The Quadruple Object

It is very difficult to place Harman in a popular philosophical tradition since he is among the unique philosophical currents of 21st century. He achieves a number of things here; foremost being the forceful reminder how the human mind overmines or undermines objects. He reminds the naive realists as well as self-assured idealists that philosophy is not wisdom, per se; it is rather the love of wisdom. True to Meno's paradox, we never attain the wisdom, the true objectivity, but nevertheless keep trying. Are we just striking our heads to the wall? Harman kind of circumvents this question by transposing the Kantian Copernican revolution, the revolutionary idea that human subject is the mysterious epistemological center of all quest. He show more strongly objects to this by showing that all relations including the object-object relations are equally mysterious. For this purpose, he posits a fresh interpretation of Heidegger's tool-being and merges into speculative realism where all causality is essentially mysterious. Is he moving towards much neglected medieval occassionalism? Well there are strong hints that since his four-fold object is structurally linked through indirect causality. I would love to read him more. Absolutely loved this one. show less

The Quadruple Object: Review 1

and

The Quadruple Object: Review 2

Two full, linked posts reviewing The Quadruple Object. Somewhat from a hermeneutical and rhetorical perspective, but check them out and see what you think.

meh.