“How ordinary objects can give us philosophy.”

A case of the mind, a uselessness beyond
A story about 'things' that goes beyond imagination!

Nanda is republishing the prose 『Philosophy of Things』 by Ham Don-gyun, a literary critic, writer, and practicing 'running designer.'
This is a completely revised edition of a book first compiled in 2015 based on a column serialized in Maeil Business Newspaper since 2013, with new additions and sharp polishing for a contemporary sensibility in 2023.
This book examines the various aspects of objects in our daily lives and, above all, opens the outer shell to go inside.
Like a dictionary of everyday names, like a diary written in the voices of things, like a short essay that sparks new thoughts, this is a book that opens up on its own no matter how often you read it.

『Philosophy of Things』 is a series planned and written simultaneously with 『Philosophy of the Moment』 (2021), a philosophical essay on ‘time.’
Exactly ten years after they were first serialized in the newspaper, two books that could be considered siblings have been published side by side.
In "The Philosophy of the Moment," we challenged the philosophy of abstraction by examining the meaning of the invisible moment. In this book, we delve deeper into the true "inner nature" of the objects around us that we can touch and hold, the extremely ordinary and often overlooked materials.

Pope Francis said at his inauguration that it is important to be a "disciple of Jesus" rather than a pope.
To become a disciple, he said that he would take the 'lowest position' and become a servant in that position.
This is also a moment that makes us think again about Jesus' foot-washing ceremony.
Why did he wash his disciples' feet?
Could it be because the feet are the lowest part of the body?
If so, it may be said that Pope Francis is the pope who has understood the meaning of the foot-washing ceremony most accurately among all the popes in history.
What would it be like if God were to briefly appear on a dark earth?
We see streetlights in Pope Francis's steps.
At first glance, it seemed like I saw the silhouette of God there.
---From "Streetlight"

It is said that the contractual nature of the ring comes from the binding nature of the ring around the finger, but isn't this a misunderstanding of the meaning of the contract?
Because the force of binding cannot truly bring about the power of a promise.
What is important is that the two beings meet sincerely.
It is not force, constraint, or a clumsy compromise, but a strength that comes from affirming each other's potential.
Perhaps the ring shape of the ring suggests that it presupposes a shared emptiness rather than the stubborn self-assertion of the two beings.

So, the ring is a couple ring no matter whose finger it is on.
Because the ring shape already suggests the meeting of two beings.
It's already hot without even putting your finger in it.
The circular ring, shaped like a mouth, speaks of a mutually affirming encounter through a warm silence through empty space.
Even if you are not a lover, the ring itself conveys the meaning of meeting and promise.
The same applies to situations of social conflict where claims clash sharply and hurt each other.
How can we meet?
How can we reach mutual affirmation?
---From "The Ring"

The peculiarity of this light is that it is not a light that 'eliminates' darkness.
To put it bluntly, it's the other way around.
The light from the stand returns the darkness to its original form.
The moment you turn on the stand, the surroundings become darker.
But this is not darkness.
The darkness that had been spread throughout the room, and thus invisible, gathered around the stand and 'revealed' itself clearly.
The darkness is not erased.
Rather, we are only now realizing that darkness existed here.
Darkness is experienced as soft, secret, and deep.
Darkness is not only perceived, but it envelops us and touches our bodies.
This experience makes us realize that the darkness of the universe is not all bad things that need to be eliminated.
It is neither good nor evil, it just is.
According to the wise men's expression, it is as it is (因是).
The minimal, adequate light from the stand subtly reveals and cuts through human preconceptions and dichotomies about light and dark, and all things.
---From "Stand"

If you look at it as a species, it is a mongrel, and if you look at it as a book, it is the death of the original author.
It is a 'polluted' record in that its original origins were later mixed up by the intervention of something else.
It implies a multi-world rather than an individual one, and a nomadic rather than a settled world.
If so, wouldn't it be possible to say that Post-it notes are objects that reflect the extremes of modernity and the characteristics of the post-modern world?
In this respect, the emergence of Wikipedia, a collective intelligence encyclopedia created in a completely different way from the encyclopedias of the Enlightenment, could be called the web version of Post-it notes.
It is collective and can be accessed and added to anywhere, without relying on the author's unique authority, the writer's individual intellectual ability, or the permanence of recorded knowledge.
The circulation of knowledge is much freer and more widespread.

---From "Post-it"