POSTSCRIPT: SPECULATIVE AUTOPSY

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Has SpeclAa!Ml Realism passed the e)(JS!eoce test? Gfallam Harman has oerta1nly served as its 1ndefaugable mdwife. No dot.tit rmdesty forbade him lrom ment1011ng that he is OOIMlr$SO!llng edrtor of the 'thriving txxik series' he cites. and the self-vdunteered editor of the new SpeoJlative Real­ ism section of the popular PhilF'apets website.' His dBlm ab::>ut p::15tdoctoral fellowships ard semester-Ieng 1..11!\lefSl!y

COIXSes 50\.llds i.i 1rrµessively academenote. flagging the 1nst11ut!C7\al recog11111on that is generally acceptedas the seal of ntellectual respectability. Yet here a note of cautlOn 1s n order. S1rc:e Ayn Rancfs ObjectMsm and L. Ron HOO­ bard"s Scentobgy havealso succeeded111 socu1rg toeholds

1n Amencanuniversity progrttmmes. Academicrecognt.on IS not CQn"1)el1rg by 1tsetr lllleSS 'M3 are tokl the names of the fellowshps and 1nst1tu110ns 1n question. Mo-eover. a sceptic m19ht be lorg1voo for queryirg the rehab1hty of e witness testifyingto Sperula11ve Reahsm"s 1ndub1tablee)(lstence from w11hln the pages of a pubhcet1on whose ortloal sU:imle •S "A ..lou'"nal of Spec:UatlVEI Realism·. And 1f existe-ice is to be maesured 1n terms of biogs. books. and Google hits. then SpeciJetM! ReahsmJags woefully ff!r behind Bigfoot.Yeti. and the Loch Ness Monster. all of whom havepassed Htirm1wfs "existence tes!" with flying cdours. Of course. no one has ever delllOCI the 1»11stence of tolk abcut SperulatrwRealism. To askwhether Sperulauve Realism deservesto betreated as a coheslVEI phllosophcel rmvement 1s not to denythe tl)(ISlence ol books. artides. anduniversity co.ssesthat do µit that. The real cvestlOrl is· Is this talk. and thecurrency of Harman"sSperulatllle Rea•sm b!"a"ld.' surtJc.ent

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3. Q.Med!tssw>c.Altwfnr<><»AnfssoyCryoJ��n gSpeculative Realism. I do not think 1t can be. This is not to d1srnss the salience ol Mellassoul<"s d1ag1051s of correlatiornsm. A favouritep\oy among those who wish to rubbish Me1l�SSOOl< and Specula­ tive Realism rmre generally is to deny that there 1s any such thing as correlationism. or that 11 has ever been prevalent 1n Continental philosophy. This 1s plainly false. It is true that the term hasbeen rruch abused bythose who. following Harman. seeant1-correlationism as the defininglea1ure of Speculative Reabm. At its most eKtreme. this allows the accusation of "correla11onism" to become a way of caricaturing rival philo­ sq:ihical positions andshort-c1rcu1ting debate. I do not believe that correlallonism 1s the unm1t1gated "bad thing" which 1t seems to be for Harman(and to a lesser eKtent MedlassouK). and I have learned the imi:ortance of defending the "good". epistemic formulation of correlationismlrom its "bad".sceptical version.' Nevertheless. I stil th01k 1t patently false to deny that correlationism names a charactenst1c tenet of Continental philosophy. Correlationism 1n the "strong" versl0!1 targeted by Medlassoul< 1s simply the denal that 1t makes sense to postiJatethings-in-themselves and 11 is easyto findpassages by numerous Continentallum1nanes (not to mention analytic anti-realists) unequivocally proclairn1ng the r.onsensioahty ol the Kant.an on S/Ch'

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61rd91!d.Toscano·s�l�""'"'ctt>ornnkso1$peculatrva -...mxhagmaterialism from metaphyslcal or scient1stic doctrines of the same narre. As used by Me1llas· soux.the term"speculative" is to bel.Xlderstood 1n the Hegelian sense to mean the kind of thinking !hat is not content with determiningits si.qect-matter extrinsicallyby �ing hxed predicates to 1t. but instead aDows subject and predicate to switch roles so that the predicate can become subtect and the subject become predicate. This reversibility 1s of coixse the hallmark of dialectical thinking. of which MejlaSSCM..Jx 1s a bnliant practitioner. His "speculative'mater1ahsm renders him far closer to BadlOUand 2:1�ek than to the Speculative Reahsts with whom he continues to be associated. Indeed. nothing could be less 'speculative' in Meillassoux"s sense than Har­ man'sObject-Onented Philosophy. And while we may morebe sympathetic to matenahsrn that"IHarman 1s. neither Grant nor I endorse 'speculation' 1n Medlassoux'ssense. Stripped of the spec1hcphilosophical mewingthat 11 has inMel lassoux's work.

7. larlHeml!C$op!W"sMC>gOZ.-.en20Krseel.H.Q-aru.'Speculm"""RQIM ='.Tllworksn::o N«lorth.o1monerhasMeiliissru:<. theterm 'speciJative'is reducedtons ordmaryBqectrval sense. meaning'col'ljeCtural. lancilul. unsubstantiated by evidence or !act'.Prehxed to an •1-dehned 'realsm', 11 becomesthe a•t:i.ror a doctrinethat WlShes to spare itselfthe trouble of 11JS11hcat1on. Ultimately. neither commonalities nor shared avers1011S sulhce to clearly demarcate Specul11t1ve Realists lrom other pt"ulosophers. Consideredas a pl'ulosophiCBImovement. SpeOJ ­ lative Reahsm 1s vitiated by its fatal lack of cohesiveness Whether we try to dehne1t negatrvely by what 1t rs against or pos1t1vely bywhat 1t 1s !or.weexdude too httleand 1ndude too rruch. Harman1ust1fleshis brand1ngolSpeculative Rea•sm asa 'un1'-"'!rsally recognizedmethod of conveyng111format1on while cutting through 1nformat1onal clutter'.' The problem 1s that those he has enlisted as the brand's representatives diverge on so many fundamentalsthat the noisegenerated bybund•ng them together far exceeds any possible nformationalcontent this groupingITllQ hl havehoped to provide.In the absence of even a mininal positive criterion of doctrinal cohesweness. all that 1s left 1s chatter about something called ·speru1at1ve Rea•sm·-�ac1ng 1t on an ontobg1cal par with chatter aOOut the 'Montauk PrOjOCt'. It 1s not difficult to see how Specula· t1ve Realism passes Harman's existence test. since this test 1s p-edcatedon a principle as s1rrple as 1t 1s dubious: robeIS to be talkedabout. But there 1s another rrore important question underlying the dispute over Speculat1'-"'! Realism's elClstence. It 1s the fol· IOW1ng: Is there anything ol real phlosoph1cal import at stake in the controversyAlberto Toscano. 1s worth C•ting because 1t illustrates the shortfall between the concerns that animated the OOQinal 'Specula live Realism' event. and those of the current Speculative Reahsm brand:

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The interest 1n rehab1litat1ng representation and objectiv­ ity remains my cmn personal preo::cupat1on and was cer­ tainly not shared by any of !he other panic1pants then or now. But the rssue of the hnk between representation and ob1ec1Iv1ty generates questions about the status of sc1eri­ t1flc representation. whch 1n turn lead to the more funda­ mental �sue of philosophy's relatlOfl to the natural sciences. This issue is central to Me1llassoux's work. whether 1n the form of his attempt to provide a speciJetive proof of the contingency ol the laws ol nature or in his acC0U1t ol the positive 'meal'lnglessness' of mathematical signs." But 1t 1s eciually fundamental for Grant. whose reactivation of Schell- 1ng1an Noturphilosopllferequires reasserting '!he eternal and necessarybond between philosophy and physics·"-an inter est emphatically reamrmed b{ Grant's ongoing research oto the philosophical 1rrphcations ol the 'deep-held problem' n cosmology. It is precisely this concern with renegotiating phi­ losophy'srelation to the naturalsciences that's conspicuously absent fromthe Harman·sanctionedbranding ol Speculative Realism. For Harman. such concern smacks of 'scient1sm' Indeed. Harman's wealdisdain for 'scientism'(not to mention 'epistemism') confirms the extent to which. notwithstanding the eccentricity of his reading of Heidegger. he remains an orthodox Hetdeggerian. For Harman. metaphoncal allusion trumps sc1ent,flc investigation and fasonation with objects trumps any concern !or obtect1v1ty. Indeed. the irony-as Pete Wollendale's withering dissection ol Object-Oriented Ontology demonstrates-is that n Harman's hands. Specu­ lative Real151'T1 merely exacerbates the diSdam !or rationality. whether ph11osoph1cal or scientlhc. which is among correla­ tlOllism's more objectionable consequences. It 1s this misol­ ogy which Meillassoux's After Fm1tude sought to challenge. Far from chalieng1ng11. HEl"man's Object-Oriented A-iilosophy

