What is the Object of Thinking Differently?

Abstract

“What is the Object of Thinking Differently” takes up G. Lebrun’s thesis according to which Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement “teaches us to think differently.” In accord with the author’s larger project of bringing to the fore Kant’s second Copernican turn, such as has been accomplished in Kant’s third Critique, this paper seeks to elaborate a theory of the kind of object that would correspond to the different way of thinking that is implied in the reflecting power of judgement. Drawing upon what the author calls the operation of the de-realisation and de-constitution of reality and the de-sublimation of the sublime, informed by his treatment of the contemporary Slovenian artist Jože Barši’s artwork Public toilet, the paper extends his notion of the “third” object, in which the existence of the non-existent finds its body and which, precisely as such, becomes the thing of thought that opens thought’s eyes.