Reflections on 'Preface' and Chapter One, from The Highbury Vaults, Bristol.
Never out-side the influence of our illustrious leader, JD Dewsbury, "The Collective Ontology" (otherwise known as the University of Bristol's Geography and Theory Reading Group) met in its weekly for(u)m to discuss Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter (VM), and herewith reports on its actions. Emma Roe, Keith Bassett, Naomi Millner, Nick Soucek, Andy Lapworth, Georgie Urry, Rob Flory and Mark Jackson met at The Highbury Vaults, as the usual meeting place was closed due to a university holiday. On a chilly evening we began outside, but soon moved into the front room where the warmth was more conducive to comfortable conversation, and was pleasant enough to suggest itself as a future, and perhaps more preferable, meeting place. Our intention to work through the 'Preface' and the first chapter was not met as we spent a considerable time discussing monism, demystification and anthropomorphism before beginning the first chapter proper. It was agreed as we left after 2 hours of conversation that we would continue on the blog with a discussion of non-identity and Adorno in the penultimate section of the chapter and ultimate section of our conversation.
Several questions emerged throughout the discussion and we pose them here, with hopefully some contextual reflection.
1. Is an ontology of monism compatible with the episto-ontological limits of language? In a sense, this is the same problem that the speculative materialists (SMs) attempt to address in their-or at least in Quentin Meillassoux's-attempt to move beyond, what they call, correlationism. If language (and perhaps mathematics, which conversely Badiou and the SMs hail as an ontically beyond the correlationist dilemma) characterizes our, what Foucault calls, "superficial knowledge" (VM, 2) of the object world which wells up from a never objectifiable depth, is Bennett's use of the term "faith" (VM x) deliberate in her concordance with Spinoza that everything is made of the same substance? Indeed, what is the role of faith in understanding vibrant matter, if a modern scientific discourse, identifies and bounds, specifies rather than singularizes (Hallward, 2001), and instrumentalizes identity rather than agencializing assemblages? Does vibrant matter demand different knowledge claims of us than a position which does not recognize ethical agency outside human will? What does Bennett think of the speculative materialists?
2. This question echoes the concern raised in the next round of considerable discussion around the term demystification, and that is, what is the role of the natural scientific example in Bennett's book? The collective has just come off reading Karen Barad's 2007 Duke UP book called Meeting the Universe Halfway. As a quantum scientist Barad begins from the physical example to argue that bodies and experience emerge in becoming dynamics of intra-relation, and throughout the book she returns repeatedly to quantum theory and a reading of Bohr's principle of complementarity and phenomena to situate her argument that we are iterated in a performative intra-activity of mattering (Barad, 2007: 392 and passim). How is affect with materiality distinct from Barad's notion of phenomena? Is vibrant matter phenomena-full? Bennett's examples, when she discusses the need to re-think demystification, are all drawn from the social sciences (phantasmagoria, fetishization, war on terror, neo-liberalism, etc.). Is it easier to account for the agency of matter and things when the context in which their affect is most relevant is political and social rather than chemical or physic-al? It reminds me of an analytic philosophy professor who in teaching us naturalising epistemologies thought Foucault to have held his cards to his chest in not taking on chemistry and physics. If demystification screens from view the vibrancy of matter, is Bennett calling for re-mystification? Is this why she invokes a faith in Spinoza's monism? What are the implications for a philosophy of re-mystification? Is this a fundamentally conservative Romanticism that harkens to a Heideggerian ontology of dwelling? And if not, why not? Perhaps this will be revealed in the future of the book.
3. We were very interested in "aesthetic-affective opening" (VM, x) and whether Ranciere's aesthetics of politics or Foucault's aesthetics of the self (which were noted as quite different) would work themselves out in the course of the book. Is Bennett marrying Ranciere to vitalism?
4. Do we need an anthropomorphism (VM, xvi) or a zoo-morphism? Or a zoe-morphism?
5. Is agency one thing for Bennett, or are there many different kinds of agency? At times it seems as though agency becomes this diffuse (theistic?) force outside and through that enervates all matter? Is vibrant matter (an ontological one but formal diversity) uni-vocal or poly-vocal (see Bingham, 2006)? And indeed, what is the difference between agency and causal connection?
6. Throughout the opening of the book we saw a wonderful effort to engage both a Deleuzian approach to ethical ontologies, and a Derridean/Levinasian deconstructive ethics. We have also just finished reading Simon Critchley's, Infinitely Demanding (Verso, 2007). Is there an infinite, and impossible, demand necessary to opening up to the vibrancy of matter? Does a deconstructivist ethics underlie political ontology? After all, is Bennett not simply saying that we need to extend the ethical demand beyond Levinas' human face to plenum of things?
