On interface: Nancy's weights and masses

On interface: Nancy's weights and masses

Department

Philosophy Department

Abstract

Elsewhere I have called for an object-oriented philosophy, a project inspired by the phenomenological tradition. In Husserl, we have intentional objects: apples or mailboxes that form integral units for perception even though their sensual profiles shift wildly from one moment to the next. In Heidegger, with a bit of finessing, we have real objects: unified tool-beings that withdraw not only from theoretical description and pragmatic interaction, but from any form of causal relation at all. This dual interplay between intentional objects and their accidents, and real objects and their relations offers a fourfold alternative to the stale Kantian rift (and equally stale post-Kantian marriage) between human and world, whose interplay is now dismally cemented as the sole topic of philosophy. Taken as a pair, Husserl and Heidegger enable a new, weird realism, which the relation between palm trees and raindrops is no less a philosophical problem than the gap between speakers and signifieds.

Publication Date

2012

Document Type

Book Chapter

Book Title

Jean-Luc Nancy and Plural Thinking Expositions of World, Ontology, Politics, and Sense

Editors

Peter Gratton, Marie-Eve Morin

ISBN

9781438442266

Publisher

SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought

City

New York

First Page

95

Last Page

107

Keywords

Phenomenology, Nancy, Jean-Luc

On interface: Nancy's weights and masses

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