Abstract
Abstract The problem of the relation and difference between things and objects is one of the most decisive issues for the conception of the real. These words are usually used interchangeably – and not only in their everyday usage. There are some contemporary philosophical positions that consider almost “everything” as an object; on the other hand, there are proponents of a strict separation of objects and things. How did it happen that the concept of thing (res) and object (obiectum) not only began to theoretically “compete” with each other but also sometimes came to represent differently conceived realities, and even occasionally came to represent an identical conception of reality? This article, on the one hand, discusses the philosophical strategies that reveal the difference between objects and things and enable such a conception of reality which takes into account the Kantian distinction between Realität and Wirklichkeit. On the other, it reconstructs Giorgio Agamben’s project of modal ontology. Agamben’s take on the question What is real? is oriented toward the modus of being and could be traced back to the recognition of the difference between objects and things as well as the “restoration of the life of things themselves.”
Highlights
The problem of the relation and difference between things and objects is one of the most decisive issues for the conception of the real
There are some contemporary philosophical positions that consider almost “everything” as an object; on the other hand, there are proponents of a strict separation of objects and things. How did it happen that the concept of thing and object began to theoretically “compete” with each other and sometimes came to represent differently conceived realities, and even occasionally came to represent an identical conception of reality? This article, on the one hand, discusses the philosophical strategies that reveal the difference between objects and things and enable such a conception of reality which takes into account the Kantian distinction between Realität and Wirklichkeit
I have often begun my analysis of a range of authors representing the aforementioned trends of realism by posing a simple question – what reality is at issue here? Sometimes this question served a merely rhetorical purpose in order to emphasize that what is important is not solely the result, that is, a particular conception of “reality,” but the very premises of the question
Summary
The problem of the relation and difference between things and objects is one of the most decisive issues for the conception of the real.
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