Michael Austin
Memorial University of Newfoundland
We will begin by outlining briefly the basics of Harman’s object-oriented philosophy, why it necessitates a return to the problem of causality—including Harman’s history of the problem of causality in Modern philosophy—before we ap-proach vicarious causality as his solution. This will be followed by an overview of possible models of causality (occasional-ism, empiric(occasional-ism, correlation(occasional-ism, naturalism/material(occasional-ism, relationism and vitalism) with both their causal mechanisms (the “how”) and their causal reasons (the “why”) examined. It will be shown that besides the mechanical “how” of causality provided by Harman, object-oriented philosophy requires a reason for causality. The essay will conclude by seriously considering the question of why things happen at all.
Objects and Cause
Prior to Kant causality was a serious issue. The concept of change is certainly one of the breakthroughs of Aristotle, and his four causes (formal, material, efficient and final) will guide us through the historical terrain necessary to understand the larger issues of cause and change into the contemporary era. The fact that causality was at one point an issue at all should tell us something already about the contemporary philosophical climate. The question of how two substances can interact, let alone when they are different in kind, was a real issue for most of the history of philosophy and has only recently become a “non-issue” that is discussed as a purely historical problem. The seriousness of the problem of interaction among substances reached what could perhaps be seen as its apex in the work of the Islamic occasionalists.
They maintained that God is the necessary mediator between things since finite entities have no causal power but serve as the occasions for Divine activity. God is thereby the first and only cause in the cosmos. This tradition of causal mediation is then carried on in the modern rationalists. Descartes has no qualms about allowing direct causation in the realm of res extensa but has difficulty explaining how mind and matter can ever interact, ultimately relying on the power of God to
T
he title of this essay comes from a quote in Bergson’s Cre-ative Evolution with the full quote being: “…for a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Should the same be said of existence in general?”1 This could be taken as something of a micro-manifesto for contemporary (neo-) vitalist metaphysics and we will return to this idea of change as continual (re)creation, but this isn’t an essay on Bergson. It is, rather, an essay on contemporary metaphysics and the issues (or non-issues in some cases) of causality and change. Graham Harman has done much to revive causality as a real metaphysical problem through his own model of localized occasionalism known as vicari-ous causation. Something remains fundamentally lacking in Harman’s form of causality though, namely why change occurs at all. In this essay I will explicate Harman’s vicarious causa-tion before moving on to several potential responses to the question of why change happens. Essentially, Harman is so focused on the “how” of change in the face of correlationists, empiricists, naturalists and relationists that he has entirely ignored the more fundamental question of why anything happens at all. This essay will also serve then as a survey of contemporary causality.To Exist Is to Change
A Friendly Disagreement With Graham Harman On Why Things Happen
Michael Austin
Memorial University of Newfoundland
We will begin by outlining briefly the basics of Harman’s object-oriented philosophy, why it necessitates a return to the problem of causality—including Harman’s history of the problem of causality in Modern philosophy—before we ap-proach vicarious causality as his solution. This will be followed by an overview of possible models of causality (occasional-ism, empiric(occasional-ism, correlation(occasional-ism, naturalism/material(occasional-ism, relationism and vitalism) with both their causal mechanisms (the “how”) and their causal reasons (the “why”) examined. It will be shown that besides the mechanical “how” of causality provided by Harman, object-oriented philosophy requires a reason for causality. The essay will conclude by seriously considering the question of why things happen at all.
Objects and Cause
Prior to Kant causality was a serious issue. The concept of change is certainly one of the breakthroughs of Aristotle, and his four causes (formal, material, efficient and final) will guide us through the historical terrain necessary to understand the larger issues of cause and change into the contemporary era. The fact that causality was at one point an issue at all should tell us something already about the contemporary philosophical climate. The question of how two substances can interact, let alone when they are different in kind, was a real issue for most of the history of philosophy and has only recently become a “non-issue” that is discussed as a purely historical problem. The seriousness of the problem of interaction among substances reached what could perhaps be seen as its apex in the work of the Islamic occasionalists.
They maintained that God is the necessary mediator between things since finite entities have no causal power but serve as the occasions for Divine activity. God is thereby the first and only cause in the cosmos. This tradition of causal mediation is then carried on in the modern rationalists. Descartes has no qualms about allowing direct causation in the realm of res extensa but has difficulty explaining how mind and matter can ever interact, ultimately relying on the power of God to
connect unlike substances. Forms of causal mediation are prevalent in Spinoza (with modes unable to interact except through the power of the one substance itself) and Leibniz (with a form of monadal auto-affection whereby the interior play of one monad affects all others as a form of “spooky action at a distance” à la quantum entanglement2). Modern occasionalism is perhaps best known though through the thought of Malebranche who claimed, as the theologians of Basra did before him, that God is responsible for all change in the universe. Unlike Descartes who limits this principle to the interaction of mind and matter, Malebranche maintained that God’s mediation was necessary for any and all interaction.
