Being (with) Objects

Abstract

This chapter explores some of the ambivalent potential of Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology for thinking about human beings as objects and about being with human beings as objects. In particular, it employs feminist phenomenological theories of objectification, such as those of Beauvoir, Young, and Bartky, as both already object-oriented and as already contesting the idealist tendencies opposed by Harman. Objectification often produces ‘double-consciousness’, and objectified human beings inhabit a site of ontological duality, often knowing themselves as objects for others. The chapter suggests that the absence of these analyses in object-oriented ontology constitutes an important oversight since such work not only draws attention to object relations among human beings but also points to ways of understanding human relations with non-human objects.