Graham Harman

The ThtJd Table

I recent years I have been lied wit a philo
sophcal ovemet called speculatve realism.
But my own variant of speculatve realism,
kown as object-oriented phlosophy, acu
ally dates to te late 1990s. Te principles of
object-oriented philosophy can be summarized
i a few sentences. First, philosophy must deal
w
it every tpe of object rater t reduc
ing all objecs to one privileged tpe: zebras,
leprechauns, and aries a just as worty of
philosophical discssion as atoms and brains.
Second, objec a deeper tan teir appea
ance to te human mind but also deeper t
tir relatons to one anoter, so at al con
tc
between object must be idc or vicari
ous. Tird, object are polarized i two ways:
tere is a distncton beteen objec and teir
qualites, and a distncton between rea objects
witdrawn fom all access and sensual objec
tat exist only for some observer, wheter hu
! or inhuman. Finally, te basic problems of
ontology must be reformulated i terms of te
fourold stuctu tat results fm tese to
polarizatons i te core of objecs. I a brief
4 I 10 No -10 Tugh 110 Note -10 Ge
artcle le tis one, there R no way to deal a.
equately wit al of tese problems. Instead,
Wfocs on clte nature of what 1have
called real object by way of a citcal teatent
of te fmous tee of Eddington's two tables.
Sir U Staley, EddingtO was a Brit
ish astphysicist best kown for W observa:
tons of a 8mecipse in 1919,which coned
Enstein's general teory of retv. Rised as a
Qer, he also had a brief dissident ce r as a
conscientous objecor t Britsh partcpaton i
Word War 1. Edngton's primay g Vphlos
ophy, however, is his well-koW paable of U
two tbles. Ute intodcton to h 192' Giford
Les in Ednbu, he descnbes te situa-
ton as follows: have setted down to te U
of witng tese lectures and have drawn up my
chairs UD two tables. Two tblesl Yes; te are
duplicates of every object about mttwo tbles,
to chairs two pens."! te reder may guess,
te two tbles in qeston a te tble
of everyday life and te same tble as descbed
b physcs. We have lon been acme t
L.V Snow's concet of te "to cultures,"2 dis
tnguishing so-cled literary inteles fm
natral scentsts. Eddington's sympaies m
squly 't h own goup-te second. But he
admits tat te ft cannot be efaced:
I u= uotuyou tat modm physic has by
dcmt remorseles logc assur me
l I umH
1 I A5.Edou,
TNncjm
I@wHw
York Md,1929
[mig. 1928]), p. ix.
2 I C. ?5uow,TT
Cah(Cambr
U.K.: Cambride
Universit Ps, 1993
[orig. 1959]).
E I 6
tat my second scietc tble i te Qnly one
which is really tere-whereve "there" may be.
On te oter hand I need not tel you t mod
e physic wl never succed in exorcising t
ft tble-stlge compound of etra n
t, mentl imagey and inherted prejudice
which le visible t my ee and tngible t my
gasp. We must bid good-bye to it for te present
for we a about t t fom te fa word
to te scietc world rvealed by phcs. T
is, or i intended t b, a wholly ee world.'
Against tis atttude, te humanites migt be
tempted to reverse Eddington's conclusions
and claim that te tble of everyday life is just as
real, or even more real, t te scientfc table .
. Te fst table and fst clture would tereby
be opposed to te second, and the result would
be the usual tench war between science and
te humanites. My contry view is tat both
groups are equally wrong about te table, and
for precisely te same reason. Wen weighing
te respectve merit of te everyday and sci
entc tbles, we shall fid tat bot are equall
unra since bot amount simply to opposite
forms of reduconism. Te scientst reduces
te table downward to tny partcles invisible
to te eye; te hut reduces i upward to a
series of efecs on people and other tings. To
put it blunty, bot of Eddington's tbles ae ut
ter shams tat conse te table wit its intera
and exter environments, respecvely. The
real table is in fact a tird table lying beteen
6 I 100 Not -100 Tug 1100 Noe -100 G
3 I Ed, T
Nate o t Phs
Wol (see note 1),
p. xi.
tese to oters. And i Eddington's two tables 4 I Ii., p. x.
provided te moral support for Snow's to cul-
tures of scietst and humanists, our tird table
wlprobably require a tird culture completely
diferent fom tese two. This i not to say tat
te trd culture is a completely, ne one: per-
haps it is te culture of te ar, which do not
seem to reduce tables either to quark and elec-
tons or t tble-efects on humans.
