131 Filozofski vestnik issn 0353-4510 | Volume 44 | Number 3 | 2023 | 131–144 cc by-sa 4.0 | doi: 10.3986/fv.44.3.06 Snežana Vesnić, Petar Bojanić, and Miloš Ćipranić* The Object as a Series of Its Acts Keywords object, project, concept, ideal object, subject Abstract Our intention is to construct the conditions for a new position that more closely explains the reality of the object (its location, concreteness, possibility of being seen, extension, instantaneousness, etc.), but also the object’s movement, the “situation” in which it is or becomes a potential agent that “works,” influences us and incites us to movement towards us, indeed gives us a turn towards an ideal object and its realization. Using a variety of texts that thematize the object, a few passages from Hegel, we attempt to re- veal connections between key architectural (and not only architectural) concepts, form a given epistemological order, and differentiate amongst basic acts and operations that could be ascribed to the object. Objekt kot serija svojih dejanj Ključne besede objekt, projekt, koncept, idealni objekt, subjekt Povzetek Naš namen je ustvariti pogoje za novo zastavitev, ki natančneje pojasnjuje realnost objekta (njegovo umestitev, konkretnost, možnost biti viden, ekstenzijo, hipnost itd.), * Snežana Vesnić | Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Serbia snegene@arh.bg.ac.rs | https://or cid.org/0009-0006-0311-4638 Petar Bojanić | Institute f or Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Center for Advanced Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia bojanicp@gmail.com | https://or cid.org/0000-0001-9324-2209 Miloš Ćipr anić | Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia milos.cipr anic@ifdt.bg.ac.rs | https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7677-6526 132 the object as a series of its acts pa tudi gibanje predmeta, »situacijo«, v kateri je ali postane potencialni dejavnik, ki »deluje«, vpliva na nas in nas spodbuja h gibanju proti nam, nam dejansko daje obrat k idealnemu predmetu in njegovi realizaciji. S pomočjo različnih besedil, ki tematizira- jo objekt, in nekaj odlomkov iz Hegla poskušamo razkriti povezave med ključnimi ar- hitekturnimi (in ne samo arhitekturnimi) pojmi, oblikovati določen epistemološki red ter razlikovati med osnovnimi dejanji in operacijami, ki bi jih lahko pripisali objektu. ∞ Although Hegel’s metaphysics of objectivity is neither complementary nor anal- ogous to his metaphysics of subjectivity, we are going to experiment with one or two of his famous claims from the Philosophy of Right, assuming a few different protocols that decisively determine an entirely uncertain status of the object. Our intention is to construct the conditions for a new position that more closely explains the reality of the object (its location, concreteness, and possibility of being seen, its extension, instantaneousness, etc.), but also the object’s move- ment, the “situation” in which it is or becomes a potential agent that “works,” influences us, and incites us to movement towards us, indeed gives us a turn towards an ideal object and its realization. This position, in which it is possi- ble to orient oneself towards the object and ensure conditions for the object to be oriented, assumes a kind of repetition of forcing and foregrounding the ob- ject in Brentano and Central European philosophy. The differentiation between the object and Gegenstand 1 —very difficult to express in English and some oth- er languages tied to Latin—seems to provide the decisive step that reveals the importance of various acts and verb forms at the root of the noun “object.” To 1 Kasimir Twardowski differentiates the object towards which one attempting to repre- sent it is directed from an immanent object, which is the content of that representation. Gegenstand (or in Serbo-Croatian predmet; in that language one word for subject is pod- met, both are strictly analogous to the Latin) would be that which is held against and towards which attention or representation is directed; while the object would be an im- age or a pseudo-image or symbol of “this Gegenstand, which is here ‘real.’ ” Jean-François Courtine, “Presentation,” introduction to Théorie de l’objet et Présentation personelle, by Alexius Meinong (Paris: Vrin, 1999), 18–24. Paradoxically, in contrast with much more precise options used by authors of early debates on the topic, such as Ekhart (Widerwurf) or Böhme (Gegenwurf), Gegenstand is not synonymous with object. Rather, Gegenstand is already fixed, standing in place, attending or waiting to be represented; furthermore, Gegenstand does not cease to be present and permanent. 