Talking about world views

In the latest Partially Examined Life podcast on Thomas Kuhn’s notion of scientific progress Mark refers to the previous Deleuze and Guattari What is Philosophy? podcast and makes a connection between Kuhn’s notion of ‘paradigm’ with Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of a ‘plane of immanence’. Below are some rough notes on this connection to push it […]

Modulating Appetite

From Mary Wyman’s 1960 book on Whitehead is this example of creativity as part of a general process of concrescence (as becoming): This actualization of potentiality as an ingredient in something real might be illustrated by the experience of Otto Lilienthal, pioneer inventor of the flying glider. Process here is obviously considered on a scale […]

Of gap-sense: On Morton’s Of Planet-Sense

Tim Morton gave a talk at NIEA, Sydney, August 25, 2012 “Of planet-sense”. He offers a reading of the film Avatar as the successful completion of modernity, rather than its (hippie, environmental, etc.) reversal. All quotes below are to his talk, apologies in advance for any errors of transcription. The planet of Pandora with its […]

Matters of Concern

In Bruno Latour’s now relatively famous paper “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern” he launches into a scathing critique of most of the methodology that defines cultural studies: When naive believers are clinging forcefully to their objects, claiming that they are made to do things because […]