What we cte tird table cannot be reduced
downward to te scentc one. A Eddington de
scribes it, "[te] scienc tble i mosty empt
ness. Sparsely scaterd in te eptess a nu
merus electc charges rushg about wit geat
speed; but teir combined bu amount t less
t a billionth of te bu of te table itelf."4 I
tis way, te fa household tble is dissolved
into rushg elecic charges and oter t ele
ment. But while te natural sciences must be
admired for having discovered al these minus
cue enttes, i does not follow tat te everyday
tble can be eated outight and replaced
by tese partcles. First, note tat te table as a
whole has features tat it various component
partcles do not have in isolaton. These are of
ten called emergent propertes, and tere need
not be anying mystcal about tem. The point
is not that the passage fom q and elec
tons to tables is miraculous (quantum theory
can explain 'such tansitons fairly well), bt
simply tat te table has an autonomous realit
N86 I Gr H E I 7
over and above its causal components, just as 51Iid.,p.l.
individual humns cannot be dissolved back
into teir parents. Notce tat we can rplace or
outigt remove a ce number of te table's
components witout destoyin te tble. I am
inclined to agree tat al enttes are composite,
made of smaller tings rather tan being simple
and indivsble, but in no way does tis prove
tat only te slt t are r, toug tis
prejudie goes back to te days of pre-Socatc
philosophy. Eve i every physical ting is made
of atoms, every basketball gae is also made of
individual plays-yet objects are not just sets
of atoms any more tan a game is just a set of
plays or a naton just a set of individuals. The
deat of an Egyptan in combat on Mohamed
Mahmoud Steet is tagic, yet it does not mean
the deat of Egypt; indeed, qite the contary.
Having deended the exstence of tbles
against teir scetc dissoluton, it might
be assumed tat we are defending te rigts
of Eddingtn's fst table, te one of everyday
use. A he descibes tis everyday tble, "[it]
has been fa to me fom my earliest years.
It i a commonplace .object of tat environ
ment tat I call te word .... It has extension;
i is comparatvely permanent; it is coloured;
it is above al substt."s We igore for now
te word "substantal," which Eddington uses
in a confsing and philosophically imprecise
wy. Wat is importnt for te momet is tat
8 I 100 No -100 Th 110 No -100 Ge
table number one is idented wit te table of
everyday use: te one we see, the one at which
we sit, te one we pound or lovingly. stoke.
Yet tis first table is stll not te one tat we
,
are seekng. Surprisingly enoug, te person
who tells us why is Heidegger, even
tough he is ofen viewed as a champion of
everyday utensils against a science tat "does
not U." The phenomenology of Edmund
Husserl asks us to avoid u scientc teories
about reality not directy seen; we are requested
to shun Eddington's favored second table and
simply describe what appears to consciousness.
Heidegger counters tat most of our deal
ings wit tings are not a mattef of conscious
experience at u. Blood circulates feely, and.
vehice and foors fncon smootly, ut
tese malfncton and tus gain our notce.?
Restted in ters of Eddington's example, te
table I see is derivatve of te table tat R invis
ibly used as 1 go about my daily business. But
even tis forulaton does not go deep enoug.
Aer 0, even te table encountered in Pa
tl ue doe not exhaust te tble's ralit. U
one moment it reliably supports papereigt
and our midday meal; in te next it collapses to
te ground, shatter ever. Tis sows
tat just as te tble could not be idented
wit te one we sa, it was also not te same
as te one we ued Te real table is a genuine
realit deeper tan any teoretcal. or praccal
N I Gm H
6 I M Hedg,
w!tCm
Tmq,ts.