133 snežana vesnić, petar bojanić, and miloš ćipranić understand the situation in which the object is recognized as object, we would like to privilege a basic act or gesture, which is difficult to determine because it is sudden and quick—the act of throwing. The action does not necessarily con- cern the hand nor what is in the hand, nor even what is being struck, missed, its landing, or the end of the trajectory. The sudden gesture or operation, above all creative and precise, leaving different traces in time and space, must decide on the construction of a scene with myriad actors. It is for this reason that the throwing is necessarily an architectural operation, not merely an athletic or war operation or technological means. When Lacan situates anything that might concern architecture and all its related concepts, they include above all the gaze or perspective whence seen (seeing something, seeing one’s own gaze, etc.), the space in which an internal process initiated from the outside and vice versa are exchanged—this magic taking place between the interior-exterior is always a matter of projection!—and emptiness or void (vide). The architectural is neces- sarily about emptiness and occurs always around the emptiness (“autour d’un vide,” “entoure un vide,” etc.). Penetrating into the emptiness and the ability of the architect to construct and create an object (not even necessarily an architec- tural object) 2 can certainly change the notions of the object we have acquired from ontology and social ontology. Here are the bullet point protocols for any possible theory of the object: a) Subject, object, project, eject, reject, conject, etc.—all concern the verb or action of iacio (to throw) and necessarily imply both a temporal and spatial construction in which such an act or collection of acts takes place. The tac- it agent or demiurge that launches something 3 (e.g., casts its gaze, or even merely goes through the motion of throwing) or expels something, actual- ly places or displaces their act of throwing into space and time, marking it 2 We are referring to the important book by Petra Čeferin in which she carefully distinguishes amongst the object, the “resistant objectal moment,” the theory of two objects, and the ar- chitectural object important for any future philosophy of architecture. Petra Čeferin, The Resistant Object of Architecture: A Lacanian Perspective (London: Routledge, 2021), 75–76. Furthermore, we have in mind the various texts by Rado Riha on architecture and the object. 3 This “something” is the first and perhaps closest alternative to the word “object.” See Tim Crane, Objects of Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3; Charles Travis, “Etre quelque chose,” Philosophiques 45, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 229, https://doi. org/10.7202/1048623ar; Roland Barthes, “Sémantique de l’objet,” in Œuvres completes, ed. Éric Marty (Paris: Seuil, 1994–2002), 2:65–73; Courtine, “Presentation,” 24–25. 134 the object as a series of its acts and determining it with various prefixes that today often confound and can- not be clearly differentiated. The prefixes sub, ob, pro, con, tra, and inter are supposed to show that the act of throwing organizes or engages various ele- ments in time and space. b) A set of names or labels for these operations of different gestures could have, first of all, its epistemological justification and a specific order, and also might have a given succinct conceptual harmony. Namely, the theater of pos- itive things, representations, and content, would, in its origin, have to have two basic models of movement towards something else (indicated as “other,” as outside or beyond), which in the Middle Ages would have been designat- ed with a distinction between a formal and an objective concept (conceptus formalis et obiectivus). 4 Simultaneously with the throwing as movement out, there is the gesture of catching or gathering (conceptio); only these two move- ments together can better locate all the elements of this theater. 