Parallax

The Dialectics of Mind and World

Dominik Finkelde, Slavoj Žižek, Christoph Menke, Dominik Finkelde, Slavoj Žižek, Christoph Menke

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781350253377
• eBook ISBN: 9781350172050
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Teoria critica

Parallax, or the change in the position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and more precisely, the assumption that this adjustment is not only due to a change of focus, but a change in that object's ontological status has been a key philosophical concept throughout history. Building upon Slavoj Žižek's The Parallax View, this volume shows how parallax is used as a figure of thought that proves how the incompatibility between the physical and the theoretical touches not only upon the ontological, but also politics and aesthetics. With articles written by internationally renowned philosophers such as Frank Ruda, Graham Harman, Paul Livingston and Zizek himself, this book shows how modes of parallax remain in numerous modern theoretical disciplines, such as the Marxian parallax in the critique of political economy and politics; and the Hegelian parallax in the concept of the work of art, while also being important to debates surrounding speculative realism and dialectical materialism. Spanning philosophy, parallax is then a rich and fruitful concept that can illuminate the studies of those working in epistemology, ontology, German Idealism, political philosophy and critical theory.

Part One

Parallax in Ontology

1

Parallactic Entanglement

On the Subject-Object-Relation in New Materialism and Adorno’s Critical Ontology

Dirk Quadflieg

The optical phenomenon of a parallax usually designates a mismatch of perspectives caused by different points of view. Due to a change of perspectives, the background of a perceived object is changing and thus the object, too, seems to alter its position in space. But the cause for this alteration is, in fact, the different viewpoints of the observer. Taken as a metaphor, a parallax could stand for a twist in the relation of subject and object, such that a transformation, which seems to happen on the side of the object, actually results from a movement of the subject. Since there is no third standpoint which allows for overviewing the whole situation, the term “parallax” rather hints at a blind spot or a gap within the relation of a subject and an object than something that could be positively described or explained. Speaking of a parallactic entanglement of a subject and an object therefore means not only that the relation of object and subject is twisted but also that it is extremely difficult for the subject to locate the reason for these shifting perspectives because they lie within its own movement. For this reason, Slavoj Žižek introduces the term “parallax” to designate most generally “the gap which separates the One from itself.”¹

Nevertheless, the question can be raised, why in recent philosophical debates, the relation of subject and object has become problematic and ambiguous in the first place, such that the metaphor of the parallax appears as a promising way to grasp their incomprehensible relation. Or to put it slightly differently: “What is the problem, a parallax is supposed to give an answer to?” One author who immediately comes to mind, because he so vigorously criticized the modern distinction of subject and object, is, of course, Bruno Latour. His 1991 essay “We Have Never Been Modern” starts with the assumption that modernity is constituted by an asymmetrical division between culture and nature, human beings und nonhuman beings, which has been put into question by many postmodern accounts. Yet, for Latour these dichotomies have never existed as such. According to him, they are the result of a process of separation and purification, intervening in a preexisting network of hybrids and mixed beings.² Without the existence of hybrids and the ongoing processes of mixing between the two spheres, there would have been no need for purification. Hence, as Latour argues, although hybridization is usually associated with the era of postmodernity, it is not a completely new phenomenon; it only brings (back) to light what was, in fact, always already happening underneath and prior to the modern separation of humans and nonhumans, subjects and objects. From such a perspective, it is possible to say not only that the clear historic difference between the premodern age and modernity breaks down—and thus that we have never been really modern—but also that the subject-object-distinction is no longer plausible and actually has never been real. As a result, Latour suggests to trace back our knowledge to the interaction of human and nonhuman “actors,” acting together in a network of collectives and through controversial relations, which could become the new empirical subject of a new form of sociological research.³

It is not my aim here to contest Latour’s rather bold hypotheses about modernity; I just want to mention his “actor-network-theory” for reasons of contrast. Compared to the parallactic entanglement of subject and object, which Slavoj Žižek depicts in his book The Parallactic View, Latour’s critique of the modern subject-object-division nevertheless follows quite a modern narrative of enlightenment: since we are trapped in our own ontological categories, which appear to be universal and ahistorical, we have to radically change our perspective and analyze the historical and material preconditions of our knowledge. For Latour, this kind of analysis can be achieved by an examination of actors and networks, which are accessible through empirical insight. Such an inquiry not only will lead to a better understanding of ourselves and increase our scientific knowledge but could finally ground a more inclusive form of democracy, which would be able to take into account nonhuman beings within a “parliament of things.”⁴

