ANTHEM

Contributors on the Unfogged blog have been having some good fun with this characterisation of Graham Harman’s recent talk as “brilliantly dense” (besides also being generally amused by the reference to “object-oriented philosophy” and the possibility of a “realism without materialism”). In hindsight it was probably not the most fortunate choice of a phrase, given some of the connotations of dense such as “thick,” “difficult to understand,” or “thickheaded.” How can something be dense brilliantly, i.e. “permitting little light to pass through because of compactness of matter”? (Definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary 2002.) Yes, that would be a contradiction, unless one was trying to say something poetic about the “brilliantly dense character of black holes in the universe” or something like that (which I wasn’t).

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Just to clarify then, the connotations of density I was invoking in reference to the nature of Harman’s philosophy paper were the following: a) “the quantity of something per unit measure, especially per unit length;” b) “the number of beings or objects per unit of area;” c) “complexity of structure or content” (The American Heritage Dictionary 2002). As philosophy is about being (what else could it be possibly about?), having a lot of engagement with being per hour of philosophy talk is a good thing; having a lot of beings or objects – or some particularly complex ones – captured in a paper is a good thing.

What is not a good thing is the connotation of opaqueness and impenetrability, of which continental philosophy is often accused (probably not unjustifiably). Luckily that is one thing Harman cannot be accused of, and in this sense density was the wrong term to use. Or perhaps it wasn’t after all: as the brilliance of Harman rests exactly in his uncanny ability to render some of the most opaque areas of continental philosophy penetrable again. Just take a look at his condensation of the Heideggerian oeuvre into 183 pages in his Heidegger Explained, or his recent summary of Heiddegger on technology. Something “brilliantly dense” is thus ‘compact’ in a way that is ‘full of light’ (The American Heritage Dictionary 2002).

So, the answer is yes, density is meant to be a philosophical virtue in this sense, along the same lines it was used to describe Agamben’s essay in the previous post: “Other characteristics of such memorable essays are the immense compression and tight weaving together of lines of argument that span the entire written history of a culture and connect the concerns of the Ancients with what is happening today.”

Let me copy in below some of the comments from the Unfogged blog (the name does reflect their mission statement well,

The blogosphere is full of faulty logic, dubious facts, poor argumentation, strident ideology, rampant falsehoods, characters of ill repute and many other things harmful to one’s mental well being. Unfogged.com aims to cut through that fog and provide clarity and sweet reason to all who read it.

which also explains why they took such an interest in this matter of obscurity and contradiction).

Is it considered good in philosophy for a paper to be dense, or is “brilliantly dense” meant to be read as sardonic?

(…)

I wondered about that too. Were they making a funny? Or using it to mean something like “rich.”

(…)

Anyway, following two links from that blog, I get to this page, with a description of a book about Bruno Latour, in which I find that,

Part One covers four key works that display Latour’s underrated contributions to metaphysics: Irreductions, Science in Action, We Have Never Been Modern, and Pandora’s Hope. Harman contends that Latour is one of the central figures of contemporary philosophy, with a highly original ontology centered in four key concepts: actants, irreduction, translation, and alliance.In Part Two, Harman summarizes Latour’s most important philosophical insights, including his status as the first “secular occasionalist.” The problem of translation between entities is no longer solved by the fiat of God (Malebranche) or habit (Hume), but by local mediators. Working from his own “object-oriented” perspective, Harman also criticizes the Latourian focus on the relational character of actors at the expense of their cryptic autonomous reality.

I must own it.

(…)

In some parts of philosophy it is absolutely a good thing to be dense. Wittgensteinian philosophers think this way, as do a lot of continental philosophers. Mostly it happens when you aestheticize the activity of philosophy itself.

Mainstream analytic philosophers don’t view density as a virtue in itself, but a sometimes unfortunate byproduct of rigor.

(…)

The weird thing about that description is that “brilliantly” occurs as an adverb. (Ok, “brilliantly” is an adverb—that brilliance occurs adverbially. Whatever.) It would be praise to call it brilliant and dense (I mean, I would call that praise). But to call it brilliantly dense, as if there were something particularly accomplished about the manner of its being dense—huh?

(…)

Yeah, I agree with nos. Sure, we all know that any number of disciplines seem to privilege opacity, but they don’t usually call it out: “Fantastic! Was that paper ever dense!”

(…)

“Fantastic! Was that paper ever dense!”

Wittgensteinians say this all the time when talking about Wittgenstein’s work. Certainly Wittgenstein thought it was a virtue of his own work, and the work of people he admired.

I was taking “dense” to mean both “thick with layers of meaning” and “hard to read and opaque to outsiders.” Like hipster poetry.

(…)

@interface Harman : Latour {
id realism;
id materialism;
}
+(id) define :(id)philosophy;
+(id) redefine :(id)philosophy;
-(void) lecture :(id)location;
@end

(…)

Sorry I didn’t read through the comments but is anyone else cracking up over ‘brilliantly dense’?

Is that for real? Are they really that excited about a dense paper? Damn, what kind of philosophy is this? I can’t be dense! I’m really good at that?

Also, I can contradict myself. That’s another skill I have. Is there a place for me at this table?

(…)

Does “dense” in American have the same colloquial meaning as in Brit: = “thick”, as in extremely stupid, but a little politer than “cretinous”?

Old fashioned teacher: “Boy, your work is appalling! I have never encountered a pupil as dense as you!”

(…)

Yes.

Although, Americans don’t know what the word “cretinous” means, so it’s not really rude. We just are cretinous.

Tags: Ludwig Wittgenstein, materialism, realism

This entry was posted on 26 June 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Graham Harman, Martin Heidegger, Object-oriented philosophy, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.