A radical philosophical framework for understanding why we can never fully “know” another person—and why that’s actually the foundation of real intimacy.
The Delusion of Knowing
Consider the client who says: “I don’t understand why my partner is upset. I know exactly what she’s thinking.” Or the parent who insists: “I know my child better than he knows himself.” Or the spouse who complains: “If he really loved me, he’d know what I need without me having to say it.”
These statements share a common assumption—one so deeply embedded in Western psychology that we rarely notice it: the belief that another person can be fully known, fully accessed, fully transparent to our gaze.
This assumption is the philosophical foundation of narcissism.
What if I told you that one of the most important developments in contemporary philosophy offers a radical cure for this delusion? Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)—a school of thought championed by philosophers like Graham Harman and Timothy Morton—proposes that nothing can be fully known by anything else. Every object—whether a person, a tree, a coffee cup, or a quantum particle—possesses a “volcanic core” that remains forever withdrawn from access.
For therapists working with narcissistic and codependent clients, this isn’t just abstract philosophy. It’s a therapeutic intervention.
The Problem of Correlationism
What Western Philosophy Got Wrong
Since Immanuel Kant, Western philosophy has been dominated by what Harman calls “correlationism”—the idea that we can only talk about the relationship between human thought and being, never about being itself. Things exist for us. Reality is always reality-as-we-experience-it. The tree in the forest makes no sound unless someone is there to hear it.
This seems reasonable enough in epistemology. But when it migrates into our relationships, it becomes pathological.
Correlationism in relationships sounds like this:
“My partner exists as he relates to me.”
“My child’s inner life is what I perceive it to be.”
“If I can’t know what someone is thinking, they must be hiding something.”
This is the philosophical structure of narcissism: the assumption that other people exist primarily as they relate to us, that their reality is our access to their reality, that the world revolves around our perception of it.
As Plato recognized millennia ago, we tend to mistake our shadows for reality. But OOO goes further: it argues that even with perfect information, we could never reach the thing itself. The shadows are all there ever could be.
The Clinical Face of Correlationism
In the therapy room, correlationism shows up in specific patterns:
The Narcissistic Client: Believes they know what others are thinking and feeling, often better than others know themselves. Uses this “knowledge” to manipulate, control, and dismiss. When the other person contradicts their perception, they experience it as betrayal or gaslighting. “You don’t really feel that way. I know you.”
The Codependent Client: Believes that if they just try hard enough, they can fully understand and merge with their partner. Treats the other’s unknowability as a failure of their own attunement. “If I were a better partner, I’d know what they need.” This dynamic often emerges from childhood wounds where the child learned that survival depended on reading the caregiver’s mind.
The Anxiously Attached Client: Experiences the other’s unknowability as threat. “What are they thinking? Why won’t they tell me everything?” The attachment system becomes hyperactivated whenever the other shows autonomy or opacity.
In each case, the problem isn’t a specific behavior—it’s an ontological assumption. The client believes that full access to the other is possible and desirable, and that the failure of such access indicates either their inadequacy or the other’s deception.
OOO offers a different framework entirely.
Object-Oriented Ontology—A Primer for Therapists
The Withdrawal of the Object
Graham Harman, building on the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, makes a startling claim: every object withdraws from every other object. Nothing ever makes full contact with anything else.
When fire burns cotton, the fire doesn’t access the “full reality” of the cotton—only those aspects relevant to combustion (flammability, chemical composition). The cotton’s color, its history, its meaning to the farmer who grew it—these remain untouched by the fire. The fire “translates” the cotton into fire-terms.
Similarly, when we perceive another person, we don’t access their full reality. We access only those aspects that are relevant to our perceptual apparatus, our history, our concerns. We “translate” them into our terms. What we call “knowing” someone is actually an elaborate caricature we’ve constructed—a useful map, but not the territory.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s treatment of OOO, this isn’t a limitation of human knowledge specifically—it’s a feature of all relations. The fire doesn’t know the cotton fully. The tree doesn’t know the soil fully. God, if God exists, wouldn’t know creation fully. Withdrawal is not an epistemic failure; it’s an ontological structure.
