IS ONTOLOGY MAKING US STUPID?

PLURALIST THOUGHTS ON GRAHAM HARMAN'S MONIST IDEALISM

(This paper conducts a critical discussion of the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman, and compares it with the similar ontology of Louis Althusser, and with the radically different ontology of Paul eyerabend!" Abstract# $ begin by %deconstructing& the title and e'plaining that eyerabend does not really use the word %ontology&, though he does sometimes call his position ontological realism" eyerabend calls his position indifferently a %general methodology& or a %general cosmology&, and he seems to be be hostile to the (ery enterprise of ontology, as a separate discipline forming part of what he criti)ues as %school philosophy&" $ then go on to say that there is a concept of a different type of ontology, that $ call a %diachronic ontology& that perhaps eyerabend would ha(e accepted, and that is (ery different from ontology as ordinarily thought, which $ claim to be synchronic ontology (ha(ing no room for the dialogue with *eing, but just supposing that *eing is already and always there without our contribution!" $ discuss Althusser+s structuralist epistemology and ontology as a predecessor of Graham Harman+s object-oriented ontology, and analyse both as e'emplifying synchronic ontology, gi(ing a reading of Harman,s recent boo- TH. TH$/0 TA*L." $ then discuss eyerabend,s ideas as showing a different way of doing philosophy and of thin-ing about *eing, that of a diachronic ontology, in which there is no stable framewor- or fi'ed path" A) INTRODUCTION The )uestion posed in the title, is ontology ma-ing us stupid1, is in reference to 2icholas 3arr,s boo- TH. 4HALL564, which is an elaboration of his earlier essy $4 G55GL. 7A8$2G 94 4T9P$01, and $ will destroy the suspense by gi(ing you the answer right away# :es and 2o" Yes ontology can ma-e us more stupid if it pri(ileges the synchronic, and $ will gi(e two e'amples# (;! the <mar'ist= ontology of Louis Althusser and (>! the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman" No, on the contrary, it can ma-e us less stupid, if it pri(ileges the diachronic, and here $ will gi(e the e'ample of the pluralist ontology of Paul eyerabend" 2ormally, $ should gi(e a little definition of ontology# the study of being as being, or the study of the most fundamental categories of beings, or the general theory of objects and their relations" Howe(er, this paper ends with a presentation of the ideas of Paul eyerabend, and it must be noted that eyerabend himself does not use the word <ontology=, preferring instead to tal-, indifferently, of <general cosmology= or of <general methodology=" 4ometimes as well he tal-s of the underlying system of categories of a world(iew" And towards the end of his life he began to tal- of *eing with a capital *, but he always emphasi?ed that we should not get hung up on one particular word or approach because there is no <stable framewor- which encompasses e(erything=, and that any name or argument or approach only <accompanies us on our journey without tying it to a fi'ed road= ( eyerabend,s Letter to the /eader, Against 7ethod '(i, a(ailable here# http#@@www"-jf"ca@A;3>*5/"htm" eyerabend e'plicitly indicated that his own <deconstructi(e= approach deri(ed from his fidelity to this ambiguity and this fluidity" Thus ontology for eyerabend implies a journey, i"e" a process of indi(iduation, without a fi'ed road and without a stable framewor-" As for <stupid=, it refers to a process of <stupidification= or dumbing down, of dis-indi(iduation, that tends to impose on us just such a fi'ed road and stable framewor-" The word <ma-ing= also calls for e'planation" 6e are noetic creatures, and so the good news is that we can ne(er be completely stupid, or completely disindi(iduated, e'cept in case of brain death" The bad news is that we can always become stupider than we are today, just as we can always become more open, more fluid, more multiple, more differenciated, in short more indi(iduated" 5ntology is not a magic wand that can transform us into an animal or a god, but it can fa(orise one or the other for- of the bifurcation of paths" A/G97.2T# 7y argument will be (ery simple#

;" traditional ontologies are based on an approach to the real that pri(ileges the synchronic dimension, where the paths are fi'ed and the framewor- is stable" Althusser and Harman are good e'amples of synchronic ontology" >" another type of ontology is possible, and it e'ists sporadically, which pri(ileges the diachronic dimension, and thus the aspects of plurality and becoming, the paths are multiple and the framewor- is fluid" eyerabend is a good e'ample of diachronic ontology" 2*# or the sa-e of bre(ity, $ tal- of synchronic and of diachronic ontologies, but in fact each type of ontology contains elements of the other type, and it is simply a matter of the primacy gi(en to the synchronic o(er the diachronic, or the in(erse" Philosophy is inseparable from a series of radical con(ersions where our comprehension of all that e'ists is transformed" $n itself, such a capacity for con(ersion or paradigm change is rather positi(e" A problem arises when this con(ersion amounts to a reduction of our (ision and to an impo(erishment of our life, if it ma-es us stupid" 7y con(ersion to a diachronic ontology tooplace in ;BC>, when $ read eyerabend,s AGA$24T 7.TH50 (2*# this was the earlier essay (ersion, with se(eral interesting de(elopments that were left out of the boo-!", where he gi(es an outline of a pluralist ontology and an epistemology" 5n reading it $ was transported, transformed, con(ertedD unfortunately, at the same period my philosophy department con(erted to a (ery different philosophy E Althusserianism" B) ALTHUSSER AND ALTHUSSERIANISM $n fact, ;BCA was a year that mar-ed a turning point between the %diachronic tempest& of the FGs and the synchronic return to order desired by the Althusserians" $ am deliberately using the e'pression that *ernard 4tiegler uses to describe the in(ention of metaphysics as it was put to worin Plato,s /.P9*L$3, in support of a project of synchronisation of minds and beha(iours" $ was the unwilling and unconsenting witness of an attempt at such a synchronisation on a small scale# my department, the 0epartment of General Philosophy, san- into the dogmatic project, e'plicitly announced as such, of forming radical (ie Althusserian! intellectuals under the aegis of Althusserian 7ar'ist 4cience" A small number of Althusserian militants too- administrati(e and intellectual control of the department, and by all sorts of techni)ues of propaganda, intimidation, harassment and e'clusion, forced all its members, or almost all, either to conform to the Althusserian party line or to lea(e" $ntellectually the Althusserians imposed an onto-epistemological meta-language in terms of which they affirmed the radical difference between science and ideology, and the scientificity of 7ar'ism" $t is customary to describe Althusserianism from the epistemological point of (iew, but it also had an ontological dimension, than-s to its distinction between real objects and theoretical objects# scientific practice produces, according to them, its own objects, theoretical objects, as a means of -nowing the real objects" The objects of e(eryday life, the objects of common sense, and e(en perceptual objects, are not real objects, but ideological constructions, simulacra (as Harman will later claim, they are %utter shams&!" aced with this negati(e con(ersion of an entire department, $ tried to resist" *ecause $ am %countersuggestible& (as eyerabend claimed to be! E in other words, because $ am faithful to the process of indi(iduation rather than to a party line E $ de(oted my philosophical efforts to a criti)ue of Althusserianism" $ts rudimentary ontology, the determination of *eing in terms of real objects, corresponds to a transcendental point of (iew of first philosophy which acts as a hindrance to scientific practice, and pre-constrains the type of theoretical construction that scientific research can elaborate" To maintain the diachronicity of the sciences one cannot retain the strict demarcation between real objects and theoretical objects, nor between science and ideology" The sciences thus ris- being demoted to the same plane as any other ideological construction and ha(ing their objects demoted to the status of simulacra" This is a step that the Althusserians did not ta-e, but that, as we shall see, Harman does, thus relie(ing the sciences of their pri(ileged status"

2*# The set of inter(iews with Hac)ues 0errida, P5L$T$34 A20 /$.204H$P, describes the same phenomenon of intellectual pretention and intimidation supported by a theory ha(ing an aura of epistemological and ontological sophistication but which was radically deficient on both counts" 0errida emphasises that the concepts of %object& and of %objecti(ity& were deployed without sufficient analysis of their pertinence nor of their theoretical and practical utility and groundedness" After the period of Althusserian hegemony came a new period of %diachronic storm&, this time on the intellectual plane" Translations came out of wor-s by oucault and 0errida, but also of Lyotard and 0eleu?e" Althusserian dogmas were contested and deconstructed" *ut for me there still remained serious limitations on thought despite this new sophistication" There was an ontological dimension common to all these authors, and this ontological dimension was either neglected or ignored by the defenders of rench Theory" eyerabend himself seemed to be in need of an ontology to re-inforce his pluralism and to protect it against dogmatic incursions of the Althusserian type and against relati(ist dissolutions of the post-modern type" $ obtained a scholarship to go and study in Paris, and $ left Australia in ;BIG to continue my ontological and epistemological research" 6hat $ retain from this e'perience, o(er and abo(e the need to maintain and to push forward the deconstruction by elaborating a new sort of ontology to accompany its ad(ances, is the feeling of disappointment with the contradictory sophistication in Althusserian philosophy" $ had the impression that it pluralised and diachronised with one hand what it reduced and synchronised with the other" Thus, despite its initial show of sophistication it made its acolytes stupid, disindi(iduated" urther, as an instrument of synchronisation on the large scale it was doomed to failure by its 7ar'ism and its scientism, both of which made securing its general adoption an impossible mission" $t would ha(e been necessary to de-mar'ise and de-scientise its theory to ma-e it acceptable to the greatest number" urther, its diffusion was limited to the academic microcosm, because at that time there was no internet" These limitations to the theory,s propagation (7ar'ism, scientism, academic confinement! ha(e been deconstructed and o(ercome by a new philosophical mo(ement, called 555 (object-oriented ontology! which has con)uered a new sort of philosophical public" Lastly, $ retain a distrust of any %mo(ement& in philosophy, and of the power tactics (propaganda, intimidation, harassment, e'clusion! that are ine(itably implied" 5bli(ious to this sort of %wariness& with respect to the sociology of homo academicus, the 555'ians publicise themsel(es as a mo(ement and attribute the rapid diffusion of their ideas to their mastery of digital social technologies" C) HARMAN AND OBJECT-ORIENTED ONTOLOGY 6e are li(ing through a period of intellectual regression in the realm of 3ontinental Philosophy, a regression that proclaims itself to be a decisi(e progress beyond the merely negati(e and critical philosophies of the recent past" :et the philosophies of 0eleu?e, oucault, 0errida and Lyotard cannot be summed up in the image of pure criti)ue" Their critical dissolution of the dogmatic residues contained in e(en the most inno(ati(e philosophies they had encountered did not lea(e us in a powerless (oid of negati(ity and paralysis" Their %deconstruction& went all the way down, deconstructing e(en the notion of criti)ue and liberating the possibility of new assemblages and new processes of subjecti(ation"*eyond the criti)ue of the new figures of transcendence and ontotheology they ga(e concrete s-etches of how to see the world in terms of a (ery different sort of ontology based on immanence E a diachronic ontology" The recent promotion of philosophical successors to this constellation of thin-ers of immanence, such as *adiou and Ji?e-, has not led to any real progress but to a labour of tra(estying the past (one has only to loo- at *adiou,s 0.L.9J. and Ji?e-,s 5/GA24 6$TH59T *50$.4! and to a return to such intellectual deadends as Lacanian psychoanalysis" *ut e(en these regressi(e philosophers remain in dialogue, howe(er one-sided and unjust, with their illustrious predecessors, and stri(e to confront them at the le(el of conceptual richness that characterised their wor-" The ne't step was to -eep up the general aura of ha(ing %gone beyond& the older supposedly negati(e thin-ers but to radically simplify the conceptual le(el, presenting easy summary presentations of the

