a discussion between Bogost and Gratton

Ian and Peter were having a disagreement about my concept of time. Bits of both sides can be found on Peter’s blog, HERE.

Just two quick responses to Peter, because our crazy Bonn schedule resumes an hour from now with the Martin Hägglund day.

Here is one passage from Gratton:

“Again, if objects are forever in the present–recall we have a long tradition of naming essences and such, and Heidegger et al. blew a hole through this thinking…”

For “Heidegger et al.” read “Derrida et al.” It is Derrida, not Heidegger, who thinks that the “self-presence” of identity is an illegitimate form of presence as well. Derrida is certainly free to hold such a view, but he is wrong to ascribe it to Heidegger. The polemical concept of “self-presence” is not applicable within a Heideggerian framework. There is simply nothing wrong, in that framework, from saying that entities withdraw from relation and are what they are.

That’s my whole reading of Heidegger, and Gratton knows it. So for Gratton to say “Heidegger blew a hole through it” without engaging with my reading of Heidegger is not a sufficient approach. (My sense of Gratton philosophically is that he is primarily of Derridean sympathies.)

A second passage where Gratton opposes Bogost:

“But in any case: for Harman time is the ‘tension’ between the sensuous object and the sensuous quality–that is, it is at the ‘surface level’ of the object. It is not interior to it.”

But this neglects the fact that for me, a sensuous “surface” is actually the interior of another real object. I assume that’s what Bogost was talking about.

It’s well-timed to have read the discussion this morning, because Hägglund, today’s speaker, is of much the same mind as Gratton about things, reflecting their common Derridean origins.

I’m looking forward to hearing Hägglund today. He has a powerful approach and sets things out lucidly.