Beyond Realism and Idealism

Posted on January 10, 2010
Filed Under Derrida, Heidegger, Peirce, Philosophy | 4 Comments

I’ve been reading, off and on, various blogs by speculative realists. Since I’m still recovering my health I’ve not delved into any of their formal works yet. (Plus I still have some Badiou and Davidson to finish before starting any new projects) Still, some of the blog posts, especially by Harman, really make me think. There were two I’ve been reading today some of you might find interesting. The first is “Intention is not structured like a language” over at We Have Never Been Blogging. The other is “Phenomenology, Discourse and their Objects” at Deontologists.

Reading these blogs has been very enjoyable and thought provoking. That said I think I ultimately disagree with how they take the post-Husserlian phenomenologists who I just don’t think are as cut off from the object as they suggest. But that gets into the whole issue of “de-worlding” in Heidegger and I don’t have time to give my thoughts there. Even if one acknowledges (as Derrida and I think Marion have) that we have to go beyond phenomenology I don’t think that means we reject it. (Or at least not the sort Heidegger does – Husserl’s more Cartesian formulation is problematic) I appreciate what speculative realism is trying to do. I just think it’s throwing out of phenomenology is problematic. I think the pragmatists have the solution of course, and I fully confess to reading Heidegger and Derrida through a pragmatic lens.
While I’ll be the first to admit I’m too shallowly versed in the debates, it really reminds me of the debates against the pragmatists in the late 19th and early 20th century. At that time philosophical debate in America was between the Realists and the Idealists. Both tended to read the pragmatist in their own terms rather than offering a real third way.

There’s a fantastic book by David Hildebrand on this debate and it’s implications for the neoPragmatists at the end of the 20th century. (i.e. Putnam and Rorty) Beyond Realism and Antirealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists is well worth getting even if one isn’t a pragmatist. I think it highlights a certain tendency that does pop up in philosophy a lot. But then, as I said, I’m a pragmatist and the pragmatists often don’t get the place I think they deserve.

I should note that Barnes and Noble has the book for $25 while Amazon has it for $140. At least at the time I write this. I’m not at all sure why Amazon has library pricing for the book. Probably some computer glitch. But it is well worth buying and I’ve discussed it before.

Related posts:

  1. Journal Scandal
  2. Burn After Reading
  3. Idealism, Realism and Minds
  4. Writing of Derrida
  5. Harman on Derrida’s Realism
  6. One Last One on Realism

Comments

4 Responses to “Beyond Realism and Idealism”

Worth noting that at least one of the debates at the moment is whether speculative realism still exists. I’m pretty sure at this stage it dosen’t. I’ve tried to argue before that object oriented philosophy can be considered a kind of neo-phenomenology or a phenomenological realism a la the earliest Husserl (the really early Husserl that is!).

Also worth noting that Ian Bogost calls his approach alien phenomenology and of course the roots of OOP will always, no matter where it ends up, be in Husserl/Heidegger. That is the story begins there as do many of the ‘ways’ one enters an object oriented approach (see Harman’s essay on causation for a good example).

Great to see you back.

Interesting. I’ve just not read enough of it to have a real opinion. Thus far it seems more similar to what someone like Badiou is doing – going for more of a 3rd person perspective on objects rather than the 1st person one that phenomenology goes for. (Which, I think, naturally leads to a broadening of the notion of unconscious ala Latour due to adopting Externalism contra Husserl’s Internalism) That’s not to say they are doing the same thing as Badiou. But then Badiou is an other figure I’m not as well versed on as I should be. (I’m reading him now – although I don’t particularly like his style)

While I’ve just a very superficial understanding of the figures in SR let alone what each person’s doctrine is, it seems like SR is a very, very broad and vague label. Closer to something like “postmodernism” or “feminism.” Given the problematic nature of those labels I can see why some interested in SR might wish to avoid a vague “movement” label and prefer labels based upon actual philosophical positions though. (Something I’m all for as well)

Harman, to me is interesting precisely because of the issue within Heidegger of de-worlding. I know Harman thinks Heidegger is an unholy mixture of realism and correlationalism. I’m not sure I agree there. But then that issue of how Heidegger is transcendental is still actively debated. Heck, I’ve even changed my views on the subject this year. Even if Heidegger is closer to Kant than I’d prefer, I think there are ways of rescuing him using his own approaches.

OOP would be even more radical than a third person perspective. It posits that objects themselves have a kind of reduced intentionality (or objects have a life of their own).

As for the SR label it is more the case that none of the four people involved have much in common in positive terms and don’t seem all that interested in working on any SR project as such although this could change with the publication of the Speculative Turn. So yes I think it might work as kind of nametag for a general attitude.

My own work tries to walk this object oriented/Heidegger tightrope. I suppose the problem with Heidegger for OOP is simply that the later Heidegger, even if it surpasses transcendentalism or escapes correlationism, is so deeply insular that it effaces objects under the history of being or the task of thinking.

Yes, although I should note that the pragmatists got to that position first. Peirce at least saw everything, including all objects, in terms of signs. So all things had a mind-like quality to them. Althoguh for non-human inanimate entities this was usually qualified as quasi-mind.

For Heidegger, I wonder if after the Turn it’s just that Heidegger is no longer interested in ontic questions in quite the same way. I note that the debate about him as an ontic realist almost always uses the texts prior to the war – primarily Being and Time. I’m convinced that the turn is primarily one of focus rather than position (which isn’t to say there isn’t some evolution in his thought). But I think the later work makes it harder to draw out these questions. Although there are some exceptions. (I’m trying to remember the date of his comments on Heisenberg and science, for instance – was that postwar or prewar?)

I should add that discovery OOP is a bit exciting, even if I am largely ignorant, precisely because I’ve long criticized Continental thought for ignoring any questiosn out of the big questions of human existence. (Especially ethics and politics) The way objects interact with each other independent of our knowing is relavent. However where I get a bit nervous with what I’ve read of Harman is the question of holism. That is to what degree can we (or should we) fully separate objects outside of awareness. In other words, how do we avoid (or should we avoid?) a return to a kind of atomism.

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