EXCERPT Having looked into the ‘what’ of OOP, it is time to concern ourselves with the ‘why’. This means locating the various arguments that Harman presents for each of the different aspects of his metaphysical system distinguished above. As I hinted in the introduction, this is by no means an easy task. Although Harman’s work is peppered with phrases such as ‘I will show…’, ‘I have already argued…’, or ‘As argued repeatedly…’, these often do not refer to specific arguments so much as to the overarching dramatisation of a given idea that takes place throughout the work. There are a few notable exceptions to this, as we shall see, but what arguments there are in Harman’s work tend to be blended together in ways that make them hard to tease apart—a task which is vital if they are to be properly assessed…