Blogging Volumes

 A hammer is considerably more than a specific means to a specific end. As Paul McCartney points out, hammers aren't just good for hitting nails. Maxwell Edison, that violent character from the Abbey Road album, uses a hammer to murder a girl he asked out to the pictures, a teacher who gave him detention, and a judge who found him guilty of murder. Urinals aren't just good for pissing in. Marcel Duchamp put one in a gallery, and revolutionised modern art. Books aren't just good for reading with. Sometimes they stop doors, or kill flies, or provide unlikely decor in a J D Wetherspoons, or get ripped up and thrown into a fire, for warmth, for a political point, etc. etc. Nothing exists for one purpose only . Everything contains the possibility of many different relations. We need a way of thinking that accounts for this: something I will call 'democratic ontology'. The song 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is, in one sense, a trivial McCartney number. A joke song...

A hammer is a means to an end. As in the famous example used by Heidegger, when you use a hammer, you are only aware of it insofar as it helps you to achieve your goal. The more proficient you are at using hammers (perhaps you've been a workman for thirty years), the less likely you are to actually perceive the hammer at all. It becomes an extension of yourself. But the hammer still has its own reality, much more complex than your vision of the hammer as tool-to-put-shelves-up takes into consideration. You're reminded of this when, as you're just about to slam the final blow on that nail, and you're caught up in fantasies of how nice it'll be to have all your books on this shelf, the head of the hammer breaks off, and you hit your thumb with the wooden handle.  This brings you back to reality. You look around at the room. You see the fracture in the handle, and you curse yourself for not seeing it before. When we view any aspect of the universe as a means to an end,...