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HARMAN_CRAFT


                                                December 6, 2018

Let's sample some of Graham Harman's highly deep and engaging
remarks from his "Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy" (2012):

   "In a sense, the interaction between style             https://books.google.com/books?id=VY3eWjog6ZYChttps://books.google.com/books?id=VY3eWjog6ZYC
   and content is the central theme of this
   book.  The title _Weird Realism_ suggests        And this phrasing suggests
   that our plan is to work through Lovecraft       that Harman pulled the title
   towards a deeper conception of realism           out of a hat and then tried
   than is usual."                                  to decide what it means.


   "Most philosophical realism is
   'representational' in character.  Such     The fact that our accounts of the
   theories hold not only that there is a     external world agree in most
   real world outside all human contact       respects, and that we can seem
   with it, but also that this reality        to learn things about it and use
   can be mirrored adequately by the          our knowledge to manipulate it,
   findings of the natural sciences or        all of that is completely
   some other method of knowledge."           irrelevant.  And yet, despite the
                                              radical solipsism that would seem
                                              to imply, we're supposed to care
                                              about Graham Harman's remarks on
                                              these subjects.

                                                   And yeah: he wants to fight
                                                   the science wars some more.
                                                   In the age of global warming.

                                                          A bit out of touch
                                                          with the tenor of
                                                          the times, not that
   "The remarks in this book against                      that's grounds for
   paraphrase and the stupidity of all                    dismissal in itself...
   content strongly suggest that this
   is impossible."
                                           Maybe I should put a spoliers
                                           warning on this, but Harman's
                                           remarks against paraphrase are
                                           essentially a dismissal of the
                                           possibility of writing fair
                                           summaries, and he proves this
     Daniel Green discusses this           by using an example of a single
     at some length, arguing that          critic who summarized Lovecraft.
     the critic (Edmund Wilson)
     did a reasonably accurate
     summary of Lovecraft, it was   https://www.thereadingexperience.net/tre/an-elaborate-myth-graham-harman-on-lovecraft.html
     unsympathetic, not wrong.

                                               This is characteristic
                                               Harman Logic-- use one
                                               failure to claim no degree
                                               of success is possible.

                                               (But if you were to use one
                                               of Harman's failures to
                                               dismiss Harman, he'd argue
                                               that that's no fair.)


                                                    The argument against
                                                    summary is reminiscent
                                                    of something I've seen
                                                    from a Freud apologist
   "No reality can be immediately                   recently...
   translated into representations
   of any sort."                                            THE_ANTI_FREUD_CREW

                                       "Immediately"?  WTF?

   "Reality itself is weird because         How about
   reality itself is incommensurable        "approximately"?
   with any attempt to represent or
   measure it."
                                          Or maybe Harman is weird
                                          because he thinks so.

                                          It does seem that Harman is
                                          asserting there's no way to write
                                          about anything and using that to
                                          prove there's no way to write about
                                          anything (and why this doesn't
                                          apply to Harman writing about
                                          writing about things is left as an
   "Lovecraft is aware of this            exercise).
   difficulty to an exemplary
   degree, ..."

                                    You know, all those crazed narrators
                                    driven insane by their encounters
                                    with the indiscombobulatable from the
                                    beyondoidal?  That's what Harman's
   "... and through his             talking about here.
   assistance we may be able
   to learn about how to say          Lovecraft liked to write speculatively
   something without saying           about things underlying the fabric of
   it--"                              reality that are beyond human
                                      understanding or perception.  One
     Well, there's certainly          criticism of all this might be "why
     lots of stuff Lovecraft          speculate?". There's the example of
     left unsaid.  He said            quantum mechanics for anyone interested
     quite a bit about the            in learning about it: it makes no damn
     unsayable, really...             sense to us, and yet it's indisputably
     kind of like                     true.  But then, unlike the elder gods,
     Wittgenstein.                    we can successfully learn to dance around
                                      it's apparent irrationality if we try.
   ".. or in philosophical
   terms, how to love wisdom              It doesn't seem to turn us into
   without having it.                     into gibbering madmen devolving into
                                          subhuman entities with a terrible
     Harman likes to                      fear of seafood and foreigners...
     think he's in the
     Socratic tradition.                     But I wouldn't want to be
                                             dogmatic on that point, it
     Socrates liked to demonstrate           might explain some things.
     that we don't know jack and
     Harman wants to argue we                   (Like the fact that
     can't know jack.                           Harman can get published.)

   "When it comes to grasping
   reality, illusion and innuendo                       LOVECRAFT
   are the best we can do."

     Yup.  Just like the IPCC reports.
     A bunch of illusion and innuendo.
     Can't imagine why anyone takes it
     seriously.




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