“OOO” versus “WVO”

Volgens Graham Harmans objectgeoriënteerde ontologie (OOO) liggen objecten te diep om toegang te krijgen tot hoe objecten op zichzelf zijn. Maar waarom geldt dat specifiek voor objecten? Hoe weten wij dat zoiets als ‘objecten’ behoort tot hoe de wereld op zichzelf is? Moeten we niet zeggen dat de hele wereld te diep ligt om er toegang toe te verkrijgen, zodat we niet eens kunnen weten of ‘objecten’ behoren tot hoe de wereld in en voor zichzelf is? Wie deze stap maakt, springt van OOO naar de wereld-voor-ons (WVO) kennisleer.

An open question for Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology

How do the real properties of a sensual object relate to the real properties of the corresponding real object in Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)? In personal writing Harman explained that "it's still in part an open question" and that "the default hypothesis would be that there is some overlap between the real qualities of the real and sensual objects, though not a total identification." Let me attempt to work out Harman's suggestion in a bit more detail. The real properties of the sensual object are linked or tied to the real properties of the corresponding real object. Moreover, the real properties of the sensual object are linked or tied to the real properties of the corresponding real object by virtue of the fact that the sensual object's real properties are derived from the real object's real properties. Indeed, the sensual object is a kind of proxy for the real object. The sensual object represents the real object within a specific context or relation, such as human perception. Thus, while the sensual object's real properties are derived from the real properties of the real object, they are not identical or isomorphic to them. The real properties of the sensual object are limited context-dependent realizations of the real object's real properties. That is to say, the sensual object's real properties are restricted realizations of the real properties of the real object for a specific context or specific relation to the real object. We therefore cannot only speak about the sensual car in comparison to the real car. We can also speak of the real engine of the sensual car in comparison to the real engine of the real car or of the real model of the sensual car in comparison to the real model of the real car. The real car thus has a real engine and is of a specific real model. So, OOO seems to bring us closer to the real car, or any other real object, than one might have initially expected.

Universal withdrawal?

Already from the title of his fascinating book Object-Oriented Ontology. A New Theory of Everything (2018) it's clear that Graham Harman considers his object-oriented ontology to be a unified theory of everything. As Harman writes: "In my view, the 'theory whose range of applicability is limitless' can only be found in philosophy, and especially in the type of philosophy called Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)" (p. 23). According to Harman science cannot provide a theory of everything since science doesn't avoid the pitfalls of physicalism (according to which everything is physical), smallism (according to which complex composites as less real than their component parts), anti-fictionalism (according to which fictional characters do not exist), and literalism (according to which accurate literal descriptions can give us the things directly and completely). I agree with Harman that a theory of everthing can only be found in philosophy. Moreover, with perhaps the exception of anti-fictionalism, I agree with Harman that we have to avoid the aforementioned pitfalls in our search for a philosophical theory of everything.

However, there's another pitpall we must also avoid: universalism. A theory traps into the pitfall of universalism if it is committed to the existence of a contingent universally held property (i.e., a contingent property held by everything). Universalism is a pitfall to avoid because there are no contingent universally held properties, as my semantic argument shows.(*) That's why for example the theories of everything of Thales (everything is water), Heraclitus (everything is fire), Nietzsche (everything is will to power), Schopenhauer (everything is will to live), and Latour (everything is a hybrid) are untenable. And that's why for example materialism (everything is material), idealism (everything is mental) and pantheism (everything is divine) fail as well.

Now, unfortunately, Harman doesn't avoid the pitfall of universalism. First, Harman is a methodological universalist in spirit. As he writes: "In short, we expect a philosophy to tell us about the features that belong to everything [...]" (p. 55). But more importantly, his object-oriented theory of everything falls prey to universalism. On Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology, all objects have an interior that remains forever hidden to all other objects. So, all objects withdraw from all other objects. This does not only apply to all real objects, but also to all sensual objects. For each sensual object is hidden to everything that's not its observer, while its real qualities, and thus the sensual object itself, withdraws from its observer as well. Harman is thus committed to 'withdrawal' being a universally held property. Since 'withdrawal' is also a contingent property (e.g., it does not follow from the laws of logic that all objects withdraw from all other objects), Harman's thesis of universal withdrawal is a form of universalism, rendering his object-oriented ontology in its current form untenable. There are objects that do not withdraw from all other objects.

(*) Let me provide a concise formulation of my semantic argument. If two simple or primitive terms (i.e., terms having unanalysable meanings) have the same reference, then they have the same meaning. From this it follows that there are no contingent universally held properties. For suppose there is a contingent universally held property. Its reference is thus everything that exists. Now, that property is a conjunction of simple terms all having the same reference and thus also the same meaning as the simple term 'exists'. The alleged contingent universally held property is therefore 'existence'. But ‘existence’ is not a contingent property, so we arrive at a contradiction. Hence, there are no contingent universally held properties.

