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Obiectum: Closing Remarks
- Nicola Masciandaro (author)
Chapter of: Speculative Medievalisms: Discography(pp. 261–270)
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| Title | Obiectum |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Closing Remarks |
| Contributor | Nicola Masciandaro (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0021.1.23 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/speculative-medievalisms/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Copyright | Masciandaro, Nicola |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2013-01-17 |
| Long abstract | I see an elision or lacuna in these proceedings, possibly signif-icant: the lack of discussion, in a conference rather inspired to speculate objects in the mirror of medieval works, of the me-dieval origins of the concept and word object. Is this an over-sight, a structural failure of vision to bump into what it ought to see? Or is it a purer kind of non-event, the causeless not-happening of something? Sometimes I get the feeling that what does not h appen is inexplicably powerful, an abyssically negative spontaneity ruling and seducing all existent things from its universal invisible domain. The issue might provide an interesting playground for thinking the objecthood of the inexistent, of what is not there. This is a good limit-problem for any philosophy wanting to relate to reality as constituted by how things are. It is also a question that the medieval, as a zone where a saint recommends preaching to non-existent creatures, philosophers theorize divine alteration of the past, and mystics see nonbeing as an excess of being, is already an-swering.But I prefer not to go there, wishing that I could instead move (or realize that I am only ever moving) like the guild navigator in David Lynch’s Dune: “I did not say this. I am not here.” Instead I will close the event by trying to open it into some avenues of understanding along which the medieval origination of object might lead the way. To find the start of these avenues, imagine a generic medieval intellectual, that is, someone infused with ‘the love of learning and the desire for God,’ encountering contemporary object-orientedness. First the bad news: there is no absolute knowledge, no arriving at the omnipresent center. Then the good news: we really have figured out what everything is: objects. Bad news: objects in-commensurably withdraw, remain irreducible to relation, are never knowable in themselves, so no theosis, henosis, subject-object union, incarnation, soul-body suppositum, eternal in-dividuals, or anything like that. Good news: it is because of the above that anything is happening at all . . . and so forth. May-be the fellow would find relief, like a good bloodletting, in the demotion of his desire from the desire to be everything to a desire to be with things. Perhaps he would despair. Perhaps he would think he was in paradise, intoxicated with the idea that these objects are God. Or perhaps he would object, discover-ing new truth through his own understanding of the word object |
| Page range | pp. 261–270 |
| Print length | 10 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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