DOCSLIB.ORG

Postscript: Speculative Autopsy Ray Brassier

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Postscript: Speculative Autopsy Ray Brassier POSTSCRIPT: SPECULATIVE AUTOPSY RAY BRASSIER Nr;"5o..ISso>ot$pecUat....eRealisrnneedStotJeginbya...:uv theintermnent an::I p::,..1t1asst dab!l a OW< whe1har SpaaJenw Roobm r-.. eiusts. ThtsqueslO:ln comes fivetoo )'9111'5 lateto be�tul.an::loenetalylakeslheformota�t·dowrlrathl!f thanabonaf'Qe<µ;15ll0rl$pacula!JV8Rell�IS�thetopc ota1t1nvn;100okswoesa1armp lSWVfll'S1t�?"ess.an::lthe� ,.,iotali98s!onelortl"O:lmrgrmnogrllphlliserrtieddedn !he -oroillp::C:y o! -"'ftlllosophypul"O!ls. l! hasbeoome 8IOITT111d'orr..,l!rd"lnoc111"0.11"chooolo\IV.QB:V"l!Pl">l'.tho"'51.8 ll"IS.an::lewnhis!ory llhillse<ossadno!IOr\8lbcuOll>esw�h ,_,an::llS�!hecmU.,!hemaolctSl:u""1Clnr1thegrowrig cal!JlenT"'lh��o.Spoo.Je11110Rotillsrnis1he �olsowmlp;ostdoc1a"'l-sh!p'>Ollm"l"'1helkv!od Sl81esn...._1thesbeenrho...,bjBctoTsernesu••-lorga­ a1uwu.. 1 ....... we1asgrad.Jam1ho""""'Paus.Tt....q,1tu11 11"0STlll!"""1testsBh6adconcmror.;i1rotlroHd!han::lcisebl1Y 01Spoa.M1....eRoolisrn,11 hosl<ng!llrc<jpa!l!Ml !he"11.,smn::e· le!lttoa!ll'gt11111lf�lhonrrns1ornscr11.:s. Glal\lrm HorC1,,., min.·The 001 s101a 01 SpowlotMl Ramm'.., �A.JoJrr>OlolSpocWIMlRool<smrlJ(X>1.3),XI 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 lhet...n:i1Sno!"""""""<kylne<maprlOCl""'OI��-· rom.tu:a.......,satvramgnizod,,.,lhodolo;n,eyngnlor"""cnwtille o.mn;iUY<l.ghnror,,.,tcncUUl')(Coring"IJ'lClhcrwnoslorpl"Jlosojlt1• C81f:O!"lor1Sl'l<Opso-1mt!OO"telec:1""'p.bl<:onthe_.,...8'1811a1:18 op!Ol"IS-....,ero:our�cn!GSIGdperrru1.t11oons..IT!OO�-& ....... -.rc>1�woul::l1he""""'":;pe0.Jlet""r9!llism-ber...,..,..;.bul ti0g0woul::lbeO<llq"ledlo-pro,ectcnon�savens.80C>Offi pr1n'9dbl'•'-"'11'"1lnt:u"sol�WO.tepm.ISIC.�1S1"""11hllt :>rl'lpr1l01""5woul::l....,.e..-°"""'*'t"'Yab:iul-�ret\.ced to ,,....kelng �·But 11 woul::llwdlynwt"'. snat8tlanlcnwoul::I to JUS!lfy the clam ti;:it 1t Q.Jaiflesas a rti�osoptvcalysignificant movement? In order to a-iswer this QRStton.1t 1s necessafV to dsen�le l-i<wTna1's daims on behalf ol Spec'-'at1ve Real­ ism lrom thephdosoptucal daims of the v.:.ious thr*ers who are. now for better or wase. associated with this� mCMel'T'lerlt. ThedJSparate rtiilosophical tendencies that have beef1 <rc:u>ed tooether as Soeculat1ve Realism all emeroed from the Slt:d1sciploe known as 'Continental rtillosoptr/. It is prJTia"1ly trose interested1n the ContnentaltradmOfl-whose ni.nt>ersewe cenainlynot negligtile. sirce they o:mpnse schol · ws 'Mll1mg 1n such f'lek:ls as comparative literature. cwt theory. media and o...iltu"al studies. cwchitectll'e. and other hU0'9"Nties d1sophnes-whose interest has been piqued by SpecUat1..e Realism.The novelty attrtiutedto thelatter 1s taken to resde•n the W<f'l II suwise<ty challengesthe core tenets ol Cont1reital orthcdoxy. These tenets are encapsUated 1n the tEifm ·corre latlOOlsm·. ongnally caned by Guentn Meil!assoux in his book AftE!f' Fn1rude.! The reiec;tlOfl of co<relatton1sm IS supp:ised to be the corrmon denomnator binding 'Speci.Aa11ve Realists' togethel'.despite theirmany evidentd11lerences 1,.,.,.llbfbe-nto1,.,.worksorspao.Jo1M1r""*""'.indttsmp..C81oon �s...-.jorfaltme::!Mt,.,.m..rent��oftt·....,WOfl<s.olwr.;til """o:rnf'don1.('0n1,.,.,__.,...,...,,orot'!')cts:Qan1.6turl>.indRa:Xa Ft>losop;ry'"LB-y;r(.G.iiafTU\..-.JN.�l..:1$).ThsSpewiorM> r...,. ea--rti ""'*""1a>dMar,..olsmlMeb:un1<2011]. fl>-J>"<= 21.) WNio1""'9!,.,.�trllgllfdk:<!,.,.wor�orOwnlmMal�ardi...... -""Qin:. two ot ,,.,.supposed 'IOU'ldels' or Spe:Uat...., l?ealsm. I<XI rct sh.Ye 1-WmY>'s o:in-..00 ab:IY! t,.,. ""'""1Y 01 01,.,.,. ....;.ks""'"''"� b&ng,,.,,.ketedln:krths�.D"..tx.Jlhs-.... .,.o�Of"""<ty As1or'D"IOl>li<"dtho•ntulectuel�'.!hlst581ssl<bostlr>ltloPR...,.,..15..-.:I p..-n'*5ts..nolphkJsoplw's.&t1alongtt'-"°"lwrs3lltoc•rryOU1thls1eisl<. Hamarica;becrl!dtedw1tl\.,._,1ngamwg<1<We.ptoiosoplly·mi:;r.l<a!.