In Graham Harman’s realist philosophy, which I call “ontological liberalism,” all objects are considered equal, there being no unbridgeable gap between various modes of being. Every object is a unique individual, endowed with a positive being. Any privileging of a certain class of objects over other classes of objects is invalidated. An object is composed of its relations, summarized under the heading of what Harman calls “sensual qualities,” while objects also contain mutually inaccessible essences. Supposedly, every object may be characterized by the duality of relationality and substantiality. According to ontological liberalism, all objects exist. In this essay, I propose an ontological nihilist critique of Harman’s liberal ontology. We cannot exclude the possibility of every object being equally nonexistent. Appearances could pertain all the way down, with no final substance at the end of the infinite chain of appearances. Building on insights gleaned from Jan Westerhoff’s defence of ontological nihilism, I propose a nihilist reconfiguration of Harman’s ontological liberalism. If objects and relations are empty and reality is made of appearances all the way down, no underlying objective essence can or should be posited. Because relations are without basis, lacking in substance, nothing exists, nothing happens, and no objects exist.

中文翻译：

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对格雷厄姆·哈曼本体论自由主义的本体论虚无主义批判

在格雷厄姆哈曼的现实主义哲学中，我称之为“本体论自由主义”，所有对象都被认为是平等的，各种存在模式之间没有不可逾越的鸿沟。每个对象都是一个独特的个体，被赋予了积极的存在。某类对象相对于其他类对象的任何特权均无效。一个物体是由它的关系组成的，总结在哈曼所谓的“感官品质”的标题下，而物体也包含相互不可接近的本质。据推测，每个对象都可能具有关系性和实体性的双重性。根据本体自由主义，所有对象都存在. 在本文中，我提出了对哈曼自由本体论的本体论虚无主义批判。我们不能排除每个对象都同样不存在的可能性。表象可以一直向下，在无限表象链的尽头没有最终的实体。基于从 Jan Westerhoff 对本体论虚无主义的辩护中收集到的见解，我建议对 Harman 的本体论自由主义进行虚无主义重构。如果客体和关系是空洞的，而现实是由表象构成的，那么就不能也不应该设定任何潜在的客观本质。因为关系没有基础，没有实质，什么都不存在，什么也没有发生，没有对象存在.