Ontological Autonomy Research Articles

Relational or Object-Oriented? A Dialogue between Two Contemporary Ontologies

Abstract Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) emphasizes the autonomy of objects, positing a withdrawn surplus of being that resists reduction to its parts or the sum of its parts. However, Harman’s framework faces conceptual tensions, including challenges in reconciling epistemological and ontological dimensions, explaining the formation of compound objects, and ascribing determinate features to experientially inaccessible objects. I argue that these issues arise mostly due to Harman’s over-commitment to a withdrawn substantial core of objects. To address these issues, I propose turning to Jean-Luc Nancy’s post-phenomenological materialism and Alain Badiou’s mathematical realism. Both Nancy and Badiou offer alternatives to Harman’s substantialist core, emphasizing a local, contextually bound identity of things, which describes a restricted domain from the endlessly broader horizon of relations and situations in which each thing is or can be involved. They thus account for the surplus of being in each thing and consequently their ontological autonomy without recourse to a substantive grounding. I argue such a relational-friendly account of pluralism avoids the conceptual issues Harman’s OOO runs into. Lastly, I emphasize the value of OOO as an advocate for ontological equality that seeks to avoid the emergence of privileged actors or centralized discourse. This dialogue between Harman, Nancy, and Badiou thus seeks to advance the possibility of pluralistic ontologies within relational frameworks, combining the perspectives of OOO with post-phenomenological theories to explore the complexities of relationality without recourse to non-relational substrata.

Meta-Virtuality: Strategies of Disembeddedness in Virtual Interiorities

To reclaim their seat in the rapidly growing market of virtual space, designers of the built environment can benefit from reevaluating theories that see the virtual as a mere extension/reflection of the physical. By claiming ontological autonomy from external worlds, the virtual is liberated from the hegemonic control of the physical. To explore the opportunities that such disruption in the physical/virtual continuum offers, I reflect on a series of pedagogical experiments that challenge the “myth of total virtuality”—the idea that the ultimate virtual experience is total immersion. The persistent obsession to fully immerse the user in a supposedly unmediated interiority of the virtual is evident in the minimization of the virtual reality apparatus to a state of almost nothingness. In this paper, I introduce a series of alienation/defamiliarization strategies, through which designers can invoke awareness about the mediation involved in a virtual experience—a condition that I refer to as “metavirtual.” One strategy emphasizes the pixelated ontology of the virtual space by techniques of glitching, low-resolution, low-fidelity, and low-color bitmap renders. Another involves manipulating the phenomenological expectations that our perception often experiences in non-virtual environments. This includes, not only a reconceptualization of the spatial object but also revisiting the agency of the subject in the virtual world. Different modes of spatial experience through portals, flying, and teleportation, affect the subject’s perception of space, and thereby alter their measurement of time.

Одиночествующий ум, или Опыт экзистенциаль­ной философии сознания

This article is a review of Ben Lazare Mijuskovic’s book Consciousness and Loneli­ness: Theoria and Praxis (2018). The problem of the dividedness of the contemporary philosophy into the two different traditions has recently become apparent. This is evidenced by the growth of a number of investigations aiming to embrace contemporary thought in its wholeness. Among such studies is the new work of American philosopher Ben Lazare Mijuskovic. He attempts to defend the human microcosm from the threat of its neglection by philosophical naturalism. However, it is not only Mijuskovic’s anti-natu­ralistic position that is interesting. He also provides an in-depth analysis of such an Exis­tenzial of the human life as loneliness. The rich philosophical material drawn by the author is an indisputable merit of the study. However, this same merit also constitutes a problem. Mijuskovic’s arguments are reduced to a mere repetition of the philosophical ideas of the past and are thus unable to undermine contemporary naturalism. Meanwhile, the parts of the study in which the phenomenon of loneliness is discussed are the most interesting part of the book. Mijuskovic discusses loneliness as the feeling of loneliness per se and does not replace its phenomenological analysis by an economical investigation or by an evolutionary explanation. The author’s recognition of the significance of the content of conscious experience leads him to a disagreement with naturalism and to the acceptance of the position of substance dualism along with its known shortcomings. It seems that such a move is not at all necessary. In order for the content of our conscious experience to become significant, there is no need to exaggerate the ontological autonomy of the very conscious experience. It is always possible to commit to «weaker» ontological views without abandoning the scientific worldview and common sense.

