“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Steven Shaviro's Talk on Panpsychism

You really must read Steven Shaviro's talk on panpsychism from the Claremont conference, which he offers online. It's exciting that we scholars can even begin to think in these terms again. Reports of the death of metaphysics have been greatly exaggerated.

It's cheering me up to read it and to be writing an essay on Shelley at the same time is bliss.

2 comments:

Michael- said...

The thing is Tim that Metaphysics may still happen, that is, it may still be discussed - thereby remaining technically “alive” - but its credibility as a stand-alone thought procedure has been (and remains) utterly destroyed. Ontography must precede ontology in order to avoid mere metaphysics. And for the record, the work that I interpret your doing is not merely metaphysical.

Michael- said...

In fact, the notion of 'ecology over nature' indicates ontography before ontology:

ecology = ontographic methodology
nature = ontologic abstraction

Am I wrong?