Graham Harman on McLuhan and Heidegger

PE — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:58:25 +0000

Depending on which part of China you come from, the number 4 for you is either auspicious or inauspicious. For Graham Harman it certainly must be his lucky number. Readers of Harman’s Tool-Being or Heidegger Explained will know that retrieving Heidegger’s notion of the fourfold is of crucial importance to him. There is however yet another intriguing quadrate Harman has (re)discovered for philosophy: Marshall and Eric McLuhan’s concept of the tetrad. In the coming weeks Harman will give three lectures on these fourfold structures: at the University of Twente on 17 January, at Bournemouth University on 4 February, and at the Open University on 7 February 2008.

The abstract for the 17 January talk entitled “The Medium of Beings Is Itself a Being: Heidegger and McLuhan” is available on the website of the Center for the Philosophy of Technology and Science (CEPTES) at the University of Twente. The title of the Open University lecture is “The Causal Medium: McLuhan’s Fourfold Space.” Below are the details of the 4 February talk that will take place at the Media School at Bournemouth University between 13:00-14:00 in room W240 (Talbot Campus). Please contact Peter Erdelyi for further information at perdelyi@bournemouth.ac.uk.

The Greatness of McLuhan

Graham Harman
American University in Cairo

In Laws of Media, Marshall & Eric McLuhan introduce their concept of the tetrad. Every medium can be described in terms of four polarities: enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval, and reversal. In his preface to the work, Eric McLuhan boldly describes the tetrad as “the single biggest intellectual discovery not only of our time, but of at least the last couple of centuries.” Recently, he stated that he “does not retract one iota” of that brazen claim. But not only has this assertion not been accepted – it has rarely even been mocked. The tetrad has largely been ignored, even by admirers of the McLuhans. This talk will proceed under the assumption that the tetrad is, in fact, the greatest intellectual discovery of at least the last couple of centuries. In a parallel universe in which the year 2008 is marked by a crushing McLuhanite orthodoxy in all spheres of the humanities, what are the gains beyond our own less appealing version of 2008? And what work still remains to be done?

Biography

Graham Harman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo, and currently Visiting Associate Professor of Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (2002), Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things (2005), Heidegger Explained: From Phenomenon to Thing (2007), and Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics (just completed). His current book project is a systematic work of metaphysics entitled Object-Oriented Philosophy.

ANTHEM » Open University

Graham Harman on McLuhan and Heidegger

The Greatness of McLuhan

Biography