Graham Harman: Objects and the Arts

Contemporary American philosopher Graham Harman, the leading figure associated with the metaphysical movement object-oriented ontology, delivers his lecture Objects and the Arts.
In this lecture the founder of object-oriented philosophy will discuss the implications of this philosophy for the arts. After explaining why objects are withheld from all direct access, and explaining further that the arts have always been under pressure to recognise this fact, Harman will develop further the relation between philosophy and the arts demonstrated in his Documenta 13 catalogue essay The Third Table.
Graham Harman is Distinguished University Professor at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of eleven books, most recently Bells and Whistles: More Speculative Realism (2013).
www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/graha...

[@seanclements9325]

I love Harman so much. He has such an interesting philosophy and an even better rhetorical delivery. I’m much more of an analytic philosopher and it always amazes me that this thinker who would normally be considered continental can give the best most succinct explanation of Kripke out there. Truly a person who loves knowledge of all kinds and has interesting things to say on all sides of the philosophical spectrum. A legend

[@imag3reader]

This video needs to be played at half the speed!

[@JarrodDSchneider]

The point about surrealism requiring aesthetic realism to effectively transmit its message was a good one, I think, as indeed the subject matter of, say, a Dali for instance, could not be readily conveyed through cubism. If Harman should happen to revisit this point in a future talk, he'd do well to reinforce it by alluding to the brief and disastrous impressionistic phase of Magritte, a low-point in the artist's oeuvre.

[@c.s.hayden3022]

An inexhaustible thing in itself, always finite in its given relations, begs to be further explored and allows for more personal, actual connection- there's always a door. It's like the William Carlos Williams "No ideas but in things" credo, still always a gap between the image and the reality.

[@jim.....]

very clear, thanks for putting this up

[@addy_hits]

no problem

[@dengjudeng9790]

awesome

[@stephenhogg6154]

Is speculative realism deterministic?

[@matiasocarez]

Hi, is there a way i could make spanish subtitles to this?

[@neilzhang8557]

hope we can have the subtitle

[@dengjudeng9790]

awesome

[@erinhughes454]

OMG he speaks so fast!

[@Krelianx]

+Erin Hughes You need this oaf to go any slower? It ain't exactly dense.

[@ethanpinch1577]

Krelianx X i agree. these are pretty peurile ideas

[@addy_hits]

rip erin

[@lepistanuda]

i played it on 0.75 speed

[@spectralv709]

At .5 speed he sounds drunk

[@stephenhogg6154]

What's so 'realist' about 'speculative realism'?

[@stephenhogg6154]

@TheBmo4538 'Realism' implies 'realistic' - physical materialism.

[@stephenhogg6154]

@TheBmo4538 Hey, fair point. 'Speculative implies that this independent reality not only exists, but is knowable, by means of "speculation" which is specific to each author.' However, there does seem to be some tension here between an 'independent reality' and an 'open speculation', so I'm a little confused. If speculative realism is not 'materialist', is it not at least largely compatible with it? Or is it independent of both materialism and 'idealism', pragmatism? 'one can be realist and not be a materialist': so what exactly does the 'realism' pertain to: a post-post-Kantian intellectual endeavour? A new king of speculative metaphysics? What is real, realistic about 'speculative realism'? Are 'objects - things in themselves - absolutely essential to it?

[@stephenhogg6154]

@TheBmo4538 Some sense! Thanks, for the effort. I'll get back to you.

[@thelordflashheart2292]

When he talks about under-mining and says that it cannot account for emergence, I'm not sure that I see the problem he is having. He talks about the atoms in the body changing about every seven years yet we are still the same people, but we aren't really the same people every seven years, we aren't really even the same people over shorter spans of time. Of course I don't mean that we have entirely new identities, but we are not indentical in many ways. Often there are changes in our physical appearance, state of health, what we know, and so on. Even if I look at my hands, they are quite different than they were seven years ago. The second part of this is that, the thing that accounts for us being the same (not entirely different) could be whatever force or process causes atoms to conglomerate in our particular selves. Unfortunately I cannot say exactly what that force or process is, I would probably defer to science to describe the process which causes our atoms to be changed. Another example would be a table or a house, if you change a plank of wood in a wooden house, it remains the same house, yet it is different by the quality of having the new plank, or a table having a new leg. If you replaced every plank in the house it would in fact be a new house, it would merely be constituted (theoretically) on the same model as the previous one, as well as on the same plot of land, and perhaps be given the same name (of people named their house, some people say the "______" household, etc, or give it a street number, and so on) as well as certain emotional connections we would have to the house. Anyone care to explain where I'm going wrong with this?

[@tijaplace9228]

Well, I think the only problem with under-mining is that it alone can't explain the object. Your house example is interesting, but if we have to replace every part of the house, we should do it in such way that it is still recognizable as the house it was before. If human sells change every 7 years, the one thing that remains is overall appearance. But again people visual looks can be changed drastically through lifestyle, age, surgery, etc. So if the looks doesn't matter, soon artificial intelligence may make explanation of being more confusing.

[@AlexanderVerney-Elliott-ep7dw]

"Graham Harman writes about objects. When considering two 'objects' he notes their interaction. For instance, he writes about cotton burning, 'the cotton burns stupidly.' If all objects are ontologically, or in their Being (Sein) 'democratised' or equal, then a certain philosophical ground arises from this proposition. Since these objects are equal, that is to say, the same ontologically, then it follows that they can be interchangeable - ontologically - with any other objects. Objects are objects. Moving from the 'objects' of cotton and fire, interacting as they are through what Harman calls a 'sensual vicar' - another object that is created from the interaction of the two objects, let us apply this proposition to another case. When a Monk in Tibet sets himself aflame, when he self-immolates in protest against China's occupation of Tibet, does the Monk too 'burn stupidly?' Since the Monk and the cotton are in-their-being totally equal, an Object is an Object, the Monk, just another 'object' can be said to 'burn stupidly.' Political ideologies to light to Monks and cotton are all 'objects' for Harman. The object withdraws, as 'we' or 'I' or another object can never fully know its being. This is a proposition he picks up from Martin Heidegger the Nazi philosopher. Harman associates himself so much with Heidegger that he says he is more of a Heideggerian than Heidegger himself. Given Heidegger's support for the discrimination and even extermination of Jews and other (objects), we can deduce via Harman's object-oriented ontology that he would, at an ontological level (that is at the level of Sein) find no problem with Nazi ideology, for it is simply another object that withdraws and relates with other objects. We must then ask, given Harman's fetishising of Heidegger and his objectification of everything, does 'the Jew burn stupidly?' That is to say, does the life of the Jewish person under the object of Nazism represent a mere interaction of equal objects via a 'sensual vicar?' ... Does the Jew get gassed stupidly under the object of Nazi philosophy which is entirely equal to the Jew and interacts with the Jew through the sensual vicar of another object that being the gas - the gas supposedly I would imagine an object that interacts with the Jew that's being killed and the gas chamber through a sensual vicar creating another object - everything is ontologically equal - what are the political consequences of that?" Eilif Verney-Elliott, Graham Harman's Object-oriented ontology, 2013

[@JS-dt1tn]

What a completely jejune commentary. Who goes around copying and pasting ad hominem remarks like this into KZbin comment sections lol.

[@softwetbread248]

@@JS-dt1tn second this. The moral implications of OOO is not that it allows nazism, that is a virtual realization of Harman's actual, it is simply that reality is amoral. It is not anti realist since it does call for a reality, however that reality is "speculative", it's real in a deleuzian sense, which I think he clearly exemplifies with the burning cotton example, the fire only interacts with one characteristic of the cotton -just like this writer only interacts with his own image of graham's philosophy-

[@JS-dt1tn]

@@softwetbread248 Nailed it! Thanks for bringing me back to this.

[@tralx5268]

Sir, you seem to have slipped over your brain.

[@AlexanderVerney-Elliott-ep7dw]

@@tralx5268 I do not have a brain to slip over; I only have a mind to slip into.

[@lucythegiant4104]

ZZZZZZZzzzzzz

[@kittylor9531]

When I am listening to him I realise that he speaks so fast to cover his lack of knowledge. i think people who like him have the same level of knowledge, sad but he shouldn't call himself a philosopher

[@erfanghiasi]

Said who? The famous Kitty Lor? : /

[@Robobotic]

I understood everything he is saying. There is a lot of complexity and if you havent studied philosophy you won't understand it.

[@evwell3988]

He is the most clear and concise philosopher around. Have you tried understanding Zizek or Deleuze?