Reading Immanence

Sparseness, Immanence, and Naturalness

In the past fifteen years or so there has been a lot of attention paid to theories of “sparse” universals, particularly because of the work of D. M. Armstrong. These theories are of particular interest to those of us concerned with the distinction between natural and non-natural properties, since, as David Lewis has observed, it seems possible to analyze naturalness in terms of sparse universal...

Intersections in Immanence: Spinoza, Deleuze, Negri

The connection between French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Italian political theorist Antonio Negri has drawn attention in academic publications over the last decade. For both thinkers, the philosophical concept of immanence is central to how both respectively conceptualize the world. However, in order to consider their work with regard to a metaphysical grounding, one may benefit from turnin...

Immanence and Incompleteness: Whitehead's Late Metaphysics

In Religion in the Making, Whitehead sets the stage for an interesting paradox that runs through his whole philosophical work. On the one hand, he defines metaphysics as clearly and succinctly as possible, namely as “the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are indispensable to the analysis of everything that happens” (RM 84n1). On the other hand, he warns us to mistrust meta...

Subjectivity and Immanence in Michel Henry

Rapid Craft Machine Immanence and Naïve Materialization

A clear distinction generally exists between processes of design generation and processes of design production. The profusion of digital fabrication tools and technologies make evident such distinctions in the context of design production but at the same time carry potential for material and fabrication-based processes promoting generative design methods. Such strategic application and customiz...