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Jonathan Basile

@jonothingeb.bsky.social

Postdoc at UofT, 20th C literature and science, viruses, evolutionary theory, deconstruction, libraryofbabel.info. Author: Natural Lection (http://bit.ly/495ZCJD), Virality Vitality (https://sunypress.edu/Books/V/Virality-Vitality)

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Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I forgot to mention this discount code: MN95970 - valid until August 1: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791998...

Natural Lection

A radical deconstructive approach to evolutionary theoryFor as long as there has been evolutionary science, thinkers in the natural sciences, social sciences...

upress.umn.edu

Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'm very excited to share my book, Natural Lection, with you all! A deconstruction of "cultural evolution" and notions of nature/culture that circulate in the sciences and the humanities:

Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

These are the more practical conclusions: I argue that we arrive at a more robust critique of 'AI', and a more thorough understanding of artistic and linguistic production (from human and machine), when it is not based on intentionalist theories of meaning

The LLM is no more a self-conscious subject than we are, but this removes one commonplace stopgap for critiques of ‘AI’. Its statements can no longer be claimed as meaningless, or its artworks as devoid of aesthetic quality, simply because it lacks the intentions of a subject. Our own language has never depended on our intentions for its meaning (as we can see, machine writing remains legible—so much so that at times it is difficult to distinguish or prove its provenance—even if we may tend to read it differently than human writing, when we know or think we know its origin). A structuralist view might conclude that language, as a system unto itself, not only does not depend on such intentions but is the matrix in which they are generated, that all the effects we attribute to our own subjectivity or initiative are effects of language, misrecognized. Derrida was never satisfied by such notions of the ‘death of the author’: Rather than oppose citation or iteration to the noniteration of an event, one ought to construct a differential typology of forms of iteration, assuming that such a project is tenable and can result in an exhaustive program, a question I hold in abeyance here. In such a typology, the category of intention will not disappear; it will have its place, but from that place it will no longer be able to govern the entire scene and system of utterance. In other words, intention does not disappear from the scene once it is deconstructed—it is just that it, like everything else, is written and read. It cannot govern the meaning of a statement (we argue over presumed intentions or can dispute explicit intention-claims, can dissimulate intentions and even be at odds with ourselves over them, and can see further possibilities of interpretation or reading beyond a given intention, etc.). It follows from deconstruction not that intentions and statements of them are meaningless and not that language or writing univocally masters the scene, creating a meaning of and unto itself that forecloses all others, but that intentions are textual. In other words, we know them by that relay described above, understanding our own through language, the world, and the other. They exist for us or an interlocutor or witness only to the extent that they can be inscribed (implicitly or explicitly), which means that they are not the origin of language or action, but rather a participant in the scene of writing. Then, our own ‘intentions’ can be transformed by inserting a novel writing machine into our circuits, and that machine may produce intention-effects just as we do, by displacing those relays, by taking part in the self-exteriority of textuality. That certainly does not mean that we ought to treat the writing of LLMs just as we do writing from other sources (except in the sense that both must be read, one way or another), it only means that the linkage we try to form between text and context is insecure in both cases. Nor do we need to seek out our inner light to dismiss the artistic productions of ‘AI’. While it is often said that some form of genius, sympathy, or suffering sets apart human artistry, we should recognize that whatever self-relation we accomplish through art-making (a) necessarily subjects itself to established and iterable art-forms, genres, etc., even or especially when it attempts to exceed their limits, and (b) first comes to itself in a relay with such formulaic art (life imitates art, etc.). Again, it is what we have in common with writing machines that allows us to read them otherwise. Context plays a nonprogrammable role in how we read anything, including an artwork. The stories we can tell about a work and its author, the history and tradition within which we contextualize it, and the environing scene in which we situate it all play some role in how we interpret and relate to the work. This context does not determine or constitute reading any more than intention does (nor is it a simple given what counts as context); context participates in the scene. So, anyone is free to imagine that the products of ‘AI’ emerge from a thinking and feeling computer consciousness that they then relate to in an identificatory fashion (as they would any other artist—but perhaps not exactly so), or to see such works as the lazy detritus of a human machine-user or prompt writer, worthy of no more of the reader’s effort than was put into their creation. even if we share a disdain for the type of poetic or artistic work thus far created with ‘AI’, we should not try to theorize its deficiency by claiming that all automated or programmatic processes are inimical to creativity. As Derrida often wrote, it is necessary to think ‘the event with the machine’. Invention or the unanticipatable is not only possible as a repetition that changes contexts, but every invention takes place this way. Long before LLMs, we had poets and artists making use of much simpler algorithms, and even before the computer, combinatoric processes were used to bypass the censors of consciousness; moreover, processes of recontextualization (such as found art or poetry) demonstrate the interrelation of invention and iterability. Even if such artistic practices remain matters of taste, I would argue against dismissing them on the grounds that art ought to emanate from the mystical font of pure creativity; if ‘AI’ art disgusts us today, if there is a truly visceral reaction against it, that is perhaps not because of its reliance on machine or iterability (always already the case), nor because of its uniquely bad aesthetic quality (the average and majority of human composition has been similarly slop-like, but may evoke a different reaction); rather, the context and story surrounding this technology is part of our aesthetic experience. That it is dismantling the economic possibilities for human artists and many others, forced upon us by a capitalist system fundamentally hostile to life and nature, serving as the fun-and-innocent front of an ideological campaign building infrastructure and ideological support for ever more totalitarian forms of surveillance, warfare, and governance, all for the benefit of eminently mediocre man-children (too lacking in taste to even appreciate what they are destroying, except for perhaps a barely conscious resentment), this shapes aesthetic experience in a manner that a theory of intentionalism can only obscure.
Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I wrote an essay exploring how structuralism and deconstruction have informed recent theory around 'AI' and 'LLMs' including @leifw.bsky.social's Language Machines: olrsupplement.com/2026/06/01/w...