Object-oriented correlationism

On Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology, all objects withdraw from each other. Objects have an inner depth or essence that is not exhausted or disclosed by their relations to other objects. Universal withdrawal of objects is the core claim of Harman's object-oriented ontology. Now, Harman is a metaphysical realist. He thus construes his object-oriented ontology as a metaphysics of the absolute or reality in itself. He believes that the core claims of his object-oriented ontology are justified as claims about how the world is in itself. But what if correlationism is irrefutable and therefore inevitable? In that case, Harman may still defend his object-oriented ontology as a metaphysics posited within the correlationist circle and thus within the context of how the world is for us instead of how it is in itself. By doing so he would become an adherent of what we could refer to as object-oriented correlationism (OOC).

In fact, many of Graham's core object-oriented ontology theses - such as that there are multiple objects, that we have to make a distinction between objects and qualities, that there are real and sensual objects and real and sensual qualities, that objects maintain a degree of autonomy and can thus not be reduced to their relations, and that there corresponds exactly one real object to each sensual object of ordinary experience (e.g., a real hammer compared to a sensual hammer, a real table compared to a sensual table, and a real bike compared to a sensual bike) - are epistemically reasonable and defensible as claims within the correlationist circle, that is, as claims about how reality is for us as human beings, whereas these claims are not justifiable as claims about how reality is in itself. For on correlationism no claim at all can be epistemically justitied as claim about the absolute or the 'in itself'.

Harman maintains though that correlationists assume a strict division between humans on the one side and non-humans on the other side. He considers it utterly implausible that human beings deserve to fill up a full half of philosophy. But this critique of correlationism is misconceived. For correlationists do not introduce an implausible taxonomy between human thought and everything else within the realm of objects. They do not allow humans to fill up fifty per cent of ontology. Correlationists do not introduce a horizontal split between humans and all other objects. They introduce instead a vertical distinction between the transcendental level of the human conditions of knowledge of objects and the object level of the objects of human knowledge. For correlationists object-oriented metaphysics resides solely at the object level and thus not at the transcendental level. At the object level an object-oriented correlationist can initially posit any flat ontology that he or she wants to pick as his or her point of departure. There is on correlationism no need at all for a horizontal dogmatic split between humans and non-humans at the level of objects. The human conditions of knowledge only appear vertically at the transcendental level of knowledge of objects and not within the world of objects we perceive and think and speak about. So, as said, all core theses of Harman's object-oriented ontology, including his initial flat ontology, can be posited and reasonably defended - in fact, on correlationism only be posited and reasonably defended - within the correlationist circle. That is to say, they can only be posited and reasonably defended within the-world-as-it-is-for-us or within the world of objects of human knowledge.

A boys' club

Recently Graham Harman responded to the criticism that speculative realism is largely, if not entirely, a boys' affair. Now, here is another suggestion to address this criticism. Invite Amie Thomasson to the party. She is a post-Kantian defender of ordinary objects against various attempts to ontologically deflate them. In addition to being an ontological realist, she is commited to a flat ontology. She maintains that objects of all sorts are on equal ontological footing, such as tables and chairs, numbers and fictions. This would make her a friend of object oriented ontology and thus a member of the club.

VU Seminar on Speculative Realism

This year I shall teach a VU course on Speculative Realism. Speculative Realism is a growing and fascinating movement within contemporary philosophy. The course has the form of a seminar. Below I provide a short outline of its contents. Those interested in attending can contact me for further information.

Post-Kantian critical philosophy has focused almost exclusively on discourse and consciousness as what constitutes reality. Reality appeared only as the correlate of language or thought. Yet, in recent years one can detect a new development within philosophical thought. By contrast with the focus of post-Kantian critical philosophy on discourse and consciousness, a number of philosophers within the existential and phenomenological tradition turned again towards reality in itself. This movement is known as Speculative Realism.

The adjective speculative might suggest a return to pre-Kantian dogmatic philosophy. This is however not the case. Speculative realist thinkers purport to think reality in itself again, without falling back to pre-critical unreflective thought.

Speculative realists share a strong resistance to post-Kantian philosophies of human finitude. They reject the Kantian idea that we only have access to the correlation or interplay between thinking and being, and never to one of them considered apart from the other.

Further, these thinkers want to overcome the Kantian presumption that our human access to reality is somehow privileged. The target of philosophical reflection is thus shifted away again from the thought-world correlate.

Apart from these commonalities, there are important differences between leading speculative realists. Core members within speculative realism are Quentin Meillassoux (defending speculative materialism), Graham Harman and Levy Bryant (defending object oriented ontology), and Tristan Garcia (defending a flat ontology).

The objective of the seminar is to gain clear insight into the various positions within speculative realism and to be able to critically assess and compare these views. We shall explore together a number of fundamental texts that are generally considered to be representative of speculative realist thought and which founded the school of speculative realism. Participants are expected to actively participate by contributing to the discussion and giving a talk.

