Occult Theory
An object is not exhausted by the web of relationships in which it appears, but keeps a part of itself hidden, unrelatable-to. If this were not so, there would be no object as such, but only the differential field of appearances itself. The objectivity of the object is secured by the non-appearance (which we might also like to think of as the indefinite deferral) of its occult part.
The occult part of an object is not inherently hidden; it does not have any inherent power of invisibility. Rather, it is occult because it is subtracted from the particular context in which the object is appearing. An object may appear in many contexts, and a different part may be occulted in each. This means, amongst other things, that an object may be a thing of many parts – a thing from which one might select many different parts to be the occult part.
The part of an object that is occulted in one context may overlap with the part that is occulted in another: a part is not an atom, but a portion. It follows that an object is intrinsically multiple, and is multiple in such a way that different portions may be discerned within its multiplicity. An object is a consistent multiple – consistent, because it can be partitioned and yet remain in sum the same. (A cake that weighed different amounts depending on how you cut it would be inconsistent).
There is no way to see an object from all sides at once, no total context in which all of its parts would be visible. Such a context would either be a consistent relational order of appearance, in which case the exhaustion of the object within the relationships in which it appeared would amount to the cancellation of the object itself, or it would be the inconsistent joining of at least two logically incompatible orders, in which case any part of the object that was occulted within one order but visible in the other would appear as an absurdity, a thing simultaneously true and untrue, existent and non-existent.
It is sometimes given to objects to form the juncture between two logically incompatible orders of appearance, so that the part of the object that is occulted in the one order becomes visible – but as an absurdity that can only be resolved by shifting to the context of the other order, in which case a part of the object as it first appeared is then occulted, and again is visible only as an absurdity. The object itself is not absurd, but its simultaneous appearance in two incompatible contexts gives rise to absurdities in each.
This is what happens in word-play, Witz, when by virtue of homonymy a signifier enlisted in two incompatible signifying chains is used to form an illegitimate connection between them: all of a sudden the letter becomes unusually visible, being illuminated from both sides at once, but instead of giving rise to a “total sense” in which the word and its significations wholly coincide, this visibility derails signification, throwing both signifying chains into disarray.
The objectivity of objects – their subtraction, in part, from the appearances to which they are donated – is thus fundamentally allied with the weirdness of the occult. The part of the object occulted in some context can become visible through the collision of this context with another with which it is incompatible, a collision which the object itself facilitates through its appearance in both contexts. When the occult becomes visible, it does so according to an alien logic, a logic within which the visible correspondingly becomes occult. That is the effect of the weird: not only do absurdities appear, but mundane appearances are simultaneously eclipsed.
We should consider the possibility that Cthulhu finds us as weird as we find him – or would do, if his mind ever succeeded in correlating its contents to the point of recognizing our existence.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Pessimistic Thomism.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
That’s a pretty nice description of Heidegger’s aletheia, one of the clearest I’ve read for ages.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 am
“The occult part of an object is not inherently hidden; it does not have any inherent power of invisibility. Rather, it is occult because it is subtracted from the particular context in which the object is appearing.”
Nice post, Dominic, but you also enact the fatal flaw of the Badiouian position…
“Rather, it is occult because it is subtracted…” means “because it is subtracted BY THE HUMAN SUBJECT”. Badiou gives no account for any interaction of things if humans aren’t there, looking on.
This is the same old Kantianism, despite Badiou’s claim to be a “classical” philosopher who suspends the critical injunction of Kant. The only relation that matters for Badiou is the one between humans and the world. This is not realism. It’s the same old idealism. Positing an inconsistent multiple that is not exhausted by any given count, as Badiou does, in no way does justice to the world, because he only allows subjects to do the counting.
To claim that it’s anthropomorphism to say otherwise merely begs the question. If you start by *assuming* that occultation is merely a result of the human count, then *of course* you can claim that ascribing occultation to inanimate causal relations is an anthropomorphic gesture. However, the initial assumption is purely arbitrary. Badiou does a lot that can excite us, but he remains wedded to the good old Kantian rift. (Even claiming that there is no rift doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is: why are humans always allowed to be one of the primary ingredients of the world?)
To conclude, I would say:
“The occult part of an object IS inherently hidden; it DOES have inherent power of invisibility.” That’s because the reality of a thing can’t possibly exhausted by any relation toward it, not just by human subjects, but also by cotton, fire, or even sheer spatio-temporal location.
That’s why Heidegger marks a much greater caesura in the history of philosophy than Badiou. Heidegger has to be pushed a bit to yield a doctrine of fully non-relational objects, but the tool-analysis gives it to us in germ.
