Dante's Broken Hammer

by Graham Harman

In this book the founder of object-oriented philosophy transforms one of the classic poets of the Western canon, Dante Alighieri, into an edgy stimulus for contemporary continental thought. It is well known that Dante's poetic works interpret love as the moving force of the as embodied in his muse Beatrice from La Vita Nuova onward, as well as the much holier persons inhabiting Paradiso. Likewise, if love is the ultimate form of sincerity, it is easy to interpret the Inferno as a brilliant counterpoint of anti-sincerity, governed by fraud and blasphemy along with the innocuous form of fraud known as humor (strangely absent from all parts of Dante's cosmos other than hell). In turn, the middle ground of Purgatorio is where Harman locates Dante's clearest theory of sincerity. Yet this is only the beginning. For while Dante provides a suitable background for the metaphysics of commitment found in such later thinkers as Pascal, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Badiou, he also provides even more important resources for overcoming two centuries of philosophy shaped by Immanuel Kant.

Genres: Philosophy

264 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2016

About the author

Graham Harman (born May 9, 1968) is a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He is a contemporary philosopher of metaphysics, who attempts to reverse the linguistic turn of Western philosophy. He terms his ideas object-oriented ontology. A larger grouping of philosophers, Speculative Realism, includes Harman and the philosophers Iain Hamilton Grant, Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier.

Reviews

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this work by a contemporary philosopher there is an important discussion of the German philosopher Max Scheler. Apparently Scheler's entire preoccupation as a thinker was with the empty rationalism of modern life. Instead he decided to focus on what defines the human person more than anything else, the Latin phrase "ordo amoris." It is this "ordo amoris" which is the focus of my review.

1. Normative and descriptive meaning: For normative discussions we turn to how things 'ought to be.' The question is, 'How ought I to love because love is unavoidable as an expression of the will.' What you see me doing is probably related to what and who I love. Reading, for instance, makes up a major fact of our lives and so we love to read, so we say. Factually people love many things that normatively they should avoid, smoking, drinking, rough housing. If you seek to understand a person, look at their heart, allow it to reveal itself.

2. What is the order which directs my love?: Beatrice is the model of what should be loved. Beatrice is both a living, breathing person, but also the embodiment of what is loveable. If you don't love Beatrice, your love is misguided.

3. Science doesn't help us with matters of the heart: It's sad but true, all the TEDx talks about love and care. They all fail because the love displayed is a vain wordiness.

[Keeley Haftner · Rating 1 out of 5]

To those who are not philosophers traditionally educated in the Western canon: get ready to experience a tedious 150-page recap of Dante's The Divine Comedy, followed by a dense and dry 100-page lineage of ethics, formalism and metaphysics, capped off by only two pages making a case for why the two relate in any way at all. I'll save those of you who are interested in the intersecting of OOO and art some tedium: some meat and potatoes can be found in the Formalism and Aesthetics section (p. 198-223). Otherwise, save your life and time for more productive pursuits.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out as a M.A. thesis, and it reads as bad as one. Harman may have come up with an interesting philosophy, this project becomes mired in the muck of youthful bad writing from the beginning. Could not finish, only got to page 159, of 249

[Philemon - · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good academic survey of The Divine Comedy, seemingly from a Dante course he gave. Concludes with several chapters of more general interpretive topics, such as aesthetics.