Football, food, cats, allotments, and the indomitable Messi beckoned after two hours of engaged discussion. Discussion will continue on the blog until various of us return from DC, Barcelona...
Several questions emerged throughout the discussion and we pose them here, with hopefully some contextual reflection.
1. Is an ontology of monism compatible with the episto-ontological limits of language? In a sense, this is the same problem that the speculative materialists (SMs) attempt to address in their-or at least in Quentin Meillassoux's-attempt to move beyond, what they call, correlationism. If language (and perhaps mathematics, which conversely Badiou and the SMs hail as an ontically beyond the correlationist dilemma) characterizes our, what Foucault calls, "superficial knowledge" (VM, 2) of the object world which wells up from a never objectifiable depth, is Bennett's use of the term "faith" (VM x) deliberate in her concordance with Spinoza that everything is made of the same substance? Indeed, what is the role of faith in understanding vibrant matter, if a modern scientific discourse, identifies and bounds, specifies rather than singularizes (Hallward, 2001), and instrumentalizes identity rather than agencializing assemblages? Does vibrant matter demand different knowledge claims of us than a position which does not recognize ethical agency outside human will? What does Bennett think of the speculative materialists?
2. This question echoes the concern raised in the next round of considerable discussion around the term demystification, and that is, what is the role of the natural scientific example in Bennett's book? The collective has just come off reading Karen Barad's 2007 Duke UP book called Meeting the Universe Halfway. As a quantum scientist Barad begins from the physical example to argue that bodies and experience emerge in becoming dynamics of intra-relation, and throughout the book she returns repeatedly to quantum theory and a reading of Bohr's principle of complementarity and phenomena to situate her argument that we are iterated in a performative intra-activity of mattering (Barad, 2007: 392 and passim). How is affect with materiality distinct from Barad's notion of phenomena? Is vibrant matter phenomena-full? Bennett's examples, when she discusses the need to re-think demystification, are all drawn from the social sciences (phantasmagoria, fetishization, war on terror, neo-liberalism, etc.). Is it easier to account for the agency of matter and things when the context in which their affect is most relevant is political and social rather than chemical or physic-al? It reminds me of an analytic philosophy professor who in teaching us naturalising epistemologies thought Foucault to have held his cards to his chest in not taking on chemistry and physics. If demystification screens from view the vibrancy of matter, is Bennett calling for re-mystification? Is this why she invokes a faith in Spinoza's monism? What are the implications for a philosophy of re-mystification? Is this a fundamentally conservative Romanticism that harkens to a Heideggerian ontology of dwelling? And if not, why not? Perhaps this will be revealed in the future of the book.
3. We were very interested in "aesthetic-affective opening" (VM, x) and whether Ranciere's aesthetics of politics or Foucault's aesthetics of the self (which were noted as quite different) would work themselves out in the course of the book. Is Bennett marrying Ranciere to vitalism?
4. Do we need an anthropomorphism (VM, xvi) or a zoo-morphism? Or a zoe-morphism?
5. Is agency one thing for Bennett, or are there many different kinds of agency? At times it seems as though agency becomes this diffuse (theistic?) force outside and through that enervates all matter? Is vibrant matter (an ontological one but formal diversity) uni-vocal or poly-vocal (see Bingham, 2006)? And indeed, what is the difference between agency and causal connection?
6. Throughout the opening of the book we saw a wonderful effort to engage both a Deleuzian approach to ethical ontologies, and a Derridean/Levinasian deconstructive ethics. We have also just finished reading Simon Critchley's, Infinitely Demanding (Verso, 2007). Is there an infinite, and impossible, demand necessary to opening up to the vibrancy of matter? Does a deconstructivist ethics underlie political ontology? After all, is Bennett not simply saying that we need to extend the ethical demand beyond Levinas' human face to plenum of things?
Football, food, cats, allotments, and the indomitable Messi beckoned after two hours of engaged discussion. Discussion will continue on the blog until various of us return from DC, Barcelona...
References:
Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway. (Durham: Duke UP).
Bingham, N. 2006. ‘Bees, butterflies, and bacteria: biotechnology and the politics of nonhuman friendship’, Environment and Planning A, 38 pp483-498.
Critchley, S. 2007. Infinitely Demanding. (London: Verso).
Hallward, P. 2001. Absolutely Postcolonial. (London: Angelaki).
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