Love and jungle

How to love non -existent objects: introduction to pluralistic ontology

“Gorky” publishes the second issue of the “Castaneda did not write anything”, which explains the trends of modern humanitarian thought. In the first, the Kiev philosopher Anton Tarasuk from Pastiche Project debunked the established ontological ideas about our world, which, perhaps, does not exist at all. In today's issue, there is a difficult journey from the deserted world of naturalism, a stronghold of economical reductionists, into the confused world of metaphysical jungle, populated by spheres, non -existent objects, genuine love, as well as Peter Slaterdike, Bruno Latur and Gram Harman.

A nightmare of a lover

Those who are lucky in life fall in love, know - this is far from harmless. In addition to joys, doubts and suffering, love is also a real cognitive nightmare. Indeed, in an attempt to explain what is happening to him, the unfortunate lover will encounter many believable and not very options without any selection criteria between them. All options will interpret the attitude “in love with” in different ways-sometimes contradicting each other, sometimes coordinating, but in the end leaving us in complete confusion. Let's say in popular literature you can find this opinion:

(1) Love is completely natural (biological, neurochemical) phenomenon.

The specific form of this phenomenon is not so important. For example, it may be sexual attraction. Using such a definition, you can explain many phenomena associated with what is called love. However, is this definition the only one? Experience suggests not. Why not consider a more perky option, to which thousands of people reading fresh horoscopes are addressed monthly:

(2) The attitude of “ x loves U ” arises when there is a harmonious coincidence of astrological natal cards.

The explanation (2) not everyone will like. But, interestingly, for a very similar reason that the explanation (1). Both the naturalistic and astrological models do not take into account a whole layer of things that many tend to associate with love. They have no place for the common interests and hobbies of lovers or a difficult and long history of acquaintance, sometimes preceding love. But the explanation also needs the existence of normative forms in which the attitude is “in love with”. Therefore, the position of those who consider love to be a social phenomenon is quite logical. Here is a radical version of this view, when love is completely (and not partially) social:

(3) Love is a completely social construct.

An example of such social constructivism is the opinion according to which love is determined by social monogamous practice regulated by the institution of marriage. And if in the case of a naturalistic explanation (1) the attitude of love was described in terms of natural sciences, then in the case of social constructivism (3) love can describe sociology and anthropology. As you can see, the deeds of our lover are getting worse. He needs a simple explanation of what is happening, and only strange versions multiply around, the end of which is not visible. Before moving on to what lesson it can be extracted from this confusion, I would like to offer another option - it seems to me, the most successful:

(4) Love is the result of a spell of a crazy evil sorcerer.

Love in the desert and love in the jungle

So, we are in love - and we have four options for explaining this love. Each of them is good in their own way, but are they all good enough? To answer this question, you will have to expand the field of research a little. After all, to say what is love, that it is , you will have to ask a related question: what is there? That is, turn to ontology.

The preliminary response is contained in each of the above options. Assuming the truth that love is the result of a spell of a crazy evil sorcerer, as in (4), we mean the existence of crazy evil sorcerers and spells that they produce (how to interpret this existence is a separate issue). The same applies to the astrological approach (2), which admits that in your ontology there is a place for real -existing causal relations between stars and people. Social constructivism (3), in turn, cannot but include the existence of social phenomena in its ontology. It should be emphasized that existence is an existence as something at least partially independent. Unlike the opposite naturalistic view (1), the approach (3) should introduce a separate level of reality - social - which would exist according to its laws and, to one degree or another, regardless of everything else.

Separate interest is the view (1), according to which love is a completely natural phenomenon. It stands out in that it is the most economical . In order to explain the attitude of “in love with”, it does not need to allow any other levels of reality, except biological. In contrast to the following options that, to explain love, introduce new entities and relationships (astrological influences, social institutions, magic), the naturalistic approach is limited to one level of existence. Moreover, you can go even further, saying that love is not just a natural phenomenon, but that love mistakes another natural phenomenon mistakenly. In the first case, we will say that love is a sexual attraction, and in the second - that such a thing as love does not exist, but there is only a sexual attraction. Separating these positions, philosophers speak of naturalism and naturalistic eliminism, respectively. However, it is sometimes quite difficult to draw a border between them.

The mentioned criterion of saving plays an important role in building ontologies. Suppose we decided to create the theory of what is. What to be guided by the selection of candidates for the role of what is? How to inhabit our ontology? A logical answer would sound like that - everyone. Airplanes, quarks, books, trees, dogs, supermarkets, in love pairs ... The list can be continued indefinitely. But already at this stage we notice that some objects have something common. For example, dogs, trees and couples in love are biological objects that can be described using the language of biological sciences. Richard Dokins in the book “Egoistic Gene”, claims that the participants in natural selection are not species, but genes. If we accept this theory, then the whole conversation about the processes leading the behavior of dogs, trees and in love couples can be reduced to conversation about genes' behavior. Specific differences in species become less important against the background of a more fundamental level of gene mechanisms. And here we are faced with a great ontological temptation: why allow the individual existence of people, trees and dogs, when to describe the processes associated with them, it is enough to allow only the existence of genes? After all, if the whole variety of biological objects is fully described using the only principle, then reducing everything to the genes would be at least economically .

