This is a response of sorts, to Dominic Fox’s “Immanence and Objectivity“.
It addresses the now widespread trend of Realist nostagia; within SR; in recent receptions of Deleuze; in Meillassoux’s epic, yet futile, rehabilitation of tradition; & in Laruelle’s essays towards developing rapprochement between long entrenched cultural habits, tacit assumptions hegemonic even in philosophy, & the new outlooks so obviously called for by scientific thought, yet not provisioned by it. It is with reference to Laruelle’s ‘return to the Real’, as inflected by Dominic Fox’s tentative yet clear interpretation, that the following is concerned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Dominic Fox]: “Rather than thinking “according to the Real”, or from the premise that both “knower” and “known” are immanent to the same reality (and thus share a fundamental identity), the stance Fox Keller describes is “decisional” in Laruelle’s sense: it begins by making a cut, and by giving itself the authority to repair that cut.”
{AK}: Here, the notion of “the Real”; as an identification; as an identified realm that provisions a “fundamental” habitat; remains within the same range of metaphysical assumptions generating the epistemological duality of Subject/Object.
If ‘Subject’ & ‘Object’ are problematised on the basis of an essential supervenience of interconnection, rendering both as “effectuations”; though it might seem natural to posit an underlying ‘field of interconnection’; the ‘Reality’ of “effectual” ‘Appearances’, corresponding to the missing corollary within the Appearance/Reality distinction that “effectuation” suggests; this is merely a respondent epistemological gesture of totalising identification, in search of the stabilised, absolute knowledge that “effectuations” are unable to provide. But searching for closure or completion, at greater levels of a superveniency scale, or at least the level accounting for all “effectuations”, misses the point. The point being, that such desire for absolute knowledge, without remainder, is a corollary of, & necessitates, classical identification as an ens, as a self-contained entity; or, in the language of Mahayana Buddhism, as being self-originated (having “own-being”) rather than being dependently originated.
Just supposing, if one followed this totalising or completionary model; hoping to achieve closure, & thus self-containment, at the level of the greatest “metaphysical monster”, that of ‘Totality’ or the ‘Whole’; then such a ‘Totality’ would still require identification, i.e., liminal definition, if it is to serve as a determined foundation.
But there are only “effectuations” available to form such identificatory definitions; thus, it could be thought, that what is required, is a productive algorithm, a key of interlocking representations, the veridical condensation of all “effectuations”; one of such persuasive veracity, that it ineluctably presents itself as an algorithm of absolute knowledge, without remainder; as an ultimate structural reduction, where said ‘structure’ is identified as essential ‘Truth’, as the sufficient set of liminal conditions, accounting for the Totality. But would not such structural condensation, according to this alethic procedure of liminal definition, itself constitute an “effectuation”? Aside from possibilities of recursive & differential ‘feedback’, instigated by its completionary obligation to account for itself & its own operations; would it not, itself, be an artifact arising, essentially, from the same untenable, classical model of dualised epistemological structure, that the holistic notion of “effectuation” was supposed to circumvent?
This, of course, is the result of expecting such a classical model (of dualised epistemological structure) to account for a ‘Totality’ on which it is imagined to supervene; that exceeds or subsumes it in various ways; from which it is held to originate; & of which it is considered to be an ‘effect’. Even if the objection, that such an algorithm of absolute knowledge is not a ‘knowing subject’ or ‘knower’, is perhaps vitiated by its representational function within epistemological economy, whether such an Algorithm of the Absolute, as it were, falls into epistemological duality through its representational function suggesting epistemological economy, is an interesting question. To what extent, can Representation represent ‘Totality’, without the “cut” of “objectification”, without liminal definition?
It seems, though, that the assumption & privileging of some, homogeneous plane of the “immanent Real”, as it were, neither escapes these issues of self-reflexivity precluding liminal definition, nor the attribute of being metaphysical monstrosity.
It can be seen, quite simply, that liminal definition can only obtain when & where there are “effectuations” available to form them. But the scope & logic of liminal definition can only stretch so far, before conventional modes of relevance collapse.
It may not be coincidental that the antimonies of metaphysical monstrosity frustrating secure liminal definition, are given mocking resonance by the behavioural semiotics of the ‘Quantum Mechanical’ realm?
Even if the practical “reality” of quantum mechanical phenomena are simply accepted, cultural & scientific practices blithely continuing on in some ecstasy of imagined immersion in ideological ‘immanence’, such decelebratory backpedalling away from traditional configurations of ‘transcendental’ habit, means very little, if conducted under one polarity of a metaphysical distinction whose fundamental character & wider context have not been understood, & whose other polarity of ‘transcendence’ has become contemporary anathema, repressed in arenas of academic fashion, only to return as various forms of cultural distortion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Continuing to use the confused, yet received, metaphysical distributions of philosophic history in the same ways; reserving moderate liberatory insights only for arcane specialist contemplations; can only sustain the very forms of ignorance such moderation was designed to entirely avoid, leaving the general culture wholly under the sway of a market culture; under its commandeering of an engineered socio-philosophic history; under the inflationary deployments of the symbolic forms of transcendence belonging to that history; under the sign of an administered Hysteria, the hegemonic rubric of a global theatrics of oneiric consumerism in which all are coerced into finding a role.
