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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worldly flesh, September 1, 2008
This review is from: Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things (Paperback)
It is easy to mistake Graham Harman with an unorthodox Heideggerian, but in this work he develops a philosophy which is, at its core, genuinely independent of Heidegger. Guerilla Metaphysics begins with the objection that both analytical and continental traditions are not interested in objects, but in human access to them. Harman proposes a philosophy which does not aim to reconcile the analytical with the continental, but instead is determined to free metaphysics from its anthropocentric residues and reclaim it on behalf of a direct contact with all nonhuman entities. This is the main objective of Harman's object-oriented philosophy which is comprehensively laid out and pursued step by step. As a "carnal phenomenologist" and a "guerilla carpenter" Harman writes a book that resembles a novel imagined by Alain Robbe-Grillet, but written by William James. Following his renowned teacher Alphonso Lingis, Harman develops a cheerful style which is preoccupied with all sorts of earthly objects such as pollens, bicycles, chess boards, pebbles, puppies, and beads in the most alluring way. For people who imagine that fresh thoughts in philosophy are not possible any more, Guerilla Metaphysics is a lively refutation.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but rather rediculous in the end, December 28, 2008
This review is from: Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things (Paperback)
I've read this book twice. At first I was quite excited by the ideas and the approach Harman was taking. Now I'm less so. Anyone who is really excited about metaphysics and speculative philosophy should read this. Harman is WILDLY speculative, however.
What I do not like:
Ultimately, one gets the feeling that this book is a bit worthless and something akin to fiction rather than genuinely "philosophical" material. Harman combines Bergson, Whitehead, Heidegger, Aristotle, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ortega y Gasset, Levinas, Lingis, Latour, and others without *really* taking advantage of what these authors exploited in order to make their philosophies great, such as: concrete phenomenology, cosmology, psychology, or natural science.
The whole thing is a bit....contrived. Harman often makes these grand claims about beginning a new wave of ultra-spectulative ultra-realist metaphysics (semi-reminiscent of a more entertianing and more easily readible version of Husserl's repetitive proclaiming: "back to the things themselves!" in his middle-period when writing IDEAS, always returning to beginnings and the working out of methods) without ever *really* beginning. That is, without ever *really* engaging objects, Harman constantly discusses how one *might* engage them in the future via his metaphysical notions (i.e., vicarious causation, fission/fusion, etc.). Perhaps this work should be viewed as preliminary. Still, if you don't mind this caveat, his work is rewarding.
What still makes Harman's work worthwhile:
-Has a kind of rigorous logic to it, similar to the style of Plotinus. You're 'lured' in by seemingly commonsensicle propositions which lead one to wild conclusions. This leaves you scratching your chin a bit, wondering how you were lead down such a path, and where the imperceptible twist occured where things went from everyday to strange so quickly.
-Wonderful writing style, excellent descriptions. Its like "eye candy" for the reader's imagination at times.
-It is an interesting synthesis of different ideas.
-Harman is clear because he reviews and repeats his ideas over and over again. This makes it impossible for the reader to be unsure about what has been said thus far at any stage in the development of his argument. But, simultanously, this can make the book a bit monotonous at times.
-A kind of originality. While it seems to me that Harman's principles for how objects act upon other objects are largely based upon linguistic devices (i.e., metaphor, metonymy, etc.) and his iffy interpretation of Heidegger's fourfold, the way Harman presents these ideas has an originality, which, if it proves useful for ACTUAL metaphysical explanations of the universe of objects, would be, at a minimum, highly original and thought provoking.
Well, thats about all I can think of for now.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Metaphysical offensive, guerilla style, August 15, 2011
This review is from: Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things (Paperback)
I was very much moved by the impetus behind Harman's first book, Tool-Being (2002): the elegant insight of Heidegger that there is always light and darkness, vision and shadow, and that, at any one moment, vast aspects of the world are only barely hinted at beneath a surface of presence. This was the initial spark of Harman's work from which he formed a dark, autumnal bonfire of realism---a fire long thought extinguished in much of continental philosophy. Enter Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things, which is like Tool-Being's Godfather II. In this book, Harman begins to tackle the difficulty of having a world of discrete, unified entities such as stadiums, cultures and cacao beans: if so much of the world is left untouched and unrelated---or untranslated and uninterpreted---how, precisely, does emergence, persistence and decay happen at all? I say tackle, not fully solve, because, with Harman, one of the most fascinating aspects of any philosophy or philosophical movement are the questions it raises and the questions it either dismisses or leaves indifferent. What I appreciate so much about Harman's method of philosophy is that he leads the reader into new (or perhaps ancient but abandoned) questions and ways of thinking about reality. His thought almost always begins with some basic experience, insight or idea---here, Heideggerian withdrawal and the immediacy and richness of phenomenological experience---which he develops into an ontology which tries to account for and explain both irreducible dimensions. I, myself, find his project to be very convincing if for no other reason than how honestly it attempts to remain faithful to seemingly paradoxical aspects of all unified entities: that they do effect change in other entities, and are changed themselves, yet also retain their identity through changes in their qualities. In the end, Harman's answer is, I believe, cogent: every thing is mediated. All entities, and not just the psychically split and tortured human subject, find their effects borne of an indirect medium.
Even if you are not convinced by Harman's solutions, I think this book will convince you that he is asking the right questions.
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