Here is an attempt to make explicit some of the implicit presuppositions of Galloway’s article. Any constructive comments on content or formulation are welcome.
As one may be aware from previous posts I am very critical of Galloway’s article, finding it confused and chaotic. I also find that it presupposes too much and that Galloway himself has not been willing to do the pedagogical work of filling in the background necessary to at least understand what the presuppositions are, even if one does not agree with them. I have taken up the thankless task of explicating some of these presuppositions, but only because some of the critiques seemed to me to be deliberately obfuscating them.
One cannot do everything in an article, and so one has to build on the shoulders of one’s predecessors. So I would say that the allusion to Badiou is the first track to take up. Without going in to the massive detail of BEING AND EVENT, I would recommend reading MANIFESTO FOR PHILOSOPHY which is quite short and very impressive (though in many ways quite infuriating for me). In particular, chapter 5 makes it clear that Badiou acknowledges the identity of structure between capitalism and set theory. It is not a question of capitalism making use of set theory or not, in both cases capitalism is or approaches as its limit, the abstract manipulation of interchangeable elements, that are treated as pure quantitative multiples whose qualitative aspects can be bracketed out as such, although they can be factored into the capitalist computation as giving rise to diverse forms of extraction of value.
Many people take this view of the progression from investment-oriented to speculative capitalism, and find it a horrifying prospect. So they wish to elaborate a philosophy with an emancipatory potential. Now as you can see we are dealing with philosophy at a very high level of abstraction and, I would add of self-reflexivity. Badiou thinks that his philosophy is in danger of reflecting the same structure as capitalism and he finds that very worrisome. The idea is that you will not be able to propose any real change if the very structure of your theory reproduces the structure of that which you want to change. Hence Badiou’s extreme care in including and accounting for the Event in his ontology. And also for the possibility of politics as event, and not just as the management of multiplicities. This necessity of including politics in the very fabric of his ontology is for Badiou itself a political necessity. And the disjunction of politics and ontology affirmed by OOO is in Badiousian eyes a political gesture in itself.
So nothing hangs on whether set theory or any specific programming language is actually used in any specific capitalist endeavour. Unfortunately Galloway muddied these waters by mixing in a very interesting comparison of OOO and object-oriented programming. This is at a much lower level of abstraction than the general argument and much more empirical in nature. It leaves open replies like Java is not used as much as some other language for example, and these replies miss the general argument altogether.
Maybe one can agree that there is some conceptual confusion in the article and that there is a lack of pedagogy in its presentation and in Galloway’s follow-up. However I think that the main argument is untouched by his critics. As some of them claim to have read Badiou, I think that some of these people are pandering in bad faith to the bewilderment and recoil of people who have not gone through the pedagogy of Continental Philosophy and wonder where some affirmations come from.
Note: Similar arguments can be found in Deleuze and Guattari, and in Bernard Stiegler. For example, Stiegler’s class has started up again, this « class » (and not even his seminar) is supposedly addressed to high school students, and in the second lecture he goes on about how the « computo » begins with Descartes and is instantiated in modern financiary capitalism, where all intrinsic value is abstracted and all that remains is computational exchange value. And yet noone interrupts to say that all tghis is meaningless guilt by
association. I think it is very grave indeed when those who in fact know better pretend not to understand such arguments.
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I take the article to be asking a very basic question that I don’t see anyone having quite mentioned yet: *why* did OOO take on the name of a popular software paradigm? In some of the more vicious attacks on the article, one would almost think that it was Alex who came up with the « homology » between OOO and object-oriented programming–rather than SR/OOO having explicitly posed it in the name it took on itself. Whether it’s just « cultural cache, » or a deeper connection with a very successful software development paradigm, it seems to me that SR/OOO has always refused to reflect in any deep way on this « correlation. »
At a deeper level, in The Cultural Logic of Computation, in the pages Alex cites (but he does not mention this (209-2111), I connect the general worldview of object-oriented programming with the ideology I call (following analytic philosophers of mind) « computationalism, » and suggest that they entail a deeply rationalistic bias toward power and hierarchy that accounts for their success, often far beyond their superiority over other software paradigms (this is based on my personal experience in software development, watching OO languages be continually promoted by certain very « computationally » focused individuals, even when the languages were not going to be the best performer for the situation). I argue that object-oriented programming appears to be and has its primary (conceptual, ideological) appeal as a theory of objects without subjects, and note the failed attempts to develop « subject- » and « aspect- » oriented programming languages precisely because of this conceptual lack.
