a couple of live debates within OOO

Some reader mail just reminded me of this. I should make up a list of all the points about which there are disagreements within OOO circles. We haven’t gotten around to clearly articulating all of our differences yet.

Since I’ve had the most such email debates with Levi Bryant as compared with the other OOO-related authors, here are the two issues about which Levi and I tend most to disagree:

1. Levi’s a fan of dynamic conceptions of entities, which may well reflect his Deleuzean origins. By contrast, I am a committed actualist (like Latour, or at least the early Latour). A thing is only what it is right now, and to explain how changes occur is a tricky thing, not one that should be implanted in the heart of objects from the start.

2. Levi tends to hold that anything that has an effect is real. By contrast, I hold both that many real things may have no current effects (Levi is somewhat open to this concept of “dormant objects”) and that many things have effects that are not real (here Levi would disagree, I think). For example, all of the objects of experience have some sort of trace emotional or intellectual effect upon us, but for me this not the same thing as reality. Reality and causal efficacy are two separate things for me.

I just thought of this because an Australian reader was asking me about point number two. [ADDENDUM: And I think I’ve missed responding to some reader messages over the years and especially in recent months, for which I am truly sorry. My email inbox is jammed full with several different and parallel careers.]

Point number one has become a debate within analytic metaphysics as well.