The same applies to inanimate objects - except that the language of physics would be used here. It is worth noting that philosophy is widely discussed the possibility of the possibility of reducing biology to physics: what if the behavior of genes can be potentially reduced to the behavior of physical particles, thereby erasing the difference between inanimate and animated objects?

An explanation at first glance of independent things and processes in terms of more fundamental things and processes that control the first are called reduction . Thanks to her, the theory of what is, on the one hand, does not grow, on the other - through a very small set of assumptions, he explains very, very much. The American philosopher and logician Willard van Orman Kuayn called such theories desert spaces . Indeed, in them, as in the desert, there are very few objects, stunted vegetation, similar landscapes, but a good review is enough. It can be seen far, but there is no variety.

But what if we refuse reduction? Let's say we will not reduce human behavior to genes' behavior, but a book to the physical particles of which it consists. In this case, you will have to say goodbye to the desert. Our ontology will suddenly begin to grow: along with the genes, people will appear in it, with people - culture and society, along with the physical elements of the book - texts and their meaning. And this is only the beginning. Speaking of such ontologies, they often recall the Austrian philosopher of the beginning of the twentieth century by Alexius Meinong, who allowed the existence of many, even non -existent objects. Such theories, developing the metaphor of the desert, can be called jungle . They are full of all, everything is colorful, diverse and noisy, but the review is not so good at all.

Now we no longer need to guess what love is, arbitrarily choosing various definitions. The latter can be divided into two categories, the choice between which will still have to be made: love in the desert or love in the jungle?

The desert will be reached and blossomed as a daffodil

Desert ontology, although it is restrained and poor, can be preferred thanks to its economy and visibility. What grounds can be guided by the one who chooses, on the contrary, rich in entities and the wasteful theory of what is? There are many reasons, most of them are related to other theoretical issues. We will limit ourselves to only one of them. Imagine that our doubting in love is not just an cabinet ontologist, but also a brave knight who made a series of exploits and eventually proclaimed:

(5) I did it for the sake of love.

What does he imply? The answer depends on what theory you adhere to. An adherent of naturalistic metaphysics and opinions, according to which love is a sexual attraction described by biology and evolutionary psychology, will suspect with suspicion to include such an essence as “love” in the ontology. Therefore, the statement (5) will raise doubts in him and, most likely, will be recognized as false. But what if the interpreter does not want to question the exploits and sincerity of the knight? Then he will have to rewind the statement in a special way. Based on a naturalistic position, it would sound like this:

(6) I did it for the sake of something that is a sexual attraction and is called "love."

Despite the fact that the statement (6) from the point of view of the naturalist will be true, we immediately encounter a number of problems. Firstly, the ordinary language contains a huge number of initially opaque phrases (5), which will be false from the point of view of a naturalistic position. Another simple example:

(7) The chair stands in the kitchen.

Imagine a supporter of desert ontology, who believes that there are only subatomic particles (perhaps this is inclined to modern physical theories or aesthetic preferences). For him, the statement (7) will be false, since chairs are not what is really in the world. A deserted ontologist will say that we do not need to abandon traditional ideas about chairs, but we should remember that ordinary expressions like (7) are foggy and confuse. But this means that they cannot be literally true. Literally true statements will be similar to (6):

(8) There are some x , ordered as a chair in the kitchen.

Desert ontology leads to the fact that the phrases of an ordinary language require translation into a more perfect language, talking about completely other things. Here we are overtaken by the second problem: do they really, when they say that there are chairs, are actually in mind that there are subatum particles, ordered, like chairs? Agree, this is a very strange idea. After all, claiming that he sits on a chair, a person does not mean that a set of particles sits in a certain way. He claims to sit on a chair . And admitting love, they are far from always recognized in sexual attraction. But for desert ontology, the whole tongue is extremely confusing and confusing. Whatever we say, everything requires a transfer to a specific jargon, which can only confirm or refute the truth of what it is about. This is a rather unnatural picture of how our allegations of existing function. Moreover, the transfer to the seemingly strict jargon must still be justified. Many philosophers too uncritically accepted the transformations of ordinary statements into their more stringent logical doubles. Whereas the adequacy of the translation can be evaluated mainly on the basis of intuitive ideas about the meaning of ordinary statements that have to be based on.

So, on the one hand, any reduction requires translation, which is very problematic. On the other hand, our ordinary language, used in daily communication, is inclined to allow many diverse entities and types of being that exist in different ways. And this is already the property of the ontology of the jungle, or pluralistic ontology , the various options of which are adhere to the following authors. Their books begin precisely where we finished-the same jungle describes in different ways. In which, perhaps, there is a place for love.

