two recurrent lazy critiques of my philosophical position

I keep running into these, so it never hurts to address them again.

1. “Panpsychism.” Look, there is apparently a very big difference between human experience, animal experience, and the reality of stones, desks, and railroads. No argument from me on this point. The question is why we’re supposed to assume that humans are so utterly completely unique that the difference between human and non-human (or some other nearby rift that is more inclusive of apes and dolphins) deserves to be a basic ontological dualism. There is no evidence whatsoever that this status is deserved, but if you’re following in the footsteps of one of the modern idealisms (like most of the leading continental thinkers at the moment, and their disciples) then you have no choice but to insist on it, and to caricature any opposing position (such as my own) as some sort of wild pantheistic carnival, untethered by the constraints of scientific rationality.

As for the word “panpsychism,” I could take it or leave it. Initially I was quite hostile to the term (see Guerrilla Metaphysics), precisely because I don’t think we should retroactively project human mental traits into other objects. But then came David Skrbina’s book, Panpsychism in the West, which (a) showed that the term “panpsychism” has a very broad use that makes room for even the most primitive forms of relationality, and (b) showed that panpsychism isn’t a fringe doctrine, but leaves traces throughout the Western philosophical tradition, even in such flinty intellects as that of Bertrand Russell.

By analogy with the red scare, we could speak of a sort of panpsychist scare, widely promoted by those who are overinvested in the utterly central character of “the subject.” (Which is just a disingenuous way of saying “the human,” whatever accompanying gyrations are added to distance oneself from the human.)

2. I’m also still seeing claims to the effect that my position is basically OK, except that (a) I push things too far by denying the possibility of direct contact between. The counterclaim is then made that (b) objects affect each other all the time.

Let’s start with (b). Well, no kidding, objects affect each other all the time. That’s precisely what I’m trying to explain. The question is whether that contact is direct. I’ve made the case that it cannot possibly be direct. The usual method in recent philosophy is to describe certain traditional problems as “pseudo-problems.” I reverse this method and try to show that there’s a real problem as to how anything can affect anything else. Yes, it happens constantly, but that doesn’t mean that we understand it.

If you’re on board with thinking that all relation must be translation, then you also need to be on board with thinking that all relation is indirect, otherwise you’re just adopting a watered-down, sugar-free, postmodernist-friendly version of object theory. The words that must be used to describe relationality, I have argued, are words such as translation, caricature, distortion. But this is not just a result; it’s also a starting point. You can’t say that objects start it making unproblematic direct contact and only then translate one another. Why on earth would such a thing happen if direct, unmediated contact with reality was already there to begin with?

In short, the impossibility of direct contact is not a step too far, but the very heart of the object-oriented position. It’s a paradoxical thought, to be sure, but paradox is generally the sign of truth. We water down paradoxes at our own peril, perhaps with phrases such as “pseudo-problem.” If you think that direct contact between objects is possible, then you’re saying that objects exhaust one another (the “direct but partial” compromise is incoherent, since to touch part of an object is to touch a part, not the object; the two are not the same thing). In that case, you’re really a relational metaphysician at the end of the day. “Translation” isn’t enough if it’s only a result. It’s also a starting point.