A Comment on Ontological Equivocation and the Possibility of Plurality.

The thought of Plurality came to be right now in coming across
Graham Harman’s plug for a couple new Object Oriented books. In particular, the ideas of Tristan Garcia, the “Life Intense”.

Now, I have not read hardly anything of Tristan; what I have read sort of left me pondering. Now, I just read the summary of his book, I think I know why it is weird: I do not agree with his premise for the book, and, I guess, then, his philosophy. Again, just judging from what little I have read of him and then the summary, his view upon the world is totally different than what I see; I simply can only relate in as much as a believe that he is reporting on something honestly. 

This attitude of mine then is not about what argument he might be making. In fact, any argument he would make, I think, would be circumstantial, merely me considering how interesting it is that he came up with a philosophy on these equally interesting aspects of existence that I never encounter —

Or !

..that I may have already encountered. How could this be? It appears to me like he is reporting on something that I might have already reconciled. I can’t really know if this is true, though, because I will never encounter him except through his books, which already come to me as accounted for, on one hand, or, speaking of something that is merely interesting on the other.

So, I cannot discount his experience or his philosophy. It must be totally real and valid. Thus: whatever ontological proposals he makes is of another and different existence, one that is already contained in the proposals I make as a sort of foot note, a ground, if you will, but without the ontological argument. But further: That that footnote I might understand, is not a foot note in the condition of things for those who would see his proposals as significantly new. Hence: Plurality.

It is non sequitur to reduce his proposals to a necessity of mine, for, as Harman has suggested of things, that would be an overdetermination of the object at hand. His must then lay equally valid and real as mine.

OK, now that we might understand that strange coincidence…on to the significance of Ontological Equivocation…

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“Even though there is something out there that is not the world-for-us, and even though we can name it the world-in-itself, this latter constitutes a horizon for thought, alwaysreceding just beyond the bounds of intelligibility.”

It seems I am beginning to give examples of philosophical analysis. Which is to say an analysis of philosophy, that non-philosophy has granted us but also my own work has seen an ability or propensity towards.

I got this quote secondhand from a re-posting of another blog (cite), and I’d like to point out some inconsistencies that indicate a religious posture and its attempt to bring everything under one philosophical ontological envelope.

One of the difficulties that comes with taking such a posture towards philosophy is that for other philosophers I would first need to establish myself as credible through their particular methodological paradigm; I am indeed working on getting legitimization to put some letter after my name for this purpose (right now it is: MACP:)) This is to say that the first defense of all philosophies that would be analyzed in this way would be to say that I do not understand what they are talking about. So in order to get to this point, a sort of ontological pivot (or break) has occurred such that there really is no ontology that I need argue any longer, As philosophers go, one first would have to believe that I understand the argument in question.

a further quote quotation from the same author is:

“The world-in-itself is a paradoxical concept; the moment we think it and attempt to act on it, it ceases to be the world-in-itself and becomes the world-for-us. A significant part of this paradoxical world-in-itself is grounded by scientific inquiry – both the production of scientific knowledge of the world and the technical means of acting on and intervening in the world.”

Indeed, the world in-itself is a paradoxical concept, but I do not think his conclusion necessarily follows. This is to say that due to the paradox, the confusion must follow one of two paths, his path being one of the two.

This is to say, that the moment we think about the world in-itself we are left with a choice as to what we want to use as criteria for what path we should take. Then, the main issue that we face is if indeed we see a choice, and the fact that most often no choice is understood to be presented. If this be the case, then we have the basis for a contradiction which usually follows philosophers into their mistake which then demands an assertion of essential identity over the plain existence of the thing in question.

In this case, the choice is presented as a question upon the traditional philosophy of the West; namely, that the tradition has voiced and presented the situation in such a manner that makes sense such that I have only to make a choice upon this sense. The basis of the sense is not there questioned; it is intact and intutively sound: We can make no choice upon it. So, when we have done our studies and find all the secret knowledge hidden in plain sight of our sense with reference to the tradition of the Big Names, we come to a necessary conclusion: In this case, as soon as we think of the world in-itself is ceases to be the world in-itself and because a world for-us.

The non-sequitur involved in this conclusion is not found in the direct argumentation but is indeed embedded in the conclusions that have been already gleaned from the traditional understanding of the philosophers, an understanding that I say is a mistaken understanding, or more correctly, a different orientation upon things. Yet, in fact, if we are to stick with the tradition of the philosophers, it is mistaken in a manner that no argument can reclaim. Due to this phenomenological misunderstanding, what occurs through this orientation upon things is a receding of thought –indeed a withdrawing of subjectivity — into what 20th century philosophers called ‘world’, such that eventually we have philosophers involved in the assertion of ‘their’ world of sense and logic as though it indeed reflects the actual existence of the ‘our world’ or ‘whole world’. This is the paradox discovered in the above quote. We have a complete myopia of thinking for the purpose of asserting ‘world’ over ‘world’ as we understand that the intuitive meaning of terms that I have gleaned should amount to an ability to create more terms and associated definitions that will one day prove ‘true’ about the discrepancy that I have noticed of my phenomenal truth as I have faith in the given method of argument. I submit, also, that this is a mistaken understanding of what Badou has called ‘fidelity’. It is through this mistaken kind of fidelity that we have the basis of the problem that ‘patchwork’ (cite) deals with; a taking to the absolute ends the problem of the 20th century psychoanalytical philosophical mistake but without the problemization of self-reflection which should accompany all philosophical endeavors. The analyses and proposals which stem and proceed from this mistaken orientation upon things follow necessarily, even as those involved cannot see beyond their ‘intuition’ of the truth of things to say that it is ‘new’.

The world in-itself is only paradoxical under certain conditions; it is not a paradox to knowledge itself.

***

I wonder if Graham Harman or Tristan Garcia will ever read this. I suppose not: Plurality. lol

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