In the end, ironically, object-oriented programming languages have a richer ontology than does SR/OOO: for where SR/OOO tells us that there is one kind of thing in reality–objects–most object-oriented programming languages include at least « properties, » « classes, » and « methods. » « Methods » turn out to be somewhat similar to « relations, » the very thing SR/OOO wants to eliminate.
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I think this sort of critique is important to make. For all their talk about a « democracy » of objects the OOOxians have an élitist worldview and comportment. Harman’s views on « undermining » and « overmining » allow him to promulgate his philosophy as both healing the two cultures divide and going far beyond it. There is a sort of mirror effect where some philosophically curious computer programmers can recognise themselves in a flattering avant-garde image. Yet as you say this philosophical image is at the conceptual level an impoverishment. There is just one kind of thing, objects, and they withdraw, thus depriving us of the possibility even of giving an example.
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In terms of the Lacanian discourse espoused by Bryant, this particular neglect among Galloway’s critics, that is, to implicate the master discourse with the same logical flaws as Galloway apparently committed in his attack against SR/OOO, is an example of how university discourse, or what Bryant would also describe as ‘normal knowledge’ penetrates the shell of even those who claim to champion anti-normativity in the guise of the critique of correlationism (obviously, including Bryant’s). Worst, this penetration is unconscious, or may even be deliberately unconscious. The same charge applied to Kant as Zizek would argue–the noumenon is unconscious of itself. Let’s take the noumenon to be the kind of transparent Real that lacks the very character of transparency, hence the pure showmanship of self-reflexivity.
Today, this noumenon is overtaken by the term ‘withdrawal’. Does withdrawal withdraw? Is withdrawal a thing that things? Is thing-ing always a process of withdrawing? But isn’t it also the case that thing-ing is governed by alterity such that it is also subject to the internal tension that negates what thing-ing affirms (by withdrawing) and negates (by negating its own withdrawing)? Is withdrawal also a form of non-withdrawal? If it is, then, as Terence put it, rather in a non-Lacanian way, it is a symptom.
The question is “is it possible for SR/OOO to become aware of their symptoms?” To bring Laruelle into the discussion, is it possible for them to become aware of the symptoms of the hallucinatory nature of their visioning of the Real? These claims after all enjoy no redemptive value in the face of the indifference of the Real, which contra Badiou can never be decided except by breaking the impasse of decisionality ala Kierkegaard prior to and even without the comfort of particular conditions of truth-occasioning where decisions are relevant for Badiou, where the Real can be decided, short of saying, by proxies. The Real can never be decided precisely because, as Meillasoux would argue, yet he fails to see its fullest implications, the Real decides our future with perfect indifference–it does not care. This is already symptomatic of the truth that there is no truth. There is only the being that speaks about truth. But whether being speaks or not about the truth or some non-truths, in any case, the Real does not care to which Kierkegaard would respond by leaping into ethicality which cures the agony of deciding on truth. This time there is only the being (always an ethical being, not an epistemic one or a being that is sure of itself) that speaks about the truth. The leap into the religious settles the agony of decision–there is only the Good. Kierkegaard by and large is aware of his own symptoms as a being who decides that only the Good is truth. But he does not decide on his symptom, whether to have it or not. He decides where his symptom should settle, which is similar to Laruellean Gnosticism without gnosis. All these can be achieved prior to and even without the comfort of the Badiouan conditions of truth occasioning.
At any rate, what the Badiouan conditions of truth can afford us is to realize in-the-last-instance that these conditions are practical settlements, negotiated truths, of a particular decisioning on one’s symptom. Yet each condition cannot claim superiority over the other, such as the scientific over the political. Badiou of course would not admit this—to decide on ontology or Being through each of these occasioning of truth is always political. (In Laruellean terms, the political is Badiou’s transcendental material).
In the case of their criticisms of Galloway’s peculiar brand of thing-ing, as Terence made it explicit in his commentary on the neglect among SR/OOO defenders, but also Galloway’s neglect by implication, by virtue of his being a part of the university discourse that charts the development of the Real that has shaped much of the activity of recent Continental philosophy, and also by his failure to locate the tension where it is supposed to lie, their symptoms over-determine the work of criticism through their oblivious relation to the Real. No wonder Spinoza and Schopenhauer shunned the academia which could not tolerate pre-conditional propositions about the Real (those which are claimed from outside the positionalities of truth–science, art, politics, and love) which are not necessarily untrue, illogical and false. Unfortunately, Galloway could not invoke these pre-conditionalities, those pre-truths. He is not Nietzsche, to add more emphasis. He is very much a part of the symptom he seeks for approval.
Yet like the Owl of Minerva Galloway’s critique of SR/OOO has given us a glimpse of those pre-conditions through its own symptoms, that is, in-the-last-instance. Those are the preconditions where realism is weirder than weird, weirder than Lovecraft.
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I agree with your analysis. There is a veritable « paradox of withdrawal ». How can a withdrawn object de-withdraw? There is a pure ascetic aristocratic discourse of absolute withdrawal, where objects are unknowable and untouchable, and there is a more « democratic », in fact demagogic, discourse for the philosophical pleb where examples can be given. Thus is implicitly generated an unspoken notion of relative withdrawal, or degrees of withdrawal.
Galloway is not Nietzsche, and is rather too entangled in the university discourse and practice to my taste. Here status has primacy over content. In his reply he linked to a derisory blog post on « eating kittens » because he respects, or envies, the status of the author and as you say « seeks his approval ». In this case he has forgotten the Real and its determination in the last instance.
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…derisory blog post on “eating kittens” because he respects, or envies, the status of the author and as you say “seeks his approval”
The « eating kittens » post was by Levi Bryant, no? I’m afraid that being on the faculty of a community college in Texas (Bryant) is way below being on the faculty of New York University (Galloway). But it’s possible that Bryant gets more lecture requests than Galloway.
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What I find curious about Galloway’s article (and I’ve now read it) is the implicit rhetorical assumption that the most damning argument one can muster against a theory is that it is, or might be, complicit in capitalism. If it’s wrong because it fails somehow to trace the metaphysical structure of the world, well then, it’s merely wrong. But if it’s like capitalism, then it’s evil because capitalism is evil.
In particular, chapter 5 makes it clear that Badiou acknowledges the identity of structure between capitalism and set theory. It is not a question of capitalism making use of set theory or not, in both cases capitalism is or approaches as its limit, the abstract manipulation of interchangeable elements, that are treated as pure quantitative multiples whose qualitative aspects can be bracketed out as such, although they can be factored into the capitalist computation as giving rise to diverse forms of extraction of value.
Now, if I’m to read Badiou because, among other things, he makes that argument in full technical detail, well, to be honest, I’m not very tempted. It’s not because I think the world’s just fine as it is, with the American political system being held hostage to rapacious financiers, and so forth and so on. I don’t think that at all. I think the world is in deep trouble, and that we need substantial change in our various social institutions, etc. But “abstract manipulation of interchangeable elements” is all over the place. That genie’s left the bottle and isn’t going to back. Whatever major changes take place, if they take place at all, will have to make peace with that genie.
But my problem with the capitalism=math=computation argument is that in all of these discussion, here and elsewhere, I don’t see anyone on any side with a very sophisticated understanding of computation. Badiou may well have such an understanding, but if so, it isn’t being conveyed in ANY of these discussions.
Now here I’m in a tricky rhetorical situation. I could deal with that situation through bluff and bluster, but I’d prefer not. The theory of computation is very abstract and technical. I don’t command the technical details. But it is something that’s interested me for a very long time.
