agential realism

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Agential realism is Barad’s attributed account of reality in which phenomena, rather than independently completed objects, are primary. Distinct agencies and determinate properties emerge through material-discursive intra-actions and enacted boundaries. The corpus adopts this as one relational resource while insisting that cuts can be nonhuman and materially consequential; it is not arbitrary subjective construction or a synonym for every interpretation of quantum physics.

Explanation

RB1 presents Barad’s phenomena as prior to independently constituted relata, with determinate properties emerging through specific arrangements. The agential cut is materially enacted and may be nonhuman; consciousness does not create reality by discretionary classification. This is the specific realist claim preserved in the proposed entry.

RB2 attributes its explicit intra-action formulation to Barad and then turns separately to Simondon’s individual–milieu coupling. The adjacency supports a relation-first comparison without erasing their distinct theoretical vocabularies. Barad’s quoted formulation remains attributable to her rather than becoming an anonymous authorial discovery or a quotation from Simondon.

The same local development explains that achieved individuals and boundaries remain real. Relation does not negate distinction; it concerns how distinction comes about and persists. The entry consequently preserves materially formed determinations without turning relational priority into a claim that no entities can act or that all differentiations are illusory.

Scope and attribution

Preserve the attributed relational ontology without identifying it with RTI or denying real achieved individuals.

AB — The Actual Book

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: Notes: 243.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

Barad’s phenomena and non-subjective material cuts define the attributed account.

Occurrence locators: 98, 140.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Barad’s intra-action is juxtaposed with, but distinguished from, Simondonian individuation.

Occurrence locators: 196, 197.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.