But I enjoyed the post anyway. Nice to finally have disagreements about important things, rather than the latest collages from the rusty old Derrida-Machine.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
This seems oddly like the question of what, for purposes of collapsing waveforms, counts as an “observer”.
I’m puzzled as to why you think Badiou has this commitment to the human subject as the invisible operator behind the count-as-one (“pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”), because on the rare occasions when he says anything about it, he tends to say the exact opposite: a world without humans is still a world. One could perhaps speak of a world of fire, in which cotton appears as something combustible, but from which those properties of cotton that have nothing to do with its propensity for going up in flames are subtracted. Those properties aren’t inherently invisible; they’re just invisible “to” the fire – there are other contexts in which some of them at least are visible, although there is no single context in which they all are.
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
“To claim that it’s anthropomorphism to say otherwise merely begs the question. If you start by *assuming* that occultation is merely a result of the human count, then *of course* you can claim that ascribing occultation to inanimate causal relations is an anthropomorphic gesture.”
Isn’t the point that relation is a structural component of experience – for “relation” to have any meaning whatsoever we’re talking intentionality. The relation of object to object in the absence of consciousness is radically blank, senseless. If not, where does the organisation, the sense – the occultation – come from. If occultation isn’t an effect of the human count, then what occults, and why should there be occultation at all rather than “transparency” between things? This is why I think there’s anthropomorphism in your account.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it looks to me as though you either have to say “this is just how it is” (which is obviously unsatisfactory), or have to invoke some kind of motivating occulting force. The Islamic occasionalists had god to supply that sense, to do the revealing and concealing – what do you have?
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Interesting responses. Quick one from me, since I’m out the door to meet my friend’s new baby in a minute…
Dominic: “Those properties aren’t inherently invisible; they’re just invisible “to” the fire – there are other contexts in which some of them at least are visible, although there is no single context in which they all are.”
This sounds like Merleau-Ponty’s idea that a thing can be pieced together out of all possible views on it by other things. That’s not a realist idea. You still need to explain what holds all those possible views together. As for Badiou, in *Being and Event* there is no room to say anything about purely inanimate interactions (just as for Meillassoux there is not). As for *Logics of Worlds* (where he may be closer to my own position), there is still the issue mentioned a few lines ago: to be a thing is not the same to be *seen* as being that thing. All possible entities encountering me in different ways will still not add up to me.
Dan B takes a franker view, still openly declaring that only human consciousness can occult things. But no “force” is needed to occult anything… simply by being what it is, a thing exceeds any possible relation to it or description of it. You’re actually the one who’s saying simply “this is how it is”, assuming that relationality exhausts the being of a thing. As for the Islamic occasionalists, they brought in God not to explain occultation, but to explain relations, which is the exact opposite. (If created beings cannot make contact with one another, then God is the only relational medium.) But I share with them the idea that links between objects, though undeniably present in everyday experience, are highly problematic in philosophical terms (though I think their solution, while acceptable to some people theologically, is not acceptable philosophically since it merely gives one entity, God, the power to do what other entities cannot).
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
More concisely and to clarify the blather above – we can see that our experience truth, of making sense involves a dual process concealing and revealing, but on what evidence can you know if the same process is true of the world in our absence – ie aren’t you making a statement about something we cannot logically have access to – that is radically unknowable?
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
oops missed yr post
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I don’t know why I strayed into Islamic Occasionalism, in truth I know very little about it. A lazy grab at an analogy on my part – posting on a quiet day at the office breeds bad habits.
but-
“But no “force” is needed to occult anything… simply by being what it is, a thing exceeds any possible relation to it or description of it”
I think this is my problem – how do you define a relation or a description in the absence of human consciousness? In the absence of a perception of things in relation, how are two things in relation and what does that relation consist in? I think “relation” itself is smuggling in anthropomorphism.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
This sounds like Merleau-Ponty’s idea that a thing can be pieced together out of all possible views on it by other things. That’s not a realist idea. You still need to explain what holds all those possible views together
Except that I argue that they don’t hold together – the objectivity of the object is correlated in my account with the logical incompatibility of the worlds in which it appears.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Could an object’s properties be assigned probability distributions? The properties would all exist at the one time, but would have different probabilities of being invoked, depending on the ‘properties’ of the situation. This would provide an almost infinite number of possible situations (and therefore relationships), without requiring an observer. It would also enable an understanding of objects at a fundamental level, because the probabilities could be assigned to atomic (and even sub-atomic) relationships.
