Thursday, September 02, 2010
Robert P. Crease on Heidegger's problem with science.
Heidegger saw science as a derivative activity with respect to other activities of the life-world; the making-present involves the transformation of something ready-to-hand to something present-at-hand and thereby the detachment of scientific entities and observations from the life-world, from human culture and history. In contrast to Dewey, Heidegger holds that the beings studied by the scientist are desiccated. "The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead in the dale'" [P. 100]. Far from being world-building, science serves to encourage eradication of experience in the world. Heidegger thus accepts uncritically certain assumptions of the mythic account, including the priority of theory, the detachment of the scientist from scientific entities and observations, and the independence of scientific entities from the cultural and historical context.¶ 8:59 AM
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http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/08/18/on-the-call-from-outside/
Jane Bennett has a new book titled VIBRANT MATTER. The URL connects to a recent post from her on the Immanent Frame site. There she comments on that site's continuing interest in the peculiarities of secularization, in particular a paper by Bilgrami, and introduces readers to a piquant taste of what she describes as her "neo-animism." Here's a sample:
"The point here is that enchantment is not so much a belief as it is an energetic current produced by the encounter between two sets of active materialities, one set congealed into a “self” and one into what is often called the “objects of experience” but is better described, I think, as a set of nonhuman “actants.” Following Bruno Latour, I say actants rather than objects in order to acknowledge the extent to which these external bodies are lively and active forces rather than passive or brute matter. These vibrant animals, plants, viruses, hurricanes, storms, pharmaceuticals, and other technological artifacts vie with, make demands upon, and impede and enable human agency. They make their presence known to us, or, to extend Bilgrami’s use of the term, make “calls” to which we are continually responding."
While reading that, I recalled Heidegger's "Das Ding." It happened that my first reading of that came at the same time as I was taking a course in analytic philosophy where, in one of the assigned articles for study, we were given as a sufficient definition the example of a tea cup as a "container with a handle for liquid." Comparing that to Heidegger's fourfold jug was like seeing my finger painting next to a Picasso.
My question is whether Bennet's interest in enchanted nature is a step in the direction of Heidegger's fourfold. If so, as it seems to me, is it a baby step or a giant step?
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Jane Bennett has a new book titled VIBRANT MATTER. The URL connects to a recent post from her on the Immanent Frame site. There she comments on that site's continuing interest in the peculiarities of secularization, in particular a paper by Bilgrami, and introduces readers to a piquant taste of what she describes as her "neo-animism." Here's a sample:
"The point here is that enchantment is not so much a belief as it is an energetic current produced by the encounter between two sets of active materialities, one set congealed into a “self” and one into what is often called the “objects of experience” but is better described, I think, as a set of nonhuman “actants.” Following Bruno Latour, I say actants rather than objects in order to acknowledge the extent to which these external bodies are lively and active forces rather than passive or brute matter. These vibrant animals, plants, viruses, hurricanes, storms, pharmaceuticals, and other technological artifacts vie with, make demands upon, and impede and enable human agency. They make their presence known to us, or, to extend Bilgrami’s use of the term, make “calls” to which we are continually responding."
While reading that, I recalled Heidegger's "Das Ding." It happened that my first reading of that came at the same time as I was taking a course in analytic philosophy where, in one of the assigned articles for study, we were given as a sufficient definition the example of a tea cup as a "container with a handle for liquid." Comparing that to Heidegger's fourfold jug was like seeing my finger painting next to a Picasso.
My question is whether Bennet's interest in enchanted nature is a step in the direction of Heidegger's fourfold. If so, as it seems to me, is it a baby step or a giant step?
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