Programas sociais e Agência Indígena entre os Sateré-Mawé do Baixo Amazonas em Brasil

O artigo analisa o encontro singular entre a cosmografia Sateré-Mawé e as políticas sociais do Estado brasileiro, em particular o Programa de Transferência Condicional de Renda. Os Sateré-Mawé têm como principais modalidades de relações com a natureza, uma considerada pouco exigente, que opera num sistema de operações simples, ativadas principalmente no contexto da aquisição/extração de recursos do ambiente. Tal modalidade coexiste com um regime exigente, caracterizado pelas obrigações e responsabilidades da pessoa adulta, capaz de dominar os processos produtivos que garantem sua capacidade de agência e existência. Os programas de transferências de renda criam sua própria ecologia política, contribuindo para erodir a autonomia ontológica Sateré-Mawé e para fortalecer o consumo incondicional que não potencializa as capacidades necessárias à replicação dos processos produtivos. A desvalorização das práticas de subsistência que, para além da reprodução física dos indivíduos, são também estratégias de construção da vida comunal, estimula um modo de vida sateré-mawé fundado no simples recebimento de bens, esvaziado das dimensões simbólicas, valorativas e auto construtivas da pessoa Sateré-Mawé.

Object-hood’s Indecencies: Tilted Arc and the Lessons Learnt in Breakdown

Abstract This essay looks to re-evaluate sculptor Richard Serra’s famous claim that “to remove the work is to destroy it.” Using OOO, and particularly Graham Harman’s interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s tool analysis, in order to analyze the now famous moment when Tilted Arc was de-installed from Federal Plaza, Manhattan in 1989, this paper argues that the work was not in fact destroyed but rather that its ontological autonomy was even more absolutely revealed in that moment as such. Although it is the case that art objects and sites are prone to discursive co-construction and evaluation, it is this analysis’ claim that they both are possessive of a deep, substantive form also, a form resistant to appropriation. Tilted Arc therefore revealed something even more insidious and dangerous to those who opposed it than the power of art to speak back to its surroundings. Rather, it uncovered the substantive objecthood of the site itself.

Institutional naturalism: reflections on Masahiko Aoki’s contribution to institutional economics

I discuss Aoki’s fundamental model of institutions in its most recent version, building on a comment that Aoki contributed to a paper by Hindriks and Guala (J Inst Econ 11(3):459–480, 2015). These authors advance a ‘rules in equilibrium’ approach to institutions that claims to reduce a Searlian social ontology of institutions to mere linguistic conventions and theoretical terms. Against this view, I posit ‘institutional naturalism’ and reinstate the analytical need for recognizing the ontological autonomy of institutions, reflected in their causal powers. I show how this follows from a proper reconstruction of the Aoki model, building on advanced cognitive sciences which are also deployed by Aoki. In this view, notions such as collective intentionality reflect the material embodiments of distributed cognition and distributed agency. This approach has been dubbed ‘Neo-Hegelian’ by Aoki in his comment.

Institutional Naturalism: Reflections on Masahiko Aoki's Contribution to Institutional Economics

I discuss Aoki’s fundamental model of institutions in its most recent version, building on a comment that Aoki contributed to a paper by Hindriks and Guala in 2015. These authors advance a ‘rules in equilibrium’ approach to institutions that claims to reduce a Searlian social ontology of institutions to mere linguistic conventions and theoretical terms. Against this view I posit ‘institutional naturalism’ and reinstate the analytical need for recognizing the ontological autonomy of institutions, reflected in their causal powers. I show how this follows from a proper reconstruction of the Aoki model, building on advanced cognitive sciences which are also deployed by Aoki. In this view, notions such as collective intentionality reflect the material embodiments of distributed cognition and distributed agency. This approach has been dubbed ‘Neo-Hegelian’ by Aoki in his comment.

Everything

To picture reality either as not involving its being pictured or as reducible to its being pictured yields inconsistent pictures, since in neither case can anything be pictured. The picture of reality as picture-involving yields the only consistent picture of reality. Yet its cost is completeness, and the reason for this is reality. The claim that picturing reality is involved in reality is idealism, but it is not an idealism that compromises reality’s ontological autonomy. Using Bosanquet’s reality theorem to the effect that “Everything is real, so long as you do not take it for more than it is,” I argue that idealism per se is falsely held to vitiate reality’s autonomy. It does so only when the ideal is awarded an inflated status as fundament or source of reality. Bosanquet’s theorem makes it clear that inflation of this sort is not exclusively the hallmark of realisms or idealisms. Since by contrast the idealist is additionally realist concerning the ideal, fundamentalist and/or spontaneist ontologies become importantly exclusivist, yielding pictures that cannot picture picturing without inflation of either picturing capacities or unpictured reality. Therefore the picture of reality as picture-involving is alone able to account for picturing. If there is picturing then, I claim, real realism is inflationary.