By contrast, a parallactic relation of subject and object has a very different impact on the knowing subject. Since a parallax designates a gap or a blind spot, the relation of subject and object cannot be fully grasped and transformed into positive knowledge about ourselves, the essence of things, or new forms of political action. Quite on the contrary, one could say that a parallax is exactly that what makes a stable and lasting form of knowledge impossible, for every “insight” into the blind spot elucidates the general uncertainty of the subject’s capacities of knowing. Though it is still an open question whether the notion of parallax points at an ontological or a historic status, it “enlightens” the subject-object-relation only negatively, namely insofar as it puts into question the subject of knowing—in every sense. Still, the question remains, why we should think of the subject-object-relation in such purely negative terms?

Apart from Latour’s actor-network-theory we are currently witnessing a broad, new interest in materiality, objects and artifacts, both in philosophy and the social sciences, which is often referred to as “material turn.” In the first part of my chapter I want to take a closer look at two recent philosophical debates, in order to elaborate on a basic problem many of these approaches are facing. Against the dominance of linguistic models in philosophy and the social sciences, both “New Realism” and “New Materialism” want to go back to some kind of reality or the outer world of objects to avoid extreme forms of social constructivism and relativism. Yet, as I want to show, in doing so they paradoxically run the risk of losing contact to the side of the object. Thus, in the second part I would like to introduce a slightly older version of the contemporary concern for materiality from the field of material culture studies. Already in the early 1980s, theorists like Daniel Miller had the idea that certain forms of consumer practices had to be described as both a process of objectification and that of self-realization. To elaborate this idea a bit further, the third part of my chapter will go back to Adorno’s critical ontology, which he developed in his 1966 Negative Dialectics. His claim of a “preponderance of the object” (Vorrang des Objekts) still offers a fruitful figure of thought which can not only help to prevent some of the difficulties the current debate on new materialism is struggling with but moreover give a convincing explanation of why the negative model of parallax reveals a promising way to rethink the traditional subject-object-relation.

1. The Disappearance of the Object in New Realism and New Materialism

Within contemporary philosophy and the social sciences, at least two quite different discussions about the role of materiality, the world of outer objects, and reality can be differentiated: one of the most recent, but maybe lesser-known philosophical positions is labeled “New Realism.” Maurizio Ferraris and Markus Gabriel are two representatives of this mainly epistemological approach. Though for slightly different reasons, both want to reject a philosophical skepticism, which holds that the world is a mere construct of our concepts. Against such a constructivism, associated mainly with the Kantian tradition and poststructuralism, they argue for the necessity of a grounding of our cognitive capacity in some kind of reality, providing a certainty beyond doubt.⁵ Reality or realism here stands for a source of such an undeniable certainty, which in turn is a prerequisite of any possible knowledge, even a skeptic one. Though the reality, this new realism is seeking for, is often tied to a concept of the world, it does not necessarily refer to an outer world of objects and artifacts but could also mean the reality of thoughts or the reality of conditions which have to be fulfilled by judgments to be true.⁶ Such a more epistemological version of new realism, represented among others by Markus Gabriel, has no intention to question the relation of subject and object or change their hierarchical order. Quite on the contrary, this approach wants to secure a concept of reason, located in the intellectual capacities of the mind, and thus holds on to the traditional primacy of the subject.

Likewise, more object-oriented forms of New Realism, like the one Mauricio Ferraris argues for, are only interested in the resistance and unchangeability of the outer world of objects insofar as they restrict our concepts and make sure “the world is not a dream.”⁷ As a result, Ferraris’ “positive realism” comes quite close to a naïve positivism by taking the self-identity of subject and object as well as their clear distinction for granted. Although both versions of New Realism refer to a reality as the necessary condition of subjective knowledge, they do not have the intention of conceding objects a new position in philosophical reflection beyond that of a passive and unchangeable ground. They neither want to give up the subject-object-distinction, like Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory, nor do they put into question the position of the knowing subject, as indicated by the notion of parallax. New Realism could therefore be characterized as a subject-centered epistemology that is interested in reality only insofar as it helps to secure the position of the knowing subject against the threat of relativism.

