Object-oriented ontology

Object-oriented ontology (OOO) is a school of thought

that rejects the privileging of human existence over the
existence of nonhuman objects.[1] Specically, objectoriented ontology opposes the anthropocentrism of
Kants Copernican Revolution, whereby objects are said
to conform to the mind of the subject and, in turn,
become products of human cognition.[2] In contrast to
Kants view, object-oriented philosophers maintain that
objects exist independently of human perception and are
not ontologically exhausted by their relations with humans or other objects.[3] Thus, for object-oriented ontologists, all relations, including those between nonhumans,
distort their related objects in the same basic manner as
human consciousness and exist on an equal footing with
one another.[4]

scholars from varying elds began employing objectoriented principles in their own work. Levi Bryant began
what he describes as a very intense philosophical email
exchange with Harman, over the course of which Bryant
became convinced of the credibility of object-oriented
thought.[1] Bryant subsequently coined the term objectoriented ontology in 2009 to distinguish those ontologies
committed to an account of being composed of discrete
beings from Harmans object-oriented philosophy, thus
marking a dierence between object-oriented philosophy
(OOP) and object-oriented ontology (OOO).[10]

Object-oriented ontology is often viewed as a subset of

speculative realism, a contemporary school of thought
that criticizes the post-Kantian reduction of philosophical enquiry to a correlation between thought and being, such that the reality of anything outside of this correlation is unknowable.[5] Object-oriented ontology predates speculative realism, however, and makes distinct
claims about the nature and equality of object relations to
which not all speculative realists agree. The term objectoriented philosophy was coined by Graham Harman, the
movements founder, in his 1999 doctoral dissertation
Tool-Being: Elements in a Theory of Objects.[6][7] In
2009, Bryant rephrased Harmans original designation as
object-oriented ontology, giving the movement its current name.

While object-oriented philosophers reach dierent conclusions, they share common precepts, including a critique of anthropocentrism and correlationism and a rejection of preservation of nitude, withdrawal, and
philosophies that undermine or overmine objects.

2 Basic principles

2.1 Anthropocentrism

Anthropocentrism is the rejection of post-Kantian privileging of human existence over the existence of nonhuman objects. Beginning with Kants Copernican revolution, modern philosophers began articulating a transcendent anthropocentrism, whereby objects are said to
conform to the mind of the subject and, in turn, become
products of human cognition.[2] In contrast to Kants
view, object-oriented philosophers maintain that objects
exist independently of human perception, and that non1 Founding of the movement
human object relations distort their related objects in
the same fundamental manner as human consciousness.
The term object-oriented philosophy was coined by Thus, all object relations, human and nonhuman, are said
speculative philosopher Graham Harman in his 1999 to exist on equal ontological footing with one another.[4]
doctoral dissertation Tool-Being: Elements in a Theory
of Objects (later revised and published as Tool-Being:
Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects).[8] For Har- 2.2 Critique of correlationism
man, Heideggerian Zuhandenheit, or readiness-to-hand,
refers to the withdrawal of objects from human percep- Related to 'anthropocentrism,' object-oriented thinkers
tion into a reality that cannot be manifested by prac- reject correlationism, which the French philosopher
tical or theoretical action.[9] Furthering this idea, Har- Quentin Meillassoux denes as the idea according to
man contends that when objects withdraw in this way, which we only ever have access to the correlation bethey distance themselves from other objects, as well as tween thinking and being, and never to either term conhumans.[1] Resisting pragmatic interpretations of Hei- sidered apart from the other.[11] Because object-oriented
deggers thought, then, Harman is able to propose an ontology is a realist philosophy, it stands in contradisobject-oriented account of metaphysical substances. Fol- tinction to the anti-realist trajectory of correlationism,
lowing the publication of Harmans early work, several which restricts philosophical understanding to the cor1

relation of being with thought by disavowing any reality

external to this correlation as inaccessible, and, in this
way, fails to escape the ontological reication of human
experience.[12]

2.3

Rejection of undermining and overmining

Object-oriented thought holds that there are two principal strategies for devaluing the philosophical import of
objects.[13] First, one can undermine objects by claiming that they are an eect or manifestation of a deeper,
underlying substance or force.[14] Second, one can overmine objects by either an idealism which holds that there
is nothing beneath what appears in the mind or, as in
social constructionism, by positing no independent reality
outside of language, discourse or power.[15][16] Objectoriented philosophy rejects both undermining and overmining.

