I have been working through Aristotle’s Metaphysics in preparation for teaching Book Lambda next week, and it strikes me that Object-Oriented Ontology seems like a neo-Aristotelianism — the major change being that there is no Unmoved Mover. It also strikes me that Aristotle’s philosophical system would run into significant impasses without the Unmoved Mover.
10 thoughts on “Object-Oriented Aristotelianism”
Comments are closed.
An und für sich 
Yup, both Morton and Harman are big Aristotle fans, actually I think that Harman claimed that the problem with contemporary philosophy was that no one was talking Aristotle (which I found a bit baffling considering the huge growth area of Aristotle style eudamonic ethics). He is giving a talk soon called ‘The Future is Aristotelian” or something.
I’m a big fan of Aristotle, but so were Peirce, Dewey, and Whitehead. Did that make Deleuze a fan? Deleuze scholars?
Aristotelianism is coming back or not depending on where you look.
Unrelated issue, has anyone thought of starting up a moving company that would be called Unmoved Movers and attract all the philosophically inclined folks? I’d totally use them. Much better than the College Hunks Hauling Junk.
I realize the Aristotle connection isn’t an original observation by any means. The part about the Unmoved Mover might be more to the point.
Sure, though I wonder if John Milbank makes this critique in his bit on OOO – obviously can’t be bothered to look.
John Milbank has a piece on OOO? That’s like the Platonic form of something I wouldn’t want to read.
Evgeni, i worked for a more “becoming”-oriented company, called _Moving Forces_. I always liked the ambiguity of that name, are the forces doing the moving, or are the movers doing something to the forces?
Like it! I gather the better the name the more likely I would be to hire such movers because ultimately it’s just moving and anyone can do it, but a good name – that’s where the talent is.
“Sorry honey, I didn’t want to pay £100 for them to move house, but they had me at the philosophy pun”
If you’re looking for an excellent commentary on the Metaphysics, try Joseph Owens’ “The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics.” It really helps to guard against misreadings of the Metaphysics (which is easily done) and show the unity of Aristotle’s metaphysical/theological project.