1. Phenomenology and the Theory of Equipment (1997)
2. Alphonso Lingis on the Imperatives in Things (1997)
3. The Theory of Objects in Heidegger and Whitehead (1997)
4. A Fresh Look at Zuhandenheit (1999)
5. Bruno Latour, King of Networks (1999)
6. Object-Oriented Philosophy (1999)
7. The Revival of Metaphysics in Continental Philosophy (2002)
8. Physical Nature and the Paradox of Qualities (2006)
9. Space, Time, and Essence: An Object-Oriented Approach (2008)
10. The Assemblage Theory of Society (2008)
11. Objects, Matter, Sleep, and Death (2009)

“This conference will provide the opportunity to identify and work through shared elements and problems, which have been developed by those working in the philosophies of A. N. Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, Actor-Network-Theory, and Speculative Realism. The extensive work of Isabelle Stengers in its relation to Whitehead and Deleuze could be seen as indicative of the milieu which contemporary thought inhabits and the problems it is addressing. The importance of this major re-conceptualization of the demand for a renewed interrogation of the inter-relation of metaphysics and things is also evident in the work of Bruno Latour who has often discussed the importance of the work of both Whitehead and Stengers for his re-description of objects in terms of associations and networks. Speculative Realism has, recently, developed approaches to such questions which have a tensile but productive relationship with the concepts and approaches raised by Whitehead, Stengers, and Latour. This conference will include participants who are influential in all of these fields and its overall aim is to provide an open forum to further these important debates and to produce new modes of thought.”

Confirmed conference participants include:

• Isabelle Stengers (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
• Donna Haraway (University of California at Santa Cruz)
• Ian Bogost (The Georgia Institute of Technology)
• James J. Bono (University at Buffalo)
• James Bradley (University of Newfoundland)
• Nathan Brown (UC Davis)
• Levi Bryant (Collin College)
• Didier Debaise (Max Planck Institute, Berlin)
• Roland Faber (Claremont Graduate University)
• Andrew Goffey (Middlesex University)
• Michael Halewood (University of Essex)
• Graham Harman (American University in Cairo)
• Judith Jones (Fordham University)
• Steven Shaviro (Wayne State University)

“The longer I live, citizen. . .” — this is the way the great passage in Peguy begins, words I once loved to say (I had them almost memorized) — “The longer I live, citizen, the less I believe in the efficiency of sudden illuminations that are not accompanied or supported by serious work, the less I believe in the efficiency of conversion, extraordinary, sudden and serious, in the efficiency of sudden passions, and the more I believe in the efficiency of modest, slow, molecular, definitive work. The longer I live the less I believe in the efficiency of an extraordinary sudden social revolution, improvised, marvelous, with or without guns and impersonal dictatorship — and the more I believe in the efficiency of modest, slow, molecular, definitive work.” (pp. 13-14)

As the O&E  post points out, Williamson somewhat “botched” the quote, being unable to cite the source and having conflated two different segments. The original (from Péguy, Charles. “Encore de la grippe”, Cahiers de la quinzaine, volume I, number 6, March 20, 1900.) should read something like this (in Randy Westgren’s translation, who adds the following caveat: “Péguy is also noted for involuted literary style, so amateur translation isn’t easy”):

– … And genius demands patience to work, doctor, and the longer I live, citizen, the less I believe in the effectiveness of sudden illuminations that are not accompanied by or supported by serious work, the less I believe in the effectiveness of sudden, wondrous, extraordinary conversions, the effectiveness of sudden passions, – and the more I believe in the effectiveness of modest, slow, molecular, definitive work.

– The longer I live, responded the doctor gravely, the less I believe in the effectiveness of a sudden, extraordinary social revolution, wondrously improvised, with or without guns and impersonal dictatorship, – and the more I believe in the effectiveness of modest, slow, molecular, definitive, work for society.

Putting aside the issue of what may have been lost in the translation, the interesting connection with ANT is of course that Bruno Latour’s first published article was on Péguy’s theology and Péguy figured heavily in Latour’s doctoral thesis, “Exégèse et ontologie: une analyse des textes de résurrection.” In a recent speech (“Coming Out as a Philosopher“, PDF), Latour reflects on the significance of this early work: “That this PhD thesis was never read except by rats and mice doesn’t mean that it was not for me an essential learning experience… ” The concerns of what came to be known as actor-network theory and its central concept, the notion of translation, have already been present to some extent in this work according to Latour.

Translation as betrayal, “betrayal by mere repetition and the absence of innovation, and betrayal by too many innovations and the loss of the initial intent” was the key focus of the dissertation, which Latour had done “through  a  close  reading  of  Charles  Péguy’s amazing book CLIO, the topic and manner of which was precisely on the question of good and  bad  repetition  (a  question  that  was  also  taken  up  by  Deleuze,  in  DIFFÉRENCE  ET REPETITION published at the same time)” (p. 3).

The interesting question for the theory of the firm is whether it is Williamson’s transaction-cost economics or the competence perspective of the Schumpeterian tradition that is more in tune with Péguy and Latour’s insight about the relationship between routine and innovation.

The interactive diagram is a socio-technical agencement configured in such a way that at the center of the collective action we find an individual who is capable of developing projects and is endowed with a will to accomplish them, and who holds herself (because she is held) responsible for her acts and their effects. This diagram constitutes a particular answer to questions concerning the modalities of action. To the question “Who is at the source of the action?” the diagram answers “The individual and her projects.” To the question “What is the status of the different participants in the action?” it answers “On the one hand the individual defining and undertaking projects, whose identity changes and adjusts in relation to feedback and results, and on the other hand the technical devices with which she interacts and which constantly suggest original courses of action.” To the question “What does the action produce?” it answers “The discovery of possible new worlds, the unexpected, constant experimentation.” (p. 39)

Question:

Michel Callon argues that the model of economic man could be useful for people engaging in economic activities. And that the interesting thing about this model is if it is actually used by economic actors. Do you agree with that argument?

Answer:

If Callon says that I would say: Why do they use it? I would ask: What kind of properties should this variety of models have? This is not the kind of question he can answer. He would just answer that they do use it. I think that the problem with this answer is that it will lack a reflection on this architecture of regimes and on the path to the public. This is the main problem for me with this overwhelming notion of network. It doesn’t give any specification of the link, of the social link, of the social action. And again I think a good specification would require this specification both of the good and of the reality as it is used as a test. Instead of that the network modelling in general terms is, I would say, flat, so it cannot give you a good picture of what is needed to go from proximity to the public and to come back from there.

Callon’s essay, “Economic Markets and the Rise of Interactive Agencements” in Pinch and Swedberg’s 2008 book, Living In a Material World, reads like a reply to this challenge, as he develops exactly what Thévenot seems to be asking for. Callon defends his notion of homo economicus 2.0 (also discussed elsewhere) by developing a conceptual framework that allows him not only to describe the conditions for the emergence of such calculative individual agency and its characteristics but also to present some normative considerations for political action. In the process he also manages to revitalise actor-network theory for the study of economic phenomena.

It is an interesting and even unusual article for a number of reasons. Rather than dismissing the rational and independent homo economicus of neo-classical economics in favour of an embedded and networked homo sociologicus, Callon argues that some form of calculative individual agency does exist and that the role of economic sociology is to describe the conditions, the support systems, which enable  this creature (homo economicus 2.0) to be performed. To accomplish this task, Callon builds a conceptual apparatus that draws on Hutchins’ theory of distributed cognition, Deleuze’s notion of agencement, Foucault’s notion of dispositif, and Barry’s notion of interactive diagram (after Deleuze and Guattari) – and of course actor-network theory.

While proponents of actor-network theory sometimes dismiss the agency-structure problem in social theory as a non-issue, Callon tackles it head on by proposing to abandon the focus on actors and actants in favour of agency and distributed action instead, in order to avoid the aforementioned bifurcation. Such a move is necessary because the aim of the paper is to investigate perhaps the most contentious issue for ANT: the problem of individual agency, in this case of homo economicus.

After Barry, Callon characterises the contemporary mode of economic ordering as an interactive diagram, kept stable by socio-technical agencements that are primarily made up of discourses, procedures and information and communication technologies. He demonstrates two dominant types of diagrams – interactive diagrams and disciplinary diagrams – through a case study of a breakdown of homo economicus 2.0, namely the case of people with disabilities. Callon identifies two different ways in which disabled people are enabled within the contemporary network economy: they are either equipped with prostheses (and thus get caught up in a disciplining diagram) or their socio-technical agencement is modified (within the interactive diagram), allowing them to pursue their projects in line with the entrepreneurial imperative of homo economicus 2.0.

Callon comes down in favour of the latter approach for political action (which he calls ‘habilitation policy,’ in contrast to ‘prosthetic policy’), as a solution to address the problems of overflows (negative externalities) of the dominant form of economic ordering  (which produces homo economicus 2.0). These overflows would concern those human beings who find themselves excluded from the interactive, entrepreneurial becoming that is presently valued and encouraged in Western societies, simply because they are not equipped with the appropriate tools and/or do not have access to the requisite socio-technical agencements.

