Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
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Niels Wilde
Abstract
This paper examines the connection between Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence and Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology. The claim is that Harman’s position provides a conceptual apparatus that can beneficially address some basic ontological points in Kierkegaard about actuality, the self and the reality of individual subsisting mind-independent entities. On the other hand, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the human self as a place situated in existence can provide a supplement to Harman’s realism which implicitly relies on topological notions. If we define an entity, in a broad sense of the term, as something in its own right irreducible to its being-in-a-relation, but we do not want to end up in a frozen universe of isolated monads, we must revisit the notion of relationality in terms of vicarious causation (Harman) or indirect communication (Kierkegaard).
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
- Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
- Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
- Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
- Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
- Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
- Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
- Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
- To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
- A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
- Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
- Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
- Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
- Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
- Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
- “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
- Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
- Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
- Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
- Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
- Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
- Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
- Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
- To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
- A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
- Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
- Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
- Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
- Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
- Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
- Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
- “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors