HYPERLAND: Graham Harman on the Nature of Reality

·1 hr 30 min·5 clips

Aristotle's physics and metaphysics reveal the ancient tension between the continuous and discrete.

This episode of the Hyperland podcast features host David Malone and co-host Ian Stroud in conversation with philosopher Graham Harman. Harman is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, known for his work in speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. The discussion centers on Harman's book "Waves and Stones," which examines the fundamental tension between continuous and discrete phenomena in reality. Harman argues that the conflict between the continuous and the discrete is a universal philosophical problem, evident in physics as the unresolved clash between quantum theory and general relativity. He references the evolutionary biology debate between Darwinian gradualism and the punctuated equilibrium theory of Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould. The conversation explores the historical political temptation to ground ideologies in scientific claims, such as linking constant flux in quantum field theory to progressive politics. Harman critiques this "science envy," using aesthetics and philosophy as examples of cognitive domains not based on progressive knowledge. He introduces the concept of "blendorama" to describe a fashionable, one-sided embrace of flux and change over stability. Harman examines the nature of objects and identity, contrasting David Hume's bundle theory with Aristotle's substance-accident distinction and Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. The discussion uses the Dutch East India Company as a case study of a "social object" that changes through symbiotic events, like creating an autonomous directorship or instigating a massacre of English officials. Harman cites an anthropological "village theory" suggesting humans worldwide have a similar, limited capacity for life-changing symbiotic experiences, such as marriage or the birth of a child. A significant portion revisits the philosophy of Henri Bergson, whom Harman credits Gilles Deleuze with reviving. Bergson, a Nobel Prize-winning philosopher and Marcel Proust's cousin, is praised for his eloquent conception of time as a continuous flow and memory as an accumulating snowball. The episode notes Bergson's fall from fashion, his engagement with relativity, and his death in 1941 after refusing to avoid registering as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Paris. Harman positions Bergson as a masterful spokesperson for the "waves" perspective, despite his own book's aim to balance it with the "stones" view of discrete entities. The tone is conversational, educational, and wide-ranging, moving from abstract philosophy to concrete historical examples. The style is accessible, with the hosts and guest unpacking complex ideas through dialogue and analogy. Listeners interested in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and intellectual history would appreciate this episode. Those seeking a highly technical, single-discipline analysis or a definitive resolution to the debates might find it too broad or speculative.

As heard by us

A slow, focused conversation about reality that lets Harman's ideas unfold.

Graham Harman's ideas sit at the center of this conversation, with Waves and Stones: On the Ultimate Nature of Reality as the anchor. The discussion moves through reality, change, and the pull between flux and discreteness, with Bergson in view and Deleuze credited for helping…

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Press play if you want reality argued through, not simplified.

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