4 Heidegger provides a brief reconstruction of this medieval distinction: “The concept of ens, as Scholasticism says, conceptus entis, must be taken in a twofold way, as conceptus for- malis entis and as conceptus objectivus entis. In regard to the conceptus formalis the follow- ing is to be noted. Forma, morphé, is that which makes something into something actual. Forma, formalis, formale do not mean formal in the sense of formalistic, empty, having no real content; rather, conceptus formalis is the actual concept [der wirkliche Begriff], concep- tion [das Begreifen] in the sense of the actus concipiendi or conceptio. When Hegel treats the concept in his Logic he takes the term ‘Begriff,’ ‘concept,’ contrary to the customary usage of his time, in the Scholastic sense as conceptus formalis. In Hegel, concept (Begriff) means the conceiving and the conceived in one (das Begreifen und das Begriffene in einem), because for him thinking and being are identical, that is to say, belong together. Conceptus formalis entis is the conceiving of a being; or, more generally and cautiously, it is the ap- prehending of a being [. . .]. But what does conceptus objectivus entis mean? The conceptus objectivus entis must be distinguished from the conceptus formalis entis, the understanding of being, the conceiving [Begreifen] of being. The objectivum is that which, in apprehending [Erfassen] and in grasping [Greifen], is thrown over against [entgegengeworfen], lies over against [entgegenliegt] as the graspable [Greifbare], more exactly , as the grasped [be-griffene] objectum, that which is conceived as such in the conceiving, the conceptual contents or, as is also said, the meaning.” Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 83–84; bracketed original German terms are sourced from Martin Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phenomenologie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975), 117; see Marco Forlivesi, “La distinction entre concept formel et concept objectif: Suarez, Pasqualigo, Mastri,” Les Études philos- ophiques 60, no. 1 (January–March 2002): 3–30, https://doi.org/10.3917/leph.021.0003. 135 snežana vesnić, petar bojanić, and miloš ćipranić c) The history of the use of objects or thinking about the object 5 is the history of inversions, analogic disorders, and manipulations with insufficiently artic- ulated relations between subject and object (“Cette relation est polymère”). 6 The connection between thing and object, between a positive item that can be touched or destroyed and a fictional or ideal, imaginary object is unclear; 7 and often the characteristics of what we today call the object used to belong to the subject. 8 If, in addition to the concept, we add the protocols of “pro- ject” or “projection” to the eternal antagonism between the subject and ob- ject, it becomes perhaps possible to reconstruct or explain the subject/object shift with an entirely new and entirely real momentum when the object ceas- es to be the object (it ceases to be counter to the subject, when it slips away, when it is no longer the object, when it stops being an obstacle and object in the sense of the limit or terminus of an agent’s action) and moves into a field that can be designated with the notion of project. d) Forcing various analogies and counter-analogies in the context of objects is always above all a consequence of the entirely unclear status of the body (“body” being actually the first object or thing suffering the action of the subject, whether mine or of another, changing and growing, which desires or is desired, etc.) in relation to the subject and one producing acts. The body is a totality of various details, just as the object is always a set or collection of a plurality of objects. The object is thus always plural and always missing something, something else. 9 All known definitions of the object—that which 5 “Obiectum” is the neuter of the present participle of obicere, to place in front, to pres- ent. Some texts about the object are unsurpassed in their wealth and diversity. Lawrence Dewan, “ ‘Obiectum’: Notes on the Invention of a Word,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et lit- téraire du Moyen Âge 48 (1981): 37–96; Jacques Lacan, “La relation d’objet et les structures freudiennes,” Bulletin de psychologie 516, no. 6 (2011): 503–18, https://doi.org/10.3917/ bupsy.516.0503. 6 Alain de Libera, Archeologie du sujet III: L ’act de penser 1; La double révolution (Paris: Vrin, 2014), 491. 7 See Gilbert Ryle, Richard Bevan Braithwaite, and George Edward Moore, “Symposium: Imaginary Objects,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 12 (1933): 18–70. 8 Alain de Libera’s analysis of Heidegger’s seminars in Zurich shows well this inversion from the medieval subject into object. Libera, Archeologie du sujet III, 491–96. 9 “How a being (être)—une totalité—can feel a lack of something that, by definition, it does not have (il n’a pas).” Lacan, “La relation d’objet,” 504. In his 1967 PhD thesis, Jean Baudrillard evokes (incompletely, not entirely) the famous scene from Godard’s 1968 film 136 the object as a series of its acts can be represented or personified or divided or incorporated, or that an ob- ject is an object if it can be anything else—allow for uncertainty as to its ex- istence and its latent absence (heimatlose Objekt). 