2.4

Preservation of nitude

Unlike other speculative realisms, object-oriented ontology maintains the concept of nitude, whereby relation
to an object cannot be translated into direct and complete knowledge of an object.[17] Since all object relations distort their related objects, every relation is said
to be an act of translation, with the caveat that no object can perfectly translate another object into its own
nomenclature.[18] Object-oriented ontology does not restrict nitude to humanity, however, but extends it to all
objects as an inherent limitation of relationality.

METAPHYSICS OF GRAHAM HARMAN

from both practical and theoretical action, such that objectcal reality cannot be exhausted by either practical usage or theoretical investigation.[19] Harman further contends that objects withdraw not just from human interaction, but also from other objects. He maintains:
If the human perception of a house or a tree
is forever haunted by some hidden surplus in
the things that never becomes present, the same
is true of the sheer causal interaction between
rocks or raindrops. Even inanimate things only
unlock each others realities to a minimal extent, reducing one another to caricatures...even
if rocks are not sentient creatures, they never
encounter one another in their deepest being,
but only as present-at-hand; it is only Heideggers confusion of two distinct senses of the asstructure that prevents this strange result from
being accepted.[1]
From this, Harman concludes that the primary site of
ontological investigation is objects and relations, instead
of the post-Kantian emphasis on the human-world correlate. Moreover, this holds true for all entities, be they
human, nonhuman, natural, or articial, leading to the
downplayment of dasein as an ontological priority. In its
place, Harman proposes a concept of substances that are
irreducible to both material particles and human perception, and exceed every relation into which they might
enter.[20]

Coupling Heideggers tool-analysis with the phenomenological insights of Edmund Husserl, Harman introduces
two types of objects: real objects and sensual objects.
Real objects are objects that withdraw from all experience, whereas sensual objects are those that exist only in
experience.[21] Additionally, Harman suggests two kinds
2.5 Withdrawal
of qualities: sensual qualities, or those found in experience, and real qualities, which are accessed through intelObject-oriented ontology holds that objects are indepen- lectual probing.[21] Pairing sensual and real objects and
dent not only of other objects, but also from the qualities qualities yields the following framework:
they animate at any specic spatiotemporal location. Accordingly, objects cannot be exhausted by their relations
Sensual Object/Sensual Qualities: Sensual obwith humans or other objects in theory or practice, meanjects are present, but enmeshed within a mist of
ing that the reality of objects is always present-at-hand.[9]
accidental features and proles.[22]
The retention by an object of a reality in excess of any re Sensual Object/Real Qualities: The structure
lation is known as withdrawal.
of conscious phenomena are forged from eidetic, or experientially interpretive, qualities intuited
intellectually.[23]

Metaphysics of Graham Harman

In Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects,

Graham Harman interprets the tool-analysis contained in
Martin Heideggers Being and Time as inaugurating an
ontology of objects themselves, rather than the valorization of practical action or networks of signication.[9]
According to Harman, Heideggerian Zuhandenheit, or
readiness-to-hand, indicates the withdrawal of objects

Real Object/Sensual Qualities: As in the toolanalysis, a withdrawn object is translated into

sensual apprehension via a surface accessed by
thought and/or action.[23]
Real Object/Real Qualities:
This pairing
grounds the capacity of real objects to dier from
one another, without collapsing into indenite
substrata.[23]

4.1

Onticology (Bryant)

To explain how withdrawn objects make contact with and

relate to one another, Harman submits the theory of vicarious causation, whereby two hypothetical entities meet
in the interior of a third entity, existing side-by-side until something occurs to prompt interaction.[24] Harman
compares this idea to the classical notion of formal causation, in which forms do not directly touch, but inuence one another in a common space from which all are
partly absent. Causation, says Harman, is always vicarious, asymmetrical, and buered:

'Vicarious means that objects confront one

another only by proxy, through sensual proles
found only on the interior of some other entity. 'Asymmetrical' means that the initial confrontation always unfolds between a real object and a sensual one. And 'buered' means
that [real objects] do not fuse into [sensual objects], nor [sensual objects] into their sensual
neighbors, since all are held at bay through unknown rewalls sustaining the privacy of each.
from the asymmetrical and buered inner life
of an object, vicarious connections arise occasionally...giving birth to new objects with their
own interior spaces.[25]