-ig 3. Q.Med!tssw>c.Altwfnr<><»AnfssoyC<llhe Nflcess>ryoJ��n g<ll"CY.lr.R.Br-(LondonandNlrNYot�:Contn.un.2008) The questlOl"I then arising 15 whether antH:cxrelationism 1s indeed a sufhc1ent cond1t1on !or Speculative 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' 4. Myr....-eiolllllke1lwsd'llncl""'v""'ted""fd"""""""'10IM<M•as••:•" "'Nin.IUrb:u"ld(Basirq;tol<e· �. 2007), whe<eI loo�"' oh 5 ln2006.whle�m11J>"9P"11"ett>a�nalman..isoipt!OfNth./�"'1. o..r,....,vea�all5101suchpawigo<Oladoclmo-nl"'1lftled"Co< reiot'°"""" Tt>l!Evdar.ce"ltleallSedq..olalonslromFichuo.Schellng.Hegel. Sc:l'>opeMa>e<. NimlSJ:t>ll.HuSS<H"l Heideqger, as- BS lrom Cer""P. Gluroe. Does this mean then that anyone w1ll1ng to countenMCe things-in-themselves counts as aSpeculatt\le Realist? Oe!l'ly not. II this were the case.Speculative Realism would count among its proponents analytic thnkers such as David Lewis. Michael Devitt. David Armstrong. Timothy W�l1amson. Theo­ dore Sider. and othern too numerous to mention_ Anti-cor­ relatiorusm 1s simply tootenuous a cntenon to be counted a sufflaent condition foc incluslOr'l under the bamer of Specu­ lative Realism. Might there be a more pos.t1ve criterion of inclusion? It 1s highly doubtful. Consider the philosophical d1r­ ferences between H!l'man's Object-Oriented Ontology. Gra"lt's neo-ideabst Naturephdosoi:fiy, Me1llassoux's speculatt\le mate riaism. and my own Sellarsian transcendentalnall.rahsm. The ftrst insists that o�y obfects exist. The second defends a dynamc ontology of powers. The third proposes that the Absolute1s not what 1s but wtiat couldbe. The last claimsthat th1rimg 1s errbedded in a nature to wtiich 1t IS logicaly(thoulji not causally) 1rreduc1ble. What 1s theor common feature? The !act that each stakes out a poSltion with regard to the in-1tselr? But so do the analyuc philosophers mentioned above. And the differences that prevent these analytic think ers lrom being grouped tcgether as proponents or a smgle school are surely as signihcll"lt as thosethat di111de the alleged orooonents al Soecula11ve Realism. Harman savs there are things-in-themselves but they can only be allUded to. not known. Grant and Me1lassoux deny that the 1n-1tselfC«lSISts ol things. b.Jt afflrm thought's purchase upon the Absolute I claim that we can know things-in-themselves. but not Gi:o:Jrnan. F\Jt.....-n. McOowel. a-dBIMdom. TllOSI! wflo Ille 10 .....1 that correl<na-smcloosno'aodhllSr-.evere"•UlOwoUddoweltoc:l"«lo.th<! throughcontact with the Absolute.since knowing takes time. What then i.nites us other than the sociobgical fact that our worktends to be dassirted as part ol the Continental trad1 !Ion.while that of Lewis. W1lhamson. Sider et al. 1s classified as ana\yt1c? It IS true that the philosophers taken to representSpecu­ lative Realism share an antipathy to a cena1n philosophical sensib1hty characteristic of post-Heideggenan Continental philosophy: the fet1sh1z1ng of fin1tude. voiced with a rnari­ neredp:irtentousness that is the unlortlX'late consequence ol anglophone wnters self-consciously apng transliterated Franco-Gerrnari.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ray Brassier: Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2007, 296 Pp, ISBN 9780230522046, US $84.95 (Cloth)
    Cont Philos Rev (2010) 42:583–589 DOI 10.1007/s11007-009-9127-8 Ray Brassier: Nihil unbound: enlightenment and extinction Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2007, 296 pp, ISBN 9780230522046, US $84.95 (cloth) Knox Peden Published online: 12 January 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Punctuated by paeans to ‘‘the coruscating potency of reason’’ and the ‘‘dissociative virulence of…non-dialectical negativity,’’ Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound: Enlight- enment and Extinction is a work of philosophy committed to the ‘‘labor of disenchantment initiated by Galileo in the physical realm, continued by Darwin in the biological sphere, and currently being extended by cognitive science to the domain of mind’’ (xi, 45, 40). The defacement of the ‘‘book of the world’’ accomplished during the Enlightenment beckons ‘‘an invigorating vector of intellectual discovery, rather than a calamitous diminishment’’ (xi). This is because ‘‘[t]hinking has interests that do not coincide with those of living; indeed, they can and have been pitted against the latter’’ (xi). Pursuing these interests, Brassier develops a concept of the ‘‘will to know’’ congruent with a ‘‘will to nothingness’’ impervious to the countervailing force of the ‘‘will to live.’’ It is not the least of the ironies of Nihil Unbound that a work committed to marshalling the rigorous stringency of reason against the affective finesse of interpretation often produces claims that connect with the gut as much as the mind. Committed though he is to the notion that words are categorically weak objects for philosophical thought, Brassier nonetheless gets a lot of mileage out of them.
    [Show full text]
  • Against 'Flat Ontologies'
    64 Ray Brassier Deleveling: Against ‘Flat Ontologies’ Ray Brassier is associate professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut. What I am going to present today is a critical discussion of the 65 tenets of so-called ‘flat ontology’. The expression ‘flat onto- logy’ has a complicated genealogy. It was originally coined as a pejorative term for empiricist philosophies of science by Roy Bhaskar in his 1975 book, A Realist Theory of Science. By the late 1990s, it had begun to acquire a positive sense in discus- sions of the work of Deleuze and Guattari. But it only achieved widespread currency in the wake of Manual De Landa’s 2002 book about Deleuze, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. More recently, it has been championed by proponents of ‘ob- ject-oriented ontology’ and ‘new materialism’. It is its use by these theorists that I will be discussing today. I will begin by explaining the ‘four theses’ of flat onto- logy, as formulated by Levi Bryant. Bryant is a proponent of ‘object-oriented ontology’, a school of thought founded by Graham Harman. In his 2010 work The Democracy of Objects, Bryant encapsulates flat ontology in the following four theses: Thesis 1: “First, due to the split characteristic of all ob- jects, flat ontology rejects any ontology of transcendence or presence that privileges one sort of entity as the origin of all others and as fully present to itself.” Thesis 2: “Second, […] the world or the universe does not exist. […] [T]here is no super-object that gathers all other ob- jects together in a single, harmonious
    [Show full text]
  • Language After Philosophy of Nature: Schelling’S Geology of Divine Names
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Liverpool Repository LANGUAGE AFTER PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE: SCHELLING’S GEOLOGY OF DIVINE NAMES DANIEL WHISTLER Each mineral is a real philological problem.1 Future commentary on Dante belongs to the natural sciences… No one has yet approached Dante with a geologist’s hammer, in order to ascertain the crystalline structure of his rock, in order to study the particles of other minerals in it, to study its smoky colour, its garish patterning, to judge it as a mineral crystal which has been subjected to the most varied series of accidents.2 What happens to language after the post-linguistic turn? In what does a speculative approach to religion consist? Such are the two questions around which this essay is structured. It is not my purpose to give a comprehensive answer to either question; rather, I am concerned with one very specific approach that could be taken, and this is the approach of F.W.J. Schelling. Schelling has never been so relevant, and this is in no small part thanks to Iain Hamilton Grant’s Philosophies of Nature after Schelling. Grant’s work–part of the recent resurgence in speculative philosophies—has been instrumental in presenting Schelling’s Naturphilosophie as a viable pursuit for philosophy in the wake of Deleuze. This chapter is intended as a “regional application” of Grant’s presentation of Schelling onto philosophy of language and religion. It is important to stress straight-off that, while language and the numinous may well be two of the deconstructionist’s favourite tools for undermining theoretical discourse, this chapter has no such aim.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik
    Introduction Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik Realism and materialism have become important watchwords in intellectual and cultural discourse today. Despite their di!erences, these philosophical stances propose that thought can think outside itself, that reality can be known without its being shaped by and for human comprehension. This position sharply contrasts with the philosophical and cultural view dominant over the last half century, a view that a"rms the indispensability of interpretation, discourse, textuality, signi#cation, ideology, and power. Diverse as they are, the theoretical pro- grams that constitute this latter orthodoxy (notably phenomenology, hermeneu- tics, post- structuralism, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis) maintain that our apprehension of the natural and social worlds is either constituted or mediated by a discursive #eld or a cognitive subject, and that nothing—or nothing mean- ingful—exists outside of discourse or its socially- organized construction. In short, this orthodoxy has been staunchly anti-realist. Today’s realism and materialism explicitly challenge many of these now prevalent assumptions of cultural practice and theoretical inquiry. Realism Materialism Art (RMA) presents a snapshot of the emerging and rapidly changing set of ideas, practices, and challenges proposed by contemporary realisms and materialisms, re$ecting their nascent reworking of art, philosophy, culture, theory, and science, among other #elds. Further, RMA strives to expand the hori- zons and terms of engagement with
    [Show full text]
  • Hegel 250—Too Late?
    HEGEL 250—TOO LATE? Ljubljana 2020 HEGEL 250—TOO LATE? ANALECTA Publisher: Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo Publishing board: Miran Božovič, Mladen Dolar, Rado Riha, Alenka Zupančič (president), Slavoj Žižek Edited by Mladen Dolar Copyedited by Tanja Dominko and Eric Powell Cover Design by AOOA Layout by Klemen Ulčakar Printed by Ulčakar Grafika First Edition Circulation 200 Ljubljana 2020 This publication has been co-published in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Ljubljana. CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 1Hegel G.W.F.(082) HEGEL 250 - too late? / [edited by Mladen Dolar]. - 1st ed. - Ljubljana : Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo : Goethe-Institut, 2020. - (Zbirka Analecta) (Problemi ; let. 58, 11-12) (Problemi International ; 2020, 4) ISBN 978-961-6376-94-5 (Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo) COBISS.SI-ID 61238531 Table of Contents Hegel Reborn: A Brief Introduction to HEGEL 250—TOO LATE? Árpád-Andreas Sölter. 5 Hegel’s Time! Ana Jovanović, Bara Kolenc, Urban Šrimpf, Goran Vranešević. 9 Nadia Bou Ali and Ray Brassier After Too Late: The Endgame of Analysis. 11 Mladen Dolar What’s the Time? On Being Too Early or Too Late in Hegel’s Philosophy. 31 Luca Illetteratti Nature’s Externality: Hegel’s Non-Naturalistic Naturalism. .51 Zdravko Kobe The Time of Philosophy: On Hegel’s Conception of Modern Philosophy . 73 Bara Kolenc Is It Too Late?. 91 Christian Krijnen “What, if Anything, Has Not Been Called Philosophizing?” On the Relevance of Hegel’s Conception of a Philosophical History of Philosophy. 119 Gregor Moder What Is To Be Done: On the Theatricality of Power. 143 Nadia Bou Ali and Ray Brassier Sebastian Rödl Thinking Nothing .
