Objects, practices, and reality
 

Mol 152: [M]any philosophers have stressed the importance of intervention as the dominant modern way of acquiring knowledge"
 
So: "Shifting from understanding objects as the focus point of various perspectives to following them as they are enacted in a variety of practices implies a shift from asking how sciences represent to asking how they intervene."
 
However: "It is not a matter of turning the arrow round so that instead of the natural sciences explaining social phenomena a social explanation of molecules, cells, or bodies is [now] being presented. Instead, another axis has been introduced: that of practice. The latter encompasses molecules and money, cells and worries, bodies, knives, and smiles, and talks about all of these in a single breath. Thus, it stands in an oblique relation to explanatory knowledge" (157)
 
152: "This book [...] follows objects while they are being enacted in practice [...] This, this book contributes to a philosophical shift in which knowledge is no longer treated primarily as referential, as a set of statements about reality, but as a practice that interferes with other practices. It therefore participates in reality."
 
when we understand "that knowledge is primarily about partaking in a reality, our understanding of the relations between the sciences also begins to shift. For whatever the relations between objects hidden inside the body [...] the practices in which these objects exist are concerned a lot more with expensive or cheap apparatus, blood or flesh, forms or conversations, work hours, self-esteem [and] insurance schemes" (154-5)
 
155: "In practice, such diverse phenomena do not belong to different orders. It makes no sense to delegate them to separate layers of reality. [...] What different sciences have to offer practice is different points of leverage, different techniques for intervention, and, indeed, different methods."

> from Annemarie Mol's The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (2002)

> tagged with #objects, #philosophy, #science, #reality, #knowledge

> created May 26, 2025 at 10:19:14 AM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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authors' quoted words are their own.


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