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