Thus, causation entails the connection between a real object residing within the directionality of consciousness,
or a unied intention, with another real object residing
outside of the intention, where the intention itself is also
classied as a real object.[26] From here, Harman extrapolates ve types of relations between objects. Containment
describes a relation in which the intention contains both
the real object and sensual object. Contiguity connotes relations between sensual objects lying side-by-side within
an intention, not aecting one another, such that a sensual
objects bystanders can be rearranged without disrupting
the objects identity. Sincerity characterizes the absorption of a real object by a sensual object, in a manner that
takes seriously the sensual object without containing or
being contiguous to it. Connection conveys the vicarious
generation of intention by real objects indirectly encountering one another. Finally, no relation represents the typical condition of reality, since real objects are incapable
of direct interaction and are limited in their causal inuence upon and relation to other objects.[27]

Expansion

Since its inception by Graham Harman in 1999, many

authors in a variety of disciplines have adapted and expanded upon Harmans ideas.

4.1 Onticology (Bryant)

Like Harman, Levi Bryant opposes post-Kantian anthropocentrism and philosophies of access.[2] From Bryants
perspective, the Kantian contention that reality is accessible to human knowledge because it is structured by human cognition limits philosophy to a self-reexive analysis of the mechanisms and institutions though which cognition structures reality. He states:
For, in eect, the Copernican Revolution
will reduce philosophical investigation to the
interrogation of a single relation: the humanworld gap. And indeed, in the reduction of
philosophy to the interrogation of this single
relation or gap, not only will there be excessive focus on how humans relate to the world
to the detriment of anything else, but this interrogation will be profoundly asymmetrical. For
the world or the object related to through the
agency of the human will becomes a mere prop
or vehicle for human cognition, language, and
intentions without contributing anything of its
own.[2]
To counter the form of post-Kantian epistemology,
Bryant articulates an object-oriented philosophy called
'Onticology', grounded in three principles. First, the Ontic Principle states that there is no dierence that does not
make a dierence.[28] Following from the premises that
questions of dierence precede epistemological interrogation and that to be is to create dierences, this principle
posits that knowledge cannot be xed prior to engagement
with dierence.[29] And so, for Bryant, the thesis that
there is a thing-in-itself which we cannot know is untenable because it presupposes forms of being that make no
dierences. Similarly, concepts of dierence predicated
upon negationthat which objects are not or lack when
placed in comparison with one anotherare dismissed as
arising only from the perspective of consciousness, rather
than an ontological dierence that arms independent
being.[30] Second, the Principle of the Inhuman asserts
that the concept of dierence producing dierence is not
restricted to human, sociocultural, or epistemological domains, thereby marking the being of dierence as independent of knowledge and consciousness.[31] Humans exist as dierence-making beings among other dierencemaking beings, therefore, without holding any special position with respect to other dierences.[32] Third, the Ontological Principle maintains that if there is no dierence
that does not also make a dierence, then the making of
dierence is the minimal condition for the existence of
being. In Bryants words, if a dierence is made, then
the being is.[33] Bryant further contends that dierences
produced by an object can be inter-ontic (made with respect to another object) or intra-ontic (pertaining the internal constitution of the object).[33][34]

4 EXPANSION

Onticology distinguishes between four dierent types

Thus, hyperobjects appear to come and go in threeof objects: bright objects, dim objects, dark objects,
dimensional space, but would appear dierently to
and rogue objects. Bright objects are objects that
an observer with a higher multidimensional view.[40]
strongly manifest themselves and heavily impact other objects, such as the ubiquity of cell phones in high-tech
cultures.[35] Dim objects lightly manifest themselves in
5. Interobjective: Hyperobjects are formed by relaan assemblage of objects; for example, a neutrino passtions between more than one object. Consequently,
ing through solid matter without producing observable
objects are only able to perceive to the imprint, or
eects.[35] Dark objects are objects that are so completely
footprint, of a hyperobject upon other objects, rewithdrawn that they produce no local manifestations and
vealed as information. For example, global warming
do not aect any other objects.[36] Rogue objects are not
is formed by interactions between the Sun, fossil fuchained to any given assemblage of objects, but instead
els, and carbon dioxide, among other objects. Yet,
wander in and out of assemblages, modifying relations
global warming is made apparent through emissions
within the assemblages into which they enter.[37] Political
levels, temperature changes, and ocean levels, makprotestors exemplify rogue objects by breaking with the
ing it seem as if global warming is a product of scinorms and relations of a dominant political assemblage
entic models, rather than an object that predated
in order to forge new relations that challenge, change, or
its own measurement.[40]
cast o the prior assemblage. Additionally, Bryant has
proposed the concept of 'wilderness ontology' to explain
the philosophical pluralization of agency away from hu- According to Morton, hyperobjects not only become visman privilege.
ible during an age of ecological crisis, but alert humans
to the ecological dilemmas dening the age in which they
live.[42] Additionally, the existential capacity of hyperob4.2 Hyperobjects (Morton)
jects to outlast a turn toward less materialistic cultural
Timothy Morton became involved with object-oriented values, coupled with the threat many such objects pose toontology after his ecological writings were favorably ward organic matter gives them a potential spiritual qualmay becompared with the movements ideas. In The Ecologi- ity, in which their treatment by future societies
[43]
come
indistinguishable
from
reverential
care.
cal Thought, Morton introduced the concept of hyperobjects to describe objects that are so massively distributed
in time and space as to transcend spatiotemporal specicity, such as global warming, styrofoam, and radioactive plutonium.[38] He has subsequently enumerated ve 4.3
characteristics of hyperobjects:

