Objects as a Point of View

Posted on August 18, 2010
Filed Under OOP, Philosophy | 3 Comments

OK, I know I’ve been posting a lot of responses to various of Levi’s posts. However they’ve been quite helpful for drawing out various things I’ve been thinking about the past few years. This will probably be among the last for a little bit as I want to return to a few more religious topics. Today though Levi had a fantastic post that brought up an issue I’ve worried about a long time: Metaphysics and the god’s eye view.

Levi is basically arguing that we have to keep separate metaphysics (what is) from epistemology (how we know it). Now this is true as far as it goes. However of course in practice it’s not that clean a divide in many ontologies. What can look like an claim about epistemology may be based on ontological concerns. The concern for a few decades that philosophy was beset by a “god’s eye view” that became characteristic of the so-called postmodern movement isn’t just an epistemological claim but often was also a claim about ontology.

What this all reminds me of is quantum mechanics.

The most famous interpretation of quantum mechanics was Bohr’s Copenhagen Interpretation. However there was an ongoing debate about whether this was to be taken as merely a pragmatic limit on doing the science, as an epistemological claim about what was knowable about quantum mechanics or as a basic ontological claim. I’m not as concerned about the historical question of what Bohr himself believed. But I think the debate about whether the Copenhagen Interpretation is ontological suggests that Levi’s point isn’t quite as obvious as it appears. The ontological reading of the Copenhagen Interpretation either privileges human knowing or else suggests that something like consciousness is inherent in the universe and leads to the collapse of quantum wave functions into definitive states. (Most scientists don’t think that the collapse of the wave function is tied to human knowing but take “measurement” in quantum mechanics in more broad terms)

Now of course I have to hasten to add that the Copenhagen Interpretation is hardly the only interpretation. Further the way most students learn about the collapse of the wave function ends up being something added to that interpretation (by Von Neumann as memory serves – although don’t quote me on that). I think most who think about quantum mechanics tend to either adopt a differing interpretation (typically the multiple worlds interpretation, Bohmean wave mechanics as a hidden variable theory or the less popular transaction process theory of Cramer). My point isn’t to make a claim about quantum mechanics but merely to note that things are a bit more complex.

This isn’t ultimately a critique against OOP though. That’s because OOP self-identifies as an ontological theory. The proponents don’t in the least deny they are doing metaphysics. And so there’s no reason for them to feel bad allowing for such a clear-cut distinction between epistemology and metaphysics. Further epistemological complaints about metaphysics ultimately are a bit silly. Anyone doing metaphysics would admit that the evidence for a particular position is weak. (Ted Sider has some great thoughts on this I’ve written about in the past)

Note I tend to take Bohr as making largely an epistemic claim. (I’d suspect under influence from the neoKantianism popular at the time) I fully admit I’ve not read heavily on it though. An interesting take on this is by Ravi Gomatam who accepts Bohr made the claim but didn’t need to. See “Complementarity — Did Bohr miss the boat?” (pdf)

Related posts:

  1. Metaphysics of Thermodynamics
  2. Grandfather Paradox
  3. Naturalist Metaphysics
  4. Yet an other Confirmation
  5. Quantum Mechanics and the Brain
  6. Physics, Ontology and the Burden of Proof

Comments

3 Responses to “Objects as a Point of View”
1 Michael Dorfman on August 19th, 2010 1:36 am

Nice post, Clark, and one which gets to crux of why OOO holds absolutely no interest for me.

Levi:I realize I drive people up the wall by constantly harping on the difference between epistemology and ontology, but this gets to the heart of the issue. Epistemology revolves around questions of how we know objects or, in Vitale’s language, how “point-of-view” maps on to objects. Ontology revolves around issues of what things are regardless of whether or not objects are graced by our gaze.

The key distinction at play here is not between Ontology and Epistemology, but rather, between “objects not graced by our gaze”, and “objects which are necessarily ungraceable by our gaze.”

To what extent can an “object” which is strictly impossible to (directly or indirectly) perceive, be said to “exist”? If it has no perceivable effects, no perceivable properties?

The whole business seems non-sensical to me, and pointless– just another naive “metaphysics of presence.”

Well put. I shy away from quantum-mech comparisons mostly, lest I be accused of taosing my physics, but where I come down is that practice is not just where we get frustrated in making the episteme/onto distinction, it’s also where we try to make it. And we can’t not make it, but it remains a practical distinction.

Yes, I tend to agree Michael. I like the general thrust of OOP but have difficulties with what I perceive as the two main schools of though. There are others. Adam Miller who is down the hall from Levi has his own version he’s writing a book on. I suspect from past discussions that Adam’s might be closer to my own view. As I’ve mentioned at Levi’s blog my big hangup is over the nature of relations. I just don’t quite understand how they are using the word.

Harman did say (quoted at Levi’s blog)

My position is much simpler: all relations are relations. All relations transform that to which they relate. Hence, there is only a difference of degree between cognitive and purely causal relations.

This makes sense for Harman in that he rejects the virtual and appears to not consider potential that significant. (Probably my biggest complaints with his metaphysics) For Levi though I’m not sure how to take relations in that he accepts the virtual (largely from Deleuze as I understand it).

My own position is that I don’t mind an OOP. Indeed I’ve wanted one for over a decade. I just think the best OOP would be Derrida’s semiotics extended such that they apply to objects in general rather than people talking about objects. (Which, as I’ve argued, I think is entailed by his texts contra Levi’s reading)

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