I was trained by the late David Hays. He is one of the founders of the discipline of computational linguistics, work he did back in the 1950s and 1960s. He didn’t program computers, others did that. What he did was conceptualize language as a computational phenomenon. For better or worse, he did some of the fundamental work in that arena.
Though he was only the outside reader on my dissertation, “Cognitive Science and Literary Theory,” he was for all practical purposes my director. That dissertation was, among other things, a technical discussion of some quasi-formal techniques for conceptualizing literature as a computational phenomenon. Galloway mentions directed graphs in his article. Well, I had to draw lots of directed graphs for that dissertation. Directed graphs are not things I read about, even with care. They’re things I built.
And when I read these discussions I just don’t see much sophistication in thinking about computing. I see some people have certainly done more programming than I have, way more. But that’s not the same thing as conceptualizing what computing is and how it works.
So at this point the argument that “capitalism=computing” is simply a non-starter. Now maybe that means I’m possessed by the capitalist devil itself. If so, well, such possession has prevented me from having my own difficulties with object-oriented ontology nor has it prevented me from elaborating my own version of a pluralist metaphysics, one which leads fairly naturally to axiology, both aesthetics and ethics.
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Correction: If so, well, such possession has NOT prevented me from having my own difficulties with object-oriented ontology…
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My pedagogical interventions have been to recall that the Galloway piece has an abstract background, summed up in capitalism=math=ontology of the pure multiple. I have limited myself to a tiny part of the presuppositions to Galloway’s argument. Because I have seen just non-philosophical rubbish published as a « reformulation » of his argument, which has nothing to do with « capitalism uses set theory » and so it’s bad or set theory is bad or whatnot; Ditto for object-oriented programming. It’s not a question of use but of structure.
Now structural investigations often involve homology arguments. Bryant uses them just all the time. Every time he adds a new case of correlation to his bag (eg not just correlation of subject and object but also of language and world, as having the same « correlatioinal » structure he is using homology; Every time he applies his graph of sexuation to say this is transcendence based metaphysics, and that is a case of immanent thought, he is using homology. He just does it all the time. But he seems to be banking on noone noticing it and reproaching him with a contradiction.
OOO is the real Sokal Hoax (another homology). A so-called « philosophy » is received as such by who? By artists and computer programmers who like the siren song that they can go farther than Heidegger or Derrida or Deleuze or Badiou without even reading them (or something else of equivalent depth and complexity of thought). This sort of « suturing » of philosophy to one of its conditions is roundly condemned by Badiou, and I am with him on that one; OOO is very close to a perfect example of the suturing of philosophy to its scientific condition as expressed in set theory, once again I emphasize: whether the OOOxian in question makes use of set theory or not, mentions it or not.
So while I think Galloway’s paper is flawed, the discussions that I have seen of it have been both philosophically illiterate and blinkered, validating the proverb « To the cobbler all things are made of shoes ». Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Galloway’s article is really about shoes!
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Yes, you’re absolutely right about Bryant’s style of argumentation. It’s a tissue of resemblance arguments. And since, among other things, machines resemble objects and objects resemble machines, he can announce that he’s doing machine-oriented ontology rather than object-oriented ontology. And nothing changes about the structure and texture of his argumentation. Nothing. It’s word magic.
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And while he is attacking Galloway for what to him are skewed homologies, he fails to recall Deleuze, one of his heroes, doing a lot of mimetic operations which are, among others, founded on homologies. Still, Galloway’s piece is disappointing. I was expecting a more radical Laruellean take on his critique of SR/OOO.
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Yes, this is important. Homology arguments are valuable and useful. Let a thousand homologies bloom! Laruelle finds a very powerful set of homologies between different philosophies. But on their own, even when they are well done, they are only suggestive. They must be enmeshed in a wider and richer conceptual and argumentative framework. Galloway’s text is unsatisfying in its present state as the context is badly indicated and itself too heterogeneous. This is why I have been trying to encourage him to take on a more Laruellian consistence.
