Episode Summary: "Waves and Stones: The Continuous and the Discontinuous in Human Thought"

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Adam Bobeck
Guest: Professor Graham Harman
Date: December 15, 2025
Book: Waves and Stones: The Continuous and the Discontinuous in Human Thought (Allen Lane, 2025)

Overview of the Episode

In this in-depth conversation, host Adam Bobeck interviews Professor Graham Harman—leading philosopher and founder of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)—on his latest book, Waves and Stones: The Continuous and the Discontinuous in Human Thought. The episode is a lively journey through Harman’s core thesis: that the opposition between the continuous and the discrete is a universal, irreducible feature of human thought, science, philosophy, and culture. Harman discusses the origins and inspirations for the book, traces the debate through fields from evolutionary biology and physics to architecture and philosophy, and explores why neither the continuous nor the discrete can be reduced to the other. He also reveals how the book came together, his influences, and where his own work is headed next.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Inspiration Behind the Book

• Motivation: Harman notes that he wrote Waves and Stones because he wanted to read a comprehensive work about the continuous/discrete split, but none existed.
  “Like several other of my books, this is a book that I wanted to read, but it turned out that it didn't exist, so I had to write it myself.” (03:02, Harman)
• Central Conflict: The conflict between gradual, continuous change (waves) and sharp, discontinuous events (stones) is a thread running through nearly every discipline.
  “In every field, we ask ourselves: was there just a gradual change here? Was there a sudden leap at some point?” (03:37, Harman)

The Continuous vs. Discrete in Evolution, Physics, and Philosophy

• Evolutionary Biology
  • Darwinian gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium (Eldredge & Gould): The fossil record seems to support sudden leaps, not just slow, continuous change.
  • Example of snapping shrimp split by the formation of the Isthmus of Panama: physically similar, behaviorally distinct (snapping instead of mating)—a new, discrete species.
• Physics
  • The incompatibility between quantum theory (discrete “chunks”) and general relativity (continuous space-time).
    “Physics has been facing a brewing crisis... quantum theory deals with nature as made of tiny chunks... general relativity is about the gradual curvature of space-time by mass. And the two become incompatible.” (10:00, Harman)
  • Debate around whether gravity itself must be continuous (Oppenheim’s minority position) or can be made discrete.
• Philosophy
  • Historical antecedents in Islamic occasionalism (Al-Ash’ari) and European figures like Descartes and Malebranche attempt to explain causation through constant, discrete interventions (by God or the mind).
  • Modern debates: Many philosophers claim everything is fundamentally continuous—individual objects are an illusion, products of human categorization. Harman rejects this reduction.
  • Harman’s own Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO): While focused on discrete objects, he argues continuity is just as real and irreducible.

Aristotle’s Contribution

• Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics: Harman sees Aristotle as the originator of thinking about reality as both continuous (time, space, number, motion) and discrete (individual substances, qualitative leaps).
• Zeno’s Paradoxes: Explored as early attempts to show the tension between infinite divisibility and discrete outcomes.
• Heterothixis (Touch): Harman’s invented term for how entities of different kinds (continuous and discrete) interact—analogies include magnets (north/south), biological sex, and sensor/reality relations.
  “Only things of opposite kind can touch each other... a real object can only touch a sensual object or that a continuum can only touch a discrete object and vice versa.” (21:20, Harman)

Book Structure and Writing Process

• Chronological Order: After much debate, chapters are organized chronologically, starting with Aristotle.
  “All the chapters two through eight are chronologically ordered now... [plus] a triple O chapter at the beginning so readers know where I’m coming from.” (23:34, Harman)
• Chapter Highlights:
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Physics
  • Kuhn and scientific revolutions
  • Architecture (“Fractures and Folds”)
  • The “Pope and the Horsemen” (on magisteria and authority)
• Kuhn’s Paradigm Shifts: Explains why Kuhn’s model of scientific revolutions as “incommensurable jumps” is so central—for both science and philosophy, progress involves discontinuous leaps, not just gradual problem-solving.
  “Kuhn thinks there’s a radical jump... scientists actually inhabit a different nature because the scientist is a part of nature, they’re cocreating it by theorizing it.” (25:10, Harman)

Notions of Knowledge, Truth, and Belief

• Justification vs. Truth: Building on Kierkegaard, Badiou, and Michael Polanyi, Harman distinguishes between what we can justify (with evidence) and the leaps of belief/trust necessary in science, religion, and life.
  “Justification and truth are opposites... Scientists know that science changes often in radical ways, and whatever we think about physics now is almost surely wrong in some fundamental sense.” (33:29, Harman)

The Architecture Chapter: “Fractures and Folds”

• Influence of Continental Philosophy on Architecture: Traces the lineage from Heidegger and Derrida (deconstruction, discontinuity) to Deleuze (folds, continuous gradations) and the recent turn to OOO as a counterweight.
• Architecture as a Wisdom Field:
  “Architecture is a wisdom field in a way, like philosophy is. Frank Gehry is in his 90s and very much in his prime. It takes a long time to build up credentials as an architect... and in philosophy, it’s just a matter of picking up enough wisdom.” (38:40, Harman)
• Current Tension:
  “My generation of architects suddenly became worried... now architecture is nothing more than a branch of ecology.” (37:47, Harman)

The “Pope and the Horsemen” Chapter: On Magisteria

• New Atheists vs. Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA:
  • Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens claim religion is a danger; Gould (and Harman’s late friend Latour) defend overlapping but non-identical authorities for science, religion, law, politics, etc.
  • Harman draws historical parallels to medieval attempts to define a “single magisterium” (the Church) vs. today’s scientific authority.
  • Latour’s work is highlighted as mapping a plurality of authoritative “modes of existence,” not just science and religion but law, politics, technology, and more.
• Dennett’s Scientism and Qualia: Dennett argued that all consciousness and qualities can be fully explained by physical/behavioral processes, which Harman rejects as reductive.
  “For Dennett, the ultimate authority is a scientific test... wine should be reduced to a combination of the chemical structure and outward behavior... there’s nothing in between that’s called the real flavor of the wine.” (59:03, Harman)

Notable Thought Experiments

• Mary the Color Scientist: Used to illustrate the irreducibility of subjective experience; Harman finds the reductionist position “absurd.”
  “The question is, has Mary learned anything seeing red for the first time? ... To me, that's a kind of reductio ad absurdum. I don't see how you can defend the scientistic position.” (61:04, Harman)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Need for Both the Continuous and the Discrete:
  “I believe that both of them are irreducible aspects of reality. They cannot be reduced to each other.” (15:35, Harman)

• On the Irreducibility of Scientific and Other Cognitive Modes:
  “There are different authorities that are valid in different cases.” (55:34, Harman)

• On Scientific Progress:
  “Whatever we think about physics now is almost surely wrong in some fundamental sense.” (33:43, Harman)

• On Daniel Dennett’s Influence:
  “I think of Dennett more as an office, like Pontifex Maximus; Dennett is gone, but someone else will have to fill that role of saying science is right about everything, because that's a natural niche in the intellectual ecosystem.” (59:54, Harman)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:02 – Why Harman wrote Waves and Stones
• 06:30 - 14:00 – The continuous/discrete debate in evolution and physics
• 15:35 - 21:00 – Aristotle’s analysis of the continuous and discrete; Zeno’s paradoxes; concept of heterothixis
• 23:34 - 29:45 – Book structure, Kuhn, paradigm shifts, scientific revolutions
• 31:10 - 33:43 – Justification vs. truth; belief and knowledge
• 35:15 - 40:09 – The chapter on architecture, “Fractures and Folds”
• 40:21 - 58:10 – “The Pope and the Horsemen,” magisteria, the authority of science, religion, law, and politics; Latour’s modes
• 59:03 - 62:13 – Critique of Dennett; qualia and the Mary color scientist example
• 62:13 - 67:04 – Harman’s current and future projects: articles, a book on Latour, infrastructure, architecture (Rem Koolhaas), and basketball

What’s Next for Graham Harman?

• Harman is focusing on finishing promised articles, then aiming to return to major book projects:
  • A book on Bruno Latour’s philosophy of modes
  • His “big system” philosophical work, Infrastructure
  • Books on basketball and on Rem Koolhaas (“the consensus most important architect alive”)

Closing Note

Waves and Stones is Harman’s most ambitious and wide-ranging book, exploring the deep, unresolved tension between the continuous and the discrete across knowledge, science, art, and daily life. It’s an essential listen for anyone interested in philosophy, the history of science, or the foundations of reality.

For those who haven’t listened, this summary provides both a roadmap and flavor of Harman’s accessible, thought-provoking style—balanced between bold theory, concrete examples, and memorable intellectual anecdotes.