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A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM BRAVER’S HISTORY OF CONTINENTAL

Lee Braver’s book does a rare service, and bravely amputated. Hegel in turn remained a can function as a kind of landmark.1 He de- partial slave to realism in ways that Nietzsche scribes continental as a systematic was able to transform. And so on. According to program of anti-realism, which he traces with this book, in philosophy comes from great learning from through G. hunting down ever subtler residues of realism W. F. Hegel, , the early and in one’s greatest predecessor, then establishing later , on up to Michel a more radical anti-realism than ever before. It Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Along the way reminded me of a of Soviet purges, or of he adds numerous citations from analytic Animal Farm, with Kant, then Hegel, then thinkers occupied with similar anti-realist Nietzsche, then their successors, accused in themes. This makes his book a thorough sur- sequence of bourgeois realist sympathies and vey of the history of , forced to abdicate leadership. The danger of and a contribution to the current project self-parody arises: to get beyond Derrida (the of bridging the analytic-continental divide book’s final hero), are we supposed to scour (though the introduction and jacket blurbs his works for even finer grains of realist bias overstate the analytic component of the book). that must then be denounced? Is a Derrida It is thoroughly researched, highly attuned to show trial approaching in the next ten or fifteen the different possible meanings of realism, and years? The author makes no predictions as to often witty. It is the sort of book that everyone what comes next, but he credits Derrida with working in the continental tradition, and many such a thorough fumigation of realism that it is in the analytic tradition, want to read. hard to see how he can be topped. Moreover, I give these compliments as one of A related problem faces Braver’s less sys- the few hardcore realists working in a conti- tematic reading of the analytic tradition. It is nental idiom, and hence as someone who is plausible enough to read continental philoso- rather appalled by Braver’s anti-realist com- phy as a long anti-realist campaign, since con- mitments. Those who are not appalled will like tinental realists have been rare—though I think the book even more than I do. he overlooks the realist dimension of phenom- The remarkable unity of the book’s vision is enology’s backlash against Hegel, and gener- both its greatest and greatest vice. ally sees too much continuity between Hegel, Continentals are not used to thinking of their Edmund Husserl, and Heidegger. But unlike in such terms as “realism vs. anti-real- the continental school, ism”; following Heidegger, they even see this has always dealt with realism as a genuine op- dispute as a shallow pseudo-problem. Yet tion, not merely as a naïve residue to be over- Braver reminds us that continental philosophy come. One consequence is that is is a heavily anti-realist movement, and that an increasingly respectable pursuit among the Kant casts the longest of all shadows in this analytics, but remains an of scorn school. Certain problems arise from Braver’s among continentals. This is crucial, anti-realist . First, his view of phi- and must not be ignored. Braver generally be- losophy since Kant is at simplistic. For haves as though the W. v. O. Quine/Nelson Braver, the was a wa- Goodman/Donald Davidson/ tershed that made everything before anti-realist axis were the only legitimate strain Kant look naïve. Yet Kant remained moored to of analytic thought, and this is far from the lingering realist prejudices that Hegel then case. He does acknowledge the deep-fried re- PHILOSOPHY TODAY SUMMER 2008 197 © DePaul University 2008 alism of G. E. Moore and , but cess, and Braver ought to become a household never takes it as a serious problem for his nar- name in continental circles. In what follows I rative: early analytic realism is explained away will briefly assess his anti-realist history and as a “” to the of F. H. Bradley, conclude with the inevitable “critical re- and Russell’s chief role for Braver is to serve as marks,” arguing that the anti-realist a comic sidekick performing obvious butcher- has run its course and needs to be dropped. ies on the history of philosophy. There is little trace here of Roderick Chisholm, , The of Realism David Lewis, George Molnar, Timothy Wil- liamson, or others who might complicate Braver is refreshingly aware of all the dif- Braver’s model of continentals and analytics ferent things that could be meant by “realism.” conducting parallel demolitions of our naïvely A might seem staunchly realist on realist past. one while drifting toward anti-realism on The book takes a marvelous long view of others. For this he begins the book with continental thinking since Kant, and will spark a of six realist theses (abbreviated as R greater interest in such figures as Goodman 1–6) and a parallel