OOO: takes issues with idealist and phenomenological positions which consider worldly objects to be deeply intertwined with thoughts and consciousness. In objections against such positions, OOO detaches objects from human consciousness, as independent entities which can function independently from human subjectivity.
Kant’s copernican revolution: An objects exists as a noumenon, which is the thing itself and a phenomenon, how the object appears to our senses. For Kant, the noumenon and phenomenon make eachother possible, meaning one cannot exist withou the other. From his perspective, objects can only exists through the human sensen and comprehension. Without the human faculties, there is no independent material coherency.
According to OOO, objects can function independently without it’s representational dimension. Meaning, on the level of the noumenon, the object has a life of his own, independent from it’s appearance and human comprehension. I guess this would ascribe a sort of agency to the objects, that their functionality goes beyond our human involvement.
Graham Harman who introduced OOO had a problem with kant’s human centreness. For Kant, the phenomenon is finite, meaning that we humans cannot understand objects on the level of the noumenon. This means that there are ristrictions to the level of interaction humans can have with objects. According to Harman, all interactions are finite, even those between inanimate objects without the involvement of humans. All relations are lacking in their interactions.
The ideas of Harman decentres humans as the most important point in reality. It is more of a open web where objects are as important as humans.
Simply put, in contrast with human-centric idealistic ontologies, which takes human comprehension and interaction as a condition for the object to exist, OOO considers objects as some kind of independent agents, they exist and function independent from human senses, cognitive faculties and interaction. Objects have “a live of their own”. They can interact with each other in the same finite manner as humans with objects.
The world is not the world as manifest to humans; to think a reality beyond our thinking is not nonsense, but obligatory. - Graham Harman
I do have one remaining sceptical remark, which is really all about whether how can Harman be so confident that objects are so independent, when our comprehension of these objects are bound to their appearance. Meaning, how can we theorize about objects beyond the empirical. Does OOO consider causality to be an aspect of the real world, or also as one of the cognitive faculties like Kant. Because, I think the interactions between objects can only exists if causality is somehow bound to the material itself. Or is this where the finitude of object interactions come in? My head is spinning.
Extra remark: the position of OOO is a realist philosophy, meaning it considers reality to exist outside from human consciousness. The position of Kant is idealistic, meaning that reality can only exist through the existance of human senses and cognitive faculties