By contrast, a second set of recent approaches from the social sciences, known under the umbrella term “New Materialism,” seems more promising when it comes to the significance of external objects and artifacts. In contrast to the diverse positions of a new philosophical realism, New Materialism is genuinely interested in the multiple ways matter interferes in processes of signification and the genesis of social and cultural meaning. Though highly influenced by poststructuralist theories of language, many of its exponents, as for example Karen Barad, criticize the predominance of language in political and social theory.⁸ Their critique, however, notably differs from that of New Realism. Whereas Markus Gabriel accuses theories of discourse (in the tradition of Foucault and others) of erasing consciousness and human beings from philosophy, Barad is in general sympathetic with the critical analysis of discursive practices like the one Judith Butler outlined in “Bodies that matter.”

In her book Meeting the Universe Halfway, Barad stresses that Butler already provides a concept of materialization to explain how things, bodies, and persons become real through discursive practices. Yet, from Barad’s point of view, Butler’s concept of materialization is still too closely tied to practices of meaning and signification and is thus unable to give a more detailed account of how matter and things themselves take part in the formation of social and political power-knowledge relations.⁹ In order to do so, she—like many other exponents of New Materialism—refers to Bruno Latour’s actor-network-theory and holds that knowledge is produced through an association or “intra-action,” as she calls it, of matter and discourse, human and nonhuman agents. Taking up an example mentioned very briefly by Butler, Barad focuses on the role of sonography, more precisely the piezoelectric crystal or transducer at the heart of the ultra-sound technology, to demonstrate how matter is essentially involved in the emergence of a gendered fetus.¹⁰ However, by stressing the physical-technical functioning of the ultrasound machine as a constitutive part for the discursive perception of the fetus as an object, Barad does not really exceed Butler’s approach; she just gives a more detailed and complex description of the discursive materialization of a body. Butler’s main assumption, that the gendered body is nothing naturally given but becomes real through numerous reiterated discursive practices, is neither contested nor enhanced by the functioning of the piezoelectric crystal or the apparatus it forms together with other parts of the ultrasound machine, doctors, and medical routines during pregnancy.¹¹

A more convincing way of challenging theories of discourse would certainly be to claim that the role of matter in or for discursive practices differs essentially from that of other “agents” like human beings or concepts. But with Latour’s actor-network-theory in the background, this is exactly what Barad and other authors of New Materialism do not want. Therefore, the more general problem of these approaches could be formulated as a paradox: On the one hand, New Materialism wants to give a new account of matter playing a constitutive role within the formation of social and cultural phenomena. On the other hand, however, they follow Latour’s often problematized strategy of undermining the traditional subject-object-division and instead want to speak of interwoven agents—with the result that they tend to lose the reference for the word “matter” again. Or, to put it more succinctly: it seems as if New Materialism wants to stress the importance of material objects and at the same time has to deny their distinct existence.

2. Objectification as Self-realization. Material Culture Studies’ Original Insight

Starting in the early 1980s, the material culture approach had a slightly different point of departure than the two more-recent theoretical movements mentioned before. At that time, it was not the predominance of linguistic models in the field of humanities that the emerging material culture studies wanted to overcome by turning to material practices but mainly the reductive tendency in Marxist and especially vulgar Marxist notions of commodity fetishism and alienation. The problem that Daniel Miller, Arjun Appadurai, and Igor Kopytoff—just to mention a few names—were facing was that from a Marxist point of view, almost any object of everyday life in Western consumer societies appeared as a mere commodity and thus as an expression of alienation.¹² But criticizing the growing mass of goods just for being objects of trade turned out to be too general and unable to give a more detailed picture of the numerous different forms of our everyday use of objects. From the perspective of early cultural studies, there was a need for more differentiated descriptions of these practices instead of accusing them all equally for being alienated.

Daniel Miller, whose 1987 book Material Culture and Mass Consumption...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• Preface: Hegel and the Ethical Parallax
• Introduction
• Part 1: Parallax in Ontology
• Part 2: Parallax in Normative Orders
• Part 3: Parallax in Aesthetics
• Notes on the Contributors
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Imprint