In opposition to this “occasionalist” tradition3 we have what we could call, for lack of a better term, the empiricist tradition. This group, which includes Locke and Hume but will also count Kant as a member, argues essentially the inverse of the position held by the occasionalists; while the occasionalists hold God to be the necessary mediator in all causality, the empiricists hold this position to be naïve and groundless. Instead, they hold that it is only the human mind (or habit in the case of Hume) that acts as the neces-sary mediator for causality. It is the human being that takes the place of the occasionalist God. This is no real solution to the problem of how two substances come to interact though.
While it is acceptable to openly laugh at the occasionalist for relying on theology to ground the world, it is somehow also perfectly acceptable to side with the empiricists and claim that placing causality within the mind solves the problem.
Just because Hume or Kant claim causality is a function of the mind (whether necessary or not) the question of how change is possible or ultimately how anything happens at all is not answered, but passed over.
Harman’s proposed solution to the problem of causality begins by asking why only one entity (or type of entity) is able to mediate between two substances. In either of the above-mentioned cases, which encompass the majority of thinkers who maintain causality as some sort of problem,4 one being, be it God or the human, is able to allow for causality at all.
Instead, says Harman, we should look for a model that works whether or not the human being is involved and one which allows us to explain the mechanics of causality in the first place rather than shrouding it in mystery. But before we go in to the details of vicarious causation, we should understand why it is necessary to have a model of indirect causality at all.
Indirect Causation
Objects do not touch directly, at least, not real objects. Based on Heidegger’s tool-analysis, Harman maintains that objects withdraw from one another and interact only with caricatures of each other or what are called sensual objects, which are essentially equivalent to Husserl’s intentional objects. In Sec-tion 15 of Being and Time, Heidegger will distinguish between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, and, for a short time, talks about things. According to Harman, it is in this revealing text that we learn the truth of the interaction between objects.
Heidegger will say that
[The] less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is—as equipment…If we look at Things just ‘theoretically,’ we can get along without understanding readiness-to-hand. But when we deal with them by using them and manipulating them, this activity is not a blind one; it has its own kind of sight, by which our manipulation is guided and from which it acquires its specific Thingly character.5
There is a difference between the in-use, and the object-as-observed. When I am using the hammer, I am in some sense blind to it. Heidegger continues:
The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as a circumspective theme. The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw [zuruckzuziehen] in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically. That with which our
connect unlike substances. Forms of causal mediation are prevalent in Spinoza (with modes unable to interact except through the power of the one substance itself) and Leibniz (with a form of monadal auto-affection whereby the interior play of one monad affects all others as a form of “spooky action at a distance” à la quantum entanglement2). Modern occasionalism is perhaps best known though through the thought of Malebranche who claimed, as the theologians of Basra did before him, that God is responsible for all change in the universe. Unlike Descartes who limits this principle to the interaction of mind and matter, Malebranche maintained that God’s mediation was necessary for any and all interaction.
In opposition to this “occasionalist” tradition3 we have what we could call, for lack of a better term, the empiricist tradition. This group, which includes Locke and Hume but will also count Kant as a member, argues essentially the inverse of the position held by the occasionalists; while the occasionalists hold God to be the necessary mediator in all causality, the empiricists hold this position to be naïve and groundless. Instead, they hold that it is only the human mind (or habit in the case of Hume) that acts as the neces-sary mediator for causality. It is the human being that takes the place of the occasionalist God. This is no real solution to the problem of how two substances come to interact though.
While it is acceptable to openly laugh at the occasionalist for relying on theology to ground the world, it is somehow also perfectly acceptable to side with the empiricists and claim that placing causality within the mind solves the problem.
Just because Hume or Kant claim causality is a function of the mind (whether necessary or not) the question of how change is possible or ultimately how anything happens at all is not answered, but passed over.
Harman’s proposed solution to the problem of causality begins by asking why only one entity (or type of entity) is able to mediate between two substances. In either of the above-mentioned cases, which encompass the majority of thinkers who maintain causality as some sort of problem,4 one being, be it God or the human, is able to allow for causality at all.
Instead, says Harman, we should look for a model that works whether or not the human being is involved and one which allows us to explain the mechanics of causality in the first place rather than shrouding it in mystery. But before we go in to the details of vicarious causation, we should understand why it is necessary to have a model of indirect causality at all.
Indirect Causation
Objects do not touch directly, at least, not real objects. Based on Heidegger’s tool-analysis, Harman maintains that objects withdraw from one another and interact only with caricatures of each other or what are called sensual objects, which are essentially equivalent to Husserl’s intentional objects. In Sec-tion 15 of Being and Time, Heidegger will distinguish between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, and, for a short time, talks about things. According to Harman, it is in this revealing text that we learn the truth of the interaction between objects.
Heidegger will say that
[The] less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is—as equipment…If we look at Things just ‘theoretically,’ we can get along without understanding readiness-to-hand. But when we deal with them by using them and manipulating them, this activity is not a blind one; it has its own kind of sight, by which our manipulation is guided and from which it acquires its specific Thingly character.5
There is a difference between the in-use, and the object-as-observed. When I am using the hammer, I am in some sense blind to it. Heidegger continues:
The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as a circumspective theme. The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw [zuruckzuziehen] in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically. That with which our
everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves [die Werkzeugeselbst]. On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work—that which is to be produced at the time; and this is accordingly ready-to-hand too. The work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered.6
In order for the thing to be used, to really be used and useful, it must go unseen. In short, I must caricature the thing, reduc-ing it entirely to its use value which is only one of the threduc-ing’s many qualities. In the case of the hammer, it is only used and useful when it is not an object of idle speculation but when it shows itself in its use. This works both ways; to think an object theoretically, it cannot be in use, but also when an object is no longer useful (when it ceases functioning properly), only then can it truly be thought theoretically. Harman’s reading of the tool-analysis can be summed up rather easily:
Heidegger observes that the primary reality of entities is not their sheer existence as pieces of wood or metal or atoms. The wood in a primitive sword and that in a modern windmill occupy utterly differ-ent niches of reality, unleash completely differdiffer-ent forces into the world.
A bridge is not a mere conglomerate of bolts and trestles, but a total geographic force-to-reckon-with: a unitary bridge-effect. But even this unified bridge-machine is far from an absolute, obvious unit. It too has a vastly different reality depending on whether I cross it on the way to a romantic liaison, or as a prisoner underway to execution...Instead of being a solid object that enters into relation only by accident, an entity in its reality is determined by the shifting, capricious storm of references and assignments in which it is enveloped. The shift of the tiniest grain of dust on Mars alters the reality of the system of objects.7
An object is not exhausted by a theoretical understanding of the thing, as if milk could be exhausted through an under-standing of its chemical composition. Neither is it entirely exhausted however through drinking it, that is to say, an object is caricatured equally in use as it is in theory with only a selection of qualities being tapped.8 Drinking milk, understanding it chemically, physically, culturally, historically, none of these exhausts its milk-being; and it is not simply
a matter of putting these modes of understanding together as if that would give us the entirety of milkness. We relate to milk differently than we do kittens, bacteria, farm equipment, refrigerated trucks or warm glasses and all of these things equally fail to exhaust it. Any object contains multitudes, an infinity of possible relations and qualities, none of which can ever give us the entirety of the thing. These objects are not solid unchanging entities, but are rather constantly shifting and moving entities as they break connections and form new ones, spreading their tendrils out into the network of objects that make up reality. When equipment is in use, it is hidden, it is a thing concealed from our view, and exists purely as something which is silently relied upon. There are countless objects at work in allowing me to write this essay you are reading, from my home, to the laptop I am using, to the various parts of my body which I am counting on oper-ating properly. When in use, objects go unseen, remaining underground as part of an intimate network of other objects that I am blissfully unaware of. I cannot fully have an idea of what a heart does until it no longer does what it is meant to, namely, when it stops beating in my chest.9 More than that however, all objects remain in some way hidden in their rela-tions, and not simply those involving human beings. I am not alone in the withdrawn relation I have to my heart, as neither blood cells, stethoscopes, nor parasitic worms enjoy the full essence of my heart. The essence of the thing always remains untouched, with only its various qualities ever being engaged.
The problem is made apparent: things withdraw from each other, never coming into full contact at the level of essence and yet we cannot conclude that change is illusory. Things are not simply a cosmic lump of inert matter, the universe is made up of things which change, move and interact. How are
The problem is made apparent: things withdraw from each other, never coming into full contact at the level of essence and yet we cannot conclude that change is illusory. Things are not simply a cosmic lump of inert matter, the universe is made up of things which change, move and interact. How are