Object-Oriented Ontology I. Graham Harman 1.

 Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics

Harman, Graham

2009 

re-press

For a better view, click on the Figure or click here.

Are you as a human being more real than a train, a set of apples, or a bus? Do I exist more (or is my existence stronger, denser) than a train, a bus, or apples? Whatever the answer is, it is necessary to know why a specific answer emerged and other possible answers were neglected or rejected. If I say, yes a human being is more real than a train, then I assume that in this existence the human being will remain and trains will not, a human being has an essence which more sublime than a train's essence,  the human being is closer to the essence of this existence, whereas trains are so far and they exist only to serve humans, or trains exist only in our brains, in our imaginations, so they are less real.  This book, which introduces the theory of Object-Oriented Ontology, argues that trains, apples, buses, and humans exist at the same footing: They are all equal in reality but not in strength; they all exist equally; all of them are objects. All objects exist at the same footing of reality. Thus, I am not more real than a train. 

How is that possible?

Objects, or things, are irreducible to their components; objects have no essence; objects are what they are actually, here and now, and as they are immersed into relations with other objects and no object exists out of relations with others. 

The Bus in this painting (Rafea Kaddour, no date) is an 

object (or represents an object). This Bus, according to the Object-Oriented Philosophy, is not the sum of its components: It is not the tires + the engines + the driver + passengers + iron + fuel. The Bus is these components and more. Can you define any bus by saying it is a group of tires + engine etc.? No. The definition will be wrong. It is not enough. Look at the Bus in this painting, we cannot see every component of it (we can see only two tires and no engine), nevertheless we know that this is a bus. 

An object is more than its components. 

Now, let us imagine that you see a "bus" swimming between the earth and the moon; something similar to the painting moving between the moon and the earth. Will you call it a bus? No. If you see all of its necessary components (tires, engine, etc.), will you call it, define it as a bus? No. It is not. The Bus in this painting is a bus because we can see its relations with other objects. There are roads, the ground, the sky, and a few houses of a village (a village close to my hometown, Salamieh, so I can assure you that this bus is real 😎). The Bus is what it is because it has an array of relations to other objects. However, can we define a bus by saying it is a means to move people from point x in a given place on this earth to a point x+1? No. 

An object is not reducible to its relations with other objects. An object is defined by both its relations and its components. It is more than its components and less than its relations.

Some philosophers would argue that any bus has an essence, something deeply rooted behind what we see as a bus, much deeper than the appearance of the thing as a bus. Indeed, according to these philosophers (e.g., Heidegger), the Bus appears to our consciousness - as human beings - when it becomes less bus, when it betrays its essence. To explain this idea: I am a person, when I sit alone, when I sink deeply into my real Self, when I touch and recognize my essence as a human being, then I am the real me, I am in my own essence. When I go outside, drink mate 🍼 (no  emoji for Mate), talk to others, attend a theatre, etc., I lose my essence, I become less real, less me, I betray my essence. The only way to appear to others is to betray your essence. According to the Object-Oriented Ontology, this is not the case. A thing, an object has no essence as Heidegger imagined. Hence, the Bus, exactly as me, is the bus as it appears in relations to others and as it consists of its components without being reduced to any. I am me, I am the real me, as I act with others, and as I know who I am, and what my values (say, components) are. I am not only the "me" contemplating alone in dark, nor the "me" drinking tea with friends; I am the person who is neither, and who is in-between these two poles. 

Object-Oriented Philosophy rejects the notion of essence. 

The Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne, 1893

The apples, in the famous Paul Cezanne's painting, deploy some of their full existence as they are resting right now on the table dropping from a basket and thrown inside it. These apples are apples because they have their components and they are related to the other objects (table, basket, etc.). Without any of these two conditions, they would be apples no more. But, when I eat a part of one of these apples, does it cease to be an apple? When an apple gets rotten, does it stops to be an apple? Generally, no. It continues to be an apple, it endures its existence as an apple. How? 

Object-Oriented Philosophy tells us that this apple is an apple because it actualizes itself; it is here and now actually. However, this actuality is not confined to the relations that apple builds with the table and the basket. This actuality is not granted by the relations with other objects; rather, it emanates from both: the components and the relations together.  Therefore, an apple can change its relations, its appearance, its actuality (as a fresh apple to a rotten apple) as it changes its relations with the other objects (such as the weather).  However, the ability of an apple to get rotten is not due to  potentia inside it; there is no potentiality inside any object. Object-Oriented Philosophy denies potentiality. Things exist because they actualize themselves; things change because they can actualize themselves in different relations. 

Objects have no potential, but only actuality. Actuality is not reduced or confined to relations, it is free from relations. 

Applications of this Understanding

1. The traditional taxonomy of things (Whole/parts) is rejected by Object-Oriented Ph. There are no wholes, there are no parts. All objects exist equally. That is, a whole is supposed to give birth to its parts, but all objects exist in relations with others as external objects, not as whole-parts. A man and a woman give birth to a child, but the child is not inside any of them. That child is always outside, externally located to her parents. No wholes no parts (p.35). 
2. There is no primal lump from which the universe has emerged. There is no one God, as a homogenous body from which the whole universe has emerged. Things exist and unfold over time (indeed, time itself is not outside objects but it is an object itself emerging as other objects unfold). Objects are diverse as they actually exist/have existed/will exist. The idea of prial lump means that objects can be annihilated into this lump; thus, they are not genuine. 
3. An object is a unity by itself. It does not float freely and become any other thing. A thing is a thing. 
4. Objects, all objects, can necessarily communicate and meet with each other. Hence, Object-Oriented philosophy rejects the doctrine of dualism: Culture/Nature, Mind/Body, Human/Non-human. All of these dualities are rejected because duality means that an object from one wing and another object from another wing cannot genuinely meet or they belong to different natures. All objects exist at the same footing of reality, of existence. (If you believe in God, you can call this "same footing of reality" God.). Objects exist and link to others as they actualize themselves in a strange vacuum (p.132), in which there is no difference in existence between me and my book, and in which I can relate myself to this book through my qualities and my book qualities.