The Ontology and Literary Status of the Screenplay:The Case of »Scriptfic«

Are screenplays - or at least some screenplays - works of literature? Until relatively recently, very few theorists had addressed this question. Thanks to recent work by scholars such as Ian W. Macdonald, Steven Maras, and Steven Price, theorizing the nature of the screenplay is back on the agenda after years of neglect (albeit with a few important exceptions) by film studies and literary studies (Macdonald 2004; Maras 2009; Price 2010). What has emerged from this work, however, is a general acceptance that the screenplay is ontologically peculiar and, as a result, a divergence of opinion about whether or not it is the kind of thing that can be literature.Specifically, recent discussion about the nature of the screenplay has tended to emphasize its putative lack of ontological autonomy from the film, its supposed inherent incompleteness, or both (Carroll 2008, 68-69; Maras 2009, 48; Price 2010, 38-42). Moreover, these sorts of claims about the screenplay's ontology - its essential nature - are often hitched to broader arguments. According to one such argument, a screenplay's supposed ontological tie to the production of a film is said to vitiate the possibility of it being a work of literature in its own right (Carroll 2008, 68-69; Maras 2009, 48). According to another, the screenplay's tenuous literary status is putatively explained by the idea that it is perpetually unfinished, akin to a Barthesian >> writerly text > Yes > Yes > No > scriptfic > scriptfic > scriptfic > Scriptfics > series > virtual series > airs << in the form of uploaded texts that usually either present an entirely original narrative (original virtual series), continue the storyline of an actual television series that has ended (virtual continuations), or use certain elements of an actual series as jumping-off points to tell an original story (virtual spin-offs).My central argument is that if the goal of theorizing the screenplay is to actually explain the evidence supplied by our practices, then theories that involve ontological claims about the screenplay's putative lack of ontological autonomy from the film and/or inherent incompleteness must be abandoned. I shall argue that virtual series traffic in screenplays that are ontologically autonomous works that have been finished by their authors in just the ways these theories claim they are not. If this is right, it follows that such accounts of the screenplay's ontology do not in fact offer reasons or explanations for denying that screenplays can be literature. This is because ontological claims are claims about the essential features of a given kind - that is, the features that the kind has of necessity.Virtual series screenplays offer strong evidence, I submit, that practitioners determine the boundaries of our screenplay concept, that our screenplay concept has changed over time, that we are now in an historical moment when some screenplays are complete, autonomous works, and that we are also now in an historical moment when some people write screenplays with the intention of creating literature while certain communities of readers appreciate them as such.

Without Reductionism

My arguments against Polanyi’s notions of a layered ontology and dual control of entities were introduced in Margitay 2010 and defended against criticism in Margitay 2013. However, it has become clear from Lowney’s and earlier comments that my presentations were not sufficiently clear. So I will explicate some points of my argument against dual control. First, I will contrast the metaphysical thesis of The Causal Closure of the Physical with the semi-empirical thesis I hold, The Completeness of Physical Theories. I have argued that Polanyi’s theory of dual control involving downward determination is inconsistent with standard physics because of the completeness of physical theories. I support this claim by what I term the no difference and the completeness counterarguments. Secondly, I shall show these arguments do not involve or entail any sort of reductionism, and they do not question the ontological autonomy, the reality, and the irreducibility of higher level emergent entities and their properties. I thank Charles Lowney for his intriguing and detailed comments (in this issue which I will cite by page numbers in parentheses). They shed fresh light on many issues. The discussions by Lowney and other commentators in Tradition and Discovery (TAD 39:2) reveal a gross misunderstanding of my position. I discussed and criticized three of Polanyi’s arguments for a layered ontology (Margitay 2010, 2013): the argument from the Correspondence Thesis, from dual control, and from identification. All three have the objective of establishing a multilevel ontological hierarchy on the basis of the characteristics of our knowledge. My attack on dual control, however, elicited the fiercest response and greatest misunderstanding, so in this abbreviated reply to Lowney, I will focus on clarifying some points in this reasoning to dispel the charge of reductionism. I offered an internal criticism of Polanyi’s stance, not an external one from a reductionist point of view. Yet all my commentators except Kertesz (2013) interpreted my position as criticizing Polanyi from a reductionist-objectivist stance (Lowney, 25-26). I was astonished, for I accept neither scientific nor epistemological/ontological reductionism. I attributed this misunderstanding to the objectivist ontological language I adopted from Polanyi’s Correspondence Thesis. Thanks to Lowney’s thoughtful comments and to helpful personal discussions with Walter Gulick, Mihaly Heder, and Gergo Kertesz I now see this attribution was incomplete. The thesis of the completeness of physics is also responsible for the misunderstanding. Probably my critics attribute more ontological content, on the basis of the popular metaphysical notion of completeness, to my understanding of the completeness of physics than I intend. To answer Lowney’s comments regarding dual control (and space does not permit commenting on his other points) and to rectify misunderstandings, I will first distinguish two distinct notions of completeness. Second, I will recast my critique of Polanyi’s argument for dual control to show that my notion of completeness does not presuppose the metaphysical completeness principle or any sort of reductionism. Finally, the philosophical roots that generate the internal inconsistency in Polanyi’s argument will be pointed out.

