Being, Acting, Thinking

I'm having a nice conversation with Moses Boudourides and Nick Srnicek on Twitter (it really is good for this sort of thing). Moses is wondering why we speculative types talk about the correlation between being and thinking, as opposed to the one between being and acting—I imagine he's referring to Meillassoux somewhat in that. I think he's also thinking about ANT (actor network theory). I'm perhaps not as Latourian as some so I won't speak to that.

Now for me the distinction between acting and thinking sounds like it's coming from a too human centered place. For me, there's not that much difference between holding a cup and thinking about a cup. In fact there's not much difference between a cup sitting on a table and me holding a cup—and therefore not that much difference between holding, thinking, and sitting. Not that much difference between a cup sitting on a table and me thinking about a cup.

Holding, sitting and thinking belong to the aesthetic dimension, that is, the causal realm. There is another realm: the realm of being. Objects of all kinds (me, the cup, the table) occupy both realms.