Things Are Fuzzy
Ecological
awareness requires that we rethink what it means to be a thing. This is
necessary because it isn't clear that the things ecology cares about—frogs,
meadows, clouds—are things at all! I shall argue that to be a thing is to be
necessarily fuzzy. This means that you are made of things that aren't
you, thus violating a fundamental rule of logic. If we want to think
ecologically about things, we need to relax some of the logical rules.
There are deep consequences for art in so doing. One consequence is
that it becomes clear that the idea of Nature is not useful at all. For
historical reasons, this is also the case.
- The Forest for the Trees and the Branches for the Leaves - Wonderfully sharp angle to take. Isn't it ironic how being radically realistic and practical requires the most outrageous and intrepid imagination? Regarding your suggestion that ecological thinking must be decoupled from logical thinking, I don't think you would have to swing quite so far. Remember that in Hegelian Logic objects have their essence in others (being in-itself in another) and therefore identity and difference are seen to be merely two moments or perceptual determinations whose lawful interaction is made possible in virtue of their ontological interfusion. E.g. Fire is only itself qua 'burningness' in and through the mediating air (oxygen)which becomes an essential property in any accurate description of the object of fire. This is so just as rain could/should be seen as an extension of the essential action (phenotype) of the ocean which is in turn an interfusion of water, salt, fish and moon. In other words, objects obtain self-reflected identity in and only in other objects which is precisely why they are 'fuzzy'; one is always dealing with a multiplicity of entities at the same time. Or perhaps more playfully, objects are like musical chords whose identity consists of a certain combination of other pitches (or is it the intervals that we perceive?)
ReplyDeleteIn any event, I am eagerly awaiting Hyperobjects! Keep up the fabulous work Sir. (See Phenomenology of Spirit chapters on Sense-certainty, Force and Self-Consciousness especially the section on Life; Logic 1 on Essence of Being and Reflection and Hegel's introduction to the Philosophy of History).
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