    [Show full text]
  • RAY BRASSIER Pete Wolfendale
    RAY BRASSIER Pete Wolfendale Ray Brassier is a Scottish philosopher largely responsible for popularising Meillassoux’s work in the Anglophone world. He published one of the first critical engagements with Meillassoux’s work in English and was the translator of the first English edition of After Finitude. He was also one of the principal organisers and one of the four speakers at the infamous ‘Speculative Realism’ conference at Goldsmiths college in 2007, though he has since distanced himself from that term. He has consistently criticised what he sees as the elision of epistemological problems in Anglophone continental philosophy, and the ignorance and sometimes hostility to the natural sciences that is often associated with it. There is a profound affinity between Brassier’s criticisms and Meillassoux’s critique of correlationism, insofar as they both insist on the necessity of taking the results of natural science literally, but there is equally an affinity between their positive positions, insofar as they are both committed to the revival of rationalism in contemporary philosophy. Nevertheless, Brassier has a number of important disagreements with Meillassoux, some of which have grown more serious as his position has developed and changed in recent years. We will begin by presenting an outline of Brassier’s thought in his book Nihil Unbound, and the criticisms of Meillassoux found therein, before addressing how these have developed since its publication. Nihil Unbound connects a number of different themes, structured around the core contention that nihilism is “not an existential quandary but a speculative opportunity.”1 He takes it that nihilism is the logical conclusion of the progressive disenchantment of nature by science begun in the enlightenment, through which conceptual thought comes to be seen as something manifest in causal processes amenable to naturalistic explanation and normative value comes to be seen as something projected upon nature by these same processes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Speculative Turn Continental Materialism and Realism
    The Speculative Turn Continental Materialism and Realism Edited by Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman Open Access Statement – Please Read This book is Open Access. This work is not simply an electronic book; it is the open access version of a work that exists in a number of forms, the traditional printed form being one of them. Copyright Notice This work is ‘Open Access’, published under a creative commons license which means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form and that you in no way alter, transform or build on the work outside of its use in normal aca- demic scholarship without express permission of the author and the publisher of this volume. Furthermore, for any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. For more information see the details of the creative commons licence at this website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ This means that you can: • read and store this document free of charge • distribute it for personal use free of charge • print sections of the work for personal use • read or perform parts of the work in a context where no financial transactions take place However, you cannot: • gain financially from the work in anyway • sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution of the work • use the work in any commercial activity of any kind • profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution
    [Show full text]
  • Concepts and Objects
    5 Concepts and Objects Ray Brassier 1. The question ‘What is real?’ stands at the crossroads of metaphysics and epistemol- ogy. More exactly, it marks the juncture of metaphysics and epistemology with the seal of conceptual representation. 2. Metaphysics understood as the investigation into what there is intersects with epistemology understood as the enquiry into how we know what there is. This intersec- tion of knowing and being is articulated through a theory of conception that explains how thought gains traction on being. 3. That the articulation of thought and being is necessarily conceptual follows from the Critical injunction which rules out any recourse to the doctrine of a pre-es- tablished harmony between reality and ideality. Thought is not guaranteed access to being; being is not inherently thinkable. There is no cognitive ingress to the real save through the concept. Yet the real itself is not to be confused with the concepts through which we know it. The fundamental problem of philosophy is to understand how to reconcile these two claims. 4. We gain access to the structure of reality via a machinery of conception which extracts intelligible indices from a world that is not designed to be intelligible and is not originarily infused with meaning. Meaning is a function of conception and con- ception involves representation—though this is not to say that conceptual representa- tion can be construed in terms of word-world mappings. It falls to conceptual ratio- nality to forge the explanatory bridge from thought to being. 5. Thus the metaphysical exploration of the structure of being can only be carried out in tandem with an epistemological investigation into the nature of conception.