Peter Slaterdike

Slaterdaika is not customary to read as an ontologist. The fault of this, perhaps, the style of its presentation is deliberately concretized, with many cultural deviations. Contrary to this, the spherology project , of course, is ontological. Firstly, it begins with an ontological statement: there is no single area of ​​everything in which objects would exist. Secondly, it is dedicated to identifying the many spheres in which everything exists. The central concept of the Slotterdaika project “Sphere” is a spatial-on-on-on-clock, denoting the joints of joints. In these places, a certain microclimate is established, the violation of which is fraught with consequences - sometimes fatal for the inhabitants.

In contrast to classical metaphysics, spheres - more than once and for all shared and outlined spaces. They are created, live, burst, develop, exist on a different scale. The child’s stay in the womb is a stay in a specific microsphere. The binding forces of love or hypnotic impact is also a presence in some field. City, people, empire - all these are macro -rospers of different scale. And the most bulky sphere is, of course, the totalness of all things, invented by classic metaphysics and represented in the form of an all -encompassing ball. This global “everything” itself turns out to be local, even illusory - a certificate of attempt to build a huge sphere that would protect us from external dangers.

Costs : Despite the fact that Slaterdike deliberately erases the classic division of the regions of being into natural and social, he is primarily interested in people. The "jungle" of his spherology remains in many respects anthropocentric, focused on cultural, social and religious phenomena. There is a potential to overcome such restrictions, but this problem will have to be solved by readers themselves.

Where to start : the work of "Spheres II. Macrospherepology. Globes ”(2007), as well as a collection of an interview with the Slaterdike“ Sun and Death ”(2015).

Bruno Latur

Latur, like Slaterdike, is known for his attack on dividing all things into nature and culture. This dismemberment, which is declared the main feature of Art Nouveau, it contrasts the anti -conveying ontology of things. According to her, "nothing comes down to anything." We find ourselves in the midst of the objects in the world, in which certain “tests” occur between things, the winners and defeated are revealed, various networks are installed. The latter resemble the spheres of the Slaterdaika - with the difference that the Slaterdike describes local, inhabited and internal spaces. Lature networks serve to refer to global, associated and external.

What is happening in the world Latur thinks procedurally and dynamically: the networks are never at rest, they constantly experience each other for strength, absorb or amenable, intertwined and translate each other. A confusing picture comes out, but it is easy to trace the movement of one or another agent: entering into communication with others, he constantly leaves traces and signs of his presence. The main question of all network contacts is power. As Latur himself says, "all these forces claim hegemony over all the others, absorbing each other, getting tangled in each other, so that <...> real jungle grow."

Costs : the main problem of metaphysics Latur is that it was not conceived as metaphysics. Initially, this is a specific research heuristics that allowed us to obtain non -trivial results in the study of specific phenomena (in particular, scientific). Therefore, it is not surprising that the theory of Latur simply cannot answer some metaphysical questions. To them, Graham Harman-probably the main admirer of the talent of Lature-metaphysic-classifies the problem of change, the problem of the reality of the time and a number of other related issues.

С чего начать : небольшой трактат «Несводимое», включенный в русский перевод работы «Пастер: Война и мир микробов» (2015).

Грэм Харман

Харман начинал как последователь, с одной стороны, Хайдеггера, с другой — Латура. В определенном смысле его объектно-ориентированная онтология — это попытка преодолеть ограничения их теорий. У Латура он взял идею того, что философия должна иметь дело с любым объектом, а не объектами определенного привилегированного типа. У Хайдеггера — что на самом деле объекты глубже, чем их явления, данные человеческому сознанию или практическому овладению. Это привело к идее «четвероякого объекта», структурированного по двум осям: существует различие между объектом и его качествами, но также существует различие между реальным объектом и чувственным объектом.

Харман предложил интересную типологию онтологических редукций, сводящих объект к чему-то, чем он не является. С одной стороны, существует проваливание — сведение объектов к чему-то более фундаментальному, чем они сами. Это происходит, когда мы редуцируем стулья к составляющим их атомам. С другой стороны, есть наваливание , считающее, что вещи слишком фундаментальны и что их нужно свести к чему-то более поверхностному — например, к эффектам действий или отношениям. Именно так мы делаем, сводя любовь к социальному конструкту. Избавившись от редукционистских стратегий, остается вопрос: как же познавать реальные объекты? Alas, no way. Ответ Хармана такой: «Реальное — это что-то, что нельзя познать, но можно только любить».

Издержки : метафизика Хармана критиковалась с различных позиций, основной вопрос — это статус непознаваемых реальных объектов. Действительно ли они непознаваемы? Если непознаваемы, не скатываемся ли мы в мистицизм? Откуда мы знаем, что их много, если о них ничего неизвестно? Может быть, существует всего лишь один непознаваемый объект? Причина всех этих вопросов в том, что хармановская объектно-ориентированная онтология требует радикального пересмотра самого представления о философском знании. Пойти на это, конечно, готовы не все.

С чего начать : компактная, но насыщенная работа Хармана, служащая хорошим введением в его теорию, — «Четвероякий объект: Метафизика вещей после Хайдеггера» (2015).