For a Thought of Objects
Environmental awareness redefines our human position as part of a whole in a global and complex interrelationship. However, philosopher Graham Harman, the founder of object-oriented ontology (OOO), refutes the commonly accepted idea that everything in nature is connected. Certain things are intimately—and dangerously—interconnected, others almost not at all. Holism thus denies the “problematic” dimension of relationships between objects. Harman specifies the understanding of the object according to OOO—which cannot be reduced to its parts or its effects—but also contests the idea of a negative theology, an approach which gives a “glimpse” of objects even without formulating discursive knowledge. Though OOO advocates the theory of an ontological equality between all objects, it does not claim a political or moral equality. A man is not on the same level as dust, but at the same time, Harman sees no reason for philosophy to focus so much on the human.