J. Glen Gray (New
York: Hae, 1976
[orig. 1951/52]); p. 8.
7 I M Hedge,
Bgm7mt.
Joh Macuarrie d
EdwdRbmn
(Ne York: Her,
2008 [orig. 1927]).
E I 9
encounter wit i. And beyond tis, H rocks or
oter weights slam into te table, tey fai to ex
haust its i.er depts as well. Te table is some
ting deeper tan any relatons in which it might
become involved, wheter wit humans or in
animate enttes. U short, Eddingtn's every
day table number one is' no better tan his
scientc table number two. Just as we cannot
reduce te table downward to electic charges
rushing trou empty space, we also cannot
reduce i upward to its teoretcal, practcal, or
causal efecs on humans or on anytng else.
We have now isolated te locaton of te
tird table-te only real one. Eddington's frst
table ruins tables by tg tem into noting
but ter eeyday efects on us or on someone
else. Eddington's second tble runs tbles by
disinteg tem into noting but tny elec
tic chares or faint material fickerings. Yet
te trd table lies dcy between tese oter
two, neiter of which R really a table. LU tird
table Og0 as someting dc fom its own
component and also wthrO s behind all its
exteal efec. L tble is an interediate
being found neiter in subatomic physics nor in
human psychology, but i a permanent autono
mous zone where object msimply temselves.
And in my view, m is te genuine meaning of
te word "substance," which Eddington uses
too loosey to refer to table number one a
found in human exerience. U te Aristotelian
10 I 100 No -100 Togh 1100 No -100 G
taditon, te ter "substance" (hyokmnon)
refes to te autonomous DQ of individual
tings. Une in Plato, for whom tere is one
table-fDrI in which countess tables "paci
pate," for Aristote each tableis its own form:
a substntil for, rater tan a form existng
only troug its relaton to a perceiver or some
ote ting. U might seem stange to wave te
fag of Aristote, since he is widely viewed as a
borig, middle-aged reactonary whose medi
eval enforcers were overtrown in liberatng
revoluton by Descartes and ote moder. But.
what R most fascinatng about Aristote's con
cept of substance Rhow much it has in common
wit our tird table, provided Aristote is given
a propery weird interpretaton. For on te one
hand, Aristote does not reduce individual things .
downward to tny component pieces. And on the
oter hand, contary to popular belief, he does
not reduce substances upward to what humans
can grasp of tem using reason. Aer 0 ,tings
a always individuals, but kowledge R only of
universals (green, heavy, square), and univeals
beong to many tings.8 Tis means tat even
for Aristote, te reality of tings lies outide te
grasp of human kowledge.
By locatng te tird table (and to repeat,
this Rte only real table) in a space between te
"table" as partcles and te "table" in its efecs
on humans, we have apparenty found a table
tat can be verifed in no way at 0, whether
N I Gr H
8 Atodc,mem-
m,t. Joe Sa
(Sat Fe, N. Me.:
GJonP,
1999),p.145.
E I 11
by science or by tangible efects i te human
sphere. Yes-and tat is precisely te point.
Any philosophy is unworty of te nae i it
attempts to convert objects into the conditons
by which tey can be kown or veried. Te
ter phisohi, possibly coined by Pag
oras, famously means not "wisdom" but "le
of wisdom." Te real is sometng tat can
not be kown, only loved. Tis does not mean
that access to te tble i impossible, ony tat
it must .be indret. Just as erotc speech works
when composed of ht allusion, and innuendo
rter tan of declaratve statements and clearly
artculated propositons, and just as jokes or
magic ticks are easily ruined when each of teir
steps i explained, tg i not tg un
less it realies t it approach to objec can
only be obliqe. We cannot be downwad scien
tc reducers, nor c we be upward huistc
reducers. We c only be hunts of obects, and
must even be non-let hunters, since objects
c never be caught. Te world is flled primar
ily not wit electons or human praxis, but wit
gosty objects witdrwing fom all human
and inhuman access, accessible only by allusion
ad seducing us by means of aur. Whatever
we captu, whatever table we sit at or destoy,
is not te real table.