In such an ongoing production, administered by an engine of administerial hierographics, running on the sparklines of statistical contemplation, everyone gets to play with the prefabricated beast of socioeconomic dreams.
Over it all, run the the advent(ures) of the geometrick mind, taking measurements of all Earthly bodies, their terres-trial minds held in (c/s)inematic dreams, in the designs of desire issued by a base, yet sparkly, commerce.
Is it here; in this self-consuming ecstasy of metrics; in this distillation of everchanging essence, the perpetual quest & turnover of LCD* transcendence; that resides the final vision of Anthropos?
The last reflections of Man, chasing only after his own Truth, yet only finding that of Others; turned, by the voracious mirror of his own creation; by the inexorable & mechanical intent of his own desire; into a Medusan mineralisation, upon which play disciplined sparks, in his image, eternally cast, on crystalline silver screens?
Here, can be seen, the final resolution of two transcendent orders: the ‘knowing subject’ & the ‘known object’.
Powered by the petrified liquefactions of a prehistoric vitality, a contemporary vitality accelerates its transition to a solid, substantial future form, one whose glistening facets announce a fresh stratigraphic layer; the culmination of a new force of erosion, that called itself ‘Consciousness’; & the lithographic conclusion of the Techno-Geo-Logic Era.
* (‘Lowest Common Denominator’)
So Fox says “immanent to the same reality”. Isn’t “immanent to” the marker which points to just another transcendence, in this case reality? I wouldn’t bother reading a text beyond that point when I am interested in immanence. It surly is yet again about some mysticism.
[Matthias]: “Isn’t “immanent to” the marker which points to just another transcendence, in this case reality?”
{AK}: Well, if “immanent to” points to, indicates, or specifies, a zone of inclusion; simultaneously differentiating that zone, from what it excludes; from a zone of exclusion that is necessarily a ‘transcendence’; a ‘transcendence’ of ‘it’, the zone of inclusion; a ‘transcendence’ that is the opposed binary, answering or corresponding to the initially ascribed immanence in “immanent to”: then, in this first level distribution; the zone of inclusion being ‘immanence’, & the zone of exclusion being ‘transcendence’; if the attribution of “reality” simply follows a zonal choice, such a following merely privileges the ostensible qualities identified with that zonal choice, neglecting further levels of inter-zonal complicity on which those ostensible qualities rest or depend. Whether or not such attribution of “reality”, according to zonal choice, is problematic, very much rests on the contextual demands of application. This ‘first level distribution’, though seemingly formalist in its outlining principles & metaphysical structure; can only be conventional & axiomatic, as soon as it is applied in any configuring distribution & representation of entities or identities; not necessarily* innate or absolute. Secondly, successful uses of conventional application often lead to habits of hypostasis, which, if continued into areas beyond the strictly ostensible, & into realms of inter-zonal complicity, can lead to speculative ambiguity, systematic errors of mis-, or confused, attribution, etc.. Given the range of senses, over which the concept of the ‘real’ hovers, such ambiguity & confusion is difficult to avoid, without precise delineations.
“The notion of ‘Reality’, likewise, is contingent on that of realisation. The metaphysics of realisation, in its turn, requires an identifiable & abstractable phenomenon.” This is where Realisation(s) are contingent on identification, & on identification’s corollary procedures of liminal definition. The notion of Reality, however, as a totalising concept, is not susceptible to any liminal definition, beyond that of being a hypothetical & nominal sphere of realisations.
Moreover, the assertion of any realisation assumes some ‘real’; some entity or identity; some ‘thing’; requiring this as a point of hypostatic reference. But this entitative assumption always occurs through a holistic mechanism of phenomenal localisation, as metric granularisation of an assumed-to-be-given scenario. But this scenario, too, is an artifact of structural faith, for its liminal definition is a self-referential derivation of this metric granularisation. Here, resides the recurrent revolutions of the Real.
*This does not exclude the import of other ‘logics of necessity’, but these would be an appeal to that which is extraneous to the conceptual logic of the inquiry at hand. They do not arise as logical necessities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Matthias]: “I wouldn’t bother reading a text beyond that point when I am interested in immanence.”
{AK}: “ecstasy of imagined immersion in ideological ‘immanence’” (Between Monstrous Accords: the Sound of Solid Decisions)
“It seems, though, that the assumption & privileging of some, homogeneous plane of the “immanent Real”, as it were, neither escapes these issues of self-reflexivity precluding liminal definition, nor the attribute of being metaphysical monstrosity.” (Between Monstrous Accords: the Sound of Solid Decisions)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Matthias]: “It surely is yet again about some mysticism.”
{AK}: In one sense, ‘mysticism’, as it requires an identity to obscure, hide, or otherwise ‘mystify’, is itself a supervenient operation; but, if no absolute identity or entity can be found, the ‘mystical’ merely becomes a relativised appellation for that which resists clear formulation by any particular mode, or code, of understanding. This would include aspirations to ‘totality’; which; let us not forget; is simply an identification, a unifying reification itself ‘dependently originated’ from an imaginary assuming plural entities susceptible to unification.