matrix containing their six anti-realist counterparts (A 1–6). This handy and Davidson among mainstream continental alphanumeric code enables him to make philosophy readers. But Braver’s narrative daunting statements of the following sort: flatters this group too much, not asking them to “[For Nietzsche,] A6 Multiple Selves plus do anything differently besides reading a bit A2 Pragmatic leads to A3 Ontological more analytic philosophy to ease communica- Pluralism and its epistemological counterpart, tion across the great divide. It is a classic Multiple : A2 states that truth is what “Whig history”: continentals are already on benefits us and A6 claims that we are made up the right track, in an inexorable march of of a variety of aspects.” Taken out of context, anti-realist progress. The oppressive of this might seem lacking in aesthetic appeal. realism continue to recede. Keep up the good But the reader masters these abbreviations al- ! Realism is portrayed as a reactionary most as quickly as the long Russian names in chunk of petrified wood that has to and Peace—though a detachable lami- teach us. Finally, the long concluding chapters nated card might have helped! The six pairs of on Foucault and Derrida suggest an oddly theses can be summarized as follows: early-1990s conception of the continental avant garde, at a when more timely R1/A1. The world is not/is dependent on the names (such as and Alain . Badiou) are not as easy a fit with Braver’s R2/A2. Truth is/is not correspondence anti-realist saga. R3/A3. There is/is not one true and complete For me, these are flaws that mar Lee description of how the world is. Braver’s vision of the recent history of philos- R4/A4. Any statement is/is not necessarily ei- ophy. They do not cripple the book qua book, ther true or untrue. which is wholly admirable for its sin- R5/A5. is/is not passive with re- gle-minded focus, its relentless primary and spect to what it knows. secondary erudition, and its genial, even hum- R6/A6. The human does/does not have a ble tone. It is so encyclopedic a work that fu- ture historians might make a good reconstruc- fixed character. tion of post-Kantian philosophy from Braver Though all the “R” and “A” statements mix alone if all original sources were lost. The most easily with those of their own species, readings of individual are pru- Braver shows that they are often scrambled dent and unsurprising, though he does take into varied R/A permutations. Though his list some justifiable risks in presenting such a is remarkably complete, I can think of at least Heideggerized version of Foucault. Braver’s one other important pair. Let’s call it R7/A7: real strength is his sweeping synoptic vision of “The relation of the human subject with the continentalism from Kant to Derrida, backed world is not/is a privileged relation for philos- by triple the needed homework to make this vi- ophy.” That is to say, most anti-realists do not sion tangible. The book deserves great suc- think philosophy has anything to tell us about PHILOSOPHY TODAY 198 © DePaul University 2008 the collision of two inanimate objects if this Braver has a predictably easy showing collision is not somehow encountered by hu- that correspondence truth would fit awkwardly mans— whereas most realists do. But this po- with any denial of external . But in mak- sition must not be confused with the R1/ ing the more important converse claim that re- A1 question as to whether the world exists alism does not go well with non-correspon- apart from the mind. For instance, Heidegger dence, he gives just one inconclusive citation is clear that and always come as a from Michael Lynch (16). Braver does not re- pair; it makes no to ask about what hap- turn to the issue, and his quick change of sub- pened in the world before Dasein appeared. ject has consequences later in the book. For But this A7 position does not prevent two of the key moments in his narrative are Heidegger from holding that being withdraws Heidegger’s of truth as aletheia, and the from all attempts to grasp it, which I take to be Heidegger/Derrida critique of metaphysics as flat-out R1 realism though Braver sees it as ontotheology. Now, aletheia is obviously not A1 (more on this below). Nietzsche presents correspondence, since the unveiling never an opposite case. Though it is fairly clear that gives us anything in final, naked presence; it is Nietzsche is an A1 denier of a true world, this well known that shadow is irremovable for does not prevent him from often being an Heidegger. But truth as unveiling is no clear R7 defender of the will to as something anti-realist victory, and even suggests the op- belonging not just to humans, but even to posite: if something is hidden from Dasein, it non-living , as seen in his more likely has some independence from Dasein, “panpsychist” moments.2 More generally, and this veers toward R1 mind-independent there are numerous continental thinkers who realism. Braver contests this view for deny that they reduce the world to appear- considered below, but the of his ances, and who do