10 e) The figure of the architecture or architecture, as our own additional proto- col in the reconstruction of the status of the object, ought to indicate a con- stant “desire of the architectural” (since Gregotti as far back as 1972 equates desire with design or progetto) and to ignore and crush any resistance and fixedness of the object (which is its fixedness across or on the path, gegen/ encontre/against; the desire of the architect produces the object, “un objet fascinant,” 11 immediately modifying, distancing, and destroying it; and vice versa). The desire of the architect (the person who daily alters their object training at the gym; Shakespeare’s Lord Bardolph in Henry IV, part 2, who secretly prepares the project of usurping the king and constructing a new kingdom; the designer of a new automobile, etc.) always creates the object anew, destabilizing in the process its primary characteristic: permanence. 12 Le Mépris (Contempt). Jean Baudrillard, Le système des objets (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), 142. The English translation of the dialogue between Camille and Paul is as follows: “See my feet in the mirror? Think they’re pretty? Very. You like my ankles? And my knees, too? I really like your knees. And my thighs? Your thighs, too. See my behind in the mirror? Do you think I have a cute ass? Really. Shall I get on my knees? No need to. And my breasts. You like them? Yes, tremendously. Gently, Paul. Not so hard. Sorry. Which do you like bet- ter, my breasts, or my nipples? I don’t know. I like them the same. You like my shoulders? I don’t think they’re round enough. And my arms? And my face? Your face, too. All of it? My mouth, my eyes, my nose, my ears? Yes, everything. Then you love me totally. I love you to- tally, tenderly, tragically. Me too, Paul.” The issue is of course not only the necessity of the existence of the other that completes the totality with their profession of love (“I love” here means only +, addition, connecting body parts)—as early as 1588, Robert Green says in Perimedes that “women are more glorious objects” (quoted in the entry “object, n.” of the Oxford English Dictionary)—it is exclusively a question of crisis, counting and comput- ing, intonation and collecting “cast glances,” of “une revolution totale de l’objet.” André Breton, “Crise de l’objet,” in Le Surrealisme et la Peinture (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 687. 10 This is A. Meinong’s phrase from a 1906 text. See Roderick M. Chisholm, “Homeless Objects,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 27 , no. 104–5 (1973): 207–23. 11 “Comment inventer un objet fascinant, un objet qui tient l’homme en respect [an object that keeps a respectful distance from man]?” Georges Didi-Huberman, L’Homme qui mar- chait dans la couleur (Paris: Minuit, 2001), 20. 12 Permanence is the basic characteristic of the object as such. See Jim Gabaret, La perma- nence de l’objet: Une analyse de l’identité spatio-temporelle et intersubjective des objets (PhD diss., Centre de philosophie contemporaine de la Sorbonne, 2018). 137 snežana vesnić, petar bojanić, and miloš ćipranić The architect produces an event or change (two synonymous words), by al- ways manipulating four crucial moments of their action: concept, project, conject, and object. 13 Still, what does the object do and how does it create this desire for the new and for change? Does the object act? And if so, how? In paragraph 124 of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel explains subjective satisfac- tion of the individual, defining the subject in the process as a series or totality of their various acts. Here is the passage: The subject is the series of his acts. If these are a series of worthless productions, the subjectivity of the will is also worthless; if the acts are substantial and sound, so likewise is the inner will of the individual. 14 To Hegel, the important word is the italicized “is” (ist). The existence of the sub- ject is constituted by a series of acts, which can be of one kind or another. Such acts determine the substance of the individual; or, the collection of these acts con- structs the subject as such. Hegel collects and thinks that these acts can reflective- ly act on their author, that they cannot only be ascribed to the author, but even when completed, they remain bound to the author. If the subject can be defined as someone or something that performs the action of a sentence, or as someone under (sub) everything that is (as the subject holds everything, sets it up, giving 13 Four moments or concepts corresponding to the architect’s desire to be blind and focus on the invisible (the production of concepts), to design—with others!