Episode 22: Divining the World with Joshua Ramey

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2018

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

American philosopher Joshua Ramey, author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal, and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency, joins Phil and JF to discuss a philosophical project whose implications go deep and weird. In his books and articles, Joshua proffers the vision of a world where divination -- whether or not it is recognized as such -- isn't just possible, but necessary for advancing knowledge, creating art, and forming communities. And his research has revealed that the wardens of our neoliberal order know this all too well. As he writes in an essay discussed in this episode, the mandate of a weird age ought to be clear: "Occupy, and practice divination." **REFERENCES Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal Joshua Ramey, Politics of DIvination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" (abstract) Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, University of British Columbia, at academia.edu Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, Difference and Repetition, and The Logic of Sense Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on Contingency Elie Ayache, The Blank Swan: The End of Probability Weird Studies, "Does Consciousness Exist?" Parts One and Two Special Guest: Joshua Ramey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Specter Vision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an art and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:21.8	For more episodes and to support the podcast, go to Weird Studies.F. here. In this episode of Weird Studies, Phil and I sat down to talk with the philosopher Joshua
0:56.3	Ramey. Joshua is the author of two books that are absolutely wonderful and strongly recommended
1:03.1	to fans of the show. The Hermetic Dodeus, philosophy and the spiritual ordeal, and the more
1:08.9	recent one, Politics of Divination, neoliberal endgame and the
1:12.6	religion of contingency. In both of these works, Joshua infuses Marxist critique of contemporary
1:19.6	society with a high dose of strangeness. He draws on religion, magic, spirituality,
1:25.2	shamanism, divination to develop a compelling vision of a universe
1:29.8	where questions of sense or chance or meaning have more than human significance, a world
1:35.5	that means something, even if its meaning has to be divined.
1:39.8	We had a great discussion that touched on a bunch of topics that are of some interest
1:45.8	to Phil and myself and to our listeners, hopefully.
1:49.0	One of the main topics of the day was definitely chance and the nature of chance.
1:55.5	And the question as to whether the world is truly just a random affair or whether sense and sense making are
2:06.0	intrinsic aspects of anything that might deserve the name reality.
2:10.5	We hope you enjoy the show. So Joshua, tell me what you've been up to recently.
2:38.2	Lately, I've been on kind of an extended sabbatical.
2:42.8	I did have a sabbatical from Grinnell College where I was working up until recently.
2:48.8	And I was actually using a lot of that time to study and and plan
2:54.5	for what what might be next for me both personally and intellectually but a lot of it has been
3:01.9	actually about resting and repotentiating i guess you could say, which has involved some intellectual study,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2433 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Phil Ford and J. F. Martel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Phil Ford and J. F. Martel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.