new thought while con(eniently forgetting the conceptual paths followed" 5ne can agree with both 7ehdi *elhaj 8acem and Ale'ander Galloway that it is *adiou,s settheoretic philsophy that e'presses in its purest and most general form the new paradigm that articulates e'plicitly what is elsewhere just blithely presupposed as a form of thought too e(ident to e(en be aware of" They indicate that the ne't step in consolidating the regression that *adiou,s philosophy, howe(er inno(ati(e, does not initiate but rather registers and legitimates, corresponds to the far less ambitious productions of the object-oriented ontologists" $ say far less %ambitious& in the sense of conceptual ambition, because their ambition is of a different order" They are the mar-etised (ersion of the *adiou-Ji?e- constellation, and so the e'tremely politicised tone has been discreetly dissol(ed to lea(e a more demagogic pac-aging to the stale ideas that 555 trumpets ambitiously as the new construction after so much criti)ue" They promulgate a dumbed down de-mar'ised (ersion of the set-theoretic uni(erse e'plicated by *adiou" $t is normal that in this conte't ranKois Laruelle,s philosophy is at last coming into its own" $t could not fully succeed while the wor- of 0eleu?e and 0errida were in progress, as his criti)ues of that wor- were only half-true, based on gi(ing it an ultimately uncharitable reading as remaining within the norms of sufficient philosophy, and refraining from considering other possible readings" Laruelle pursued o(er the decades his unwa(ering commitment to immanence, and this project shines forth now against the bac-ground of the regression that *adiou-Ji?e--7eillassou' and the 555'ians represent" 0espite his insinuations to the contrary, *runo Latour with his compositionism is the direct application of deconstructionist and post-structuralist thought, which he is (ery familiar with" His tal- about his %empirical& research is (ery misleading and contains o(ertones of scientistic bra(ado, as his system is in many places a logical continuation of the wor- of on these predecessors" He is howe(er a good populariser of good ideas, and his wor- should be encouraged as long as we do not accept his own conte'tualisation of his ideas" Latour is (ey much an inheritor of 0eleu?e, Lyotard, oucault, 0errida, and 4erres, and the intellectual contemporary of Laruelle and 4tiegler" $t is this philosophical inheritance that gi(es his wor- its superiority o(er *adiou,s and of Harman+s, not any primacy of the empirical o(er the philosophical" *eyond the criti)ue of the new figures of transcendence and ontotheology these thin-ers ga(e concrete s-etches of how to see the world in terms of a (ery different sort of ontology based on immanence E a diachronic ontology" The recent promotion of philosophical successors to this constellation of thin-ers of immanence, such as *adiou and Ji?e-, has not led to any real progress but to a labour of tra(estying the past (one has only to loo- at *adiou,s 0.L.9J. and Ji?e-,s 5/GA24 6$TH59T *50$.4! and to a return to such intellectual deadends as Lacanian psychoanalysis (especially understood synchronically, as *adiou understands e(erything, as a system!" *ut e(en these regressi(e philosophers remain in dialogue, howe(er one-sided and unjust, with their illustrious predecessors, and stri(e to confront them at the le(el of conceptual richness that characterised their wor-" The ne't step was to -eep up the general aura of ha(ing %gone beyond& the older supposedly negati(e thin-ers but to radically simplify the conceptual le(el, presenting easy summary presentations of the new thought while con(eniently forgetting the conceptual paths followed" This step was ta-en by the epigoni# 7eillassou', who still retains an el(ated style and at least an intention of conceptual rigourD and its pop (ariant in Graham Harman,s adaptation for the masses" or e'ample, in TH. TH$/0 TA*L. Graham Harman gi(es a popularised (ersion his theoretical position in the form of a flawed reading of and an unsatisfying response to 4ir Arthur .ddington,s famous parado' of the two tables" 9nfortunately, Harman shows himself incapable of grasping the anti-reductionistic import of .ddington,s argument and proposes an abstract philosophical dualism to replace .ddington,s pluralist (ision of scientific research" $t is tacitly implied that the theoretical justification for this unsatisfying presentation is to be found elsewhere in Harman,s wor-s, but this is not the case"

Harman judges science and common sense in terms of the crude philosophical criteria of another age and finds them lac-ing in -nowledge of reality" He is obliged to posit a shadowy %withdrawn& realm of real objects to e'plain the discrepancies between his nai(e abstract model of -nowledge as access and the reality of the sciences" 6or-s such as TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T, TH. TH$/0 TA*L. and *.LL4 A20 6H$4TL.4, li-e the whole of his philosophy, are the record of Harman noticing the discrepancies, but refusing to re(ise the model" His solution is a dead-end, the timid, nostalgic propounding of an anti)uated epistemology under the co(er of a MnewM ontology" $t will be seen in this re(iew essay that Harman,s position is one of a surface pluralism (there are multiple rNgimes of -nowing for an object! o(ercoded by a deep monism and demarcationism (the humanist, the scientific, and the e(eryday objects are %simulacra&, only the withdrawn object is real! embedded in a synchronic ontological frame (time is not an ontologically pertinent feature of real objects" D) HO ABSTRACT MONIST IDEALISM MAS!UERADES AS ITS OPPOSITE Today, 555 is at a loss" $ts hac-neyed set of critical terms (philosophy of access, shams and simulacra, la(alampy o(ermining, atomistic undermining! clearly ha(e no point of application at all to the new lines of research opened up by *runo Latour, *ernard 4tiegler, and ranKois Laruelle" 5ne has only to loo- at the utter incomprehension that 555'ians manifest with regard to Laruelle to see that their claim to %mo(e beyond& deconstruction is an empty bluff" 555 is a perfect e'ample for Laruelle,s non-philosophical analysis# a selection is made in the gi(en of a datum (objects! that is then ele(ated to the status of a condition of the gi(en" 5bjects that are present in the immanence of the gi(en are selected out as the transcendent condition of this gi(en and this transcendental gesture imposes a disjuncture in the immanent field between these %new& (in fact posited by a posteriori selection! transcendent real objects and the merely empirical sensual objects" The distinction between the real objects and sensual objects is both intrinsic to their immanent difference and an e'trinsic transcendent distinction that supposedly constitutes this difference" The (arious strategies to conjoin ((icarious causality, allusion! what has thus been disjoined (withdrawal! constitute the charm of 555" 4o Harman+s 555 would be an easy target for a Laruellian non-philosophical analysis, and $ looforward to such a criti)ue, now that 555 has shown its sterility as a research-programme" As for myself, $ consider that 0eleu?e and eyerabend gi(e us the material for what $ call a non-Laruellian non-philosophical criti)ue" $ ha(e been pursuing my own (ersion of non-philosophy for some time now and am curious to see what people can do with Laruelle" Harman,s ontology is one of transcendence, and Le(i *ryant,s insofar as it concords with Harman,s meta-categories is one of transcendence too, e(en if he fills in these meta-categories with immanent categoreal content" Laruelle, once again, gi(es good analyses of this sort of mi'es of transcendence and immanence that gi(e themsel(es out as pure philosophies of immanence" 7y point of (iew is, howe(er, purely eyerabendian# these ontologies are far too constraining on matters that only empirical, though not necessarily scientific, research can decide" 5nce one no longer accepts its proclamation at face (alue, it is easy to see that 555 is a form of nostalgic return to ontotheology by means of its watered down (ersion of transcendence, renamed %withdrawal&" This appeal to an absolute, a realm of transcendent MwithdrawnM objects, is 555+s solution to a problem that it claims to ha(e disco(ered, that it designates under the bogus concept of correlationism (7eillassou'! or philosophies of access (Harman!" 3orrelationism is a bogus concept that trades on a confusion between a narrow conceptual sense that would best be designated (post-antian! idealism and an e'tended notional sense that can co(er anything and e(erything" 4o it manages to combine the (ery narrow negati(ely (alued intension of the first (idealism! and the (ery large e'tension of the second (anything that is not 555!"

The objectual reductionists ne(er e(en understood the arguments of deconstruction and of poststructuralism, and so are ill-e)uiped to engage the ideas of its successors" Graham Harman+s newly published retrospecti(e collection of articles *.LL4 A20 6H$4TL.4# 75/. 4P.39LAT$O. /.AL$47 is proof of that" $t is a compendium of 555+s familiar but disappointing history of misunderstandings and failed encounters, of affecti(e slogans hammered out as if they were arguments, and its publication is a fitting monument to a set of gesticulations that ne(er )uite cohered into a philosophy" Harman,s 555 is an abstract monism, reducing the multiplicity and abundance of the world to %emergent& unities that e'clude other approaches to and understandings of the world (cf" TH. TH$/0 TA*L., passim! E his objects are the %only real& objects" 7ore importantly, his own (philosophical! -nowledge of objects is the only real -nowledge" All that is ordinarily thought of as -nowledge, both theoretical and practical, is Mutter shamM# MHuman -nowledge deals with simulacra or phantoms, and so does human practical actionM (*.LL4 A20 6H$4TL.4, ;>!" Harman+s MrealismM de-realises e(erything (reduced to the status of MphantomsM and MsimulacraM! e'cept his own abstract -nowledge and his withdrawn objects" Harman,s 555 is profoundly reductionist" /epeatedly, Harman goes to great pains to criticise a generic %reductionism&, but he seems to ha(e no idea what reductionism is" He easily wins points against straw men, and then proceeds to ad(ocate one of the worst forms of reductionism imaginable# the reduction of the abundance of the world to untouchable un-nowable yet intelligible %objects&" He produces a a highly technical concept of object such that it replaces the familiar objects of the e(eryday world, and the less familiar objects of science, with something %deeper& and %inaccessible&, and then proceeds to e)ui(ocate with the familiar connotations and associations of %object& to gi(e the impression that he is a concrete thin-er, when the le(el of abstraction ta-es us to the heights of a new form of negati(e theology# the in(isible, un-nowable, ineffable object that withdraws" 2o e'ample of a real object can be gi(en" All that is gi(en in e'perience, all that is contained in our common sense and scientific -nowledge is Mutter shamM, MsimulacraM, MphantomsM" A (ery amusing e'ample of the inability of a synchronic ontology to comprehend e(en the terms of a diachronic ontology, yet alone to refute it, is gi(en by Graham Harman,s repeated %argument& against relational ontologies" Harman,s ontology is a classic static ontology, spatialised to the point that he cannot e(en concei(e of time as being real" Time, it will be recalled, in Harman,s system is the %tension between sensual objects and their sensual )ualities& (TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T, ;GG!, and so is confined to the sensual realm, the realm of %utter shams& as he calls it in TH. TH$/0 TA*L. (F!" Harman,s real objects are spatiali?ed essences that are absolutely atemporal, so Harman has a (ery big problem indeed in accounting for time, which is in effect unreal in his system# %Time concerns nothing but the superficial drama of surface )ualities swirling atop a sensual object that is somewhat durable but ultimately unreal& (inter(iew faslanyc!" Harman,s 555 is a-temporal and a-historical# Harman proposes no understanding of change, his philosophy has no place for it e'cept by arbitrary posit" His often reiterated %master argument& against relational ontologies is that they cannot e'plain change, that if e(erything were related nothing would change" This is patently false, as relations include temporal relations" 0eleu?e for e'ample tal-s about both -inetic (relati(e speeds and accelerations! and dynamic (relati(e forces, and relati(e capacities to affect and to be affected! relations" $t is ludicrous to claim that 0eleu?e,s system entails that change is impossible"Harman+s denegation of temporal relations is preparatory to his re-essentialising of the object This shows not only Harman,s incomprehension of relations (that he systematically confuses with specific subsets of relations such as interactions, and also with specific types of relation such as contact and access!, but also his inability to understand the positions he is arguing against, and that