—what is not there (projective mind meeting the conject, institutional mind), producing an entirely new ob- ject (expressive mind). It would appear that this could provide a new definition for “the creative thinking practice of architecture.” Čeferin, Resistant Object of Architecture, 73. See Petar Bojanić, “The Acts of Project(ion) / Project Acts or Projacts,” Rivista di Estetica 71 (2019): 92–100, https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.5521; Snežana Vesnić and Miloš Ćipranić, “The Concept: A Map for Generations,” Rivista di Estetica 71 (2019): 101–16, https://doi.org/10.4000/estetica.5529. 14 G. W . F . Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. S. W . Dyde (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2005), 107, § 124. “Was das Subjekt ist, ist die Reihe seiner Handlungen. Sind diese eine Reihe wertloser Produktionen, so ist die Subjektivität des Wollens ebenso eine wertlose; ist dagegen die Reihe seiner Taten substantieller Natur, so ist es auch der innere Wille des Individuums.” G. W. F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, ed. Eva Moldenhauer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 233. 138 the object as a series of its acts it stability), in this case, Hegel insists that it is a collection of successive gestures across a period of time that represents the subject. Less important here is the rhet- oric of the use of time and temporal perspective; rather, more important is the idea that the acts together are actually objects that might be collected, gathered, count- ed, held together in a single subject. Looking further at the text that explains para- graph 124 of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel’s subject is entirely like the character of Camille from Godard’s Le Mépris. Her lack, the search for the portion of the body and the object that is not there, her counting and searching for the new, the as yet unnamed and unloved, her search for the object as a thirst for satisfaction (Be- friedigung) or the right to satiation or satisfaction, 15 can only be realized through recognition of the community or by others. In this case, Paul, Godard’s hero, who incessantly repeats and confirms (through his speech, through his gaze) that the subject is ultimately constituted in the totality of their acts. The claim that the ob- ject is always plural or part of a multiplicity of elements (a totality comprising sev- eral objects) indicates a grandiose complication of the relation subject-object. The acting of the object, in this case, is the constitution thereof into a totality, into a whole, which is supposed to be the crucial characteristic of the subject. There can be no subject without a plurality of objects 16 (which is a pleonasm) or without or- ganizing an object into a totality. Still, it is insufficient, as something seems to not work in this construction. What is it? Why does Paul, suddenly, at the end say “I love you totally, tenderly, tragically” (Je t’aime totalment, tendrement, tragique- ment)? What is the catch? What is it that makes it tragic or uncontrolled? Is it a lack of Paul’s acts that leave him unconstituted as a subject? Does Paul in his acts towards Camille not produce subjects? Are his tenderness and love towards Camille as a totality of objects insufficient to establish harmony in this theater of an exchange of acts that do not transform into so-called “social objects”? It would seem that here again Hegel has an answer. In the annex to paragraph 119 of the Philosophy of Right, where he deals with intention and well-being, Hegel writes: Manifestly more or fewer circumstances may be included in an act. In the case of arson, e.g., the fire may not take effect, or it may spread farther than the agent intended. Yet in neither case is the result due to good or bad fortune, since man 15 “The right of the subject’s particular being to find himself satisfied [. . .]” (Das Recht der Besoderheit der Subjekts, sich befriedigt zu finden). Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 107, § 124; Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 233. 16 “ ‘Le sujet naît de l’objet [The subject arises from the object].’—Michel Serres.” Bill Brown, “Thing Theory,” Critical Inquiry 28, no. 1 (Autumn 2001): 1. 