Alien phenomenology (Bogost)

Ian Bogost, a video game researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founding partner of Persuasive
Games,[44] has articulated an applied object-oriented
ontology, concerned more with the being of specic objects than the exploration of foundational principles.[45]
Bogost calls his approach alien phenomenology, with
the term alien designating the manner in which with2. Molten: Hyperobjects are so massive that they re- drawal accounts for the inviolability of objectal experifute the idea that spacetime is xed, concrete, and ence. From this perspective, an object may not recognize
the experience of other objects because objects relate to
consistent.[40]
one another using metaphors of selfhood.[46]
3. Nonlocal: Hyperobjects are massively distributed
in time and space to the extent that their totality can- Alien phenomenology is grounded in three modes of
of
not be realized in any particular local manifestation. practice. First, ontography entails the production [47]
works
that
reveal
the
existence
and
relation
of
objects.
For example, global warming is a hyperobject that
impacts meteorological conditions, such as tornado Second, metaphorism denotes the production of works
formation. According to Morton, though, objects that speculate about the inner lives of objects, includthe experience of other objects
don't feel global warming, but instead experience ing how objects translate
[48]
Third, carpentry indicates the
into
their
own
terms.
tornadoes as they cause damage in specic places.
creation
of
artifacts
that
illustrate
the perspective of obThus, nonlocality describes the manner in which a
jects,
or
how
objects
construct
their
own worlds.[49] Bohyperobject becomes more substantial than the logost sometimes refers to his version of object-oriented
cal manifestations they produce.[41]
thought as a tiny ontology to emphasize his rejection of
4. Phased: Hyperobjects occupy a higher dimensional rigid ontological categorization of forms of being, includspace than other entities can normally perceive. ing distinctions between real and ctional objects.[45]
1. Viscous: Hyperobjects adhere to any other object
they touch, no matter how hard an object tries to
resist. In this way, hyperobjects overrule ironic distance, meaning that the more an object tries to resist
a hyperobject, the more glued to the hyperobject it
becomes.[39]

Criticism

Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014), pp. 69-71, provides a quick general denition.

Some commentators contend that object-oriented ontol- [8] Harman (2002)

ogy degrades meaning by placing humans and objects
on equal footing. Matthew David Segall has argued that [9] Harman (2002), p. 1
object-oriented philosophers should explore the theolog- [10] Graham Harman, Series Editors Preface, in Levi R.
ical and anthropological implications of their ideas in orBryant, Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and
der to avoid slipping into the nihilism of some speculaMedia, IX.
tive realists, where human values are a uke in an uncaring and fundamentally entropic universe..[50] Other crit- [11] Meillassoux, Quentin (2008). After Finitude. New York,
New York: Continuum. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4411-7383-6.
ical commentators such as David Berry and Alexander
Galloway have commented on the historical situatedness [12] Coeld, Kris. Interview: Graham Harman. Fractured
of an ontology that mirrors computational processes and
Politics. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
even the metaphors and language of computation.[51][52]
Cultural critic Steven Shaviro has criticized objectoriented ontology as too dismissive of process philosophy. According to Shaviro, the process philosophies
of Alfred North Whitehead, Gilbert Simondon, and
Gilles Deleuze account for how objects come into existence and endure over time, in contrast to the view
that objects are already there taken by object-oriented
approaches.[53] Shaviro also nds fault with Harmans assertion that Whitehead, Simondon, and Iain Hamilton
Grant undermine objects by positing objects as manifestations of a deeper, underlying substance, saying that the
antecedence of these thinkers, particularly Grant and Simondon, includes the plurality of actually existing objects, rather than a single substance of which objects are
mere epiphenomena.[53]