allow for something lying anti-realist story lead him to find the matter a beyond the formatted reality of bit too obvious. As for the second moment, (R1), but do not allow parts of this reality to in- Derrida has a strong tendency to conflate real- teract without human mediation (A7). One ex- ism with ontotheology, as if any in ample is found in the early Emmanuel Levinas mind-independent reality entailed the ability with his formless il y a (“there is”), revealed in to make this reality in privileged, op- insomnia but by no means identical with it. A pressive incarnations. In the beloved “ more recent case is Badiou’s “inconsistent Mythology,”3 for instance, Derrida slips from multiplicity,” which exceeds all human efforts ’s insistence that a word has a proper to count it, but seems to have no internal drama meaning to an assertion that Aristotle thinks apart from exceeding such human counts. The this proper meaning can be univocally pinned point is worth mentioning because the R7/ down in language (though his praise of poets A7 rift, omitted by Braver, is actually the best suggests just the opposite). The latter would be litmus test for distinguishing genuine realists ontotheology, but the former is simply from pretenders. R1 mind-independent realism. Braver is more scrupulous than Derrida in distinguishing the Early Analytic Realism two, but at times he treats the downfall of cor- respondence (and hence ontotheology) as Metaphysical realism is often conflated though it entailed the downfall of realism per with the correspondence theory of truth. se. Braver is well aware of this, and his R and A “By most accounts,” writes Braver, “ana- matrices give him a subtle tool for avoiding the lytic philosophy was born from Moore and trap. He gives an example of such conflation in Russell’s revival of realism in rebellion against Putnam (15) but also cites the realist Michael the British idealism that dominated their edu- Devitt’s opposite claim: “Realism does not en- cation” (23). Braver agrees, treating this tail any doctrine of truth….Realism is about the founding realism of analytic thought as just an of reality in general, and what it is like” initial deviation before a combined analytic/ (16). Braver concedes Devitt’s point, yet he continental anti-realist onslaught. Moore and also sees metaphysical realism and correspon- Russell were motivated by rebellion, and did dence truth as making a good natural fit. not have much of a cause. They “could not A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 199 © DePaul University 2008 swallow the notion that the mind is not R5 pas- Hegel. But while it would be foolish to call sive but affects what is known—the very cen- Husserl a realist (though his followers some- terpiece of Kant’s Copernican Revolution” times attempt it), there is a realist flavor to his (24). They upheld the doctrine of external rela- works: unlike Hegel, he makes room for tions, “i.e., that many properties and opaque individual objects that push back possessed by an object are contingent and can against the observer and elude adequate pres- be changed without fundamentally altering the ence. underlying entity” (24). They are joined by Returning briefly to Russell, we read of his , who deplored the mixing of disdain for the history of philosophy, and his with , “rejected what he per- arrogant claim to clear up two thousand years ceived as Husserl’s view that knowledge of philosophical confusion (27). In Russell’s changed the object known” (25) and com- own words, “the study of logic becomes the plained in his own words about Husserl’s central study in philosophy” (27), and the his- “confusion of the subjective with the objec- tory of philosophy is viewed largely as a his- tive, the that no clear distinction is ever tory of errors. Braver observes that “, made between expressions like ‘moon’ and often taken as a model for analytic philosophy, ‘presentation of the Moon” (26). presents its history as one of progress which But here the borders between analytic real- leaves mistakes behind,” and that “Russell ism and continental anti-realism are somewhat built a resistance to the incorporation of his- blurry. We find a doctrine of external relations tory into or metaphysics into the not just in Moore and Russell, but also in DNA of the movement” (28). What is left un- Deleuze, who is missing from Braver’s conti- clear is whether Braver means to link all this nental tableau.4 The case of Husserl is tricky. , ahistoricism, , and arro- He is certainly an idealist who makes no dis- gance with realism, or only with analytic tinction between “real moon” and “presenta- DNA. The former would be unfortunate, since tion of moon,” but this is a different issue from it is not hard to imagine a realist who psychologism, which Husserl famously as- in R1 mind-independent reality while still up- saulted in the Logical Investigations. While holding an A2 or A4 view that reality is only Husserl is doubtless an A1 anti-realist, he is manifested in historical terms, and hence that also in some sense an R5 realist