    [Show full text]
  • Speculative Realism
    COLLAPSE III Speculative Realism Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux ‘Speculative Realism: A One-Day Workshop’ took place on 27 April 2007 at Goldsmiths, University of London, under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process, co-spon- sored by COLLAPSE . Rather than announcing the advent of a new theoretical ‘doctrine’ or ‘school’, the event conjoined four ambitious philosophical projects – all of which boldly problematise the subjectivis- tic and anthropocentric foundations of much of ‘continental philosophy’ while differing significantly in their respective strategies for superseding them. It is precisely this uniqueness of each participant that allowed a fruitful discussion to emerge. Alongside the articulation of various challenges to certain idealistic premises, a determination of the obstacles that any contemporary realism must surmount was equally in effect. Accordingly, some of the key issues under scrutiny included the status of science and epistemology in contemporary philosophy, the ontological constitution of thought, and the nature of subject-independent objects. 307 SpecReal.indd 306-307 8/11/07 22:44:38 COLLAPSE III Speculative Realism However, as workshop moderator and co-organiser Alberto Toscano or a communicational consensus, etc. Much of the indicated, a common feature of the work presented was the implication mainstream of nineteenth and twentieth century post-Kan- that from a genuine interrogation of the continental tradition necessarily tian philosophy is about simply redefining, generalising, ensues a repudiation of the orthodoxies symptomatic of that tradition’s specifying, these transcendental structures or conditions conceptual exhaustion (the most visible of which being the seemingly of cognitive legitimation.
    [Show full text]
  • Axiomatic Heresy: the Non-Philosophy of François Laruelle
    Middlesex University Research Repository An open access repository of Middlesex University research http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk Brassier, Ray (2003) Axiomatic heresy: the non-philosophy of François Laruelle. Radical Philosophy, 121 . pp. 24-35. ISSN 0300-211X [Article] Published version (with publisher’s formatting) This version is available at: https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/211/ Copyright: Middlesex University Research Repository makes the University’s research available electronically. Copyright and moral rights to this work are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners unless otherwise stated. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Works, including theses and research projects, may not be reproduced in any format or medium, or extensive quotations taken from them, or their content changed in any way, without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). They may not be sold or exploited commercially in any format or medium without the prior written permission of the copyright holder(s). Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author’s name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pag- ination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Middlesex University via the following email address: [email protected] The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated.
    [Show full text]
  • Editorial Introduction
    Mackay-Intro 16/2/07 11:22 Page 3 COLLAPSE II Editorial Introduction Robin Mackay This volume comprises a selection of texts, some of which would not have existed, others of which may not have been published, and none of which would have ended up in such odd company, were it not for the underlying vision of COLLAPSE, which seeks to generate and to bring together philosophical writing from varying perspectives with work drawn from other fields, in order to challenge institutional and disciplinary orthodoxies and to set in motion new syntheses. This second volume has emerged, as did its predecessor, from the combination of this overall vision, a collaborative process with the authors, and a set of happy coincidences. The result is, we hope you will agree, a rich and rewarding set of conceptual conjunctions. The first part of the volume coalesced into a ‘dossier’ centring on the work of QUENTIN MEILLASSOUX, whose 3 Mackay-Intro 16/2/07 11:22 Page 4 COLLAPSE II recent book After Finitude1 is a work designed to fundamen- tally disrupt that dubious consensus within continental philosophy which emphasises the primacy of the relation of consciousness to the world – however that may be construed – over any supposed objectivity of ‘things themselves’. It may seem that, in the wake of Kant’s Copernican Revolution, this ‘correlationist’ credo – the injunction that, unable to know things ‘in themselves’, philosophy must limit itself to the adumbration of ‘conditions of experience’ – is unassailable, something that only the most unsophisticated, ‘pre-critical’ thinker would seek to challenge. And yet, once this consensus is broken, the consequences are startling.
    [Show full text]
  • Alien Theory
    ALIEN THEORY The Decline of Materialism in the Name of Matter Ray Brassier Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of Warwick, Department of Philosophy April ? 001 2 CONTENTS SYNOPSIS ............................................................................................................ S INTRODUCTION- MATERIALISM, SCIENCE, PHENOMENOLOGY 6 ............................. PHILOSOPHY AND NON-PHILOSOPHY 6 ......................................................................................... WHY MATERIALISM? 15 .............................................................................................................. 1. The empirical contingency of materialism's 16 philosophical necessity .................................... 2. The transcendental necessity of materialism's transformation 37 non philosophical ................ MAN AS NON-MATERIALIST IDENTITY OF PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 46 .................................... DECLI PART I: THE :T OF MATE IALISM AS SUCH 49 ..................... CHAPTER 1- MATTER: COMME TELLE OR TELLE QUELLE? 50 ................................... MATERIALISM AND MATERIOLOGY 59 ......................................................................................... CHAPTER 2- MICHEL HENRY: MATERIAL PHENOMENOLOGY 63 .............................. EN-STASIS/EK-STASIS 63 .............................................................................................................. HENRY AND HUSSERL 66 .............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]