Review: Hyperobjects--Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World

Always a world for us, never
the nowhere minus the no:
that innocent, unguarded
space which we could breathe,
know endlessly, and never require.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 8th Duino Elegy

In this series of posts I'll review three recent, and surprisingly readable books that explore an critical emerging movement in philosophy called object oriented ontology (OOO): "ontology" because it theorizes the nature of being, "object-oriented" because it does not privilege human being above or beyond any other kinds of being: potted plants, grasshoppers, fishhooks, mathematical formulas, love, etc. Despite the obvious fact that things are things in themselves not merely things for us, this is not usually how we interact with them. What is labeled important is whatever counts to human perception and human interest. But, what would it look like if we actually recognized the legitimate and inscrutable existence of things apart from ourselves? How would this alter how we interact with each other and with the planet?

"Weakness" is a term that Tim Morton uses in his most recent book Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. "Weakness" is the fact that for humans, or any other observing subject, the appearance of something can never capture the entirety of that object. There is a "radical split between the object and its appearance for some other entity." Although this has always been the case, it is only recently, with the appearance of vast, ungraspable objects like global warming and radioactive waste, objects, which will shape and are shaping not only our present day experience, but also the far-flung future, that humans have been forced to acknowledge this truth. Humans, like all objects, are "lame"--fragile entities that operate with limited and incomplete knowledge of others and ourselves.

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