One must remember how significant Heidegger’s Fourfold is to Harman. The Fourfold provides object oriented ontology with a helpful schematic to analyse the inside and outside of objects. Harman argues that every unitary object in the cosmos can be split into two distinct realms of Zuhandenheit, (withdrawn, ready-to-hand) vs. Vorhandenheit, (present-at-hand), punctuated further by splitting those realms into another two; something specific, (certain qualities) vs. something at all, (a vigorous unit). In the end, we have the real object and its qualities, coupled with the sensual object and its qualities. Harman notes how these four realms are not different types of objects, but rather four sides of the same unit. Everything within the fourfold, grounds what Harman terms Vicarious Causation. That causation is a metaphysical occurrence between two or more sensual objects mediated by a real object, or two real objects mediated by a sensual one.

If Tool Being is Harman’s attempt to launch the legitimacy of real, anti-exhaustive, withdrawn objects, then its successor, Guerrilla Metaphysics, is the attempt to locate what exactly is present when objects collide. Harman’s unique reading of Heidegger’s tool-analysis becomes seminal in so far as Dasein’s, ‘presence’ reveals a very limited layer of awareness, resting upon an indirect reliance of ‘withdrawn’ equipment.

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¶ 6:18 AM