✧༺ Becoming Constellations ༻✧

Mediation

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Mediation

“We should pay attention not only to the object itself, but equally importantly, to our relationship with the object.”

Definition

Mediation refers to the intermediary elements, processes, or structures that connect terms in a relationship. In dialectical thinking, nothing exists in pure immediacy — all experience, knowledge, and relation is mediated.

Key Aspects

  • No Immediacy: Direct, unmediated access to reality is impossible
  • Third Term: The relationship between subject and object is itself a mediating element
  • Transformation: Mediation transforms both terms it connects
  • Historical: Our present is mediated by the past

Forms of Mediation

  • Conceptual: Language and concepts mediate thought
  • Social: Institutions and systems mediate relations
  • Temporal: The present is mediated by past and future
  • Material: Technology and infrastructure mediate action
  • Subjectivity — The subject position that is always mediated
  • Vanishing Mediator — (To develop) Mediators that disappear once transformation is complete

“The relationship between subject and object is itself a third term, a mediating element that transforms both parties.”