Three introductory pathways into Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology

Abstract

This short essay has a propaedeutic character, and its aim is to present Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), one of the theoretical currents associated with Speculative Realism which has been organized by professor Graham Harman and his allies. Nonetheless, our proposition is somewhat oblique, since we will attempt to build a road into OOO that is not the same as the most known one. We shall begin by approaching what has been done under the theme “philosophy of the objects” on a broader view. After this, we will come upon the state of contemporary philosophy regarding the waves and schools associated with Speculative Realism., movement of which professor Harman was one of the four original proponents. After that, we will see three avenues that might take the public on a road towards greater familiarity with OOO. The first one is through German philosophy, from Leibniz, Husserl and Heidegger. The second one goes through classical Greek Philosophy, with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The third one goes from Whitehead’s and Latour’s process philosophy. By the end, we shall present a few of professor Harman’s works in order to show how his OOO has been developed in recent years.