symbiotic real

is a weird “implosive whole” in which entities are related in a non-total, ragged way

The symbiotic real is a weird “implosive whole” in which entities are related in a non-total, ragged way. (I’ll be defining ‘‘implosive holism’’ throughout.) In symbiosis, it’s unclear which is the top symbiont, and the relationship between the beings is jagged, incomplete. Am I simply a vehicle for the numerous bacteria that inhabit my microbiome? Or are they hosting me? Who is the host and who is the parasite? The term “host” stems from the Latin hostis, a word that can mean both “friend” and “enemy.”1

is the idea that I am a way in which nature depends on itself.

If we invert the image of what Marx thinks as human “universality,” we obtain exactly the abject awareness that I can’t peel nonhumans from me without ceasing to be myself. There is no way to be a fully formed Hegelian subject, since this would involve sloughing off the nonhumans (“nature” in the passage above) that are my “inorganic body.” I am a way in which “nature depends on itself”—an elegant paraphrase of “symbiotic real.” I exist as a part of this symbiotic real that is human (and nonhuman) species-being.

symbiotic real, n.All

symbiotic real