ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to new materialism by opening it to evidence from the natural sciences that it has not yet addressed, evidence of scale variance that invites an interpretation incompatible with monism. Scale variance names the observation that things happen differently at different scales due to constraints upon becoming. Emphasis on scale variance yields a very different picture of reality from that apparent in much canonical art about growing and shrinking. Philosopher of science Mariam Thalos addresses the relationship between emergence and scale variance in Without Hierarchy: The Scale Freedom of the Universe. Karen Barad and Manuel DeLanda are two of the strongest theorists who pursue this approach to connecting the natural sciences with philosophy. In Meeting the Universe Halfway, Barad argues that the universe is not divided into separate scale domains. Barad and DeLanda address scale in very different ways that help show what role the concept might play in new materialist theory.