Qualities, how objects move or unfold? 

Through translation. The relations between objects are similar to translation between two languages. More precisely, objects are related through causations. They are translated to each other through causations. 

Arrival of a Trian, Monet, 1877

Look at the train in this painting. Can this train become a tree? Can it become a rocket? 

It is almost impossible for the train to become a tree, why? 

Although, a tree and this train are equal objects, and although they are related to other objects, but the transformation/translation from a train to a tree is extremely difficult. An object builds its relations with others according to its qualities. A train has a certain set of qualities that enable it to move horizontally, to carry people, to ake voice, to be stable, to travel for long periods and distances, to build a relation (an alliance) with steam-power, with drivers, with the gravity. However, this wide array of qualities (which emerge, indeed, from its components and change according to its networks) do not permit the train to build any type of relations with what a tree is. A tree has certain qualities: it grows, it drinks, it dies, it gets sick, it can be logged easily. The distance between the train's qualities and a tree's qualities is extremely wide: no network can bring them together. No enough objects exist to mediate a meeting between the train and a tree. For the same reason, this train in this painting cannot be translated into a real train. However, there are sufficient objects that can translate the train into a melted bulk of iron. 

How a train can be melted? How a train can carry people to different places?

 When, and only when, a train builds networking with other objects, it has a psyche (Humans have psyche all the time because they are connected all the time). This psyche will enable the train to "imagine" the suitable qualities of other objects with which it can connect. Train = {iron, power, mobility, driver, paths}, a traveler = {not heavy, small in size, can jump to the inner space of other things}.  The train is connected to this traveler through the necessary and sufficient (at least) qualities of both of them: (1) Hence, the train senses that it can carry that person as it receives its quality as a non-heavy object; (2) Hence, the train cannot connect to an elephant because it fails to sense its quality as suitable to its own (the elephant is heavy and cannot jump to the inner space to objects). Similarly, a traveler can sense that the train's quality is suitable for its own: The train is heavy and movable; the train can contain him. A traveler will not jump into the railway itself because its qualities are not sensed by the traveler as suitable to carry him, to move. Railways are not movable. 

Therefore, indeed, the train does not meet the traveler directly. There is something, an object, that mediates the relation between these two. This object is different than these two objects. This object is  sensual. 

Real and Sensual Objects and Causation 

The train and the traveler are two real objects; the sensed or the imagined train to which the traveler will jump is not real: it is sensual. The traveler that the train sensed as an object carriable is not the real object, but a sensual object imagined by the train. Translation between objects, meeting between objects, or causation "between" objects  is only possible because there are two types of objects: real and sensual. Two real objects cannot meet; two sensual objects cannot meet. We need one from each type to have things "caused," "translated," or "met." 

I am a real object. My imagined monster is not. It is sensual. 

A novel is a real object, its image in a reader's mind is sensual. 

A train is a real object; its path (railway's path) that is sensed by the very actuality of the train to be a moving train is sensual. 

And so on . . . 

Causation then is vicarious: An object causes another case of itself or another object as it immanently meets other objects from a different type (sensual/real). Causation does not occur by "direct touching." Causation is also possible because it is asymmetric. The real me is not equal in power (not in existence) to a sensual image of a train. When I get off, I stop thinking of the train (as a sensual object); hence, the sensual train ceases to exist, but - of course- the real train continues to do. Human beings are equal to the train in existence, but they are more powerful than it because they have wider relations and alliances. That is why they can make trains, and trains cannot make humans. A train is more powerful than an individual sleeping in the railway because at this position, the train has a wider array of relations that that poor individual. This asymmetry is the necessary condition making causation, translation, occur. 

Moreover, causation occurs because objects can side apart from some or all of their qualities. I die when a train crushes me because I, as a real object, can abandon my qualities as a living thing when I am translated, when I meet another object having the qualities of a train. However, a heavy stone will not "die" when it is hit by a train because it cannot abandon any of its qualities when hit. I can jump to the train because I can abandon a quality of mine: I can become less stable for a second to jump. This ability to abandon qualities is another necessary condition to make causation possible. Needless to say, translation is not easy to occur: objects resist abandoning qualities (this is called buffered-ness); otherwise, everything can cause everything else. 

Click on the photo or here.

 A question arises: When do I stop to be me when I am in a translation period? If I lose two finger, do I stop to be me? If I lose my head, do I cease to be me? 

The author says that we decide, we as the master of translation (p.198). 

Conclusion:

• An object has two types making this world what it is: sensual and real objects.
• Each object has qualities. 
• We have sensual and real qualities as we have real and sensual objects (this idea is not clear in this book, but we will cover it in another book).
• Objects move, are translatable, unfold through the four conditions of causation: vicariousness, asymmetry, buffered-ness, and alluring (i.e., when finally an object abandons its qualities).