Science is wrong that inanimate things don't have will.

[BidenPresident]

Stuff has agency. Inanimate matter is not inert. Everything is always doing something. “The quarantines of matter and life encourage us to ignore the vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations, such as the way omega-3 fatty acids can alter human moods or the way our trash is not ‘away’ in landfills but generating lively streams of chemicals and volatile winds as we speak,” she writes. Bennett describes herself as something of a minimalist—but her minimalism is driven by a sense of the agency of things. “I don’t want to have such a clamor around,” she told me.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-philosopher-who-believes-in-living-things

One of the greatest errors of classical science is the strict division between physical objects and thought about those objects.

 

[BidenPresident]

"When we claim that there is, on one side, a natural world and, on the other, a human world, we are simply proposing to say, after the fact, that an arbitrary portion of the actors will be stripped of all action and that another portion, equally arbitrary, will be endowed with souls,” Latour wrote, in “Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climate Regime.”

“A force of nature is obviously just the opposite of an inert actor,” Latour wrote.”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-philosopher-who-believes-in-living-things

 

[Commander Dutch]

Stuff has agency. Inanimate matter is not inert. Everything is always doing something. “The quarantines of matter and life encourage us to ignore the vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations, such as the way omega-3 fatty acids can alter human moods or the way our trash is not ‘away’ in landfills but generating lively streams of chemicals and volatile winds as we speak,” she writes. Bennett describes herself as something of a minimalist—but her minimalism is driven by a sense of the agency of things. “I don’t want to have such a clamor around,” she told me.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-philosopher-who-believes-in-living-things

One of the greatest errors of classical science is the strict division between physical objects and thought about those objects.

Alvin has mental issues.

"Bennett takes Alvin’s side. “The experience of being hailed by ‘inanimate’ matter—by objects beautiful or odd, by a refrain, by a piece of cake, or a buzz from your phone—is widespread,” she writes. “Everyone is in a complicated relationship with things.” In her view, we are often pushed around, one way or another, by the stuff we come into contact with on any given day. A piece of shiny plastic on the street pulls your eye toward it, turning your body in a different direction—which might make you trip over your own foot and then smash your head on the concrete, in a series of events that’s the very last thing you planned or intended. Who has “acted” in such a scenario? You have, of course. Human beings have agency. But, in her telling, the piece of plastic acted, too. It made something happen to you."

I do like the phrasing "Human beings have agency". Inanimate objects do not. Psychos only think they do.

 

[Cypress]

The article in the OP is just nuts.

"Bennett’s musings have an ethical component: if a nuisance tree, or a dead tree, or a dead rat is my kin, then everything is kin—even a piece of trash."

 

[Cypress]

Alvin has mental issues.

"Bennett takes Alvin’s side. “The experience of being hailed by ‘inanimate’ matter—by objects beautiful or odd, by a refrain, by a piece of cake, or a buzz from your phone—is widespread,” she writes. “Everyone is in a complicated relationship with things.” In her view, we are often pushed around, one way or another, by the stuff we come into contact with on any given day. A piece of shiny plastic on the street pulls your eye toward it, turning your body in a different direction—which might make you trip over your own foot and then smash your head on the concrete, in a series of events that’s the very last thing you planned or intended. Who has “acted” in such a scenario? You have, of course. Human beings have agency. But, in her telling, the piece of plastic acted, too. It made something happen to you."

I do like the phrasing "Human beings have agency". Inanimate objects do not. Psychos only think they do.

Pieces of plastic having agency, or dead rats and pieces of trash being our 'kin' is the kind of nonsense that makes philosopy look bad.

 

[Commander Dutch]

Pieces of plastic having agency, or dead rats and pieces of trash being our 'kin' is the kind of nonsense that makes philosopy look bad.

IMO, it's mental illness along the lines of "When people talk to God, it's called prayer. When God talks back, it's called schizophrenia."

 

[Cypress]

IMO, it's mental illness along the lines of "When people talk to God, it's called prayer. When God talks back, it's called schizophrenia."

Hard to believe this professor is drawing a salary at a public university.

At least Aristotle and Nietzsche were thinking of practical ways to live a meaningful human life.

Anyone talking about communing with pieces of plastic and dead rats needs to be evaluated by mental health professionals.

 

[Commander Dutch]

Hard to believe this professor is drawing a salary at a public university.

At least Aristotle and Nietzsche were thinking of practical ways to live a meaningful human life.

Anyone talking about communing with pieces of plastic and dead rats needs to be evaluated by mental health professionals.

Agreed on all points. It's the downside of tenure. I do strongly support making mental health checks as routine as annual physicals. It could be done through computer screening with human intervention only if there is an anomaly or change.