Monday, July 17, 2017

The development of Bryant's philosophy

If we think of nouns or objects as process, as simultaneously being open and closed, ever changing yet in some sense ever remaining the same, as never fully manifesting in the actual, and with no overriding assholon unity subsuming them: This for me reduces the the likelihood of falling into a metaphysics of presence. Especially given the correlational aspect with respect to linguistic prepositions, which orient what I've come to call suobjects to each other in space/time.

I especially like Bryant's notion that each suobject has its own space/time, but yet when engaged with hyberobjects (like capitalism) can also be strongly influenced by their stronger gravity wells. Still, there is that withdrawn reserve that can and indeed must not only resist but change said hyperobjects like capitalism when enough suobjects coordinate their collective gravitas, for even hyperobjects are subject and open to external forces. No easy task, to be sure, but it must be done.

Byrant shifted from objects to the metaphor of the machine in a machine oriented ontology (MOO). He now sees the relationship of bodies in terms of the fold (here and here), where he further diverges from OOO. E.g.:


"Everything transpires as if the being of beings were a sort of origami. There are only folds: plaits, pleats, creases, waves, crevices, knots, and caves. And within each of those folds? Other fold! There are only folds coiled within folds radiating to infinity in both time and space. And if this is not enough, these folds are not fixed-crease folds, but rather are mobile folds. The wave is a better image of the fold than the envelope. A wave is a fold that perpetually folds itself, that traverses a field and that maintains its identity through the repetition of a process that is the unity of both difference and sameness. The folds of being are not fixed creases, but rather being never ceases to everywhere fold and unfold itself. Being is everywhere an undulation of folds and of undulating folds. Folds envelop one another, enfolding other folds within them. On other occasions and in other places, planes or fields undergo processes of invagination through which the surface becomes textured and riddled with crevices forming something akin to caves. On yet other occasions, that which is folded unfolds. In unfolding, that which is folded does not become a smooth or flat surface. This, of course, sometimes happens as well, though perhaps the flat surface or plane is the most folded being of all. More often, however, that which unfolds configures itself as a new formation of folds like a blooming flower."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.