Tag: ontology
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Ontological junctures
In the last few days, I’ve been gripped by a feature of Doom for Nintendo Switch. There are classic levels hidden throughout the game, waiting to be discovered in unlikely locations in each of the maps. What I can’t get over is how they exist as junctures between two game worlds, inviting the player to step into […]
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an interview with Christian Smith about the need for sociology to do ontology
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The Ontology of Corporate Grievance
There’s an interesting section of In The Plex which details quite how much Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer hated Google. From pg 282-283: Just how intensely Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, despised his competitor to the south became clear in depositions that would be filed in the Lee lawsuit. The year before, in November 2004, a top Microsoft […]
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what terms would you like to see included in a glossary of social ontology?
Along with Adam Wood from MMU, I’m planning a glossary of social ontology. What terms would it be useful to see included within it? The idea would be to collect and introduce different uses of terminology, rather than to pronounce on their singular correct use. These are the obvious ideas I’ve had so far: Structure […]
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social engineers have never had so many options at their disposal
From To Save Everything, Click Here by Evgeny Morozov. For a talk about dystopias I’m doing next month, I’m trying to consider the implications of this technology at the level of social ontology. What does it mean to see sinister possibilities inherent in ‘innovations’ like this? Is there anything we can say in the abstract […]
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Technology and Human Nature
In their Webcam, Daniel Miller and Jolynna Sinanan offer what they describe as a theory of attainment. While I’m not sure they’d accept my terminology, I read this as an attempt to theorise the causal powers of technology in relation to the causal powers of human beings. They start by recognising that “people have relationships with people and they have […]
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Groups: Challenges for Contemporary Political Philosophy
Groups: Challenges for Contemporary Political Philosophy University of Rennes 1, November 19-21, 2014 Call for Papers Groups matter in political philosophy, most would now agree – but precisely how they matter is contentious. Group-related issues emerge in various contexts of debate: the redressing of past or current injustices suffered by ethnic or cultural minorities; the nature and scope […]
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The ontology of books
I read a book a decade ago and struggle with it. I read it again now and find it astonishingly thought-provoking. How do you explain this? It seems I bring something different to the book on the second reading: concepts, experiences and knowledge which I lacked at the time of the first reading. But what […]
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An eerily poetic defence of ontology
The ostensibly revolutionary transition from consciousness to language still leaves humans in absolute command as the primary subject matter of philosophy. All that happens is that the lucid, squeaky-clean ego of phenomenology is replaced by a more troubled figure- a drifter determined by his context, unable to fully transcend the structures of his environment. In […]