453.  Action, resonance, and existence



With this piece I want to connect the following streams of thought: philosophical pragmatism (mostly John Dewey), the notions of assimilation and accommodation (Jean Piaget), Symbolic Interactionism (George Herbert Mead, GHM), resonance (Hartmut Rosa), existentialism (Kierkegaard and Heidegger), and Object Oriented Ontology (OOO, Tristan Garcia).



Let me start with perhaps the most fundamental point: in OOO, Garcia characterized objects as having things going in and things coming out, and the object being ‘its difference’. The things going in come from other objects and build potential (Manuel Landa), ability to create phenomena, have effects on other objects. Thus, objects interact.



 Interaction between people connects with the symbolic interactionism of GHM, the ‘resonance’ of Hartmut Rosa, and my discussion of the relation between self and other, and the contrast between Nietzsche and Levinas ( item 63 in this blog, see also 58 and 60), in the need to resist the ‘will to power’. with the need for openness, opposition of the other to gain the highest form of freedom, in criticism of one’s preconceptions. Interaction entails having effects on others and undergoing effects from them. Lack of those entails ‘alienation’, says Rosa. Things then are felt to be ‘mute’ and ‘flat’, in being 'reified', with a lack of resonance. 



As the philosopher Kant already said, and in contrast with orthodox economics, morality, such as empathy and consideration for others, is a value apart from self-interest or pleasure,  has intrinsic value and cannot be subsumed in ‘utility’.



According to Kierkegaard ‘the self’ is not a thing but an individual  process of ‘being in the

world’ (Heidegger took this over from Kierkegaard, it seems), taking actions and

responsibility for them, in a leap into the uncertain future, which requires trust, which requires

belief in God.

The subject is not given and present in opposition to the world, but develops in action in it. This connects with pragmatism, which also takes action as generative of ideas, and also the hallmark of truth. In this action one allows the world, including other people,  ‘to shout “no”’ (Gaston Bachelard) , correcting or falsifying one’s ideas.  That is how one learns.

This connects with Jean Piaget’s notions of ‘assimilation’, where one tries to fit in experience,

perception, into existing forms of thought, which, if it does not fit, can yield

‘accommodation’, transformation, of those forms of thought (see items 18, 31 and 35 of this

blog). That is connected with the fact that resonance can be oppositional, critical, even

inimical, in correcting errors and breaking prejudice. As Hegel claimed, one gets to know

things in their failure. Resonance is having effect and undergoing it, in mutual effect of

subject and object.