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1Q �IH.Gram.'lhe"E!wnalphilosopher can shirk. and the demand !or JUSl1hcation will not go away. no matter how stuttiornly one tries to ignore 1t Forhow are we supposed to kflOW whether or not there are things1n themselves.let alone how they are structixed?While Me1lassoux and Grant adducedifferent k1ndS al a pnon proof to the effect that we can know that the 1n-rtself exists. even though1tdoesnot consist of objects (sinceboth Meillassoux's surchaos and Grant's Naturing nature aOal relation to them? Without 1ntenuonal consc10Usness as source and uritler of the eidetic Cot:.ect-disclos1ng) honzoo. we have no reliable way of d1stnguish1ng between the eidetic or real features cl objects and their acadental or sensual qualities. The upshot •Sa metaphysicsin which we cannot sa-; whar anything really is. For 1f we cannot specify the essential qualities that dis11n­ gu1sh one real object fromanother. how can we be sure that the discrete mult1phc1ty of sensual objects does not mask the underlying contnuity of a single. indivisible real object? Ultimately,Harman's accou nt of 'real obsects'fuses epistemc ineffati.l1ty with ontological 1nscrutablhty: since real objects can never be represented. only 'alluded' to. 11 IS irrposs1ble to S8'/ what they really are. The result. as Wolfendale shows. 1s a ITT:!taphysics where we can never know what we are 'really' tal<1ng about. nor explain why our alus1ons should succeed where our representations tail. Graham Harman should feel honouredby what he himself recognizes as Wolfendale's 'encyclopedic d1hgence', even 1f he may d1scomhtedbe by its consequences forhis own work. What Wolfendale providesus with 1s a corrpelling dragnosis of what ISwrong not JUST with Object-One11ted011tology,but the Speculauve Realism brand to which Harman has lent his 1�1- matur. Wolfendale's painstaking dissection of the confusions. fallli!C1es. and non sequitLW'Sunleashed by this new species of speculative dogma11sm 1s as 1nstruct1ve as 11 1s devastating And ndeed.there 1s an ap�:rnp-1ately dialecticalparadox 1n the reahsat10n that Wolfendale's autopsy for Harman's SpecUa t1ve Realismbrand errt:iodies everythingthat !he 'Spec:Uat1ve Rea•sm' workshop seemed to promise: the breakout from a terrmlCilysclerotic Continental tradition epjtomized by amotley of what Lakatos called'degenerating research programmes'." There 1s no •nle irony 1n the !act that this promise. bnefty kindledin April 2007. was 17ematurely snufled out as a result of the attempt to render Speculative Rea•sm palata�e to an audience whose sen�blht1es were already shaped by Conti­ nental philosophy-an audience that equates representation w11h repression. otiiectMty w11h oppress10n. and naturahsm wllh soenflsm.But Wolfenda\ehas reignt!edthe breakout.His matchless ph1k>soph+cal intelligence cuts across traditions 1n searchof the necessary resources!or the constructionof new conceptual poss1bh11es. reart1cula1ing the quesllOlls that the 'Speculative Rea•sm' workshop had initially prorrvsed to take up. It ISthusonlyhtting that Wolfendale's 'speculativeautopsy' shoUdal$0 mark the birth of his own genuinelyt¥1precedented philosophical v01ce