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Yes, homologies are only a starting point. They tell you where to look, but you need other tools to do the looking.
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Hi Bill. Are you implying homologies are pre-objectal? If they are, it seems pretty close to Badiou’s pre-objectal multiplicities. But the trick starts there. Multiplicities are always already numerated once you look at them. We can look at these homologies from a certain positionality, whether as homologies or localizable multiplicities. Harman tries to go around this by supposing that, because we cannot be sure whether these are pre-objectal or objectalized, objects can be had as self-withdrawing, the least we can make of them. For his part, Laruelle extends this way of looking at objects in terms of their withdrawing essences to as far as the radical immanence of visioning that is always reducible to a hallucinatory material. Homologies are ‘materials’ in the hallucinatory sense. From a Laruellean standpoint, these materials do not afford us epistemic redemption, if we can put it thus–a kind of knowing that will save the appearance of things so that things can make sense to us despite their hallucinatory materiality. Spinoza is a helpful guide here–the ethicality of accepting that all our epistemic valuations are null in the face of the Real. This may sound too close to Bryant’s position; nonetheless, his anti-correlationism misses the point. The point is, as Laruelle wonderfully puts it in Future Christ, « humans beings have problems which only they can solve. » So I agree with Terence that homologies must be allowed to bloom, that is, from a consistent critique of anti-correlationism which Galloway’s article falls short of. My contention is anti-correlationism ironically deprives the subject of proper enlightenment, especially at a time when the subject in Continental philosophy is learning from the limits of Badiouan episteme (Terence’s terms). The homologies we speak of here are those which, for one, interrogate the Maoism of philosophy, as Laruelle has exposed. Is there a way to promote homologies without falling back on the project of modernity? Badiou is nostalgic of modernity, so to speak.
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Hi Virgilio. I don’t know this (Continental) territory well enough to give you a direct answer. My point is an epistemological one. I think homologies provide a way of identifying a “matter of concern,” to use a term from Latour. But we’re going to have to do something more to move from spotting a matter of concern to identifying and validating a “matter of fact.” That process may well involve transforming the original matter of concern into something a bit different. And so on.
A number of years ago I sketched out a scheme for undergraduate education in the human sciences in which I observed that we seem to have three broad methodologies: 1) interpretive or hermeneutical, 2) structural (linguistics, cognitive science), and 3) the statistical inference used in the behavioral sciences, sociology, and political science. What I’m looking for are arguments involving at least two kinds of reasoning. My own work tends toward 1 and 2. Homology could be found in all three. So, if we’re talking homology, then homology as identified by two different methods.
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Hi Bill. Excellent stuff. American pragmatism at its best.
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Reblogged this on Kafka's Ruminations and commented:
Terence Blake’s pedagogical interventions on Alex Galloway’s critique of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. For those who are doing continental philosophy on the side of the universe here (in Asia and the Philippines), these are very fresh stuffs. Check out his other posts as well.
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Thanks, Virgilio. I would think that idea that we should look for two or more independent lines of evidence must be an old rule of thumb. But David Hays and I made explicit use of it in a highly speculative and abstract article we published on the brain some years ago, The Principles and Structure of Natural Intelligence. We argued that natural intelligence follows five principles implemented in neural tissue, both through the overall architecture of the nervous system and in the micro-structure of neural connections.
The goal of the second principle is to achieve perceptual coherence; if you will, it gives the animal a world of objects with which to interact, objects constructed of sensations. It does so through diagonalization. Here’s the opening of that discussion; note that we begin with Cantor:
In effect, what Hays and I are saying is that diagonalization gives the animal its ontology, the things and events it perceives in the world and on and through which it acts. In humans, it yields the commonsense world, the world that’s revealed in commonsense language. Later on we note that the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget had argued that the young infant first perceives objects as such when it learns to correlate what it sees with what it touches and manipulate through eye-hand coordination. Now, nowhere do I see Piaget mentioned in these discussions, but the idea that the world is constructed owes as much to his work as to anybody’s.
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