Literature includes (but is not limited to) selected chapters from After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency by Quentin Meillassoux; 'The Current State of Speculative Realism’ in Speculations, ‘Meillassoux’s Virtual Future’ in Continent, and ‘The Road to Objects’ in Continent by Graham Harman; selected essays from The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism edited by Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman; and selected chapters from Form and Object: A Treatise on Things by Tristan Garcia.

Tristan Garcia

Last Saturday there was a debate at OT301 in Amsterdam between the French philosopher Tristan Garcia and the American philosopher Graham Harman. A transcript will be produced, as Harman mentions on his blog. It was something. Many people, ’70 type of underground scene, darkened room and a few spotlights. As if Foucault was visiting us. Garcia’s performance fascinated me. And I’m not really sure why. He might have new profound thoughts about ontology. I will surely check his work. Of course I should elaborate a bit more on why he made me curious enough to further explore his philosophical thinking. And indeed, I could try to reflect on some of his moving statements, such as “Anything is something, no matter what”, “Anything is something, no less, no more”, “The thing is never in-itself, but outside of itself” and “To be is not to comprise, and to comprise is not to be”. But I can’t really. Garcia was quite hard to grasp, occasionally he even seemed unintelligible. Nevertheless I did sense that he is on to something. I saw it, in his way of speaking. I saw it in his eyes. He writes novels as well I was told afterwards. Literature and ontology. Like Sartre, a young Sartre.

Does reality exist? A debate with Graham Harman

In 2010 I completed my master thesis in philosophy (see here for an addendum to it). In this thesis I develop a theory of knowledge that comes very close to what the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux calls 'strong correlationism' (without me knowing this term at that time; I didn't even know who Meillassoux was). Yesterday I entered into a debate at Felix & Sofie with the American philosopher Graham Harman (who, like Meillassoux, rejects strong correlationism). My opening statement to the debat is available below.

"First of all I would like to thank Felix & Sofie for the invitation to participate in tonight’s debate. The question of tonight’s debate is one of the most fundamental questions of philosophy: Does reality exist? Well, in my master thesis I make a distinction between the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself. The-world-for-us is the world as implied by the human point of view. It is the world as it is thought and perceived by us humans. The-world-in-itself is ultimate reality. The-world-in-itself is the world as it exists on and for itself in an absolute sense. It is the absolute.

Now, the-world-in-itself is inaccessible for us. It is impossible for us to get outside ourselves in order to compare the world as it is ‘in itself’ to the world as it is ‘for us’. We do not have access to such an absolute stance. After all, we are trapped in our human condition. We can only access the world from our human viewpoint. It is impossible for us to step outside our relation to the in-itself. Therefore we cannot know anything that is beyond this relationship. To put it differently, we cannot think or perceive something while abstracting from the fact that it is still us who are thinking or perceiving it. Indeed, if we think or perceive anything as true about the in-itself, then what we think or perceive is still a human thought or human experience. All our knowledge is qualified as human knowledge. This is inevitable. We can’t get rid of this qualification of our knowledge. Absolute knowledge is unreachable.

So the-world-in-itself is unknowable because our knowledge is always relative to the human conditions of knowledge. We cannot have access to the-world-in-itself since we cannot have knowledge of anything independent of our human way of thinking and perceiving.

Is this Kantianism? No, for contrary to Kantianism, even the claim that there exist objects outside us that ground or produce our experiences, is only justified as a claim about how the world is for us. So Kant’s claim that there are Dinge-an-sich is only warranted as a world-for-us-claim. In fact, even the distinction between the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself is only justified as a claim about how the world is for us. For again, everything we think applies to the-world-for-us. So, the-world-for-us is the ultimate unsurpassable horizon of all our understanding. It is for us the holistic all-inclusive. We are always already in it. Hence, it is the subject of all our predications. Is this idealism? No. Idealism claims to know the in-itself. According to idealism the in-itself is consciousness or mind and nothing exists outside it. But this claim is not warranted because we cannot know the in-itself. Is it than realism? No, for idealism might be true. Again, we know nothing at all about the in-itself; so also not whether idealism is false.

Should this all worry us? Not at all! For within the context of the world-for-us we can justify many, many claims. Examples include, but are not limited to, logical propositions such as the principle of non-contradiction, mathematical statements such as the theorems of set theory, ordinary claims (such that I exist, that you exist and are not merely a product of my thought, that the glass of water in front of me exists extra-mentally as well, that Paris is the capital of France, etc.), and moral claims, such as that it is wrong to torture the innocent. In fact the whole project of metaphysics can still be carried out within the context of the world-for-us, as long as we realize that all our claims, metaphysical and non-metaphysical, are about the for-us and cannot be justified as claims about the in-itself. And this is fine. For what else could we as human beings wish for than to justify claims about how the world is for us? Indeed, what else could we as human beings wish for than to be justified as human beings? After all, we are human beings, not gods. The in-itself is inaccessible. That is what we should concede to the skeptic. But we can still find truth: objective universal human truth within the-world-for-us. And for us humans, that should be sufficient."

Note: On 6 April I translated the Dutch parts of this post into English