he is supposed to ha(e gone beyond" He criti)ues only straw man positions that ha(e ne(er e'isted" He has no understanding of, for e'ample, 0eleu?e, and just deprecates his philosophy without getting into any detail" He gi(es pseudo-conceptual affecti(e refutations with no citations and no analysis" urther, he has gi(en no substantial account of what is wrong with so-called %relational& ontologies in general, e'cept for his master-argument that if e(erything were related change would be impossible" Harman tries to insinuate that in his ontology change can be accounted for" Howe(er, Harman denies the reality of time and so his ontology is synchronic in a (ery strong sense" His understanding of other philosophers is based on a synchronic reduction of their style" .(en his reading ((in TH. TH$/0 TA*L.! of .ddington,s two tables argument falsifies it by e'tracting it from the whole mo(ement of .ddington+s M$ntroductionM to his boo- TH. 2AT9/. 5 TH. PH:4$3AL 65/L0, and from his (ision of the mo(ement of research in general" Harman just doesn,t %get& temporal relations" Hence his repeated, and absurd, claim that if e(erything was composed of relations nothing would change" As if mo(ing faster or slower than, accelerating faster or slower than, being attracted or repelled or pushed or whirled around were not relations" ar from being a crushing objection to relational ontologies, Harman,s %7aster Argument& is in fact rather a description of his incomprehension of diachronic ontologies" A related objection put out by Harman is his criti)ue of %internal& relations# that if e(erything is constituted by its relations and one thing changes its relations e(en slightly, it becomes another thing" This is based on an e)ui(ocation on the word %internal&# $nternal relations are relations that enter into the (ery essence or definition of the things related" Gi(en a thing all its relations are gi(en and so all other things and relations are gi(en" This is the ultimate bloc- uni(erse, true, but it is also the ultimate static or synchronic uni(erse" 5nce again this objection does not ta-e into account dynamic relations" $t also confounds such internal relations with the relations that are %internal& to the thing in a different sense# the relations between the thing and its parts, and the relations of these parts between themsel(es" $f a %thing& is composed of processes or becomings a"# t$%&r r%'at&("s (Harman always lea(es that clause out when he accuses others of %reductionism&! then it becomes different when these relations change, but it does not necessarily become a different thing" The thing is constituted also of the emergent relation between its parts and their relations (this is part of the e'planation of the phrase from 6hitehead that Harman has such trouble with# %the many become one, and are increased by one&!" Harman simply assumes that such emergent relations are ontologically fragile and dissol(e or decompose at the slightest modification" Harman is not the in(entor of %robust emergence&, and in fact is deeply indebted to the real 6hitehead (and not his spatialised caricature!" The 4o-al Hoa' was a one time affair, but Harman seems to ha(e perennised his own argumentati(e hoa'es, repeating the same old sophisms instead of engaging seriously with ri(al points of (iew" Harman presents us with a caricature of Heidegger, as he caricatures *ergson, 6hitehead, and 0eleu?e on time, ie spatiali?es them into a caricature that can then easily be refuted" This is to distract attention from the fact that his own system is incapable of dealing with change" Harman needs his %sensual& objects, despite being obliged to declare them unreal (%utter shams&! because he has an impo(erished notion of reality" As to the )uestion of internal relations or not, $ see no reason to decide in ad(ance in fa(or of one side of the binary choice or the other" $n my (iew entertaining one or the other idea amounts to adopting a special hypothesis within a more general ontology, applicable in some cases and not others" E) THE PARADO) O* ITHDRA AL

;! H56 3A2 A 6$TH0/A62 5*H.3T 0.-6$TH0/A61 Harman,s 555 is a school philosophy dealing in generalities and abstractions far from the concrete

joys and struggles of real human beings (%The world is filled primarily not with electrons or human pra'is, but with ghostly objects withdrawing from all human and inhuman access&, TH. TH$/0 TA*L., p;>!" 0espite its promises, Harman,s 555 does not bring us closer to the richness and comple'ity of the real world but in fact replaces the multiplicitous and (ariegated world of science and common sense with a set of bloodless and lifeless abstractions (Mghostly objectsM!" or Harman, we cannot -now the real object" The object we -now is unreal, an %utter sham&" Harman,s objects do not withdraw, they transcend" They transcend our perception and our -nowledge, they transcend all relations and interactions" As Harman reiterates, objects are deep (%objects are deeper than their appearance to the human mind but also deeper than their relations to one another&, pP, %the real table is a genuine reality deeper than any theoretical or practical encounter with itQdeeper than any relations in which it might become in(ol(ed&, pB-;G!" This %depth& is a -ey part of Harman,s ontology, which is not flat at all, but centered on this (ertical dimension of depth and transcendence" Harman remains stuc- in a crucial ambiguity o(er the status of his real objects, oscillating between the idea of an absolutely un-nowable, uncapturable reality (cf" TH. TH$/0 TA*L., %6hate(er we captureQis not the real table&, p;>! and the idea that it can be captured in some (ery abstract and indirect way" $n (irtue of the un-nowability of his objects he is obliged to place all types of -nowledge, including the scientific one on the same plane (-nowledge of Msimulacra or phantomsM!, as illusory, and at the same time presume that we can -now something about these objects (e"g" that they e'ist, and that they withdraw!" $n effect, science is demoted to the status of non--nowledge, as the real cannot be -nown" Harman is caught in a series of contradictions, as he wants to ha(e his un-nowable reality and yet to -now it" 3ommon sense cannot -now reality, nor the humanities, nor e(en science" This lea(es it up to philosophy to assume the role of -nowing ontologically the real, which accounts for the strange mi'ture of ontological and epistemological considerations that characterises Harman+s philosophical style" This generates such contradictions as pretending to accomplish a return to the concrete and gi(ing us in fact abstraction, and pretending to criticise reduction and in fact performing an e(en more radical reduction" Harman,s epistemology is relati(ist, demoting science to an instance of the general relati(ism of forms of -nowledge" Howe(er, by fiat, his own philosophical intellection and some artistic procedures are partially e'cluded from this relati(isation" :et no criterion of demarcation is offered" Harman di'it must suffice" Graham Harman proclaims that his philosophy is realist, when it is one of the most thoroughgoingly anti-realist philosophies imaginable" Time is unreal, and so is e(ery common sense object and e(ery physical object" All are declared to be %utter shams&" %4pace&, one may object, is real for Harman, but that is no space one would e(er recognise# neither common sense space nor physical space (both %shams&!, Harmanian space is an abstract %withdrawn& intelligible space" 5ntology is not primary for Harman" His real polemic is in the domain of epistemology against a straw man position that he calls the philosophy of human access" 2o important philosophy of at least the last RG years is a philosophy of access, so the illusion of a re(olution in thought is an illusion generated by the misuse of the notion of %access&, inflating it into a grab-all concept under which anything and e(erything can be subsumed" *ut a philosophy of non-access is still epistemological, in Harman+s case it ta-es the form of a pessimistic negati(e epistemology that subtracts objects from meaningful human theoretical -nowledge and practical inter(ention (cf" TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T, where .gypt itself is declared to be an object, albeit, strangely enough, a %non-physical& one, and so un-nowable and untouchable!" The ontological neutralisation of our -nowledge is allied to its practical (and thus political! neutralisation" 5ne is entitled to as-# how can a withdrawn object %de-withdraw&1 Harman cannot e'plain any interaction at all (Harman systematically confuses access, contact, relation and interaction!, he can

only just posit it" $ see no reason to postulate an absolute bifurcation between interaction on the one hand and withdrawal on the other" 6hitehead tells us that# %continuity is a special condition arising from the society of creatures which constitute our immediate epoch& (P/53.44 A20 /.AL$T:, AF!" $ thin- that the notion of inter(als, or discontinuous relations, is a far more useful concept than the bifurcation operated by the notion of %withdrawal&, which is too absolute (there are no degrees of withdrawal! and splits the world in two (real@sensual!" Harman,s system with its summary dualisms is unable to deal with the fine-grained distinctions that come up in our e'perience" >! 6$TH0/A6AL $4 SL$T$4T There is an affecti(e split between a pure ascetic aristocratic discourse of absolute withdrawal, where objects are un-nowable and untouchable, and an apparently more %democratic&, in fact demagogic, discourse for the philosophical pleb (i"e" for Harman, computer programmers and artists! where e'amples can be gi(en" Thus is implicitly generated an unspo-en, and so untheorised, notion of relati(e withdrawal, or degrees of withdrawal" Harman combines a rather traditional metaphysics with a le'ic that connotes a turgid pathos that seems to attract some people by its (ague but portentous associations" or all their tal- about a %democracy& of objects the 555'ians ha(e an Nlitist world(iew and comportment" Harman,s (iews on %undermining& and %o(ermining& allow him to promulgate his philosophy as both healing the two cultures di(ide and going far beyond it" There is a sort of mirror effect where some philosophically curious computer programmers can recognise themsel(es in a flattering a(ant-garde image" :et this gratifying philosophical image is at the conceptual le(el an impo(erishment" There is just one -ind of thing, objects, and they withdraw, no e'amples of real objects can be gi(en, they can only be -nown by philosophical intellection and artistic allusion" *) TABULA TRI*ECTA+ HARMAN'S ,THIRD TABLE, $n TH. TH$/0 TA*L., Harman gi(es a brief summary of the principle themes of his objectoriented ontology" $t is a little boo-, published this year in a bilingual (.nglish-German! edition, and the.nglish te't occupies a little o(er ;; pages (pP-;R!" The content is )uite engaging as Harman accomplishes the e'ploit of presenting his principal ideas in the form of a response to .ddington,s famous %two tables& argument" This permits him toformulate his arguments in terms of a continuous polemic against reductionism in both its humanistic and scientistic forms" All that is fine, so far as it goes" Howe(er, problems arise when we e'amine his presentation of each of .ddington,s two tables, and e(en more so with his presentation of his own contribution to the discussion# a %third table&, the only real one in Harman,s eyes" $n the introduction to his boo- TH. 2AT9/. 5 TH. PH:4$3AL 65/L0 (;B>I!, .ddington begins with an apparent parado'# %$ ha(e just settled down to the tas- of writing these lectures and ha(e drawn up my chairs to my two tables" Two tablesT :esD there are duplicates of e(ery object about me two tables, two chairs, two pens& ('i!" .ddington e'plains that there is the familiar object, the table as a substantial thing, solid and reliable,against which $ can support myself" *ut, according to him, modern physics spea-s of a )uite different table# %7y scientific table is mostly emptiness" 4parsely scattered in that emptiness are numerous electric charges rushing about with great speed& ('ii!" .ddington contrasts the substantiality of the familiar table (a solid thing, easy to (isualise as such! and the abstraction of the scientific table (mostly empty space, a set of physical measures related by mathematical formulae!" The familiar world of common sense is a world of illusions, whereas the the scientific worl, the only real world according to modern physics, is a world of shadows" 6hat is the relation between the two worlds1 .ddington poses the )uestion and dramatises the di(ergence between the two worlds, but contrary to what Harman seems to thin-, he gi(es no answer of his own" He declares that premature attempts to determine their relation are harmful, more of a hindrance than a help, to research" $n fact, .ddington refuses to commit himself on the ontological )uestion posed in his introduction because he is con(inced that it is empirical research,

mobilising psychology and physiology as well as physics, which must gi(e the answer" $t is clear that he would ha(e regarded Althusserianism as just such a premature and harmful attempt" *ut what would he ha(e thought of 5551 6e shall return to this )uestion in the last part of this tal-" $n his little te't Harman e'plains (ery succinctly the difference between the two tables" *ut in opposition to .ddington,s supposed scientism, Harman affirms that these two tables are %e)ually unreal& (pF!, that they are just fa-es or simulacra (%utter shams&, F!" Assigning each table to one side of the gap that separates the famous %two cultures& dear to 3"P"4now (the culture of the humanities on one side, that of the sciences on the other!, he finds that both are products of reductionism, which negates the reality of the table" %The scientist reduces the table downward to tiny particles in(isible to the eyeD the humanist reduces it upward to a series of effects on people and other things& (F!" /efusing reductionism and its simulacra, Harman poses the e'istence of a third table (the %only real& table, ;G! which ser(es as an emblem for a third culture to come whose paradigm could be ta-en from the arts which attempt to %establish objects deeper than the features through which they are announced, or allude to objects that cannot )uite be made present& (TH. TH$/0 TA*L., ;P!" Philosophy itself is to abandon its scientific pretentions in order to spea- at last of the real world and its objects" $n 65/0 A20 5*H.3T Luine proposes a techni)ue called %semantic ascent& to resol(e certain problems in philosophy" He in(ites us to formulate our philosophical problems no longer in material terms, as )uestions concerning the components of the world (%objects&! but rather in formal terms, as )uestions concerning the correct use and the correct analysis of our linguistic e'pressions (%words&!" The idea was to find common ground to discuss impartially the pretentions of ri(al points of (iew" 9nfortunately, this method turned out to be useless to resol(e most problems, as the important disputes concern just as much the terms to employ and their interpretation as soon as we ta-e up an interesting philosophical problem" $n(ersely, Graham Harman with his new ontology proposes a (eritable semantic descent (or we could call it an %objectal descent&!, to re(erse the linguistic turn, and to replace it with an ontological turn" According to him the fundamental problems of ontology must be reformulated in terms of objects and their )ualities" These objects are not the objects of our familiar world, let us recall that Harman declares that the familiar table is unreal, a simulacrum, an %utter sham&" The real object is a philosophical object, which %withdraws behind all its e'ternal effects& (;G!" 6e cannot touch the harmanian table (for we can ne(er touch any real object! nor e(en -now it" %The real is something that cannot be -nown, but only lo(ed& (;>!" Thus Harman operates a reduction of the world to objects and their )ualities which is intended to be in the first instance ontological and not epistemological (here Harman is mista-en, and the epistemological dimension is omnipresent in his wor-, but as the object of a denegation!" This objectal reduction is difficult to argue for, and sometimes it is presented as a self-e(ident truth accessible to e(ery person of good will and good sense, and Harman,s philosophy is trumpeted as a return to nai(etN and concreteness, triumphing o(er post-structuralist pseudo-sophistication and its abstractions" *ut we shall see that this is not the case" This reduction of the world to objects and their )ualities amounts to a con(ersion of our philosophical (ision that is disguised as a return to the real world of concrete objects# %$nstead of beginning with radical doubt, we start from nai(etN" 6hat philosophy shares with the li(es of scientists, ban-ers, and animals is that all are concerned with objects& (TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T, R!" %5nce we begin from nai(etN rather than doubt, objects immediately ta-e center stage& (idem, C! This %self-e(idence& of the point of (iew of naU(etN is in fact meticulously constructed and highly philosophically moti(ated" 6e must recall that Harman,s %objects& are not at all the objects of

common sense (we cannot -now them nor touch them!" 4o the %nai(etN& that Harman in(o-es here is not some primiti(e openness to the world (that would only be a (ariant of the %buc-et theory of mind& and of -nowledge, denounced by 8arl Popper!" This %nai(etN& is a determinate point of (iew, a (ery particular perspecti(e (the %nai(e point of (iew&, as the rench translation so aptly calls it!" 9nder co(er of this word %nai(etN&, Harman tal-s to us of a %naUf& point of (iew, that is ne(ertheless an %objectal& point of (iew", that is to say not naUf at all but partisan" Harman deploys all his rhetorical resources to pro(o-e in the reader the adoption of the objectal point of (iew as if it were self-e(ident" This %objectal con(ersion& is necessary, according to him, to at last get out of the tyranny of epistemology and the linguistic turn, and edify a new ontology, new foundation for a metaphysics capable of spea-ing of all objects" 6e ha(e seen that this %self-e(ident& beginning implies both a con(ersion and a reduction" 6e see the parallels and differences of object-oriented ontology in relation to Althusserianism" *oth relegate the familiar object and the perceptual object to the status of social constructions" 555 goes e(en further and assigns the scientific object to the same status of simulacrum (%utter sham&!# only philosophy can tell us the truth about objects" *oth propose a meta-language, but 555,s metalanguage is so de-)ualified that it is susceptible of different instanciations, and in fact no two members of the mo(ement ha(e the same concrete ontology" inally, 555 spreads in ma-ing abundant, liberal (and here the word has all its import! use of the means that the internet ma-es a(ailable# blogs, discussion groups, faceboo- e'changes, twitter, podcasts, streaming" $ ha(e spo-en here principally of Graham Harman,s 555 because $ do not belie(e that 555 e'ists in general and $ also thin- that its apparent unity is a deceitful faKade" There is no substance to the mo(ement, it is rather a matter of agreement on a shared meta-language, ie on a certain terminology and set of themes, under the aegis of which many different positions can find shelter" $ ha(e spo-en here almost e'clusi(ely of TH. TH$/0 TA*L. because Harman,s formulations change from booto boo-, and $ find that in this little brochure Harman offers us his meta-language in a pure state" $n his other boo-s Harman, without noticing, slides constantly between a meta-ontological sense of object and a sense which corresponds to one possible instanciation of this meta-language, thus producing much conceptual confusion" 7y major objection to Harman,s 555 is that it is a school philosophy dealing in generalities and abstractions far from the concrete joys and struggles of real human beings (%The world is filled primarily not with electrons or human pra'is, but with ghostly objects withdrawing from all human and inhuman access&, TH. TH$/0 TA*L., ;>!" 0espite its promises, Harman,s 555 does not bring us closer to the richness and comple'ity of the real world but in fact replaces the multiplicitous and (ariegated world with a set of bloodless and lifeless abstractions E his un-nowable and untouchable, %ghostly&, objects" 2ot only are objects un-nowable, but e(en whether something is a real object or not is un-nowable# %we can ne(er -now for sure what is a real object and what isn,t&" :et Harman has legislated that his object is the only real object (cf" TH. TH$/0 TA*L., where Harman calls his table, as compared to the table of e(eryday life and the scientist,s table, %the only real one&, ;G, and %the only real table&, ;;" As for the e(eryday table and the scientific table# %both are equally unreal%, both are %utter shams&, F" %6hate(er we capture, whate(er we sit at or destroy is not the real table&, ;>" And he accuses others of %reductionism&T!" To say that the real object is un-nowable (%the real is something that cannot be -nown&, p;>! is an epistemological thesis" As is the claim that the object we -now, the e(eryday or the scientific object, is unreal" Harman has in(ented a new (ocabulary to describe (arious types of reductionism that he belie(es he has discerned in (arious philosophical mo(es" The mo(e of e'plaining a macroscopic object such as a table in terms of its atomic and sub-atomic is called %undermining&" .'plaining the table in terms of the flu' of perceptions is called %o(ermining&" Harman has recently detected arguments that ma-e both mo(es at once, so he has baptised them %duomining&" A notable feature of all three mo(es is that their reduction operates inside only one of the worlds that Harman discusses E the

world of %utter shams&" *ut Harman himself operates a different sort of reduction that reduces the reality of one world, the %sham& world of sensual objects, to that of the %real& world of withdrawn objects" As this reduction cuts across both worlds, $ propose to call it %transmining&" How can this philosophy help us in our li(es1 $t is a doctrine of resignation and passi(ity# we cannot -now the real object, the object we -now is unreal, an %utter sham&, we cannot -now what is or isn,t a real object" Harman,s objects do not withdraw, they transcend" They transcend our perception and our -nowledge, they transcend all relations and interactions" As Harman reiterates, objects are deep (%objects are deeper than their appearance to the human mind but also deeper than their relations to one another&, PD %the real table is a genuine reality deeper than any theoretical or practical encounter with itQdeeper than any relations in which it might become in(ol(ed&, B-;G!" This %depth& is a -ey part of Harman,s ontology, which is not flat at all and is the negation of immanence" /ather, it is centered on this (ertical dimension of depth and transcendence" Harman practices a form of ontological criti)ue which contains both relati(ist elements and dogmatic elements" At the le(el of e'plicit content Harman is freer, less dogmatic than Althusser, as he does not ma-e science the )ueen of -nowledge" Harman situates himself insistantly %after& the linguistic turn, after the so-called %epistemologies of access&, after deconstruction and poststructuralism" He considers that the time for construction has come, that we must construct a new philosophy by means of a return to the things themsel(es of the world E objects" *ut is this the case1 G) HARMAN'S ABSTRACTI-E ONTOLOGY+ A COMPARISON ITH BADIOU 6e ha(e tra(ersd a period of polarisation during which the neoliberal do'a reigned uncontested almost e(erywhere, e'cept in a few academic and para-academic encla(es, where a %refined& or aristocratic criti)ue was elaborated" The philosophical result of the e'tenuation of this polarisation is in part the de(elopment of an abstracti(e (and a-political! ontology of objects as relay and effectuation of the neoliberal hypothesis (Graham Harman!, and in part the elaboration of the subtracti(e ontology of multiples as relay and effectuation of the communist hypothesis (*adiou!" $n both cases we ha(e a truncated form of pluralism# a synchronic ontology of objectal multiples where the diachronic is added on afterwards as a supplement" or Harman time is not a real relation between real objects, but rather a %sensual& relation between sensual objects, in the illusory domain of simulacra (TH. TH$/0 TA*L. calls these sensual objects, i"e" the objects of common sense and of the sciences, %utter shams&, page F!" or *adiou time in the strong sense belongs to the e(ent in the naming inter(ention, and there also, as for Harman, seems to be dependent, at least in part, on subjecti(ity" There is also a monism which comes to o(ercode this ontological pluralism, at both the ontological and the epistemological le(el# a! ontological E or Harman the real is a uni)ue and separate domain, real objects are %withdrawn&D the objects of common sense, of the humanities and of the sciences are pure simulacra" or *adiou the real is the non-)ualified mathematical multiple, and the objects of common sense, but also of the sciences and of the %humanities&, are constructed out of these multiples (it is to be noted, and this is an important difference with Harman, these constructed objects are not necessarily simulacra!" $n both cases there is ontological primacy of one domain placed o(er and abo(e the others" b! epistemological E or Harman scientific -nowledge does not accede to the reality of objects, the only possible -nowledge is indirect and appertains to the arts under the control of object-oriented ontology, which dissipates the ontological and epistemological illusions, such as the naturalist prejudice and the scientistic prejudice" or *adiou, to each truth-domain there corresponds a generic and paradigmatic procedure (matheme, poem, political in(ention, lo(e!" Philosophy ser(es to enounce the common configuration of these paradigmatic procedures and to dissipate the prejudices coming from the suture of philosophy to just one of these truth-domains" *adiou here is again more %pluralist& than Harman, as he recognises the e'istence of four truth-domains, and not