Note: Naturally, this approach is limited by the ‘understanding’ of these atomic and sub-atomic relationships.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:21 am
Yes, I was wondering whether some mathematical model could be found; here I wish I understood coalgebras better, for example, or the use of cryptography in capability-based programming…
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
aye, but I think that the first step – the defining of properties – requires a conscious observer. What is a property in the absence of a consciousness?
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
What is a property in the absence of a consciousness?
Um, a property? I mean, why not? What does the presence of a consciousness add? What is it about consciousness that reality really can’t do without?
February 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Dan, you’ve suggested: “It looks like the real concealment that’s going on in Harman’s account is the concealment of this oblique anthropocentrism – that he is applying a human order – intentionality – to objects in their relationships to each other.” (http://dovestocrows.blogspot.com/2008/02/occulted-ideas.html).
From a physics point of view, matter will adopt relationships of lowest energy/highest stability. This is the only ‘intention’ within an object required to account for its interactions.
Note: this is a very crude view of physics, from a non-physicist.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Andrew – I think you might be right – at that level of particle interaction, you can find a definitive criteria, in the absence of a conscious observer, for the relation of objects. You could say (however clumsy a thing I think it is to say) that the “reality” of one elementary particle to another is as “a thing against which it must take up a relationship of lowest energy” – or something more eloquent.
However, I really can’t see how that leaves space for the interactions of objects to occult aspects from each other – at present you have 1 property, energy, what can be occulted?
If you go any further up I think you have far more problems.
I wrote more on this, but it’s getting to the point where it feels rude to be posting such lengthy discussion on someone else’s blog, so I’ve shoved it on mine instead.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Dan, I think you are right. Once interactions are reduced to the fundamental level, nothing is occulted, because all properties are derived from these fundamental interactions. An observer and an object will both be aware that the object is green; their awareness will just be on the macroscopic and microscopic scales, respectively. It is only when the properties are scaled up that they become occulted; someone will note the object sets off the colour scheme in their lounge room, while someone else will note it meets their need for a paper-weight.
PS Schrodinger’s cat doesn’t like my probability suggestion.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Agreed to a point, though I can’t see how an object will be aware that it is green, or that another object is green. I don’t know what that “awareness” would mean.
And I still can’t see how you can talk meaningfully about any but the most fundamental particle interactions in the absence of a conscious observer. I’ve ordered a couple of Grahams books and I’m going to plough through them, but I really can’t see how he’d overcome this convincingly.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
The object would be aware of the electron transitions responsible for a human seeing the object as green. The ‘awareness’ stems from the influence the particles exert on each other.
The fundamental particle interactions are responsible for all properties. The manifestation of these interactions beyond the fundamental level requires a conscious observer.
I might have to hunt down some of Graham’s books myself.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
i also don’t understand these claims of non-anthropocentricism. surely even the splitting of the world into seperate objects (cotton, fire) requires a thinking subject. who’s to say where the cotton ends and the fire begins, let alone assign them attributes which either are or are not occult?
March 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Well, the real is at least sufficiently intrinsically structured to support discrete psychisms (inasmuch as I’m not thinking your thoughts for you, or digesting your food). The assumption that reality is a featureless continuum, in which the differentiation of discrete systems is something imposed by “a thinking subject”, seems extremely questionable to me, not least because the “thinking subject” is itself a discrete system, and one which must necessarily have undergone some individuation without the prior intervention of its own self-awareness.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
why is it questionable? i want to get my head round this but can’t…
maybe if i read up on some recent physics, as mentioned in some of your other posts, then it would make more sense. but at the moment i do understand the universe as a continuum (though not featureless). at the particle level there is certainly nothing discrete.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
at the particle level there is certainly nothing discrete
Apart from the particles, presumably.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
The basic idea here is that the “thinking subject” is merely one discrete system amongst others. If one really thought that reality was a wholly disorganised flux of particles, then this subject ought to be the first thing to go – as it can’t without circularity be called upon to explain its own separation from the flux.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Apart from the particles, presumably.
not as i understood it (i’m not a theoretical physicist, but…)
as for the subject, i guess i’m just reverting to cartesian skepticism or whatever you want to call it. how can it be “the first thing to go” when the very ect of asking the question confirms its existence?
March 13th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I think you’re right that the existence of discrete consciousness is a problem for the “particles in flux” or “infinite network of relations” image, but I don’t think that lets Graham off the hook on the issue of how objects are to be bounded in the absence of consciousness.