#agential realism

[noosphe-re]

The very nature of materiality is an entanglement. Matter itself is always already open to, or rather entangled with, the "Other." The intra-actively emergent "parts" of phenomena are co­constituted. Not only subjects but also objects are permeated through and through with their entangled kin; the other is not just in one's skin, but in one's bones, in one's belly, in one's heart, in one's nucleus, in one's past and future.

Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning

[raffaellopalandri]

Living the Interdependent Self: From Conceptual Realisation to Embodied Wisdom - Part 1

Having traversed the vast theoretical terrains that unravel the illusion of the autonomous, bounded self—from Enlightenment individualism to post-structural decentring, from Buddhist concept of anātman / अनात्मन् (non-self) to Stoic radical cosmopolitanism, from Indigenous relationality to ecological embeddedness, we now stand before a different kind of threshold: not epistemological, but…

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[whentheynyan]

Are not biological forces in some sense always already historical ones?

[noosphe-re]

Matter and meaning are not separate elements. They are inextricably fused together, and no event, no matter how energetic, can tear them asunder. Even atoms, whose very name, ατομοσ (atomos), means “indivisible” or “uncuttable,” can be broken apart. But matter and meaning cannot be dissociated, not by chemical processing, or centrifuge, or nuclear blast. Mattering is simultaneously a matter of substance and significance, most evidently perhaps when it is the nature of matter that is in question, when the smallest parts of matter are found to be capable of exploding deeply entrenched ideas and large cities. Perhaps this is why contemporary physics makes the inescapable entanglement of matters of being, knowing, and doing, of ontology, epistemology, and ethics, of fact and value, so tangible, so poignant.

Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning

[noosphe-re]

For Barad, phenomena or objects do not precede their interaction, rather, 'objects' emerge through particular intra-actions. Thus, apparatuses, which produce phenomena, are not assemblages of humans and nonhumans (as in actor-network theory). Rather, they are the condition of possibility of 'humans' and 'non-humans', not merely as ideational concepts, but in their materiality. Apparatuses are 'material-discursive' in that they produce determinate meanings and material beings while simultaneously excluding the production of others. What it means to matter is therefore always material-discursive. Barad takes their inspiration from physicist Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics. Barad's agential realism is at once an epistemology (theory of knowing), an ontology (theory of being), and an ethics. For this, Barad employs the term onto-epistemology. Because specific practices of mattering have ethical consequences, excluding other kinds of mattering, onto-epistemological practices are always in turn onto-ethico-epistemological.

Wikipedia

[materially-discursive]

Currently obsessed with creating frameworks for teachers to practice agential realist boundary-making with kids.

[raffaellopalandri]

The Myth of the Autonomous Self: A Cross-Cultural Critique of Individualism in Late Capitalism – Part 2

In the previous part of this short inquiry, we unravelled the metaphysical presuppositions and cultural entrenchments of the “self” as conceived by the Enlightenment and capitalist modernity—an atomised, self-possessed entity committed to autonomy, mastery, and linear progress. Photo by Nida Kurt on Pexels.com We contrasted this image with relational ontologies from Buddhist, Stoic, Indigenous,…

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[jesseturri]

Our Identities are Always Established Through Intra-Active Relationship

“During an evening walk with a close colleague of Bohr’s, Einstein once asked: “Do you really believe the Moon is not there if nobody looks?” From Barad’s perspective, it isn’t that the Moon isn’t there when we aren’t looking, it’s that when we do look, a new Moon, and a new me, emerge in the encounter. It turns out that the idea of separability itself was only ever a convenient fiction, whether we are talking about the level of protons or persons. The very notion of a isolated “thing” (a classical particle or body-bound observer) has been undone by Barad’s “agential realism,” wherein the final realities are “intra-active” agencies rather than isolable entities. These agencies or creatures (to use Whitehead’s favored term) are not dissolved into their relational intra-actions, “rather, the creature emerges within the creative field that it differentiates [such that] the attributes that make one creature different from another [are] acts of differentiation [and not] inherent properties of a discrete substance.”8 Acts or performances of differentiation are what individuate us moment by moment; our identities are always established through intra-active relationship.”

The above passage comes from Matt Segall’s review of Catherine Keller’s book Cloud of the Impossible (which I’m embarrassed to say I still haven’t read! ((I am, however, reading Keller’s political theology book right now and it’s marvelous)))), and in this particular section he discusses Keller’s utilization of the work of physicist Karen Barad. Great stuff!

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Painting above by Alicia Dunn

Our Identities are Always Established Through Intra-Active Relationship was originally published on TURRI