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method3000's review against another edition
3.0
Clearly written but nevertheless bewildering introduction to a topic that made me want to read the books on his bibliography. There's a lot of showing and assertion, but not a lot of argumentation. Had trouble determining if what I was reading was simple truth or gibbering insanity. Tend toward the former, but I'm going to read Latour and Harman to make sure.
rachelhelps's review against another edition
3.0
Ian Bogost is well-known among game journalists for being an academic, making hilarious satirical videogames, and being a proponent of object-oriented ontology (OOO).
I know, "ontology." It's a way of looking at the world, and the object-oriented part means that maybe humans aren't always the most interesting part of it. I don't really understand it very well myself, despite having read this book, but it's something like... we are very human- and life-centric, but there is more to the universe than things that have life.
The first chapter especially was hard to understand. I've taken three philosophy courses but all the references to philosophers (even the ones I was familiar with) kind of went over my head. I recognized a few of the references, and I realized that the previous lists of seemingly random things were probably also references to philosophers' works.
My favorite part of this book was the idea that we should stop having writing be the end-all of the academic product line and have more things (like programs, or architecture, or demonstrations). While the ideas were interesting, they seemed rather disconnected, and at times, unnecessarily technical.
I know, "ontology." It's a way of looking at the world, and the object-oriented part means that maybe humans aren't always the most interesting part of it. I don't really understand it very well myself, despite having read this book, but it's something like... we are very human- and life-centric, but there is more to the universe than things that have life.
The first chapter especially was hard to understand. I've taken three philosophy courses but all the references to philosophers (even the ones I was familiar with) kind of went over my head. I recognized a few of the references, and I realized that the previous lists of seemingly random things were probably also references to philosophers' works.
My favorite part of this book was the idea that we should stop having writing be the end-all of the academic product line and have more things (like programs, or architecture, or demonstrations). While the ideas were interesting, they seemed rather disconnected, and at times, unnecessarily technical.
araleith's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very deep? dense? academic? sort of read. Very mind expanding. I liked his ideas on how humans tend to relate things only in their conparison to human experiences, and his challenging of those ideas.
darcyfrench's review against another edition
5.0
A book that enthralls from start to finish. A fascinating look at the world we perchance live in. Not intended to be any more than it is, the book is a great introduction to an object oriented approach the our interaction with "the great outdoors"
suddenflamingword's review against another edition
5.0
Like most manifestos, Alien Phenomenology carves a little epoch out of the 21t century. Bogost's commitment is to an one-way mirror inclusivity: all objects, conceptual and physical, are interrogated and said to have perspectives which can only be imagined when looking at that one-way of the other. All these objects are composite pieces with their own distinct non-human perspectives. You see the image on your screen as a block of light and text, but the screen itself sees it as lines of pixels rapidly excited in real time, and the pixels see the screen as an army of pixels blinkering, and so on. Furthermore, the screen has its own unique relationship to the sky you're holding it under and to the book you read on the screen, and other relationships explode equally out from there - including the relationships between the Magudanchavadi block, I Will Always Love You and Other Greatest Hits, Sawine River, Tillandsia walter-richteri, and so on.
This unintuitive, almost neo-animistic, conception of the world Bogost calls flat ontology: "An ontology is flat if it makes no distinction between the types of things that exist but treats all equally." He also describes this as "weird realism" and I think that fits best with this wondrous, estranging vision of the world.
At the end of the book, when he ascribes the notion of philosophy not just to scholarship but to action itself (what he calls "carpentry" after Object-Oriented Ontologist Graham Harman), it became clear to me what this reminded me of: Joseph Kosuth's "Art After Philosophy." Where Kosuth wanted to turn the philosophy of art into the practice of art, Bogost wants to turn the philosophy of perspective into the practice of perspective. It is fundamentally about engaging all parts of the world on their own terms, to commit oneself to awe at the weird reality of the world.
That said Alien Phenomenology is a surprisingly readable book - setting aside Bogost's outsized commitment to rhetorical tics and the occasional technical explanation that he runs through a tad too quickly. A background in 20th century philosophy probably helps for the more particular conceits, but I went to this straight from The End of Phenomenology without having trouble with the broader ideas. In fact I feel excited again. It makes me want to take literally that tropeish Nietzsche aphorism: "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." What does the abyss see in me, and what does the darkness of the abyss see in it? It never ends.
This unintuitive, almost neo-animistic, conception of the world Bogost calls flat ontology: "An ontology is flat if it makes no distinction between the types of things that exist but treats all equally." He also describes this as "weird realism" and I think that fits best with this wondrous, estranging vision of the world.
At the end of the book, when he ascribes the notion of philosophy not just to scholarship but to action itself (what he calls "carpentry" after Object-Oriented Ontologist Graham Harman), it became clear to me what this reminded me of: Joseph Kosuth's "Art After Philosophy." Where Kosuth wanted to turn the philosophy of art into the practice of art, Bogost wants to turn the philosophy of perspective into the practice of perspective. It is fundamentally about engaging all parts of the world on their own terms, to commit oneself to awe at the weird reality of the world.
That said Alien Phenomenology is a surprisingly readable book - setting aside Bogost's outsized commitment to rhetorical tics and the occasional technical explanation that he runs through a tad too quickly. A background in 20th century philosophy probably helps for the more particular conceits, but I went to this straight from The End of Phenomenology without having trouble with the broader ideas. In fact I feel excited again. It makes me want to take literally that tropeish Nietzsche aphorism: "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." What does the abyss see in me, and what does the darkness of the abyss see in it? It never ends.
mburnamfink's review
1.0
What to say about this book? Nothing good, definitely. It starts with a fairly serious if whimsical question, "What is it like to be a thing?" (shades of Thomas Nagel), but loses itself in a cavalcade of irrelevant philosophical flatulence.
As an STS scholar, I take the equivalence of human beings and things seriously. Bruno Latour's Parliament of Things actually sounds like an interesting idea. But even if we erase the divide between human and non-human, there still seem to be some bifurcations in the world: things and signs, atoms and bits, entities with intentional stances and those capable solely of reaction. A philosopher should examine these common-sensical distinctions, and the ways in which they are wrong. A true unitary theory would be a wonder. That is not in this book.
I'd hoped to see an approach by which we might approach the existence and quality of things: objects, technologies, artifacts, and so-called nature. Instead, Bogost throws out a few sparkling bon-mots in a sea of disconnected anecdotes and generally sloppy thinking. A subject that should be approached with immense care is treated with disrespect.
The only reason I finished this book was to honestly describe how bad it was.
As an STS scholar, I take the equivalence of human beings and things seriously. Bruno Latour's Parliament of Things actually sounds like an interesting idea. But even if we erase the divide between human and non-human, there still seem to be some bifurcations in the world: things and signs, atoms and bits, entities with intentional stances and those capable solely of reaction. A philosopher should examine these common-sensical distinctions, and the ways in which they are wrong. A true unitary theory would be a wonder. That is not in this book.
I'd hoped to see an approach by which we might approach the existence and quality of things: objects, technologies, artifacts, and so-called nature. Instead, Bogost throws out a few sparkling bon-mots in a sea of disconnected anecdotes and generally sloppy thinking. A subject that should be approached with immense care is treated with disrespect.
The only reason I finished this book was to honestly describe how bad it was.
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