just one" $n considering the relation of Harman+s philosophy to that of *adiou the important point is not what Harman says e'plicitly about set theory, his %position& on set-theory is non-e'istent compared to *adiou" The point is not one of intellectual biography, but of the structure of 555+s ontological paradigm" There is no claim that Harman was personally influenced by *adiou, just that *adiou enounces this sort of paradigm in its purest form" People can be positi(ists without ha(ing read a single positi(ist te't or e(en ha(ing heard of positi(ism" The same is true for *adiousian-type ontologies" Harman,s real objects are de(oid of all sensual )ualities and are thus reduced to the status of pure elements and combinations of elements" Harman also refuses 7eillassou',s mathematical reductionism, but $ thin- that this lea(es him with a hard choice# either real objects are numerically distinct and he falls into a set-theoretic ontology, or they are not numerically distinct and they are so noumenally un)ualified that the epithet %object& is inappropriate and his ontology becomes totally indeterminate" 3onclusion# abstracti(e and subtracti(e ontologies are in regression compared to the pluralist philosophies of their predecessors" They are the complementary representati(es (a politicised communist (ersion in *adiou,s case, a %de-politicised& neoliberal (ersion in that of Harman! of a truncated pluralism, the synchronic shadow of the diachronic ontologies that they ape without being able to ri(al in their force of thought" 7aterially pluralist, they remain formally monist" Harman,s 555 is a specific (ariant within the general paradigm set out by *adiou,s philosophy" The terminological differences are important" *adiou spea-s in terms of multiples and e(ents, Harman in terms of objects" *adiou e'plicitly emphasises the pluralist aspect of his ontology (multiples! and ma-es room for time and change (e(ents!, e(en if he gi(es them a secondary place in his ontology" Harman prefers the more unitary term, and consigns time and change to the realm of the %sensual&, i"e" of %utter sham&"

H) PHILOSOPHIES O* ACCESS
Harman argues against %philosophies of access&, but this is just to redo, only much more sloppily, the critical wor- done by Popper and 4ellars, Luine and 8uhn, *achelard and eyerabend, Lacan and Althusser, 6ittgenstein and /orty refuting and dismantling the dogmas of empiricism" ar from going beyond the post-structuralists Harman has not e(en caught up with the structuralists" 2o important philosophy of the >Gth 3entury has been a philosophy of access, and Harman,s 555 is a regression on most of the preceding philosophy that he claims to criti)ue and surpass" 8nowledge is not %access&, it is not contact" Propositional relations are not access" An interaction is not in general access, either" 7ore importantly, a relation is not the same thing as an interaction" Harman conflates all this to obtain some blurry straw-man that e(en a ;G year old child would ha(e no trouble refuting" 4o the whole picture of relations as not %e'hausting& the )ualities of the object accessed is erroneous" Thus %withdrawal& has no sense as a general concept" These terms %access&, %e'haust& %withdrawal& are normally part of a temporal, dynamic (ocabulary" They are used illegitimately in Harman,s system and ser(e to gi(e an allure of temporality to what is in fact an ontology of stasis" Harman is so concentrated on criticising the pri(ilege gi(en to human access and to anthropocentric assumptions in general, a rearguard action if e(er there was one, that he has no understanding at all for the recent and contemporary pluralist philosophies that attempt to trac- down and dissol(e the pri(ilege gi(en to reified categories and to monist assumptions in general" Harman,s ontology falls under the pluralist criti)ues of the post-structuralists and the post-empiricists" Harman,s 555 relies on a systematic ambiguity in his -ey terms (object, withdrawal! between their use as meta-categories and their use as categories" 6e can ne(er see or touch or -now an object (meta-category! but he constantly gi(es e'amples from different domains (category!" 6ithdrawal means ultimate abstraction from sensual )ualities and relations, absolutely no direct contact or

relation (meta-category!, or it just means the sensual richness of objects, always more than our immediate e'perience of them" 6e get a contradictory synthesis between a 2orthern asceticism and a 7editerranean sensualism" *ut in the last instance this concrete abundance, this aesthetic sensualism is declared to be an %utter sham&" $t is at the le(el of his ontology as rudimentary set of meta-categories that the homology of Harman,s 555 with speculati(e capitalism can be affirmed" *adiou accepts the e'istence of this homology for his own ontology, and ta-es it (ery seriously as a problem" Hence his repeated engagement with the concepts of the e(ent and change, re)uiring him to complete his synchronic ontology with a diachronic supplement" Harman,s response is just incomprehension and denialism, as with all the other criti)ues that his system has recei(ed" 2e(ertheless it is the internal homology between meta-categories and the categories that instantiate them (which ma-es of Harman,s system an elaborate play on words! that ma-es possible the e'ternal homologies between Harman,s system and (arious concrete domains, including the economy" The )uestion of primacy remains moot in contemporary philosophy" 0espite repeated allusions to the collapse of foundations and the attempt to construct a post-foundationalist philosophy, contemporary thin-ers still grapple with this )uestion" 5ne must as- of each philosophy# to what does it gi(e primacy E to philosophy, science, art, religion, or common sense (or to none!1 *adiou and Harman gi(e primacy to (transcendental, meta-le(el! philosophy" Laruelle is more ambiguous, gi(ing primacy to science, yet including non-standard philosophy on the same le(el as the sciences" 0eleu?e and Guattari in 6HAT $4 PH$L545PH:1 are somewhere between the two positions, and so seem to a(oid the pitfalls of primacy# they situate philosophy on the same le(el as the sciences (and the arts! but ma-e philosophy capable of meta-operations that ta-e %functions& in physics (and affects and percepts in the arts! as objects of its own philosophical concepts" I) HARMAN'S CONTRADICTORY HERMENEUTICS O* SUBJECTI-ITY Harman+s 555 splits hermeneutic, i"e" participati(e, e'ploration of the world into objecti(e speculation (an absolutised and thus %withdrawn& conte't of justification! and sensual or subjecti(e encounter (an absolutised, and thus %sham&, conte't of disco(ery!" This splitting demotes the subject to the world of shams, which leads to a %reurn of the repressed&, in the form of an implied subjecti(ity, but one that he is either unaware of or unwilling to endorse e'plicitly, adapted to the neo-liberal order" ar from eliminating subjecti(ity from the world of objects Harman,s 555 is subtended by an all-per(asi(e degraded subjecti(ity mas)uerading as its opposite" Harman then proceeds to re-subjectify his philosophical (ision with e'pressions connoting a subjecti(ity that is ruled out by the strict application of that philosophy" 6a'ing lyrical, Harman tal-s of how we must lo(e the object# %The real is something that cannot be -nown, only lo(ed& (TH. TH$/0 TA*L., ;>!D thin-ing must be indirect, %its approach to objects can only be obli)ue& (;>!, and %allude to objects that cannot )uite be made present& (;P!" All this tal- of lo(ing and hunting and approaching and alluding to, all these e'pressions are strictly illformed" A sensual subject (for e'ample Harman, or the reader! cannot lo(e, hunt, approach, or e(en allude to a real object" $t,s not that objects cannot M)uiteM be made present, they cannot be made present at all" 6ithdrawal is all or none, it does not admit of degrees (from hardly to not )uite withdraw!" :et to gi(e appeal to the theory Harman has need of descriptors of the subjecti(e attitude of those who endorse it" Hence the constant tal- of objects that redounds in unthematised subjecti(e participation in the theory as (ision of the world" The objectal con(ersion, as the passage to the constructed %nai(etN& that sees objects e(erywhere, is thus a subjecti(e con(ersion to a hard-headed noetic asceticism of intelligible objects coupled with a soft-hearted sensual hedonism of the aesthetic play of simulacra" 6ith 555, you can be a gee- and an esthete at the same time, with the contradiction being co(ered up by the medial subjecti(ity of lo(ing indirectness, of hunterly obli)uity, and of diaphonous allusion" 0espite appearances to the contrary, Harman in fact pri(ileges subjecti(ity in (arious -ey aspects of his philosophy# while trying desperately to contain it within his conceptual reductions it seeps out

and contaminates the whole with a gee-o-esthetic compound subjecti(ity fusing cold intellectual manipulation and warm sensual enjoyment and thus proscribing the ethical encounter which can be neither merely conceptual nor merely esthetic nor some conflicted hybrid of the two" Harman is in denial of hermeneutics, and as with his denegation of epistemology (which results in his elaborating a bad epistemology under the guise of ontology!, ends up doing bad hermeneutics" His hermeneutics of specific te'ts such as .ddington,s M$ntroductionM is )uite inade)uate and erroneous, as is his hermeneutics of the history of philosophy" Harman+s -ey terms, such as %withdrawal& and %access&, are ill-formed hermeneutical concepts, gi(ing a grotes)ue simplification and deformation of the history of philosophy and of contemporary ri(al philosophies" eyerabend and Latour argue that the sciences are not abstract cognition only, but ha(e a constituti(e, and thus necessary, hermeneutic dimension" This is why e(en the sciences pro(ide some resistance against neo-liberal neo-leibni?ian abstraction and speculati(e modeling and manipulation" Harman+s model is not enough to account for -nowledge, and it is he who is being reductionist with his real objects and their supposed sensual instanciations" J) OOO+ A SUBJECT ITH A GREAT PAST 5(er the last few years the 555'ian mo(ement has multiplied signs of success at the same time as showing unmista-able symptoms of decline" *ased on a denial of epistemology and on blindness to its own status as (bad! epistemology 555 was able to capture the attention of those who were loo-ing for a new speculati(e style, after the 4cience 6ars and in opposition to those who were content to just parrot 0eleu?e or 0errida or oucault" 4tanley 3a(ell and /ichard /orty had each in his own way sought to attain to the status of homegrown American 3ontinental Philosophy, but their 6ittgensteinian and Heideggerian framewor- was too obscure and abstruse, too Nlitist and erudite" A more pop (ersion of the same ambition was needed and Graham Harman,s 555 satisfied a strongly felt need to ha(e done with deconstruction and return to %nai(etN& (Harman,s word from the opening of TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T!" Harman is by far the more radical thin-er when we compare his ontology of withdrawn objects to the mathematism of 7eillassou', the scientism of *rassier, and the Lacanian naturalism of *ryant" Harman alone has been willing to discard the scientistic prejudice that (itiates the wor- of these thin-ers" :et this superiority of Harman could only be maintained by stic-ing to the pathos of an escape from epistemology" As long as he did not e'plicitly engage with epistemological themes in his own name the denegation of its status as epistemology on which his wor- was built ga(e it e(en more force of con(iction and persuasi(e power" The objectual con(ersion remained a potent possibility" 6ith the publication of TH. TH$/0 TA*L. this anti-epstemological posture was re(ealed as an imposture, 555 was re(ealed not as superior insight o(er and abo(e common sense and scientific realities, thus gratifying the narcissism of the artistic community while sa(ing it from the accusation of postmodern relati(ism, but rather as a mode of philosophising that was intellectually incompetent to gi(e a satisfying account of the domains of science, the humanities and common sense" $nstead of an account we get dismissi(e gesticulation# these domains are MshamM, their objects are MsimulacraM or MphantomsM" The absence of any understanding of diachrony, from the diachrony of science and that of common sense, to the diachrony of a simple argument is patent" /eal philosophical positions and arguments are replaced with absurd caricatures which are then easily rebutted, gi(ing the impression of a li(ely polemical force ready to accept and reply to objections" K) LATOUR DE-TEMPORALISED ;! Harman+s synchronic tra(esty of Latour+s empirical metaphysics $ ha(e analysed Graham Harman,s metaphysical strategies of semantic descent, of objectal reduction, and of synchronic translation (cf" The discussion of withdrawal as the synchronic shadow of abundance!" These function together to produce a system that is a regressi(e tra(esty of poststructuralist and pluralist thought" urther, 555 is a-temporal and a-historical, it has no place for time e'cept by arbitrary posit" This denegation of time is preparatory to Harman,s re-