But i te frst and second tables a bot un
real, ten tere is a sense in which te two cul
. tures of C. P Snow are bot failures. Whatever
12 I 100 Not -100 Tgh f 100 Note -100 Gae
te praccal successes in teir own domains
of scientc realism and social constucon
ism, tey are bot failures as philosophy. Tis
was vividly noted to decades ago b Bruno
Latur, in his famous polemic against te mod
er divide between nature and culture.9 How
ever, tere is a sense in which Latour retains
Eddington's frst table (te everyday one),
merely expanding it scope so tat alelectons,
cartoon charactes, and real and fictonal tables'
ae placed on t same foot. The reason for
t i tat an object (or "actor") for Latour i
to be defned only by how it tansforms, modi
fes, pertrbs, or creates some oter actoJ. I
t philosophy, noting is hidden in te depts,
since everyting is fly deployed in duels and
negotatons wit oter t. By contast, te
. Philosophy of te Tird Table tat I advocate
is commited to tables tat do exist at a deeper
level tan al possible tansformatons, modif
catons, pertrbatons, or creatons.
I have also suggested i passing tat a tird
cut corresponding to t tird table might
not need to be ceated fom scratch. Nor is it
suf cient (tou it may be interes!ng) to
awad te tird-clture tte to natural scietsts
who happen to brush up against philosophi
cal problems, tereby m te worlds of
Eddington's to tables. Jol Brockan refect
tis prejudice when he sas, in his oterwse
fascinatng antology; tat "the tird clture
9 I Bro Lou,
lH(Ne
Be Mod t.
Cate Poe (Cam
brg Ma.: Haad
Unvet P, 1993
[
or.1991}).
E' I 13
consists of those scientst and oter tkers
in te empirical world who, troug teir work
and expository witng, are takng te place of
the taditonal intellecal in rendering visible
the deeper meanings of our lives, redef
who ad what we a."lO Far fom calling for
a tue tird culture, Brockan is merely call
ing for a tota victory of te second, scientc
one, tough in somewhat sexer ad less D-
istc form. At best, te autors in h collecton
are tying to make Eddington's two tables com
municate, not huntng te elusive table num-
ber tree, emering fom it components while
witdrawng fom all direct access. But as stated
earlier, it may be artsts (in all genres) who best
meet tis descripton. For on te one hand art
does not fncton by dissolving whit whales,
mansions, raf, apples, guitrs, .and wdmils
into teir subatomc underpinnings. Quite obvi
ousy; artsts do not provde a teory of physi
cal reality, and Eddington's second table is te
last ting tey see. But on te oter hand
they also do not see te :rst table, as D te
8 merely replicated the objecs of everyday
life or sought to create efect on us. Istead,
tere is te attempt to estblish objects deeper
tan te features trough which tey a an
nounced, or allude to objec that cannot quite
be made present. For centuies, philosophy
has aspired to te conditons of a rigorous sci
ence, alying itself at varous tmes with mat-
14 I 100 No -100 T@u1100 Note -100 Q
10 I SeJohn
Bockan, ed., T
TrJCue:B
_mSd]
B/amc Yk
Tochstne, 1996).
Jcmpis
locte in te boks
tle of contnt in
te spirt of a chapt
^ -
ematcs or descriptve psychology. Yet what i
te cOUter-project of te nex four centuries
were to t philosophy into an a? We would
have "Philosophy as Vigorous A" rather tan
Husser's "Phlosophy as Rigorous Science."
I being tansfonned fom a science. into an
a, philosophy regains its original character as
Eros. I some ways tis erot model is te ba
sic aspiraton of object-oriented philosophy: te
only way, in te present philosophical climate,
to do justce to te le of wisdom that me
no ca to be an actu wisdom.
G Ha (b. 1968) i Prfesor of Phosoph at te
Aec Unet i Ca.
N8 I Gr H E I 15