Other Matters

Karen Barad’s Two Materialisms and the Science of Undecidability

Bibliographic Data

ID3774444
AuthorsJonathan Basile (0000-0002-9672-4358)
Year2020
Volume25
Issue5
Pages3-18
Publication date2020-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAngelaki (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0969725x.2020.1807132
OpenAlexW3086300354
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited24

Karen Barad's Meeting the Universe Halfway relies on mutually incompatible grounding gestures, one of which describes the relationality of an always already material-discursive reality, while the other seeks to ground this relation one-sidedly in matter. These two materialisms derive from the gesture she borrows from the New Materialist (and other related) fields, which posits her work as an advance over the history of "representationalism" and "social constructivism." In turn, this one-sided materialism produces a skewed reading of the quantum mechanical phenomena with which she engages. Her attempt to create an ontological (not epistemological) interpretation of quantum mechanics proves deconstructible. Instead, a science of undecidability or science of quant à helps us to understand debates among scientists and philosophers over the completeness or incompleteness of quantum mechanics and its epistemological or ontological status – by demonstrating that these questions will necessarily remain unresolved

Constructivism (international relations · Direct and indirect realism · Eliminative materialism · Epistemology · Gesture · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Materialism · Politics · Reading (process · Realism · Relation (database · Sociology · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Philosophy, Science, and History · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Philosophy

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