Węzeł i supeł: Od metaforyzacji do materioforyzacji dyskursów teoretycznych
Knot/Knot*: From Metaphorization to Matterphorization of Academic Discourses

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts a critical reflection on the metaphorization of contemporary theoretical discourses, using the example of the metaphor of the knot. The author demonstrates its performativity by dissecting the conventionalized metaphor of the Gordian knot into figures of knot (tied deliberately), knot* (tangled accidentally) and loop, which entail different visions of reality and different logics of its problematisation and conceptualisation. He refers to examples of academic texts (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Donna Haraway, and Elaine Gan and Anna Tsing) in which the knot and the epistemological questions inscribed in this metaphor play an important role. He also shows the implications of reading onto-epistemological projects through the logic of the knot, which he sees in Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, and the logic of the knot*, which he sees in Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology. Given the significance of materiality in contemporary academic discourses, the author postulates that the term matterphor, as proposed by Lowell Duckert and developed in various currents of environmental humanities, should be introduced into Polish discourse. He believes that the potential of the new term lies in the fact that it makes it possible to combine the performativity of language and the performativity of matter so as not to efface the emergent and contingent character of the world from academic systems of conceptualising reality.

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