The Volcanic Core
Harman uses the metaphor of a “volcanic core” to describe what withdraws. Every object has a molten center that never fully erupts into appearance. We only ever see the cooled lava flows—the manifestations, the qualities, the behaviors. The core remains hidden.
For human beings, this means: there is always more to a person than they show, than they know, than anyone could ever access. This isn’t mystical obscurantism—it’s a rigorous philosophical position with profound clinical implications.
When your client says, “I feel like I don’t really know myself,” they’re not reporting a failure. They’re reporting the truth. We don’t fully know ourselves either. The self that knows is not identical to the self that is known. There’s always a remainder.
Timothy Morton and “Dark Ecology”
Timothy Morton, another key OOO thinker, extends this analysis to what he calls “dark ecology.” Traditional ecology imagines nature as knowable, manageable, controllable—if we just gather enough data, we can understand and fix the ecosystem. Morton argues this is correlationist hubris.
Nature, like every object, withdraws. The biosphere has a volcanic core we can never access. This should inspire not despair but humility—what Morton calls “ecological awareness” or “dark ecology.”
Apply this to relationships: Traditional relationship advice imagines the partner as knowable, manageable—if we just communicate better, we can fully understand each other. OOO says: this is impossible. Your partner has a volcanic core. They are an ecosystem you will never fully map.
This sounds like bad news. It’s actually liberation.
The Clinical Application—Respecting the Mystery
Your Partner as “Dark Object”
Here’s the therapeutic reframe: teach your clients that their partner is a “Dark Object”—not in a sinister sense, but in the sense of being deep, mysterious, and irreducible to any caricature they might construct.
The darkness isn’t threatening. It’s the necessary condition of genuine otherness. If you could fully know your partner, they wouldn’t be another person—they’d be an extension of yourself. The I-Thou relationship that Martin Buber described requires this irreducible otherness. Without mystery, there’s no genuine encounter—only narcissistic mirroring.
The clinical conversation might go like this:
Therapist: “You say you want to understand your wife completely. What if that’s impossible? What if she has depths that will always remain mysterious to you—not because she’s hiding something, but because that’s what it means to be another person?”
Client: “That sounds lonely.”
Therapist: “What if it’s the opposite of lonely? What if the mystery is what makes her truly other—truly someone you can be in relationship with, rather than an extension of yourself?”
Reframing Intimacy: Proximity to Mystery
Most clients come to therapy with a model of intimacy that looks like this: Intimacy = Total Transparency. The more you know, the closer you are. Perfect intimacy would mean perfect access.
OOO suggests a radical alternative: Intimacy = Proximity to Mystery.
Intimacy isn’t about eliminating the unknown—it’s about getting close to what can never be fully known. It’s about sitting with the volcanic core, appreciating its heat without demanding that it fully erupt. It’s about being a lover in the presence of someone who will always exceed your grasp.
This reframe relieves enormous anxiety. The client no longer needs to “figure out” their partner. They don’t need to achieve total transparency. The not-knowing isn’t a failure to be corrected—it’s the structure of any genuine relationship.
The Cure for Narcissistic Control
For narcissistic clients specifically, OOO offers a direct intervention into their core pathology.
Narcissism, at its root, is a failure to acknowledge the shadow—not just one’s own shadow, but the shadows of others. The narcissist treats others as if they were fully visible, fully knowable, existing primarily as they relate to the narcissist’s needs.
OOO says: Everyone has a shadow you will never see. Everyone has depths you will never access. Your partner is not an object to be known—they are a dark object that withdraws from your gaze.
This isn’t a moral teaching (though it has moral implications). It’s an ontological reality. The narcissist who grasps this isn’t being asked to be “nicer” or “more empathic”—they’re being invited to perceive reality accurately.
As researchers have noted in studies published in clinical psychology literature, narcissistic pathology often involves deficits in theory of mind—the capacity to recognize that others have independent mental states. OOO provides a philosophical framework that supports the development of this capacity.
Relieving Codependent Fusion
For codependent clients, the intervention works differently but equally powerfully.
