title: On the speculative relationship between thought and matter
Creators: name: Kwapińska, Kamila
Publisher: name: University of Kent
Year: 2024

description: In this thesis, I formulate a theory of biological organicism based on a reinterpretation of the works of F. W. J. Schelling and A. N. Whitehead. I develop biological organicism within a critique of the totalisation of mechanistic metaphysics inherent to global capitalism, and how this totalisation determines our understanding of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology. Metaphysical systems are here defined as habits of thought, practices, and institutions that amount to cosmological constructs. Cosmologies are also understood (after Yuk Hui) as cosmotechnics - they are always reproduced and shaped by technics and they emerge out of localities.
I first build biological organicism by explaining organic materialism as a critique of mechanistic materialism. Whitehead argues that the Western tradition of thought has been shaped by mechanistic materialism, which is problematic because it contains a fallacy, namely bifurcation in the sense of nature. He defines this fallacy as treating nature as we experience it as different in kind to nature that causes experience. Organicism is a strand of thought which aims to overcome substance dualism and I examine to what extent it can also address the bifurcation between the two types of nature. It has been achieved in various degrees by thinkers of Romanticism (following Hui's systematisation) and New Materialism. I also argue how distinctive organic ontologies translate into specific types of speculation as a method. Biological organicism is a method of speculative realism that deals with the fallacy and does so persuasively by appeal to metaphysical pluralism.
I critique global capitalism from the perspective of biological organicism and metaphysical pluralism because it totalises specific cosmotechnics underpinned by mechanistic materialism. Firstly, it contains the fallacy of the bifurcation between the two types of nature that makes the theory redundant. I claim that organic materialism and speculative methods are better suited to explain the technological evolution of natural and social systems. By linking organicism with philosophy of technology, I demonstrate that organic materialism situates thought in matter and can explain how technology conditions our organic sensibilities and forecloses the future. Secondly, in discussion with works of Bernard Stiegler, I argue that totalisation limits bio- and noo- diversity. Thirdly, based on a cosmotechnical reinterpretation of Thomas Kuhn's thought, I claim that totalisation creates institutional obstacles for a major paradigmatic shift to occur. There have been minor paradigmatic changes in scientific communities but they were not successful in changing academic institutions based on capitalist cosmotechnics.
I develop the theory of biological organicism to speculate on the relationship between thought and matter. This is to deconstruct the totalising tendencies of metaphysics and methods present in the Western tradition of thought and global capitalism; to support the diversification of methods in scientific communities; to combine philosophy of nature with philosophy of technology; and finally, to present a theory of metaphysical pluralism suited for making critical judgements about the totalisation of global capitalism in continental philosophy.