Will Beaman@greenbackbetter.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Finally something smart written about AI from a humanistic perspective that isn’t just a diatribe about plagiarism and five million other things condensed into one master sign. Highly recommend these excellent reflections!!

Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I wrote an essay exploring how structuralism and deconstruction have informed recent theory around 'AI' and 'LLMs' including @leifw.bsky.social's Language Machines: olrsupplement.com/2026/06/01/w...

Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'm thrilled to be co-editing this collection, Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, an outgrowth of the conference we did last year, bringing historians and philosophers of biology and evolutionary biologists to reflect on these influences in their own work

chris shambaugh@cshambaugh.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I’m happy to share that our book proposal has been accepted in Routledge’s History and Philosophy of Biology series! I’m so excited and honored to be co-editing the volume - titled Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin - with Jonathan Basile and Denis Walsh.

Jonathan Basile@jonothingeb.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Niall Gildea reviews @jeremystewart.bsky.social's I, Daniel as a creative-critical reading of The Post Card focused on parallels between Stewart's family tree and Derrida's, a Derridean rejoinder to autotheory and post-critique olrsupplement.com/2026/05/08/i...

I, Daniel: An Illegitimate Reading of Jacques Derrida’s ‘Envois’, by Jeremy Stewart - The OLR Supplement

Jeremy Stewart's I, Daniel provides a creative-critical reading of bastardy in The Post Card, offering a Derridean rejoinder to auto-theory and post-critique

olrsupplement.com

El Pensador Sereno@elpensadorsereno.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Harden asegura que se opone a la eugenesia: no obstante, está ignorando lo que significa ese término para la mayoría de historiadores del tema, quienes ven su más reciente iteración en esta individualización ascendente y neoliberal del cribado y aborto de embriones supuestamente disgénicos."

Bird account@dialecticbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I implore everyone to read this brilliant book review of Kathryn Paige Harden new book on the genetics of criminality. It cuts right through the bullshit to state plainly what Harden's project really is: eugenics bullshit and grifting lareviewofbooks.org/article/orig...

Bird account@dialecticbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Given that Harden has a new book out that is largely a repeat of her first book, The Genetic Lottery, here's a list of critical reviews of that book. 1. Lottery, Luck, or Legacy: gcbias.org/wp-content/u...

In our view, these instances reflect a more general tension in the book, which arises from trying to have it both ways: to argue that PGS for educational attainment provide interpretable and meaningful predictions of inter-individual differences that reflect under- lying genetic causes, yet to claim that they have no validity beyond hypothetical ancestry group boundaries. As we have laid out, we believe instead that current PGS for educational attainment are neither interpretable nor particularly meaningful. GWAS undoubtedly cap- tures some causal genetic effects, i.e., more than confounding alone, and there is interesting science to learn from these initial findings. But we currently understand next to nothing about the causal paths from GWAS findings to educational attainment, notably the extent to which they include analogs of Jencks-style “red hair effects” and the legacy of accumulated indirect effects. That may not matter when PGS for EA are to be employed as a statistical tool in the study of the impact of local social interventions, but it matters greatly when they are used to elucidate, let alone redress, social inequalities. Given these limitations, we do not see what the field of genetics has to add to the conver- sation about redistributive justice, beyond confirming what has long been recognized–that life outcomes differ for all kinds of reasons beyond people’s control–and we very much doubt that overstating our understanding of the genetics of behaviors is going to increase empa- thy. As the author appreciates, there is a history of this kind of practice, invariably with nefarious consequences, yet every generation seems to believe that their technological twist will help them to avoid the same pitfalls. Despite its engaging narrative, the Genetic Lottery therefore leaves us unconvinced, and with the impression of genomics serving as a distraction from much more exigent political conversations
Bird account@dialecticbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I implore everyone to read this brilliant book review of Kathryn Paige Harden new book on the genetics of criminality. It cuts right through the bullshit to state plainly what Harden's project really is: eugenics bullshit and grifting lareviewofbooks.org/article/orig...

isaac@sevier.io · 3mo ago

If you ever did 23AndMe or the UK Biobank your data was used by this vile eugenicist to claim people are racially predisposed to being sinful, and therefore punishable. In light of the final blow to the Voting Rights Act it's important to know how these arguments look, where they come from.

Natural Election | Los Angeles Review of Books

Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book offers a defense of a kind of Scientific Calvinism that converges with the eugenicist ideals of the contemporary Far Right.

lareviewofbooks.org

Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Original Sin features a series of anecdotes about Harden’s [life], and becoming a geneticist only to realize she was still obsessed with the same questions of sin and redemption she had learned in church....The book reads like an Eat Pray Love of biotech grifting." - @jonothingeb.bsky.social

Natural Election | Los Angeles Review of Books

Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book offers a defense of a kind of Scientific Calvinism that converges with the eugenicist ideals of the contemporary Far Right.

lareviewofbooks.org

Bird account@dialecticbio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I implore everyone to read this brilliant book review of Kathryn Paige Harden new book on the genetics of criminality. It cuts right through the bullshit to state plainly what Harden's project really is: eugenics bullshit and grifting lareviewofbooks.org/article/orig...

Natural Election | Los Angeles Review of Books

Kathryn Paige Harden’s new book offers a defense of a kind of Scientific Calvinism that converges with the eugenicist ideals of the contemporary Far Right.

lareviewofbooks.org