Codependency often involves what psychoanalysts call “merger fantasies”—the wish to dissolve boundaries and become one with the other. The codependent believes that if they just try hard enough, they can fully attune to their partner, anticipate their every need, eliminate all distance.
OOO says: This is impossible. Not because you’re failing, but because merger violates the structure of reality. Your partner will always withdraw. There will always be a gap. This gap is not your fault.
This can be profoundly relieving for clients who have exhausted themselves trying to achieve impossible intimacy. They can stop trying to read minds. They can accept that communication about needs will always be necessary because telepathy is impossible. They can let their partner be a Dark Object—mysterious, autonomous, other.
OOO and Existing Therapeutic Frameworks
Connection to Buber’s I-Thou
Martin Buber’s distinction between “I-Thou” and “I-It” relationships maps remarkably well onto OOO.
In the I-It relationship, I treat the other as an object to be used, manipulated, known, controlled. I relate to their qualities, their usefulness to me. This is correlationist relating—the other exists as they relate to me.
In the I-Thou relationship, I meet the other as a whole being who exceeds any qualities I can perceive. I don’t relate to aspects of them; I encounter them. But crucially, I can never fully grasp the Thou—it always withdraws, always exceeds my reach. That’s what makes it Thou rather than It.
Buber, writing before OOO, intuited the same structure. The other must remain partially unknown for genuine encounter to occur. If I could fully possess the other with my knowledge, I would have reduced them to It.
Connection to Levinas and “The Face”
The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas developed an entire ethics based on the irreducible otherness of “the face.” When we encounter another person’s face, Levinas argued, we encounter infinity—something that can never be totalized, categorized, or fully known.
The face says: “You cannot murder me” (that is, you cannot reduce me to an object). The face makes an ethical demand precisely because it exceeds our grasp. If we could fully know the other, we could fully possess them—and full possession is a kind of murder of otherness.
OOO provides the metaphysical foundation for Levinas’s ethics. The other must withdraw because withdrawal is the structure of all objects. Ethics begins with acknowledging this withdrawal.
Connection to Jungian Psychology
In Jungian terms, the OOO framework resonates with the concept of the unconscious. Jung insisted that the unconscious is not merely a repository of repressed material—it’s a genuine unknown, a vast territory that consciousness can never fully illuminate.
The shadow is not just what we refuse to see—it’s what cannot be fully seen. The Self is not identical to the ego’s knowledge of it. Relationships are always partly unconscious—we marry the shadow we cannot see.
OOO extends this: the volcanic core that withdraws is analogous to the unconscious, but it’s not a human specialty. All objects have “unconscious” depths—dimensions that remain hidden from all relations.
Connection to Attachment Theory
Attachment theory describes how early relational experiences shape our expectations of others. Secure attachment develops when caregivers are “good enough”—responsive but not perfectly so, present but not smothering.
What makes a caregiver “good enough”? Arguably, it’s the caregiver who respects the infant’s mystery—who doesn’t try to perfectly know and control the child’s experience, who allows the child to have an inner life that isn’t fully visible. The good-enough mother, in Winnicott’s terms, allows the child to discover that they are unknown, and that this is okay.
Insecure attachment often develops when caregivers either intrude (trying to fully know/control the child) or abandon (refusing the proximity-to-mystery that intimacy requires). OOO helps articulate what healthy attachment involves: getting close to the mystery without trying to dissolve it.
Practical Interventions
The “Dark Object” Meditation
This is a guided visualization for clients working on narcissistic or codependent patterns:
“Close your eyes. Bring to mind your partner (or child, or parent—whoever the relationship concerns). See them clearly in your imagination. Notice their familiar features, their posture, their expression.
Now imagine that at the very center of their being, there is a depth you cannot see. Not because they’re hiding it—because no one can see it, not even them. It’s the volcanic core that makes them who they are, the mystery at the heart of their existence.
Notice what happens in your body as you hold this truth: there are parts of this person you will never know. This isn’t a failure. It’s what makes them a genuine other.
Now imagine yourself moving toward this person—not trying to pierce the mystery, but approaching it with respect. Getting close to what cannot be fully known. This is intimacy.
