Abstract
Graham Harman's poetics of objects challenges the linguistic turn which has dominated Euro-American philosophy in the past few decades, calling for a return to the world of things and championing a theory of autonomy and democracy of objects. Harman not only equally teats all forms of being as objects, but sees the components of any singular object as sovereign and autonomous objects in their own right. He has created a series of new concepts such as "allure of things" and "vicarious causation," urging us to look at the world from a radically new perspective and explore the ontology and meaning of things as well as their relationship with human beings. However, like all other emerging theories, Harman's poetics of objects is not without flaws and weaknesses. What is most problematic is its insistence on delinking philosophy from its critical role, signaling a total rejection of the critical tradition that has been prevalent in the West since several decades ago, hence eliminating the possibility of resistance to reification and the logic of capital.
First Page
34
Last Page
42
Recommended Citation
Shaobo, Xie. 2018. "Allure of Things and Vicarious Causation: Harman's Poetics of Objects." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 38, (5): pp.34-42. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol38/iss5/3
