Object-oriented programming (OOP) uses objects that contain data and methods. The four pillars of OOP are abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Abstraction hides unnecessary details, encapsulation shields an object's internal representation, inheritance allows subclasses to inherit attributes of superclasses, and polymorphism enables processing objects differently depending on their type. Classes define objects and contain data fields and methods, with objects being instances of classes that allocate space in memory. Access control in Java includes private, public, default, and protected access types.