What would change in your relationship if you stopped trying to fully know them, and instead became intimate with their unknowability?”
Cognitive Reframes
OOO can inform specific cognitive interventions:
Old belief: “If my partner loved me, they’d tell me everything.”
OOO reframe: “My partner can never tell me everything, because they don’t have access to everything themselves. Love is being with the mystery, not eliminating it.”
Old belief: “I should be able to know what my partner needs without them asking.”
OOO reframe: “My partner’s needs are partly hidden even from them. Asking and telling isn’t a failure of intimacy—it’s how intimacy works between beings who can’t read minds.”
Old belief: “If I don’t understand why they did that, something is wrong.”
OOO reframe: “I will never fully understand why anyone does anything, because I don’t have access to their volcanic core. Living with partial understanding is living with reality.”
Relationship Psychoeducation
For couples work, OOO provides a framework for normalizing the irreducible gap between partners:
“You are two Dark Objects trying to get close to each other’s mystery. Neither of you will ever fully ‘get’ the other. This is normal. This is healthy. This is what it means to be in relationship with another person rather than an extension of yourself.”
“When you feel frustrated that your partner doesn’t understand you perfectly, remember: they can’t. Not because they don’t love you, but because you have depths that no one—including you—can fully access. The question isn’t ‘Why don’t they understand?’ The question is: ‘How can we be intimate with what neither of us can fully know?'”
The Bigger Picture—Narcissism as Cultural Pathology
The Correlationist Culture
We live in a correlationist culture. Social media encourages us to believe we “know” people through their feeds. Surveillance technology promises total access. Data analytics claims to predict human behavior with increasing precision. The message is: everything can be known, tracked, optimized.
This is cultural narcissism—the assumption that the world exists to be known by us, that transparency is possible and desirable, that mystery is a problem to be solved rather than a reality to be respected.
OOO offers a counter-cultural vision. The world is not transparent. People are not data points. Your partner, your children, your friends—they are Dark Objects, volcanic cores wrapped in appearances, mysteries that will never be fully solved.
This is not pessimism. It’s the foundation of genuine ethics. If others could be fully known, they could be fully possessed. It’s the withdrawal that protects dignity.
Therapy as Counter-Cultural Practice
In this context, therapy itself becomes a counter-cultural practice. The good therapist doesn’t claim to fully know the client. They approach the client’s mystery with respect, getting close without demanding full access.
The therapeutic relationship models what OOO describes: intimacy as proximity to mystery. The client experiences being seen without being fully known—being met without being totalized. This is what Carl Rogers called unconditional positive regard, now given a metaphysical foundation.
The therapist’s humility—”I don’t fully understand you, and I never will”—isn’t a failure of technique. It’s the ethical posture that makes genuine encounter possible.
Intimacy With the Unknowable
Object-Oriented Ontology offers therapists a powerful framework for addressing narcissistic and codependent dynamics. By teaching clients that others are “Dark Objects” with volcanic cores that forever withdraw, we:
Relieve the anxiety of not knowing what the other is thinking
Interrupt narcissistic fantasies of control and access
Heal codependent exhaustion from trying to achieve impossible merger
Reframe intimacy as proximity to mystery rather than elimination of mystery
Ground ethics in the irreducible otherness of the other
This isn’t just philosophy imported into therapy. It’s a fundamental reorientation of what we think relationships are for. If the goal of relationship is total knowledge, we’re doomed to failure and frustration. If the goal is to get close to what can never be fully known—to love the mystery, not despite its opacity but because of it—then we can find peace.
Your partner is a world you will never fully explore. Your child has depths you will never sound. Your own self has a volcanic core you will never reach. This is not tragedy. This is the structure of existence. And within this structure, genuine love becomes possible—not the love that consumes its object, but the love that stands in awe of what it cannot possess.
That’s the secret life of others. It will always be secret. And that’s exactly as it should be.
Further Reading
Primary OOO Texts:
Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. Pelican, 2018.
Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Morton, Timothy. Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. Columbia University Press, 2016.
Related Philosophy:
Buber, Martin. I and Thou. 1923.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. 1961.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1927.
Clinical Resources:
APA: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
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