The Connectivity of All Things: On Speculative Bonds

Abstract

What makes things connect to other things? Do things connect to other things? This essay will present notes towards a speculative theory of connectivity that is focalized through the philosophical concepts of the bond in Giordano Bruno and the concept of suture in Alain Badiou. It will also offer a counterargument to object-oriented ontology's rejection of a theory of relations; this will be accomplished, in part, by situating withdrawal, which Graham Harman highlights as an essential component of a theory of objects, as the essence of any bond that connects humans and non-humans together.