The Real in Imitation: Metaphor and Mimesis in Graham Harman's Philosophy

Abstract

American philosopher Graham Harman (b. 1968), in his philosophy called Object-Oriented Ontology (abbr. OOO), assigns new functions to the classical notions of metaphor and mimesis. In this new philosophical endeavor, which claims to explain everything through the tension between objects and their qualities, metaphor becomes one of the possible ways of producing aesthetic experience, while mimesis becomes the sine qua non of this production. For Harman, whose thinking has matured by drawing on the tradition of phenomenology, these two notions become central to philosophical inquiry because the only way to access reality, even if indirectly, is through aesthetic experience. Metaphor is defined as the ability to allude to a real object by exploiting the tension between sensual objects—objects that exist only through encounter with real objects—and sensual qualities. Mimesis, or imitation, is redefined as the necessity of taking the place of the hidden and withdrawn real object and turning into it. Harman, thus, presents a new model of imitation to counter classical understandings of mimesis. This article, drawing its inspiration from the philosopher’s essay “A New Sense of Mimesis,” introduces this new model into discussion. It also attempts to demonstrate why Harman’s harsh criticism of irony, based on the new model, contradicts the model’s own functioning.