References

Barry, A. (2001). Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London, Athlone.

Callon, M. (2008). Economic Markets and the Rise of Interactive Agencements: From Prosthetic Agencies to Habilitated Agencies. Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies. T. J. Pinch and R. Swedberg. Cambridge, Mass.; London, MIT: 29-56.

Jagd, S. (2004). “The French Convention School and the Coordination of Economic Action: Laurent Thévenot Interviewed by Søren Jagd at the EHESS Paris.” Economic Sociology: European Electronic Newsletter 5(3): 10-16.

Two important consequences ensue for a philosophy of apparatuses. The first is the repudiation of universals. A universal explains nothing; it, on the other hand, must be explained. All of the lines are lines of variation that do not even have constant coordinates. The One, the Whole, the True, the object, the subject are not universals but singular processes of unification, totalization, verification, objectification, subjectivation immanent to an apparatus. Each apparatus is therefore a multiplicity where certain processes in becoming are operative and are distinct from those operating in another apparatus.

(…)

The second result of a philosophy of apparatuses is a change in orientation, turning away from the Eternal to apprehend the new. The new is not supposed to designate fashion, but on the contrary the variable creativity for the apparatuses: in conformance with the question that began to appear in the 20th century of how the production of something new in the world is possible. (pp. 347-349)

Deleuze, G. and D. Lapoujade (2007). “What is a Dispositif?” Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews, 1975-1995. New York, Semiotext(e) ; London : MIT Press [distributor].  pp. 343-352

Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (editors) (Forthcoming), The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne, re.press

Description

Continental philosophy has entered a new period of ferment. The long deconstructionist era was followed with a period dominated by Deleuze, which has in turn evolved into a new situation still difficult to define. However, one common thread running through the new brand of continental positions is a renewed attention to materialist and realist options in philosophy. Among the current giants of this generation, this new focus takes numerous different and opposed forms. It might be hard to find many shared positions in the writings of Badiou, DeLanda, Laruelle, Latour, Stengers, and Zizek, but what is missing from their positions is an obsession with the critique of written texts. All of them elaborate a positive ontology, despite the incompatibility of their results. Meanwhile, the new generation of continental thinkers is pushing these trends still further, as seen in currents ranging from transcendental materialism to the London-based speculative realism movement to new revivals of Derrida. As indicated by the title The Speculative Turn, the new currents of continental philosophy depart from the text-centered hermeneutic models of the past and engage in daring speculations about the nature of reality itself. This anthology assembles authors, of several generations and numerous nationalities, who will be at the center of debate in continental philosophy for decades to come.

Contributors

• Alain Badiou
• Ray Brassier
• Nathan Brown
• Levi Bryant
• Gabriel Catren
• Manuel DeLanda
• Iain Hamilton Grant
• Martin Hägglund
• Peter Hallward
• Graham Harman
• Adrian Johnston
• Francois Laruelle
• Bruno Latour
• Quentin Meillassoux
• Nicole Pepperell
• Nick Srnicek
• Isabelle Stengers
• Alberto Toscano
• Slavoj Žižek

Information Systems Research Forum

Rethinking Technological Change in Organizations: The Deleuzian ‘Spatium’ and its ‘Becoming’

Eleni Lamprou
ISIG, LSE

Thursday 29 January 2009

In this presentation, I wish to address the potential contribution of the ontology provided by the French process philosopher Gilles Deleuze to the study of technological change in organizations. In the first part of the presentation, the connections of Deleuze’s work to the work of Martin Heidegger are outlined, as I explore the concept of the ‘spatium’. The ‘spatium’ enfolds Deleuze’s understanding that the physical position of people and technological artefacts within space lends only a partial understanding of the manner in which they actually relate. In the second part, I seek to theorize the manner in which such relationships actually develop through elaborating on Deleuze’s conceptualization of ‘becoming’. Emphasis is placed on what is portrayed by Deleuze as the motor of the ‘becoming’ process, namely, the ‘event’. The ideas presented in this seminar are drawn from the theoretical framework of my doctoral dissertation.

If you are a visitor from outside LSE, please send a confirmation to c.m.bonina@lse.ac.uk. You will need to sign in at the reception desk of the New Academic Building. Please note places will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis – registration is not required for LSE students and staff.

[From the ISIG, LSE website]