Object-Oriented Ontology 4. Graham Harman 4.

 Graham Harman. Towards Speculative Realism. 2010. 

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Object-Oriented Ontology or Speculative Realism differs from other philosophies or, more precisely, metaphysics by asserting that an object (e.g., oak) cannot be either a substance or relational; an oak cannot be either a substance of the abstract oak or the relational object appearing as an oak as it appears through the interactions with water, soil, human beings, wood, etc. Any object is a force playing between essence (the essence of an oak, but not an eternal essence) and relations with other objects. 

To summarize this book, I will ask one question (which is asked in the book) and comment on it. 

Is an acorn potentially an oak? 

From the speculative realist perspective, no. An acorn is not potentially an oak. Because if we say that an acorn is potentially an oak, then we reduce either the oak-object to its "essence" which is allegedly the acorn, or, vice versa, we do not admit the acorn to be an object by its own by reducing it to its duty, its function as a producer of oak-object. In both cases we kill these two objects, the acorn and the oak. Speculative Realism admits both the oak and the acorn as two objects, fully two objects, independent from each other. An acorn can produce an oak when it is thrown into soil, with good water, in good weather; it can also be food for humans or animals; and it can also stay as an acorn for thousands of years if it meets suitable conditions. Hence, the acorn-object is an object without the need to function as a potential carrier of the oak-object (because it does not need to be an oak tree to be an acorn; it can be food, for example).

Rule 1: An object, either an acorn or a hammer, is not used for some purposes to exist; it is not used for doing something, but only it is. 

An acorn is formed by other objects, atoms, cellulose, etc. An acorn also forms an oak tree. Oaks can form other objects, forests. This binary is what confuses us:

Rule 2: Any object is at the same time formed by other objects and forms others. 

When the acorn-object comes across other objects, water and soil, it has to meet them, to relate itself to them. But water, soil, and acorn are three real objects that stand side-by-side, so they cannot meet by themselves. They need a mediator to do so. Speculative Realism suggests that the acorn can relate to them only by imagining their intentional qualities. Water has an image, an intentional quality that the acorn can imagine: wet, delicious, absorbable, etc. Soil also has imagined, intentional qualities that the acorn will receive and react accordingly: warm, embracing, etc. The same thing is to be said about how water and soil meet the acorn. Hence, the real objects (water, soil, and acorn) meet with each other only through imagined or intentional objects (the image of water as the acorn pictures it, the image of the acorn as soil thinks of it and its properties, etc.). In response to these imagined qualities of the objects, the real object, the acorn, shows some of its properties: It sends roots in the soil, it opens, a small oak tree emerges. If the acorn met a hearth, not water and soil, then it will imagine the intentional qualities of fire, and it will relate to the fire showing other properties: being food. Based on that, an acorn cannot be an elephant because we do not know so far any objects that an acorn can imagine and interact with to, finally, shape an elephant. However, that might happen in the future. We cannot be certain. 

Rule 3: The binary of intentional and real objects is what forms the world, enabling objects to meet each other and to breathe into each other. 

After the acorn became an oak, it exists no more because it lost its essential qualities. This, however, does not mean that the acorn became an oak; it means the meetings between that acorn and many other objects formed the object of that oak tree, and the oak tree is not reducible to the dead, perished acorn. 

Rule 4: Objects die, they grow, and are born first of all.

This rule explains to us why Speculative Realism rejects the idea of substance. However, as we said before, an object has essential qualities, and we cannot grasp them all. We cannot understand fully an object. Any other object cannot fully relate to an acorn fully, exhausting the whole qualities it has (that is why we cannot know whether in the future an acorn can form an elephant). We say a real object withdraws to itself away from others. On the contrary, intentional objects go forwards to meet other objects. 

Rule 3`: Objects play between two inseparable forces: relating to other objects (each intentional object - an image of a real object - tends to meet and fuse itself into another real object) and withdrawing from other objects (each real object withdraws with its non-exhaustible qualities from other objects).