Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation, phenomena

Simon,
I don't believe that the way Barad speaks about phenomena and the way phenomenology intends phenomena are similar. In fact, Barad discusses this topic in detail in "Meeting the Universe Halfway", where she affirms that her use of the term phenomenon, which she admits belonging to a specific philosophical tradition, indicates neither the thing in itself nor the thing as it is perceived (as in phenomenology), but the "intra-action" (a term with which she replaces "interaction" so as not run the risk of talking about relations between two pre-existing elements, like subject/object)of an object and the measuring agencies, which both emerge from intra-action. Phenomena in Barad's sense are real physical entities (which makes her a realist, not a constructionist) that nonetheless are not given as separate in advance. Surely, they do not pertain to perception as the faculty of an autonomous subject.
What follows is necessarily a post-humanist philosophy, about continuous mediations, hybrids, simulations, enactments and performances, whereas the phenomenon in phenomenology still belongs to a humanist philosophy that looks for correspondences between subjects and objects, still relying on a narrative of divisions (such as interiority/exteriority).

Best,
Federica

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