139 snežana vesnić, petar bojanić, and miloš ćipranić in acting must deal with externality. An old proverb rightly enough says, “ A stone flung from the hand is the devil’s.” In acting I must expose myself to misfortune; that also has a right to me, and is the manifestation of my own will. 17 When the subject or a person is doing something, “they must deal with external- ity,” which leads them to a tragic situation. Still, far more important here is that the space of action is necessarily to be found on the outside and that the external is the site of uncontrollable things. “A stone flung from the hand is the devil’s” (Der Stein, der aus der Hand geworfen wird, ist des Teufels). Unequivocally, He- gel predicts that what is external and the scene initiated by the act of “throwing” (the object) and which confirms the existence of what is external (“action,” “ex- ternal,” “throwing,” and “stone” are all registers not under human or the sub- ject’s control or responsibility) confirm the possibility of something we could call “the acts of the object.” We do not know where the stone will ultimately end up, or better still, where it ends and in what way the action as such of throwing un- folds. Paradoxically, we know even less than we think we know, since we do not know how any action of the subject ends. What does this mean? That all action endangers the basic principle of reality, which is causality. In a word, we cannot “gather,” “collect,” or “glean” all the consequences of our actions (gestures). The significance of “throwing” (the stone and Devil are merely cosmetic additions to Hegel’s constructions) implies immediately a new analogy or counter-analogy of “catching” or “gathering,” which is what Godard’s Camille does, in her attempt to hold herself firm, entirely thanks to her partner. Hegel’s proverb thus becomes an introduction to two operations or two move- ments that directly concern the object (or at least would appear to): the first is the act of throwing itself, which implies various domains, the best known among which are the subject, object, project, conject, etc. 18 The second, reflex- 17 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 104–5, § 119. “Es ist allerdings der Fall, daß bei einer Handlung mehr oder weniger Umstände zuschlagen können: es kann bei einer Brandstiftung das Feuer nicht auskommen oder auf der anderen Seite dasselbe weiter greifen, als der Täter es wollte. Trotzdem ist hier keine Unterscheidung von Glück und Unglück zu machen, denn der Mensch muß sich handelnd mit der Äußerlichkeit abgeben. Ein altes Sprichwort sagt mit Recht: der Stein, der aus der Hand geworfen wird, ist des Teufels. Indem ich handele, setze ich mich selbst dem Unglück aus; dieses hat also ein Recht an mich und ist ein Dasein meines eigenen Wollens.” Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 225. 18 Across various books in the last decade, Peter Sloterdijk varies and thematizes the figures of throwing and thrower, first appearing in Nicht gerettet: Versuche nach Heidegger (Frankfurt 140 the object as a series of its acts ive action, is entirely conceptual, where something from the outside “comes in” or where something is accepted and captured from externality itself, thus be- coming the representation or concept. Be that as it may, thrown objects or the Devil’s objects arrive constantly, because what is thrown necessarily returns and is caught. Here is how Thomas Aquinas, in an entirely different register, regard- less of the Devil being a symptom and present in every miss, explains the act of the object or the conceptualization of the thrown object: For what is conceived in the intellect (intellectu concipitur), since it is a likeness of the thing understood, representing the thing’s form, seems to be an offspring of the thing. Therefore, when the intellect understands something other than itself, the understood thing is like a father of the word conceived in the intellect, and the intellect more resembles a mother, whose property is that conception takes place in her. But when the intellect understands itself, the word conceived is related to the one understanding as an offspring is to a father. 19 The father or the object or what comes from the outside is really the subject that actively, and in this case very precisely, hitting the mark, arrives at its proper place. The two sets of operations or series of acts initiated by Hegel’s proverb are si- multaneous and permanent, meaning that this theater of connections and rela- tions usually leads to various distribution of roles, terms, and meanings. Thus, the history of the world could probably rather neatly fit into four verbs: ap- proach, move away, hit, and miss. If we consider “missing” the rule, as after all Hegel (and not only Hegel) constantly does, the simultaneous nature and con- tinuous contact (and friction) between the external and the internal, throwing am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001) as a stone that is thrown. Here is Sloterdijk’s breakdown of roles: “The throw that hits the mark is the first synthesis of subject (stone), copula (action), and object (animal or enemy).” Peter Sloterdijk, Not Saved: Essays after Heidegger, trans. Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), 116. 19 Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, trans. Richard. J. Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 36. “Quando igitur intellectus intelligit aliud a se, res intellecta est sicut pater verbi in intellectu concepti; ipse autem intellectus magis gerit similitudinem matris, cuius est ut in ea fiat conceptio. Quando vero intellectus intelligit se ipsum, ver- bum conceptum comparatur ad intelligentem sicut proles ad patrem.” Thomas Aquinas, Compendium theologiae, Corpus Thomisticum, bk. 1, chap. 39, https://www.corpustho- misticum.org/ott101.html. 141 snežana vesnić, petar bojanić, and miloš ćipranić and catching, requires us to introduce the alternative as well, that is, the option or idea of the ideal, analogously, the idea of the concept. Hegel’s Devil implies the existence of some “ideal object” (an ideal throw, a perfect stone that arrives where it is intended, taking only its charted course, perfectly embodying the concept of stone as such when it lands), which never comes to pass, but never- theless continues to exist and fascinate. Its ideality is protected by the project or the projective mind. This is the moment when any idea of the object is real- ly erased in the project (the project lasts longer, it does not assume any kind of opposition or reflexivity, nor does it shy away from the Devil). In any mention of any object she finds and names, Camille a priori sets the concept of each and evokes the ideal object. There can be no totality of all or the whole unless each object is not individually ideal. What then is the ideal object? Is it in Camille’s mind or does it appear in encoun- tering every individual object? Is it moved by the object as such? Is it an objec- tive act? The “ideal object,” or for example the “ideality of the architectural object” (Pe- ter Eisenman’s text “Misreading Eisenman” contains the phrase “the object as ideal essence”) 20 is actually a paraphrase of the title of Jacques Derrida’s 1957 unwritten doctoral thesis, “The Ideality of the Literary Object” (L’idealité de l’objet litteraire). Derrida’s sentence from “Introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry,” “the ideal object is the absolute model of the object in general” (l’ob- jet idéal est le modèle absolu de l’objet en general), 21 implies that this ideal is actually regulative and opposed to objects not purely intentional or objects that are intentional cum fundamento in re (a distinction we borrow from Roman In- 20 Peter Eisenman, “Misreading Eisenman,” in Eisenman Inside Out: Selected Writings, 1963– 1988 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 211. 21 Jacques Derrida, introduction to L’origine de la géométrie, by Edmund Husserl (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1962), 57. 142 the object as a series of its acts garden), 22 or opposed to ordinary physical objects (which, for example, Peter Eisenman also calls “things in themselves”). 23 The head (Camille’s and other) does not contain objects (this would be non- sense), nor even the ideal or ideas (for this would be trivial—everyone has ide- as, heads are brimming with ideas, meaning that such an explanation is insuffi- cient). Rather, it contains the “ideal of the object as such.” The idea of something that has physical presence is precisely the conceptual or the concept. In his fa- mous text on conceptual architecture, Peter Eisenman finds that “the idea within the thing itself” is synonymous with the “conceptual structure” of the thing it- self, and finally that “physical reality itself does have a conceptual aspect.” What is the novelty here? Projecting (to project is to throw something forth, in front of oneself) is not projecting/designing an object (one does not throw for- ward an object). The object is, rather, discovered, revealed, selected, exposed, presented before (vis-à-vis; Gegenstand) by way of the concept. In that sense, the project is a projection of the concept that is always the concept of the object (the “ideal of the object as such”). 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