Event date
September 23, 2026
10:00
Venue
Seminar Hall I, Academic Block I, SSUS
Organised by
Department of Sociology
Details
Talk: Rethinking the Social: Power, Subject, Machine
Speaker: Prof. T.V. Madhu
This talk offers an ontological inquiry into the fundamental form of being that constitutes the social field. It posits that sociality is defined not by shared human interiority or intersubjective agreement, but by a field of mutual modification. Within this framework, power—understood as an action upon an action—is advanced as the primary ontological substance of the social itself. However, this relational understanding of power encounters a central theoretical paradox: the human subject is framed simultaneously as the necessary precondition for action to occur and as the contingent effect generated by power relations. The proliferation of autonomous, non-human technological systems further destabilizes this classical framework, exposing the limits of centering agency within a conscious mind. To resolve this paradox, the talk proposes a flat ontology that systematically dismantles the privileged interiority of the subject.
Speaker: Prof. T.V. Madhu
This talk offers an ontological inquiry into the fundamental form of being that constitutes the social field. It posits that sociality is defined not by shared human interiority or intersubjective agreement, but by a field of mutual modification. Within this framework, power—understood as an action upon an action—is advanced as the primary ontological substance of the social itself. However, this relational understanding of power encounters a central theoretical paradox: the human subject is framed simultaneously as the necessary precondition for action to occur and as the contingent effect generated by power relations. The proliferation of autonomous, non-human technological systems further destabilizes this classical framework, exposing the limits of centering agency within a conscious mind. To resolve this paradox, the talk proposes a flat ontology that systematically dismantles the privileged interiority of the subject.