Internal realism and the problem of ontological autonomy: a critical note on Lombardi and Labarca

This paper discusses the proposal made by Lombardi and Labarca (Found Chem 7:125–148, 2005) that internal realism can secure the ontological autonomy of chemistry. I argue that internal realism is not, by itself, sufficient to accomplish this task. The fact that conceptual schemes may differ with respect to their theoretical virtues, and the possibility that the relations between them may be reductive undermine the premise that each conceptual scheme has an equal right to define its own ontology, which is a key premise in Lombardi and Labarca’s proposal.

John Milbank and Biblical Hermeneutics: the End of the Historical‐Critical Method?

It is perhaps ironic that a methodology still convinced of its radical iconoclasm and progressive nature should at the same time be regarded as critically backward, a by‐product of a disappearing philosophy. Such a view of the historical‐critical method is held by John Milbank who argues that because of its dependence upon heretical philosophies that affirm the ontological autonomy of a world without reference to or participation in God, it should be confined to theological history. This essay will argue that Milbank's challenge ought to be taken seriously by Christian biblical interpreters and suggests that historical‐critical study, in the form criticised by Milbank, needs to be rejected. Milbank exposes the philosophical bankruptcy of the method from a Christian perspective; nevertheless, Milbank overstretches himself. His rejection of the historical‐critical method results in a hermeneutic that has no place for a biblical text's historical particularity and sense. Because of this, he is left subsuming historic texts into the regula fidei of his philosophical meta‐narrative, whether they fit such a move or not. This is particularly the case with Milbank's treatment of biblical texts, which, it shall be argued, operates as a refusal of history and a refusal of the particularity and alterity of the text. This highlights the need for an historical hermeneutic for Christian biblical interpretation, based on theological presuppositions, which takes the theological value of both historical particularity and the text seriously.

Psychotherapy Research Needs Theory. Outline for an Epistemology of the Clinical Exchange

This paper provides an analysis of a basic assumption grounding the clinical research: the ontological autonomy of psychotherapy-based on the idea that the clinical exchange is sufficiently distinguished from other social objects (i.e. exchange between teacher and pupils, or between buyer and seller, or interaction during dinner, and so forth). A criticism of such an assumption is discussed together with the proposal of a different epistemological interpretation, based on the distinction between communicative dynamics and the process of psychotherapy-psychotherapy is a goal-oriented process based on the general dynamics of human communication. Theoretical and methodological implications are drawn from such a view: It allows further sources of knowledge to be integrated within clinical research (i.e. those coming from other domains of analysis of human communication); it also enables a more abstract definition of the psychotherapy process to be developed, leading to innovative views of classical critical issues, like the specific-nonspecific debate. The final part of the paper is devoted to presenting a model of human communication--the Semiotic Dialogical Dialectic Theory--which is meant as the framework for the analysis of psychotherapy.

Quand peut un corps? Corpor'it', affectivit' et temporalit' chez Michel Henry

One of Michel Henry's major contributions to the of the body consists in his proposal, based on his reading of Maine de Biran, to understand the subjective corporeity from the angle of the ability of action. Subjective corporeity acquires its ontological autonomy and its reality only through its own temporality. In reference to several unpublished texts, this article tries to clarify the nexus between ability and time, and thus to emphasize the crucial importance of the past for a phenomenology of life, in his paradoxical connection with the necessity to think a coming in presence of the world.

