to repeat an important point

I still encounter the complaint that objects only withdraw “in part”, not entirely.

But this is impossible. An object is not pieced together out of palpable qualities, such that a tree might go from 73% withdrawn to only 28% withdrawn with a bit of work.

An object is a unity. It is very similar to what was called a “substantial form” in medieval thought. An object is not altogether inaccessible, but what we access in order to get to it is not a certain partial percentage of its qualities.

I can understand why people want to insist that withdrawal is only partial. It sounds so hopeless to say that it’s complete; it sounds like we’d be left with nothing but a negative theology of objects. But while I can understand those concerns, speaking of “partial” withdrawal fails to grasp the root of the asymmetry between the real and the sensual. You simply can’t piece together a real object out of sensual qualities. There is no absolute knowledge, and no asymptotic approach to it, because knowledge is of a different stuff from realities, and hence knowledge approaches those realities only indirectly.