[mbrock]

Some philosophers, thinking especially of Graham Harman, have started reacting against the now sort of commonplace idea that "there are no things (or objects) in reality."

From a common sense perspective, it's obvious that there are things. Sure, you can point out the flux and decay of all entities, but still, this table here is a coherent thing even if it's made from parts in a temporary arrangement.

In some sense, philosophy itself is destroyed when you go down the path of denying objects, since philosophy crucially deals with concepts, and concepts are "thought objects."

Harman describes two modes of denying objects: undermining and overmining. Undermining is the tendency to say "really, this object is just a composition of these other particles," while overmining is the tendency to say "this object is just a modulation in a grand monistic entity."

Instead of that, he recommends an ontology of objects that's pretty interesting and fun to read about. He would, I think, agree that objects are unique in that they are (in programmer jargon) "pointer equal" to only themselves... and each real object, for that reason, has an infinity of potential that's never exhausted by any "arbitrary" perception of it... yet still, we perceive other objects not directly, but through aesthetic caricatures, and on that level you might have different degrees of uniqueness.

[MawNicker]

Thank you very much for this comment. I'm an armchair philosopher and I hadn't heard of Graham Harman. His notion of objects is beautiful. In one motion nihilism both compels me to accept my sins and deprives me of any path to salvation. Harman's objects capture the essential impetus of nihilism without ultimately voiding conception. In fact, they even capture the paradox of nihilism. The denial of objects necessarily implies an objective system: dualism. First there is an object contriving infinitely varied "caricature objects". Then there must be another object that is (infinitely) not any of those. This expression of our relationship to The Great Unknowable Reality is much saner. It doesn't overmine. It doesn't undermine. It doesn't leave me oscillating between affirmation and denial. Also, most importantly, I'm given a clue to further knowledge. I am that contriving object. This is just a caricature of reality. My participation in it's consideration is entirely arbitrary. I'm haunted by the concern that knowledge exists which cannot be captured by this freedom. But for now these objects certainly get us further than nothing. ;)