Dimensions in the dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience

The relations between psychoanalysis and neuroscience have undergone considerable changes during the last two decades. From the cool distance that was maintained on both sides, a new neuroscientific basis has emerged for a dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. A crucial question then arises about the identity of psychoanalysis in this dialogue. What will be the effects of the growing impact of neuroscientific discoveries on psychoanalysis? Freud regarded psychoanalysis and the natural sciences as having a similar epistemological foundation determined by their relation to unknown aspects of reality. The author proposes that this viewpoint creates equal ground for psychoanalysis and neuroscience in their evolving mutual relationships. In the clinical realm, however, psychoanalysis cannot work without clinical, developmental, and metapsychological premises, which render clinical ontological autonomy to psychoanalysis in its relationship with the other sciences. This fact also needs to be taken into account when brain imaging techniques are applied to outcome research of psychotherapy.

Realisierung und mentale Verursachung

AbstractThe realization relation that allegedly holds between mental and physical properties plays a crucial role for so-called 'non-reductive physicalism' because it is supposed to secure both the ontological autonomy of mental properties and their ability to make a causal difference to the course of the causally closed physical world. For a long time however, the nature of the realization relation has largely been ignored in the philosophy of mind. It has only been a couple of years since accounts were proposed according to which realization is understood against the background of the so-called 'causal theory of properties'. At least partially, the hope was to solve the problem of mental causation, in particular the kind of causal exclusion reasoning made famous by Jaegwon Kim, in a way acceptable to non-reductive physicalists. The paper asks whether a proper explication of the realization relation can indeed help explain how physically realized mental properties can be causally efficacious in the causally closed physical world and argues for a negative answer.

Taking realization seriously: no cure for epiphobia

The realization relation that allegedly holds between mental and physical properties plays a crucial role for so-called non-reductive physicalism because it is supposed to secure both the ontological autonomy of mental properties and, despite their irreducibility, their ability to make a causal difference to the course of the causally closed physical world. For a long time however, the nature of realization has largely been ignored in the philosophy of mind until a couple of years ago authors like Carl Gillett, Derk Pereboom, or Sydney Shoemaker proposed accounts according to which realization is understood against the background of the so-called ‘causal theory of properties’. At least partially, the hope was to solve the problem of mental causation, in particular the kind of causal exclusion reasoning made famous by Jaegwon Kim, in a way acceptable to non-reductive physicalists. The paper asks whether a proper explication of the realization relation can indeed help explain how physically realized mental properties can be causally efficacious in the causally closed physical world and argues for a negative answer: it is important for the non-reductive physicalist to understand what exactly the realization relation amounts to, but it does not solve the problem of mental causation.

O Jardim Japonês na Estética da Natureza Contemporânea

This paper aims to depict the main philosophical lines that, deriving from Japanese Zen Buddhist precepts, guided and allowed the development of the Japanese garden. Some necessary historical, geographical and cultural references will have to be drawn if an acute portrait of its specificity is to be made; nonetheless, as it should be clear along the article, its guiding lines are universal, as the spread and influence of the Japanese gardens in other cultural contexts illustrates it. And that could only be due to the aesthetic and ontological autonomy, relevance and fertility that fosters this style of gardening. The vision that crosses the Japanese garden will also be exposed through the resemblances and differences with other authors, namely Kant and the concepts sustained by his Critique of Judgment, which therefore mutually enriches the clash of both perspectives.

Approche phénoménologique de la paranoïa sensitive de E. Krestschmer. Le cas Edgar Charles

Sensitive paranoïa of Krestschmer is a form of depressive paranoïa. The paranoïa is phenomenologicaly determined by four points: the suridentification of the role's identity in a way that with each role invested, all the existence is engaged. Secondly, the vertical spatiality is overdetermined (the too high, the presomption); from this height the fall will necessarly come and will take the theme of shame. As delusion on relation with community space, it's also an experience of overdetermination of this intersubjective space, which raise for the person the problem of inclusion and the omen of exclusion. At last, paranoïa is a pathology of intercorpority in which the ontological autonomy (the separation self-alter) is not garanteed, producing a kind of uneasiness in all contacts with others. This uneasiness is the matter of a self clinical observation (the case Edgar Charles). We propose a phenomenological comprehension of this case.

The Philosophy of Chemistry as a New Resource for Chemistry Education

In this paper we address the problem of the relationship between chemistry and physics, and argue for the introduction of philosophical issues in teaching chemistry in order to better face this long-standing, subtle problem. In particular, we reject the widespread assumption of ontological reduction, which holds that although the properties of a chemical system cannot be effectively derived from physical properties, chemical entities—when analyzed in depth—are no more than physical entities. From our perspective, the ontological autonomy of the chemical world should be defended on the basis of an ontological pluralism that is philosophically grounded. In this sense, the philosophy of chemistry proves to be an essential resource for chemistry education, to the extent that it contributes to a better understanding of the nature of chemistry and its place in the context of natural sciences.