essentialising of the object by means of his split between changing sensual objects and real objects or essences" All of these (denegation of time and temporal relations, dualism of the real and the sensual, essentialism of the real object! are profoundly anti-Latourian, yet they figure as -ey aspects of Harman,s reading of Latour,s wor-" $ commented in the last post on Harman,s objectual reduction of Latour,s ontology, his usage, in P/$23. 5 2.T65/84, of the term %objects& to replace Latour,s more (aried le'ic (which includes actors, agents, actants, and e(en %elements&, as well as objects! composed of elements a"# relations, of actors a"# networ-s" "This is a reducti(e mo(e that both homogenises Latour,s terminolgy, and replaces a dynamic relational process ontology with with its synchronic shadow" Harman,s denegation of time and of temporal relations in Latour can be seen in his confusion of immanence with actuality, leading to the rather surprising diagnosis of %actualism& to describe Latour,s system# %.(erything is immanent in the world, nothing transcends actuality& (;F!" The whole set of dynamic relations that Latour appeals to (assembling, transforming, creating alliances etc"! is forgotten in this mo(e" $n fact, this is the problem behind Latour,s desire to find new synonyms for %actor-networ- theory&" $n a sur(ey of its history (%/ecalling A2T%! Latour remar-s that due to the rise of the internet, the word %networ-& has lost its original sense" 5riginally, when the name of actor-networ- theory was coined, %2etwor- at the time clearly meant a series of transformations -translations, transductions&, that is to say of dynamic, diachronic relations" 2ow the meaning has changed to a more static, synchronic (ersion# %now, on the contrary, it clearly means a transport wthout deformation, an instantaneous, unmediated access to e(ery piece of information" That is e'actly the opposite of what we meant&" The third point, that of real@sensual dualism with respect to objects, is perhaps the most ruinous to the understanding of Latour,s ideas" 6here Latour de(otes much effort to establishing the reality of scientific objects on a par with e(ery other sort of object inscribed in a networ- not of static relations but of mo(ements, trajectories, circulations" $t is when we stop the mo(ement and see only static relations that we decide that we can bifurcate the world into immutable essences and superficial changes# %Hohn and Anne 7arie 7ol ha(e used the word fluid" Adrian 3ussins the word trails" 3haris 3ussins the word choreography" All of these words designates in my (iew what the theory should be and what the o(erdiffusion of the Vdouble-clic-, networ-s has rendered unretrie(able# it is a theory that says that by following circulations we can get more than by defining entities, essences or pro(inces"& A2T,s method is to %follow the circulations& (dare we say %go with the flow&1!, and not to %treat the scientific and common-sense objects as utter shams&, as Harman does" Latour,s %double-clic& networ- is an e'ample of what $ ha(e been calling a synchronic ontology, where transformation is a mere secondary modification of objects that are concei(ed of as finished or de-temporalised units" >! 750.4 5 .W$4T.23.# /.AL T/AH.3T5/$.4 (Latour! (s 4$79LA3/A (Harman! The )uestion of the pluralism of modes of e'istence in Latour,s later philosophy is (ery interesting" Latour (in %/ecalling A2T%! e'plains that his second philosophy, that of modes of e'istence, is an attempt at gi(ing more content to the idea of %trajectories&, that had become too spatialised" He wanted to e'amine different types of trajectories, and so different modes of e'istence" All this is lost on Harman, who allows only one %real& mode, that of his withdrawn objects" *ut as time does not )ualify real objects can they be said to ha(e a trajectory1 All other modes of e'istence are declared to be MsimulacraM or %utter shams&" 5nce again, Harman,s philosophy turns out to be the e'act opposite of Latour,s" $n Latour,s dialogue with Harman, TH. P/$23. A20 TH. 65L , Latour has this to say about their (ery different types of ontology# %it,s a (ery different type of production of metaphysical )uestions when you follow the prey, so to spea-, than when you want to establish the basic furniture

of the uni(erse& (page PR!" % ollow the prey& is the tas- of what $ ha(e been calling diachronic ontology, %establish the basic furniture of the uni(erse& is the tas- of a synchronic ontology" All this results in the diagnostic that Harman,s boo- supposedly on Latour is in fact much more a boo- on his own philosophy than on Latour,s# it %is a boo- about your own philosophy, not about my philosophy necessarily& (Latour to Harman, PI!" L) *EYERABEND AND THE HARM*ULNESS O* THE ONTOLOGICAL TURN ;! .00$2GT52,4 /.PL: T5 HA/7A2# TH. 6A: 5 /.4.A/3H eyerabend stands in opposition to this demand for a new construction, and wholeheartedly espouses the continued necessity of deconstruction" He rejects the idea that we need a new system or theoretical framewor-, arguing that in many cases a unified theoretical framewor- is just not necessary or e(en useful# %a theoretical framewor- may not be needed (do $ need a theoretical framewor- to get along with my neighbor1!" .(en a domain that uses theories may not need a theoretical framewor- (in periods of re(olution theories are not used as framewor-s but are bro-en into pieces which are then arranged this way and that way until something interesting seems to arise!& (Philosophy and 7ethodology of 7ilitary $ntelligence, ;A!" urther, not only is a unified framewor- often unnecessary, it can be a hindrance to our research and to the conduct of our li(es# %framewor-s always put undue constraints on any interesting acti(ity& (ibid, ;A!" He emphasises that our ideas must be sufficiently comple' to fit in and to cope with the comple'ity of our practices (;;!" 7ore important than a new theoretical construction which only ser(es %to confuse people instead of helping them& we need ideas that ha(e the comple'ity and the fluidity that come from close connection with concrete practice and with its %fruitful imprecision& (;;!" Lac-ing this connection, we get only school philosophies that %decei(e people but do not help them&" They decei(e people by replacing the concrete world with their own abstract construction %that gi(es some general and (ery mislead (sicT! outlines but ne(er descends to details&" The result is a simplistic set of slogans and stereotypes that %is ta-en seriously only by people who ha(e no original ideas and thin- that Xsuch a school philosophyY might help them getting ideas&" Applied to the the ontological turn, this means that an ontological system is useless, a hindrance to thought and action, whereas an ontology which is not crystallised into a system and principles, but which limits itself to an open set of rules of thumb and of free study of concrete cases is both acceptable and desirable" The detour through ontology is useless, because according to eyerabend a more open and less technical approach is possible" $n effect, eyerabend indicates what .ddington could ha(e replied to Harman# just li-e Althusserianism 555 must be considered a premature and harmful failure because it specifies in an apriori and dogmatic fashion what the elements of the world are" This failure is intrinsic to its transcendental approach# it is premature because it prejudges the paths and results of empirical research, it is harmful because it tends to e'clude possible a(enues of research and to close people,s minds, ma-ing them stupid" .ddington,s position is in fact (ery comple'" He gi(es a dramatised description of what amounts to the incommensurability of the world of physics and the familiar world of e'perience" This is implicit in the whole theme of the necessary %aloofness& ('(! that scientific conceptions must maintain with respect to familiar conceptions" He then goes on to pose the )uestion of the relation, or %lin-age&, between the two" 4ometimes he seems to gi(e primacy to the familiar world eg# %the whole scientific in)uiry starts from the familiar world and in the end it must return to the familiar world& ('iii!, and %4cience aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace e'perience& ('iii!" 4ometimes he gi(es primacy to the world of physics, and seems to declare that the familiar world is illusory, eg# %$n remo(ing our illusions we ha(e remo(ed the substance, for indeed we ha(e seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions& ('(i!, though he does attenuate this by adding# %Later perhaps we may in)uire whether in our ?eal to cut out all that is unreal we may not ha(e used the -nife too ruthlessly&" 5n the )uestion of the relation

between physics and philosophy he is no mere scientistic chau(inist" $ndeed, he gi(es a certain primacy to the philosopher# %the scientist Q has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his in(estigations in the world of shadows and is content to lea(e to the philosopher the determination of its e'act status in regard to reality& ('i(!" *ut he considers that neither common sense nor philosophy must interfere with physical science,s & freedom for autonomous de(elopment& ('(!" His conclusion is that reflection on modern physics leads to & a feeling of open-mindedness towards a wider significance transcending scientific measurement& ('(i! and warns against a priori closure# %After the physicist has )uite finished his worldbuilding a lin-age or identification is allowedD but premature attempts at lin-age ha(e been found to be entirely mischie(ous&" As we can see, Graham Harman Zs discussion of this te't in TH. TH$/0 TA*L. ma-es a mess of .ddington,s position, treating him as ad(ocating the scientistic primacy of the world of physics" Harman can then propose his own %solution&# the objects of both common sense and physics are %utter shams&, the real object is that of (Harman,s! philosophy" This is why $ thin- that Harman,s 555 is a contemporary e'ample of what .ddington calls %premature attempts at lin-age& and that he finds %mischie(ous&, ie both failed and harmful" >! A 7A3H$A2 3/$T$L9. 5 555 7y thesis is that much of 555 is a badly flawed epistemology mas)uerading as an ontology" An interesting confirmation of this thesis is the touting of /oy *has-ar,s A /.AL$4T TH.5/: 5 43$.23." or those too young to remember# this boo- came out initially in ;BCR, after the major epistemological wor-s by Popper, 8uhn, La-atos and eyerabend" $t was an ontologising reappropriation of their epistemological disco(eries" $t was hailed as a great contribution by the Anglophone Althusserians ($ -id you notT!, as it ga(e substance to their distinction between the theoretical object, produced by the theoretical practices of the sciences! and the real object" The Althusserians used *has-ar to legitimate their posing of Althusserian 7ar'ism and Lacanian psychoanalysis as sciences" Their uni(ersal criti)ue of any philosophical (iew that did not s)uare with theirs was to dis)ualify it as demonstrably belonging, sometimes in (ery roundabout and tortuous ways to the %problematic of the subject&" 0oes this begin to sound familiar1 real object (s theoretical object, problematic of the subject [ correlationism" These themes are not new, but go bac- to the dogmatic reaction of the CGsT!" $t is amusing to see that *has-ar, who is a prime e'ample of someone who in(ented an ontological correlate to epistemological insights, is now being used as the proponent of a non-correlationist %realist& position, to condemn those who supposedly gi(e primacy to epistemology o(er ontology" The whole procedure is circular" That is to say, far from really as-ing the transcendental )uestion of what must the world be li-e for science to be possible1 (this is an ideological co(er-up for the real historical sta-es of *has-ar,s inter(ention! *has-ar proceeds to an ontologisation of insights and ad(ances in epistemology, and so constrains future research with an a posteriori ontology projected bac-wards as if it were an a priori %neutral& precondition of science" 4o Harman,s supposed primacy of ontology is in fact based on his continual denegation of his de facto dependence on results imported from epistemology and on the dogmatic free?ing and imposition of what is at best only a particular historical stage of scientific research and of epistemological reflection" 5ne of my biggest objections to 555 concerns the )uestion of primacy, which remains moot in contemporary philosophy" As we ha(e seen, Harman,s ontological turn gi(es primacy to (transcendental, meta-le(el! philosophy" eyerabend articulates an .ddingtonian position, one that gi(es primacy neither to philosophy nor to physics, but defends the open-mindedness of empirical (though not necessarily scientific! research" $ thin- this can be clarified by e'amining eyerabend,s defense of the %way of the scientist& as against the %way of the philosopher&" eyerabend,s references to 7ach (and to Pauli! show that this %way of the scientist& is trans(ersal, not respecting the boundaries between scientific disciplines nor those between the sciences and the humanities and the arts" 4o it is more properly called the %way of research&" .ddington too seems to espouse this 7achian way out of the pitfalls of primacy"

.rnst 7ach is often seen as a precursor of the logical positi(ists, an e'ponent of the idea that %things& are logical constructions built up out of the sensory )ualities that compose the world, mere bundles of sensations" He would thus be a -ey e'ample of what Graham Harman in TH. L9A0/9PL. 5*H.3T calls %o(ermining&" eyerabend has shown in a number of essays that this (ision of 7ach,s %philosophy& (the )uotation mar-s are necessary, according to eyerabend %because 7ach refused to be regarded as the proponent of a new %philosophy&&, 43$.23. $2 A /.. 453$.T:, p;B>! is erroneous, based on a misreading by the logical positi(ists that confounds his general ontology with one specific ontological hypothesis that 7ach was at pains to describe as a pro(isional and research-relati(e specification of his more general proposal" ollowing .rnst 7ach, eyerabend e'pounds the rudiments of what he calls a general methodology or a general cosmology (this ambiguity is important# eyerabend, on general grounds but also after a close scrutiny of se(eral important episodes in the history of physics, is proceeds as if there is no clear and sharp demarcation between ontology and epistemology, whereas Harman, without the slightest case study, is con(inced of the e'istence of such a dichotomy!" eyerabend,s discussion of 7ach,s ontology can be found in 43$.23. $2 A /.. 453$.T: (2L*, ;BCI, p;BF->GA! and in many other places, ma-ing it clear that it is one of the enduring inspirations of his wor-" 7ach,s ontology can be summarised, according to eyerabend, in two points# i! the world is composed of elements an their relations ii! the nature of these elements and their relations is to be specified by empirical research 5ne may note a resemblance with Graham Harman,s ontology, summarised in his %brief 4/@555 tutorial%# i! $ndi(idual entities of (arious different scales (not just tiny )uar-s and electrons! are the ultimate stuff of the cosmos" ii! These entities are ne(er e'hausted by their relations" 5bjects withdraw from relation" The difference is illuminating" 6hereas 7ach lea(es the nature of these elements open, allowing for the e'ploration of se(eral hypotheses, Harman transcendentally reduces these possibilities to one# elements are objects (2*# this reduction of the possibilities to one, enshrined in a transcendental principle, is one of the reasons for calling Harman,s 555 an objectal reduction!" urther, by allowing empirical research to specify the relations, 7ach does not gi(e himself an a priori principle of withdrawal# here again %withdrawal& is just one possibility among many" Another ad(antage of this ontology of unspecified elements is that it allows us to do research across disciplinary boundaries, including that between science and philosophy" eyerabend tal-s of 7ach,s ontology,s %disregard for distinctions between areas of research" Any method, any type of -nowledge could enter the discussion of a particular problem& (p;BC!" in my terminology 7ach,s ontology is diachronic, e(ol(ing with and as part of empirical research" Harman,s ontology is synchronic, dictating and fi'ing transcendentally the elements of the world" Thus %correlation& is not the only bogus concept that 555 has tried to foist on the world as if it were a serious contribution to ontological analysis, the notion of %withdrawal& is perhaps e(en more (oid of sense" %6ithdrawal& is tied to a computational understanding of *eing" The sensual object, being a MsimulacrumM or an %utter sham&, is de-(alorised ontologically in fa(our of the real object that is purely intelligible" $n this way abstractions are gi(en primacy o(er what ma-es a difference in our li(es" %6ithdrawal& is one of those at first glance intuiti(ely appealing but ultimately incoherent concepts that Harman tries to found his philosophy on" The computational understanding of *eing is the understanding that originates with 0escartes and renders possible the (arious specific computational disciplines that e'ist today" $t is the hegemony of the %count&" This is what de-(alorises the sensual )ualities to mere secondary status " Harman,s real objects are not sensible but only intelligible in the sense that they can be objects of our intellection" $ ha(e thus argued that they are transcendent abstractions (un-owable and untouchable,

says Harman!" ar from being a self-e(ident property of real objects, the uni(ersal withdrawal of real objects characterises only one particular type of approach to *eing" or the Homeric approach things do not withdraw, argue Hubert 0reyfus and 4ean 8elly in ALL TH$2G4 4H$2$2G and eyerabend in AGA$24T 7.TH50" $n Herman 7el(ille+s wor- ((as e'emplar of the pluralist paradigm!, once again things do not uni(ersally withdraw but abound, argue both 0reyfus and 0eleu?e, though 7el(ille does ma-e room for withdrawal as well in specific cases" or a pluralist, withdrawal is by no means the rule, but is a special case within the paradigm of abundance" *y uni(ersalising %withdrawal& Harman loses any means for discriminating between epistemic withdrawal and ontic withdrawal" The notion of %withdrawal& is both, ine'tricably epistemic and ontic" $t is not empirical, nor can it be" Any statement such as %this object is withdrawing& is malformed, as all ostensi(ity (%this object&! is sensual, or non-real" 6e cannot indicate the real withdrawn object, precisely because it withdraws" This sort of empirical emptiness and logical circularity is for 6ittgenstein a sign of the misuse of language" urther, Harman cannot tell the difference between a relation and an interaction" 0o objects withdraw only when they interact with each other or in their relations with each other, which can only be partial1 The pseudo counter-concept of a total relation is suggested but can not be assigned any coherent meaning" inally, %withdraw& seems to be the name of an action effectuated by an agent, the %object&" :et it is uni(ersal and ine(itable" %To be withdrawn& seems to be a uni(ersal meta-property of any real object, and Mwithdrawn from each otherM a meta-relation between objects, in which case a ris- of circularity e'ists# are objects withdrawn from their own withdrawal etc", or is withdrawal itself not real1 $t is clear that we are dealing not with a well-formed concept, but rather with a notion based on an intuiti(e but fu??y picture that arises in our mind with the use of %e'amples& that can mean nothing, since e'amples are sensual presentations" This fu??y picture seems to be saying something %deep& about objects, but it cannot really be re-formulated outside the pictue-word that is supposed to con(ey it to our understanding" 5ne imagines some sort of deep receding, the object as .urydice receding from the ga?e of 5rpheus" *ut this picture-thin-ing is no basis for a coherent account of real objects" A! *.$2G $4 79LT$PL. A20 TH94 P5L$T$3AL eyerabend uses most often a dialogical method, although he was led to complain that this was often a one-sided dialogue" This was because many of the his philosophical re(iewers were what he called %illiterate&, what $ am in this tal- calling %stupid&, that is to say instances of a dogmatic and deconte'tualised image of thought conjugated with a disindi(iduated academic professionalism" 5f these failed dialogues eyerabend writes (in 43$.23. $2 A /.. 453$.T:, ;G!# $ publish themQbecause e(en a one-sided debate is more instructi(e than an essay and because $ want to inform the wider public of the astounding illiteracy of some %professionals& ortunately, not all his dialogues were so one-sided" $n his encounters with interlocutors eyerabend tends to function li-e a ?en master, trying to get people to change their attitude, to get them to %sense chaos& where they percei(e %an orderly arrangement of well beha(ed things and processes& (cf" his LA4T L.TT./!" A (ery instructi(e e'ample of this can be seen in his correspondence on military intelligence networ-s with $saac *en-$srael, o(er a > year period stretching from 4eptember ;BII to 5ctober ;BBG" Though eyerabend mainly refers to the philosophy of science, after all it was his domain of specialisation for many long years, he gi(es sporadic indications that his remar-s apply to all

philosophy, to all %school philosophies&, and not just to epistemology and the philosophy of sciences" 4o it is possible to see in a (ery general way what eyerabend,s ideas on ontology are in this epistolary dialogue which begins with considerations of school philosophy as a useless detour, comparing it unfa(ourably to a more %nai(e& unacademic critical approach ( eyerabend,s first letter, L;# pR-F!, goes on to consider in a little more detail what an unacademic critical philosophy would loo- li-e (L># p;;-;P! proceeds to plead for the %non-demarcation& of the sciences and the arts-humanities& and for the need to see epistemology and ontology as parts of politics (LA# p>;>A!,, and culminates in LP-R (pA;-AA! with a s-etch of eyerabend,s own (iews on ontology" This is an ama?ing document, as the dialogue form ta-es eyerabend into a domain that he has not discussed before (intelligence networ-s! and permits a concise yet progressi(e e'position of his later ideas and of their %fruitful imprecision&" eyerabend tells us that ontological criti)ue, or the detour through ontology, is unnecessary, because a more open and less technical approach is possible" He gi(es (arious figurations of that unacademic approach# the educated layman, disco(erers and generals, certain 8enyan tribes, a lawyer interrogating e'perts, the Homeric Gree- world(iew, his own minimalist ontology" The ad(antages he cites of such an unacademic approach are# ;! ability to %wor- in partly closed surroundings& where there is a %flow of information in some direction, not in others& (pR! >! action that is sufficiently comple' to %fit in& to the comple'ity of our practices (p;;! and of the real world (p;>! A! ability to wor- without a fi'ed %theoretical framewor-&, to %wor- outside well-defined frames& (p>>!, to brea- up framewor-s and to rearrange the pieces as the circumstances demand, to not be limited by the %undue constraints& inherent to any particular framewor- (p;A! P! ability to wor- not just outside the traditional prejudices of a particular domain (pR! but outside the boundaries between domains, such as the putati(e boundary between the arts and the sciences (p>;! R! an awareness of the political origins and conse)uences of seemingly apolitical academic subjects# ontology %without politics is incomplete and arbitrary& (p>>!" *ut one could object that eyerabend is a relati(ist and so that %empirical research& for him could gi(e whate(er result we want, because in his system anything goes" $n fact the best gloss of this polemical slogan is %anything could wor- (but mostly doesn,t!&" eyerabend,s epistemological realism is supported by an ontological realism# %reality (or *eing! has no well-defined structure but reacts in different ways to different approaches&" This is one reason why he sometimes refuses the label of %relati(ist&, because according to him %/elati(ism presupposes a fi'ed framewor-&" or eyerabend, the trans(ersality of communication between people belonging to apparently incommensurable structures shows that the notion of a frame of reference that is fi'ed and impermeable has only a limited applicability# %people with different ways of life and different conceptions of reality can learn to communicate with each other, often e(en without a gestalt-switch, which means, as far as $ am concerned, that the concepts they use and the perceptions they ha(e are not nailed down but are ambiguous&" 2e(ertheless, he distinguishes between *eing, as ultimate reality, which is un-nowable, and the multiple manifest realities which are produced by our interaction with it, and which are themsel(es -nowable" Approach *eing in one way, across decades of scientific e'periment, and it produces elementary particles, approach it in another way and it produces the Homeric gods# %$ now distinguish between an ultimate reality, or *eing" *eing cannot be -nown, e(er ($ ha(e arguments for that!" 6hat we do -now are the (arious manifest realities, li-e the world of the Greegods, modern cosmology etc" These are the results of an interaction between *eing and one of its relati(ely independent parts& (A>!"

