The Continuous and the Discontinuous in Human Thought

Waves and Stones

We all see the world around us differently. Some people believe in gradual political progress; others push for radical revolution. Some of us see our lives as a long process of growth and change, and others as a series of landmark events. 
 
In Waves and Stones, philosopher Graham Harman gives a name to this age-old divide, and lays out a new, unified theory for understanding it. 'Waves' look at the world through continuities, from phenomena as diverse as the incremental baby steps of childhood to the slow creep of fascism. The 'stone' perspective, by contrast, favours jarring discontinuity: the first day at secondary school, or the dropping of the atom bomb. This dualism is one of the most fundamental paradoxes in human thought. 
 
With dazzling insight, Harman shows how the continuous vs discrete divide can be found wherever we turn, at the heart of every intellectual discipline from mathematics to politics and embedded in the fabric of our daily lives. Tracing its roots from Aristotle to Bergson, he proposes a new way of thinking about this ancient problem, with profound implications for our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

Graham Harman is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at SCI-Arc, Los Angeles. A key figure in the contemporary speculative realism movement in philosophy and known for his development of object-oriented ontology, he was named by Art Review magazine as one of the 100 most influential figures in international art. His previous books include Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (Penguin, 2018).

We all see the world around us differently. Some people believe in gradual political progress; others push for radical revolution. Some of us see our lives as a long process of growth and change, and others as a series of landmark events. 
 
In Waves and Stones, philosopher Graham Harman gives a name to this age-old debate, and lays out a new, unified theory for understanding it. 'Waves' look at the world through continuities, from phenomena as diverse as the incremental baby steps of childhood to the slow creep of fascism. The 'stone' perspective, by contrast, favours jarring discontinuity: the first day at secondary school, or the dropping of the atom bomb. This divide is one of the most fundamental paradoxes in human thought. 
 
With dazzling insight, Harman shows how the question of gradual vs sudden change can be found wherever we turn, at the heart of every intellectual discipline from mathematics to politics and embedded in the fabric of our daily lives. Tracing its roots from Aristotle to Bergson, he proposes a new way of thinking about this ancient problem, with profound implications for our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

Graham Harman

A New Theory of Everything

What is reality, really? 
Are humans more special or important than the non-human objects we perceive? 
How does this change the way we understand the world? 
 
We humans tend to believe that things are only real in as much as we perceive them, an idea reinforced by modern philosophy, which privileges us as special, radically different in kind from all other objects. But as Graham Harman, one of the theory's leading exponents, shows, Object-Oriented Ontology rejects the idea of human specialness: the world, he states, is clearly not the world as manifest to humans. At the heart of this philosophy is the idea that objects - whether real, fictional, natural, artificial, human or non-human - are mutually autonomous. In this brilliant new introduction, Graham Harman lays out the history, ideas and impact of Object-Oriented Ontology, taking in everything from art and literature, politics and natural science along the way.

Graham Harman

Object-Oriented Ontology

Select a format:

Retailers:

Summary

More books from this author