People are objects, too

On of the (many) issues when trying to think about object agency (as I’m trying to do at the moment – read more here, here and also here and here) is that it necessitates thinking about what consciousness and intentionality are and that leads down a rabbit hole of philosophical debates spanning decades, multiple traditions and an endless number of publications. I get dizzy spells and vertigo just thinking about it. Speaking of rabbits, this NY Times piece entitled ‘Dogs are People, Too’ popped up on my fb feed. Neuroscience determines that dogs have feelings of sorts, and the immediate move is to say ‘well, then they’re people too’. While I have no problems with this from a political or animal rights point of view, it reiterates a logic that is applicable to my current attempts at thinking about object agency: If we can endow a part of the world around us with qualities that seem inherent to humans, we can extend our human-centered ways of talking to them. Following this logic, giving objects agency is a trick to maintain a view of the world in which agency and its perceived effects is the fundamental unit of analysis. In other words, a trick to talk about materiality while maintaining a meaning-based mode of analysis. But it seems to me that a more appropriate response is to go the other way around, and begin questioning our perceived notions of humanness. People are dogs too. And rabbits and bacteria and bees and pencils and iron and objects. Here is p...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Tags: Do things act? material studies Source Type: blogs