to a question from Judith Jones, Faber says that Harman’s “Vicarious Causation” article made him feel melancholy. (Said many other things too, but the thoughts were too rapid and involved to record.)

12:15. Michael Halewood questions Levi– your discussion of deferral suggested that you are worried about the future.

12:16. Levi: “I’m not worried about the future at all” (audience laughs). And no, I don’t want a negative theology of objects.

12:17. Faber responds to Halewood too. Negative theology is not negative, and not theology. If we can make something interesting of substance, then why not make something interesting of negative theology? Withdrawal is an affirmative category, not a negative one.

12:18. Beatrice Marovich to Levi and also to me: what would prevent reading withdrawal as a form of relation?

12:20. My response (and Levi said he agrees): it could be seen as a kind of relation, but what it’s about is the thing as unaffected by anything perceiving it, and therefore it’s non-relational.

12:21. Nathan Brown: could this be seen as a form of Whitehead’s negative prehension? Both Faber and I say no, and Brown also says no.

12:23. Question from the floor: is prehension the same thing as perception? Faber: that’s what Deleuze says.

12:26. James Bono asks Levi about Aristotle. Can we introduce not just substance into the discussion, but also form and matter? Does this complicate Levi’s discussion?

12:28. Levi responds that he views form as the substantiality of the substance.

12:32. Discussion on the virtues and vices of Aristotle between Bono, Bryant, and me.

Photo below, from left to right: Levi Bryant, Roland Faber, Luke Higgins.