Quick thoughts on OOP

Posted on July 13, 2010
Filed Under Peirce, Philosophy | 3 Comments

I’ve been reading Graham Harman’s Prince of Networks this week. It’s been on my “to read” list for well over a year now . I’m pretty glad I read it. I need to reread it before making any firm comments. First readings are always dangerous things and typical one misreads in key areas.

My sense is that I might differ with the OOP folks on only a small number of points. First, I think the question of time is a deep issue that is almost certainly problematic. However I’m not exactly sure how it is problematic. Time is always a tricky issue in these things and often there are subtle metaphysical assumptions in it.

I also agree, I think, with Deontologistics that several senses of “relation” are collapsed into a single metaphysical category. I think one needs to unpack this carefully.

All that said there is a strong sense in which Peirce’s semiotic realism and OOP both approach the world in a broadly similar way. There are some important differences (I suspect in part due to Peirce’s three categories).

I need to reread Harman and then read some of Levi again. I recognize there are some key differences between the two. (Especially over the potential/actual divide – although once again here I think Peirce offers a potential bridge between the two)

The bigger question is whether this approach to OOP is better than semiotics. I’ve not thought through that one yet. Obviously as a Pericean I have my own pretty strong biases here.

I think what I’ll do is stick more with Harman rather than Levi and go through a comparing and contrasting with Peirce over the next few months. If nothing else this will help me eck out some issues of Peirce.

Related posts:

  1. Morris vs. Peirce
  2. Some Quick Thoughts on Derrida and Plotinus
  3. Quick Thoughts on the SMPT Conference
  4. Adam on Material Semiotics
  5. Peirce Blog
  6. Peirce & OOP

Comments

3 Responses to “Quick thoughts on OOP”

Clark, I’m glad you’re finding Harman’s book on Latour productive. I’ve spent the summer re/reading most of Latour’s own books and find him even more compelling “in person” than via Harman. In fact, I think that Harman gets a couple of basic and important things wrong about Latour. I’ll try to some more about this soon.

I look forward to your comments.

It’s one of those things where I really don’t agree with Harman. (I disagree often with his reading of Heidegger also) But sometimes reading those you disagree with can still be very productive if only to orient your own thoughts.

I’m still having a ridiculously busy summer. So I don’t know how much time for posting I’ll have. But I do hope to address some Peircean issues in all this. If only to demonstrate a slightly different way to address some key insights.

Okay, this has nothing to do with your topic, but every time I see the title of your post over on LDSBlogs I immediately think you’re writing about Order of the Phoenix. I had to get that out.

/threadjack

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