[13] Harman (2011), p. 6

[14] Harman (2011), pp. 810
[15] Harman (2011), pp. 1012
[16] http://dar.aucegypt.edu/handle/10526/3466
[17] Harman, Graham (2011). Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-7486-4080-5.
[18] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 275
[19] Harman (2002), pp. 12
[20] Harman (2002), pp. 23
[21] Harman (2011), p. 49
[22] Harman (2011), pp. 4950

See also
Object Lessons
Object-oriented programming

References

[23] Harman (2011), p. 50

[24] Harman (2007)
[25] Harman (2007), pp. 200201
[26] Harman (2007), p. 198
[27] Harman (2007), pp. 199200
[28] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 263

[1] Harman (2002), p. 2

[29] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 264

[2] Bryant, Levi. OnticologyA Manifesto for ObjectOriented Ontology, Part 1. Larval Subjects. Retrieved
9 September 2011.

[30] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 266

[3] Harman (2002), p. 16

[32] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 268

[4] Harman, Graham (2005). Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Peru, Illinois:
Open Court. p. 1. ISBN 0-8126-9456-2.

[33] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 269

[31] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 267

[34] Bryant, Levi. The Mug Blues. Retrieved 10 September

2011.

[5] Bryant, Harman & Srnicek (2011), p. 8

[6] Harman, Graham. Brief SR/OOO Tutorial. ObjectOriented Philosophy. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
[7] Bogosts Understanding the 'Experience' of Objects,
in: Humanistic Perspectives in a Technological World, ed.
Richard Utz, Valerie B. Johnson, and Travis Denton (Atlanta: School of Literature, Media, and Communication,

[35] Coeld, Kris. Interview: Levi Bryant. Retrieved 10

September 2011.
[36] Bryant, Levi. Dark Objects. Retrieved 10 September
2011.
[37] Bryant, Levi. Rogue Objects. Retrieved 10 September
2011.

[38] Morton (2010), p. 130

[39] Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects are Viscous. Ecology
Without Nature. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[40] Coeld, Kris. Interview: Timothy Morton. Fractured
Politics. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[41] Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects are Nonlocal. Ecology
Without Nature.
[42] Morton, Timothy (2011). Sublime Objects (PDF).
Speculations. II: 207227. Retrieved 2014-05-18.
[43] Morton (2010), pp. 131132
[44] Georgia Tech Homepage. Faculty Page. Georgia Tech
Digital Lounge. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[45] Coeld, Kris. Interview: Ian Bogost. Fractured Politics. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[46] Gratton, Peter. Ian Bogost: The Interview. Philosophy
in a Time of Error. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[47] Bogost, Ian. Latour Litanizer. Ian Bogost Blog.
[48] Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology. Ian Bogost Blog.
Retrieved 15 September 2011.
[49] Bogost (2012), p. 90
[50] Segall, Matthew David. Cosmos, Anthropos, and Theos
in Harman, Teilhard, and Whitehead. Footnotes to Plato.
Retrieved 16 September 2011.
[51] Berry, David Michael. Critical Theory and the Digital.
Critical Theory and the Digital. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
[52] Galloway, Alexander R. A response to Graham Harmans
Marginalia on Radical Thinking"". An und fr sich. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
[53] Shaviro, Steven. Processes and Powers. The Pinocchio
Theory. Retrieved 16 September 2011.

7.1

Bibliography

Bogost, Ian (2012). Alien Phenomenology. Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities Press.
Bryant, Levi; Harman, Graham; Srnicek, Nick
(2011). The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne, Australia: re.press.
ISBN 978-0-9806683-4-6.
Harman, Graham (2002). Tool-Being: Heidegger
and the Metaphysics of Objects. Peru, IL: Open
Court. ISBN 978-0-8126-9444-4.
Harman, Graham (2007). On vicarious causation
(PDF). Collapse. 2: 187221.
Harman, Graham (2011). The Quadruple Object.
United Kingdom: Zero Books. ISBN 978-1-84694700-1.

REFERENCES

Morton, Timothy (2010). The Ecological Thought.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN
0-674-04920-9.

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