The difference with relati(ism is that there is no guarantee that the approach will wor-, *eing is independent of us and must respond positi(ely, which is often not the case" eyerabend draws the conclusion that the determination of what is real and what is a simulacrum cannot be the prerogati(e of an abstract ontology, and thus of the intellectuals who promulgate it" There is no fi'ed framewor-, the manifest realities are multiple, and *eing is un-nowable" Thus the determination of what is real depends on our choice in fa(our of one form of life or another, ie on a political decision" This leads to eyerabend,s conclusion# ontology %without politics is incomplete and arbitrary&" $n(ersely, Harman has repeated many times that ontology has nothing to do with politics" 4een through eyerabend,s eyes Harman,s 555 is thus both incomplete, because it is apolitical, and arbitrary, because it is a priori and monist, we ha(e already said that, but also because it attributes to a little tribe of intellectuals the right to tell us what is real (Harman,s %ghostly objects withdrawing from all human and inhuman access&, TH. TH$/0 TA*L., ;>! and what is unreal (the simulacra of common sense, of the humanities, and of the sciences!" $t is also harmful because it is based on ghostly bloodless merely intelligible real objects that transcend any of the rNgimes and practices that gi(e us )ualitati(ely differentiated objects in any recognisable sense" 5bjects withdraw from the di(erse truth-rNgimes (the sciences, the humanities, common sense, but also from religion and politics!, i"e" etymologically they abstract themsel(es# real objects are abstractions, indeed they are abstraction itself" This is not a re(olutionary new %weird& realism, this is regressi(e transcendent realism, cynically pac-aged as its opposite" $ consider Harman,s 555 as a purified and consensualised (i"e" demar'ised depoliticised descientised! (ersion of Althusser,s ontology of the real object and of his anti-humanism, and as e'hibiting the same defects as any other synchronic ontology" M) ON DISAPPOINTMENT IN PHILOSOPHY+ THE DEPRESSING CASE O* OOO 6e easily tal- about our enthusiasms in philosophy, as if our path of thin-ing was one of the accumulation of truths and elimination of errors, one of progress" *ut disappointment is just as important a dri(ing force, a non-philosophical affect that shadows our enthusiasms" A philosophy can seem to e'press what we find essential to hear at a turning point in our life, and to promise a new world of insight and freedom, only to turn out to be a lure, a deceitful mirage unable to li(e up to its promises" 6hen $ first read Graham Harman,s boo-s $ found them promising" At least there was a reference to contemporary pluralist thin-ers and a willingness to engage in e'planation and argument" $t too- me only a couple of months to realise that the promised e'planations were either totally inadequate (the myth of %epistemologies of access& for e'ample is maintained only by lofty ignorance of huge parts of recent philosophy, and by refusing to engage any real reading of te'ts# just global denunciation! or not forthcoming" The initial shoc- of recognition was tempered by the realisation that Harman was building on ideas that were widespread in 3ontinental circles AR years ago, and that $ had already subjected to a thoroughgoing criti)ue before mo(ing on to something else" His %progress& was in fact a regression to barely disguised rehashes of old refuted ideas" $ was astounded at the pretentiousness of the claims of 555, gi(en their flimsy basis, and at the credulousnesss of the supporters, too young to ha(e personal -nowledge of the prior a(atars of these ideas" Luc-ily, $ )uic-ly found far more satisfying and intellectually challenging thin-ers (*runo Latour, Hohn Law, Andrew Pic-ering, 6illiam 3onnolly, *ernard 4tiegler, 3atherine 7alabou, and ranKois Laruelle, to name a few! and began to elaborate the non-standard pluralist philosophy that $ had disco(ered in 0eleu?e and eyerabend and Hillman, and that $ thin- has still not seen its day" $ decided to deconstruct 555 as a way of clarifying why $ had initially been attracted and why $ thought it was a great step bac-wards" $ do not care for 555 in any of its (ariants, and $ thin- its only (alue is pedagogical# a warning of

the stupidity that dogs us all of enthrallment with the plausible products of cogniti(e mar-eting" $ thin- that 555,s popularity is based on a cruel misunderstanding" People seem to thin- that 555 announces a return to the things themsel(es, but as we ha(e seen this is not so" 2or is it a return to the concrete di(ersity and abundance of the world" This impression is an illusion" 555 gestures at the world, e(en as it withdraws any real possibility of e'ploring it and coming to -now it" $n my own case, $ ha(e used 555 to help me clarify my own ideas on pluralist ontology, and especially on0eleu?e and eyerabend" 555 is a debased synchronic tra(esty of the diachronic pluralism that eyerabend and 0eleu?e espouse" 6hat people are loo-ing for and thin- they find in 555 is the e'act opposite of what is there" People are loo-ing for intellectuality, strange new concepts to go further on the paths opened by the preceding generation of philosophers, and concreteness, an engagement with the abundance of the world, its passions, its pleasures, and its problems" *ut 555,s intellectuality is a tawdry sham, and its concreteness is a cynical bluff" Harman,s 555 is the worst form of dualism imaginable, a dualist epistemology and ontology in regression from the great pluralist philosophies that preceded it" Are these pluralist philosophies that $ admire perfect1 2o they are (ery incomplete and one-sided, de(elopped in response to concrete conte'ts that are now behind us" Are they, these deconstructi(e philosophies, themsel(es immune to deconstruction1 2ot at allT They themsel(es e(en call for their own deconstruction, and 4tiegler, Latour, and Laruelle continue the effort and deconstruct, each in their own way, what remains undeconstructed in their predecessors, ideas" A liberation from the conceptual schemas of philosophy is possible if, as Paul eyerabend in(ites us, we thin- and act outside stable framewor-s (%There are many ways and we are using them all the time though often belie(ing that they are part of a stable framewor- which encompasses e(erything&! and fi'ed paths (%$s argument without a purpose1 2o, it is notD it accompanies us on our journey without tying it to a fi'ed road&!" This is what $ ha(e been calling %diachronic ontology&" $t is the e'act opposite of the path that 555 has chosen, where we find a synchronic ontology incapable of dealing with time and change, and a monism of transcendent Mwithdrawn entitiesM"

N) CONCLUSION The structure of my argument is (ery classical, and (ery abstract, as it remains wholly in the domain of philosophy, and e(en worse of first philosophy" $ thin- that a conse)uent philosophical pluralism has its own dynamic that leads from a pluralism inside philosophy (e"g" eyerabend,s methodological pluralism!, to a pluralising of philosophy itself as an ontological realm and a cogniti(e rNgime claiming completeness and uni(ersality (eg eyerabend,s 7achian %way of research& and his later ontological pluralism# the target of %philosophy as a discourse that co(ers e(erything Q an all-encompassing synthetic (iew of the world and what it all means&!" Here $ thincomes the mo(e of putting philosophy in relation to a non-philosophical outside (non-philosophical not meaning a negation but a wider practice, as in non-.uclidean geometries!" ranKois Laruelle has written on this sort of thing at length, but $ don,t thin- he can claim e'clusi(e ownership (nor e(en chronological priority for! of this idea, nor is he e(en necessarily the best e'emplar of the practice of such a non-philosophy" *ut at least his wor- is a gesture in the right direction" 4o a non-laruellian non-philosophy is a reasonable prolongation of pluralism" eyerabend+s wor- is a good e'ample of such a non-Laruellian non-philosophy, or, in more positi(e terms, of a diachronic, immanent, pluralist philosophy" 0econstruction as it began to succeed left people both disoriented and disappointed" 0isoriented, because it seemed to lead through the criti)ue of all foundations into a form of relati(ism that could only be percei(ed as nihilist" 0isappointed, because it led to a form of discourse so con(oluted that it assured plausible deniability on any idea or thesis that its opponents attributed it in order to

criticise it, thus generating a new Nlite with a sort of cogniti(e diplomatic immunity" Thus the spectre of what must be called %Nlitist relati(ism& began to haunt the academy" This post-modernist Nlitism is to be contrasted with the %democratic relati(ism& that eyerabend defended, specifying it as epistemological relati(ism allied with ontological realism" eyerabend,s (oice was not heard, as a confused %wild-man anarcho-relati(ist& stereotype was )uic-ly constructed to e'clude his ideas from the con(ersation" As deconstruction began to run out of steam, and its arguments were forgotten, it became possible to philosophise in the old constructi(e manner once again" /egression set in, multiplicity and difference were retained but they were strictly limited to the object-le(el" These regressi(e constructions too- the radical form that one sees most clearly in *adiou, injecting criti)ue from the outside of ontology in the form of a %communist hypothesis&" 5r a more %(alue-free&, i"e" neoliberal conformist form that one can see in Harman,s MwithdrawalM hypothesis" 5bjects and multiples became the new barrier against further deconstruction, permitting a return to intellectual order while conser(ing a sophisticated (eneer" $nstead of pushing the deconstructi(e process further, a dogmatic bulwar- was erected" *ut to no a(ail# others ha(e been calmly and )uietly pursuing the criti)ue of all such dogmatic stopping points" Laruelle, Latour, and 4tiegler ha(e been busily at wor-, each in their own way, undermining the synchronic presuppositions of these new dogmatic constructions" Their criteria of analysis are close to my own" Pluralism for me is on the side of abundance, historicity, and interaction, as opposed to monist doctrines of withdrawal, stasis, and retreat from dialogue" To those who object that $ am setting up a new dualism, $ reply that $ am faithful to 0eleu?e,s idea that resistance, or deterritorialisation, comes first" $n 0eleu?ian terms this amounts to saying that multiplicities come first" .(en deconstruction maintains that it can be a necessary preliminary mo(e to pri(ilege one term of a binary couple, the marginal resisting term" 0eleu?e and eyerabend seem to maintain that we must gi(e precedence, at least some of the time, to the term bearing the most plurality" or both, this precedence is not absolute, but depends on the dialogical and political conte't"