dOCUMENTA (13) nº 085. Graham Harmaa. The Third Table

Philosopher Graham Harman repeats Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington’s allegory from 1927 of the “two tables”: the familiar “table of everyday life” and its rival, the “scientific table” as described by physics. Both are for Harman the results of reductionism and the traditional dichotomy of natural science and humanities. The third and only “real” table belongs to the “third culture,” a culture of art that creates objects, and whose purpose is the comprehension that one cannot understand reality but can only love it. The notebook “The Third Table” introduces the philosophy of speculative realism and alludes to the chance to reanimate philosophy in its original sense of philosophia—the love of science. Graham Harman (*1968) is Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo.