The double look on complex dimension
Jean-Luc Marion comments on his ‘Parcours de la distance’: “Distance defines God. A God without distance, known and immediately accessible, would sink to the rank of idol of the city […] Distance, as I understand it, does not have the meaning of a distance and an absence, but designates the gap which alone allows the … Read more
Abstract: Given the difficulty in demonstrating the ontological reality of emergence, some authors propose to make a non-substantialist conception of it. But classical reductionist ontology is already failing to say whether there is a fundamental substance of things. It simply associates an information structure with each observable phenomenon, without justifying or contradicting the existence of … Read more
Lowe is famous author of an ontology with 4 categories: substantial universals (kinds), non-substantial universals (properties), individual substances (objects), instantiations of properties (modes). This classification is not satisfactory, leading to dualism and insoluble questions —why these 4 categories? Surimposium approaches ontology much more simply by placing it in the complex dimension. In summary: Properties are … Read more
Abstract: I assume here that you have read the UniPhiM, a philosophical method with universal claims, and that you have reservations about it. I use a classic rhetoric, the prolepsis, to smash your criticisms before you’ve even said them, bad guy! Which are covered? The method’s lack of celebrity, in the first place. I modestly … Read more
Abstract: The errors of top-down/teleological causality make one think that only the bottom-up/ontological has fundamental value. It is however the first which is entirely creative of our mental scenes, including by lending to reality per se its models, without having direct access to it. Bottom-up causality is fundamentally constitutive of our reality, which hovers over … Read more
Abstract: Starting from physical, mental and abstract objects, categories of classical metaphysics, I show that they all have in common to be form/substance fusions, which opens the way to a monistic reality. Not giving in to eliminative reductionism, however, requires reintegrating all these objects into a single dimension: complexity. I briefly explain what is Surimposium, … Read more
Is the ontology of the terms themselves correct? Philosophers defined the terms ‘ontology’ and ‘teleology’ before the rise of structuralism. That is, they named fundamental aspects of reality without a general theory about it. Is this reasonable? Can we keep the original meanings of these terms when a general theory requalifies them? Quine defined ontology … Read more
Abstract: The successes of human organization and its science have led us to a paradoxical powerlessness in the face of the climatic and geopolitical catastrophe that is looming. In this philosophical pamphlet, I explain the paradox by the absence of coordination between ontological science and teleological desires, the first homogeneous and the second heterogeneous. Powerlessness … Read more
This is the question posed by physicist Vlatko Vedral on his excellent blog ‘Musings on Quantum Mechanics‘. During the pre-publication of an article, he and his referee discuss the primary object of quantum physics. Is it the elementary quantum field, as Vlatko argues, or the click of the detector registering a particle, as the referee … Read more
