Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory (Theory Redux)

Harman, Graham

ISBN 10: 1509500979 / ISBN 13: 9781509500970

Published by Polity, 2016

About this Item

[From the library of noted scholar William E. Connolly.] Softcover. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages. "William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in the political science department at Hopkins where he teaches political theory. His early book, The Terms of Political Discourse, was awarded the Benjamin Lippincott Award in 1999 as 'a work of exceptional quality that is still considered significant at least 15 years after publication.' In a poll of American political theorists published in PS in 2010, he was ranked the fourth most influential political theorist in America over the last twenty years, after Rawls, Habermas, and Foucault. His work focuses on the issues of democratic pluralism, capitalism, inequality, fascism, and bumpy intersections between capitalism and planetary amplifiers in climate change." - Johns Hopkins University.

Seller Inventory # 2212010047

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory (Theory Redux)
• Publisher: Polity
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1509500979
• ISBN 13: 9781509500970
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy

About this title

Synopsis

What objects exist in the social world and how should we understand them? Is a specific Pizza Hut restaurant as real as the employees, tables, napkins and pizzas of which it is composed, and as real as the Pizza Hut corporation with its headquarters in Wichita, the United States, the planet Earth and the social and economic impact of the restaurant on the lives of its employees and customers? In this book the founder of object-oriented philosophy develops his approach in order to shed light on the nature and status of objects in social life. While it is often assumed that an interest in objects amounts to a form of materialism, Harman rejects this view and develops instead an “immaterialist” method. By examining the work of leading contemporary thinkers such as Bruno Latour and Levi Bryant, he develops a forceful critique of ‘actor-network theory’. In an extended discussion of Leibniz’s famous example of the Dutch East India Company, Harman argues that this company qualifies for objecthood neither through ‘what it is’ or ‘what it does’, but through its irreducibility to either of these forms. The phases of its life, argues Harman, are not demarcated primarily by dramatic incidents but by moments of symbiosis, a term he draws from the biologist Lynn Margulis. This book provides a key counterpoint to the now ubiquitous social theories of constant change, holistic networks, performative identities, and the construction of things by human practice. It will appeal to anyone interested in cutting-edge debates in philosophy and social and cultural theory.

About the Author

Graham Harman is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (on leave from the American University in Cairo).