Object-Oriented Philosophy – a new trend in contemporary philosophy

elective monographs

The course “Object-oriented philosophy – a new trend in contemporary philosophy” (G. Harman, A. Toscano, I. H. Grant) will present this new movement in contemporary thought against the background of classical philosophy. The tutors will explain the specific character of this new approach by problematizing the apparently philosophically neutral notion of the object, taking into account the linguistic connotions in Polish, English in German

The course „Object-Oriented Philosophy – a new trend in contemporary philosophy” will serve as an introduction contemporary school of thought which today is dynamically developing around the world. OOP embraces the fundamental assumptions of speculative realism (authors such as: Meillassoux, Brassier, Grant). Speculative realists are united by the effort to reject the paradigm of correlationism and the resulting antropomorphism. Meillassoux defines correlationsm as an idea according to which “we only have access to the correlation between thinking and being, but never to any of these spheres in themsleves”. A similar critique is already present in Heidegger’s, Foucault’s and Derrida’s work. Speculative realism takes into account the results of these authors’ considerations and attempts to continue their critical work from a different point of view.

The main consideration of OOP is the view that philosophy, although it had long considered the object-subject relation, has in fact said little about the object itself, preferring more “radical approaches”. Graham Harman, the main representative of the movement, has divided “radical” philosophy into that which attempts to “undermine” the object by saying that it is mere “surface” under which true reality subsists, and that which rejects the very idea of the object, assigning existence only to particular qualities, impressions and relations (as Whitehead and Latour do). OOP criticizes not only various anti-realistic approaches, but also many versions of realism. According to Harman all things, whether physical or imaginary, are equally objects.

The course will be a lecture requiring from students reading and active participation. Works by contemporary object-oriented philosophers will be read alongside with classical philosophy.

1. Whitehead, Process and Reality (wybór)

2. Badiou, A., Logic de Mondes, (Logic of Worlds) (wybór)

3. Meillassoux, Q. Apres la Finitude (After Finitude) (wybór)

4. Toscano, A., The Theatre of Production: Philosophy and Individuation Between Kant and Deleuze (wybór)

5. Grant, I. H., On an Artificial Earth: Philosophies of Nature After Schelling (wybór)

6. Brassier R., Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (wybór)

7. Harman, G., Tool-being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (wybór)

8. Harman, G., Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry

of Things

9. Harman, G., On Vicarious Causation

10. Harman, G., Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics