“
We can imagine scores of bizarro Levinases, little philosopher machines sent
into the sensual interactions of objects like planetary rovers.
Their mission: to characterize the internal, withdrawn subjectivities of
various objects, by speculating on how object–object caricatures
reflect possible codes of value and response. Object ethics, it would seem,
can only ever be theorized once-removed, phenomenally, the
parallel universes of private objects cradled silently in their cocoons,
even while their surfaces seem to explode, devour, caress, or murder one
another.”
This bit: "sent into the sensual interactions of objects like planetary rovers" strikes me as a form of "man is the measure of all things" except in a McLuhanesque move "man" is extended to include an assemblage of objects that report back the sensual interactions that we call measurements. When you shoot a photon at a particle to measure it, you're eavesdropping on an interaction between two objects.
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