Archives mensuelles : février 2014

Despite the effort of some scientistic throwbacks (as Latour exclaims ironically: « Where have they been ») to just define pluralism over the protestations of those who have gone some way along that track, some blog posts have tried to give an … Lire la suite →

Zizek has given an interesting perspective to frame current discussions on the dangers of relativism in terms of a struggle for cultural hegemony: “We are witnessing today the struggle for intellectual hegemony — for who will occupy the universal place … Lire la suite →

In an interview (2012), discussing his own methodology, Latour affirms: “this a thing that I learned from the “scientists” I studied, i.e. that: “Anything goes as long as it leads to what you want to find”. Just as in a … Lire la suite →

Bruno Latour poses the question: “What Is the Recommended Dose of Ontological Pluralism for a Safe Anthropological Diplomacy?” and replies with a typology of stages on the way of pluralism.  It is clear that many questions and objections of the … Lire la suite →

Belhaj Kacem argues that Meillassoux noumenalises the diachronic (super-Chaotic flux) whereas Harman noumenalises the synchronic (timeless real objects). Just as QM has trouble explaining how a withdrawn super-Chaotic flux can give rise to stable natural Laws, Harman cannot explain how … Lire la suite →

In Kacem’s analysis Meillassoux is forced into a Kantian position due to the fact that his Deleuzian absolute, super-Chaos, is attested neither by common sense nor by the sciences. All the known worlds, Kacem underlines that they are known by … Lire la suite →

I am commenting on the excerpt from Kacem’s forthcoming book L’effet Meillassoux (The Meillassoux Effect) on the blog Les apports de Mehdi Belhaj Kacem. Kacem describes Meillassoux as  committed not only to theorising ontologically the real as a game of … Lire la suite →

Very interesting excerpt from Kacem’s forthcoming book L’effet Meillassoux (The Meillassoux Effect) on the blog Les apports de Mehdi Belhaj Kacem. Belhaj Kacem situates Quentin Meillassoux (QM) in the context of the post-Badiousian generation, that is trying to inherit not … Lire la suite →

Cultural relativism is defended by nobody, but it is easy to refute (which by the way is probably why noone ever believes in it) by precisely the kind of stereotyped question that the dogmatic realist drags up from his undergraduate … Lire la suite →

I have already replied to  various objections to pluralism in my article IS ONTOLOGY MAKING US STUPID?, which is published online in THEORIA. I  will quote from the pdf version, as it has page numbers, for easier reference, available here. … Lire la suite →