What is an Object? A True Rebuttal to the Withdrawn Object.

First, check out Hickman’s report:

[I]t is not possible to clearly distinguish the inconsistencies of our notion of an object from the inconsistencies which are immanent to this object itself. The ‘thing itself’ is inconsistent, full of tensions, struggling between its different determinations, and the deployment of these tensions, this struggle, is what makes it ‘alive’.1 —Slavoj Zizek The basic […]

via Zizek and Harman: Strange Bedfellows — southern nights“>

And please note that I am not being sarcastic or ironic in saying that it is a good analysis comparison and I like it.

Here is my (partial) rebuttal not to Hickman, but to Harman and Zizek, but right here mainly Harman. This a a small comment taken from my upcoming book (2017), wherein the more comprehensive rebuttal will unfold.

“…We might begin with Kierkegaard’s notice of what is interesting and take this into an area that was unavailable to him, because he was (likewise, due to his moment) invested in what is real (-true): What is interesting is real, and what is true is not very interesting. No one wants the truth; in a very ironic “A Few Good Men” way, its not that people “cant handle the truth”, its more that most are totally incapable of even approaching truth.

We have then the ‘tensions’ noted with Harman and Zizek: They are interesting. In fact, it is no secret that both of then are involved with what is real, and they thus come up with interesting things to say about the reality of real things. What they have to say is very interesting and indeed are artists in the sense that they speak of real things in reality and are very good at coming up with interesting things to say. But what they are saying about reality is only real; not just that their discourses, print text, meaningful conveyances have to do with reality, it is more that the meaning of what they are saying indicates real things, reality, and is limited and contained in the totality of what is real. And did I say it is quite interesting?

Where most would not even be able to come to any indication that what is interesting about them is not true, I have a feeling (though I could be wrong) that Harman and Zizek would not be foreign to someone pointing out that they are missing the truth of their situation for the reality of it.

The issue here can begin with Harman’s “objects withdraw from view”. If we take this statement at face value it is then not difficult to classify him as a member of the school where things withdraw. Sounds like I just repeated myself, but what I am saying is that his is no different than those who would say that the subject withdraws from view, which is nothing more that to say that we cannot know the object itself, in-itself as Kant has said. It is here that the issue of the subsequent arises, since we have then Harman saying all sorts of things about the object that withdraws from view; but I am getting ahead of myself. The question that must arise if we are seeking truth, and not merely an interesting turn of phrase, is: If an object withdraw from view, then how or why are or can we say anything about it? Obviously, if we are being honest and forthright in our estimations an usage of terms, if an object withdraws from view, then we cant see it and anything we say about it is utter speculation.

Ahhhh! Did we forget that Harman is/was a part of the Speculative Realist dropping?

But aside from the real human being, Harman in this case, who gets inspiration from […] somewhere, the main question has got to be: What is an object? So when we view this situation with reference to Harman and his statement, we should at first (I will stop emphasizing honesty) see that Harman’s object is exactly […], and is thereby the example as well as the description of a withdrawn object, but then further we can find what is subsequent by what else he says about it, because in truth, is we take an (the) object as withdrawn from view then […] is all there can be of this object such that everything said about is thus subsequent.

We will get to the designation of truth later.

For now; if everything that is said about the withdrawn object is not really about the object but is only a speculation about it, then we still have not reached the object itself. This is thereby the real tension that Harman and Zizek are talking about. But yet in some weird way we have found something about the object itself that has not withdrawn: An object that withdrawn from view is a site of (con-)tension. So then we should consider what is occurring: What is this thing that evidences or somehow brings contention, or at least the situation of it somehow or somewhere? Is it really the object? What object? Does not the object in this arena withdraw from view; are we saying that a view does not exhaust the object’s real being? Where have we heard that before? And, exactly from where am I hearing this?

In this particular case, I am hearing it from Harman. In fact, there is nothing if not very little that Harman is saying that I cannot route back exactly to Harman himself and apply it to his real being.

So what is he saying, then? He is saying that the object is a site of multiple aspects that allow for real being. And where have we heard that before?

Postmodernism.

I therefore say that, at least in this case, the realist discussion about the object os really about the post-modern subject. And this is to say (to add controversy) that subjectivity concerns the modern subject, and that we cannot entertain what subjectivity and actual object qualities are until we come to terms with the modernistic that post-modernity evidences.

If we can follow this route, then we have a legitimate claim to a rebuttal of (at least) this moment of realism (Harman’s OOO or OOP). This rebuttal is founded in the fact that the modern subject has just revealed its hand. It has shown its limits by posing as vector away from some previous situation merely by arguing or otherwise functioning in this fashion:

1. Discourse contains a potential to reveal true things of reality ( a bastard ‘non-‘ interpretation of post-modernist ideas),

2. Using this argument (1.) to divert attention from the true issue by compounding its first argument to retain an invisible or silent subjective privilege (the withdrawn object), by.

3. Retaining an essential subject-object duality (Kant redfined upon the postmodern essential discursive mistake).

By the exposure of this type of movement, we can indeed answer the question as to what an object is truly: It is a post-modern subject. And since we are able thereby to identify this thing, this object, we are then able to further describe what this object does; and the description of what an object does is the defining of a religious posture.”

-from “The Second Moment of Decisive Significance” due mid-late-early 2017

Also linked  S.C. Hickman contrasts my position with Žižek’s — Object-Oriented Philosophy

___

CLICK HERE to check out my book “The Moment of Decisive Significance”.
–

–

And on a side comment to the recent events of our election in the states: The destitution of spirit is not a fantasy, but the understanding that the destitution of spirit is merely a theoretical position or postulate allows for a fantasy of spirit. This fantasy of the spirit occurs in what we call reality and the surprises that arise and are noticed, along within the tensions such as involved in this essay, must be dealt with in stride because they are real. But it is these tensions that show what fantasy means and really what’s occurring in the continuation of enlightenment thinking. 

Perhaps those of this project need a different tact rather than the assumption that ‘light’ is what everyone is guided towards. And quite an ironic proposition: perhaps The strategy should be more manipulation and less assumption of honesty and Good will. Perhaps a good is gained , after all,with reference to ends and not so much means.