Sometimes I Ponder

Sometimes I ponder seemingly useless things, and I wonder why I even bother.

There are two ways of reflecting on objects (at least). One is the carefree and immediate acceptance that things, objects are there, and we simply live with them. We react and interact with the images we see and the physical reality of the thing, without any need to know more. 

The other approach is pondering the object in front of me, wondering how I can know it. We have generations of thinkers in our western tradition who have pondered some of the same and issue their understanding. Kant is famed for the distinction between ‘Das Ding für mich und das Ding an sich’, concluding that we are naturally limited in our subjectivity, and we are likewise without capacity to know the thing in itself.  Still, is that good enough, to say that there is no way we can know? 

There are different ways about going about trying to come closer to the essence, or spirit, if you like of an object. Some will assert that the thing is its chemical components as matter, and it has some sorts of physical function. Thereby we can describe its molecular structure, the compounds and see the usefulness of the object by its function. This is an approach which may be scientifically viable, with its naturalist material view that all there is, is matter, deep down.

Others may approach the thing, rather abstractly and talk about the ‘thingliness’ of the object, as some form of attributes or essence, something which makes a coffee table that special coffee table.  

I never really know if I understand Heidegger and his ‘unearthing’ of things, but I relate to it in my own experience. It is like the object, in this case a coffee table, emerges out of a foggy oblivion and shows itself, only for a time, and then sinks back into the impersonal realm. 

You may suggest the moments of relating to the object as a psychological state in me; and perhaps it is. I could agree, since I am rather alone in my delightful experience of the thing. Have you sometimes heard a person next to you say: look at the beautiful…(a thing in the moment, often enhanced by light)? The joy bubbles over into a wish to share. You can see what I see; yes, even if we are differently gifted at aesthetical appreciation, we can learn to be observers of the beauty in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary.

I ponder the element of revelation. 

I know I cannot get to know you if you do not reveal to me who you are, by sharing, by expressing yourself. Neither can I know God, if He does not reveal himself to me in words and deeds. So what about objects? 

Can I treat an object more scientifically, in order to understand it, in order to come to grips with its nature, if the thing somehow revealed itself to me? Is it really necessary to know what a thing is, to understand it on its own terms, in order to expand my epistemological horizon?

Just in case you wonder: I haven’t gone ‘nuts. I do not believe things have personalities and an inner life. No, they are as such ’dead’ things, but things emanate beauty, they strike a chord in a living person, they shine in front of us.  

There is an approach called Object Oriented Ontology, which I was reading about lately, and I find some of the same considerations expressed there. There is an aesthetical approach, and, as I recall, they suggest, using the literary metaphor as a way to come closer to describing the thing more completely. Perhaps so, but I had a question in mind about the revelation…

So, as you see, I ponder seemingly useless things.

Why useless? I live with things, with thoughts and dreams, with people and animals. I live with the real and the fantasies. They are all in a sense objects I relate to and therefore thy are equally real.

Objects are not useless; no, they are things I live with, am surrounded by, share, sit on, bump into. I use them pragmatically, at least the coffee table, and chairs and sofas.  And because I live so closely with them, they bump into me, they hold me from falling on the floor, they greet me with their funny shapes and colours, and they make me feel that I am real.

That is the ultimate response: The things – as well as people and animals – confirm my own blessed existence. That is not useless. That is real.