possibly the 4 most typical objections to OOO

1. “Objects obviously affect each other. Therefore, they must be able to affect each other directly. What’s the point of making the contact indirect?”

The fact that objects affect each other does not entail that such contact must be direct. The point of making the contact indirect is not just for the fun of it, but because Heidegger (who happens to be the greatest philosopher since probably Hegel) implicitly puts that problem directly in our path.

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2. “Objects are a fiction of folk ontology because they can be decomposed into smaller pieces… No, wait!… Objects are a fiction because they only exist in a larger functional/holistic context!”

The old overmining/undermining bait-and-switch. cf. Metzinger, Ladyman/Ross, Dennett– and even Chalmers, if not that Chalmers lets consciousness be an exception to the more general rule according to which tables (for example) are unreal both because they’re made of tinier things and because they exist only as table-effects. This is simply the familiar materialist/functionalist two-step, not some sort of devastatingly futuristic blow, as Metzinger and his fans try to imply.

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3. “Flux is primary, not stasis. By emphasizing stasis, OOO defends transcendent eternal essences.”

The first sentence is a mere assertion. The second is both a non sequitur and false.

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4. “Relations are primary, not self-contained objects.”

A mere assertion that can’t even pass the test of Aristotle’s critique of the Megarians in the Metaphysics. If things are only their current effects right now, many problems result.

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Maybe a good crisp essay, dealing exclusively with these four objections, would be worth squeezing in during the next few months.

But I think it’s safe to say, based on the frequency with which these objections are received, that the philosophical Zeitgeist consists largely of the following elements: a commitment to absolute knowledge, materialism, hyper-dynamism, and holism.

Not everyone adheres to all of these simultaneously (e.g., Badiou’s –and Meillassoux’s– dynamism is punctuated, not constant; nor are they holists) but it’s striking how certain forms of materialism are able to incorporate all four at once.