of passive the history of philosophy is of vital impor- knowing, despite the constituting work of the tance. ego—though the moon for Husserl is a purely immanent object, it still has an eidos that re- Kant quires patient eidetic variation to uncover. The point is that Braver’s lack of sympathy for real- Kant is the pivotal figure in Braver’s story: ism leads him to miss certain undeniable “For our topic of anti-realism, [René] Des- flashes of continental realism (Deleuze on ex- cartes, for instance, recedes in importance….In- ternal relations) and to overlook the truly para- stead of the father of , it is doxical status of Husserl, who is credited Kant who forms the great fault line for real- merely with repeating Hegel’s murder of the ism” (33). This singular focus on Kant’s role is noumenal. The problem here is that Husserl of- commendable, and Braver is right to call him fers something that we never find in Hegel: the the central figure of recent philosophy. Yet the recalcitrance of specific objects within the book remains ambiguous as to why this is so. phenomenal realm. Husserl might spend Braver quotes approvingly: “it weeks unlocking the eidos of the moon or a is impossible to find a philosopher before Kant mailbox, whereas for Hegel this would be who was not a metaphysical realist” (34). Al- pointless. Here Braver shares the widespread though Braver has already acknowledged that continental perplexity about what to do with metaphysical realism can mean at least six dif- Husserl, who receives no chapter of his own. ferent things, he shifts too quickly from one to Though Husserl is clearly one of the founding the other in describing Kant’s watershed role. heroes of continental thought, most R2 correspondence is Braver’s first target: continentals are unable to credit him with any abandonment of “the unity of thought and be- major not already found in Kant and ing—that is, the claim that what we think cor- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 200 © DePaul University 2008 rectly corresponds to what is” (34)—is sup- not lie in anti-correspondence, posedly an innovation of Kant. But “unity of mind-dependence, or the subject as active thought and being” more like a Hegeli- knower. an slogan than a realist one. Correspondence Now it seems to me that Kant does belong at has nothing to do with a “unity” of thought and the heart of Braver’s picture, but not for the being, but is rather the view that are reasons he mentions. Instead, what really isomorphic with being, that they can resemble makes Kant a Kantian is what I have termed it to a greater or lesser degree. Is Kant really the A7: the privileged ontological status of the hu- first to reject this model? Possibly so, given his man-world relation over all other relations. uniquely insuperable gulf between phenom- This is clearly a Kantian innovation, and still ena and noumena. But if we accept (as Braver serves as the hidden of continental and I both do) that R2 correspondence theories anti-realism today. Notice that whether one of truth are hard to match with A1 denial of a reads Kant’s noumena as a full-blown realism mind-independent world, then it would be dif- or as a halfway house toward anti-realism, ficult to call a correspon- both sides of this dispute are obsessed with the dence theorist. For Berkeley, there is nothing same relation between human and world. Nei- outside with which to correspond. ther side demands that we speak of the rela- If we take the core of realism to be tions between rocks and windows, or fire and R1 mind-independent reality instead, then cotton, on the same footing as those between Kant deserves even less to be king of the subject and world, since it is taken for granted anti-realists, given the role of the noumena in that science deals with the world and philoso- his philosophy. Braver toys with denying the phy with human access to the world. As with of R1 noumena in Kant, then settles every deep paradigm in human thought, the more cautiously on Hegel as the one who got prejudice here is so vast that it is hard even to rid of them. But in fact, Berkeley already see the alternative. And this prejudice clearly reaches the A1 stance with his proverbial stems from Kant, not from earlier figures. For maxim esse est percipi (“to be is to be per- Descartes and Berkeley, relations are not just ceived”). The fact that perceives the world between mind and body or mind and ; apart from human awareness hardly leaves above all, it is God who is involved in relations. Berkeley stranded in R1 realism, since the For , the gap between perfect horse and world is still exhausted by its appearance in phenomenal horse is not first generated by hu- God’s mind. And since Braver holds with man of the horse, as would be the Putnam that everyone before Kant was a meta- case for Kant. And though might physical realist, Berkeley’s A1 must not have seem to anticipate A7 with his doubts about in- been enough to count him as the watershed fig- ferences that lead beyond customary conjunc- ure. Possibly sensing the problem, Braver con- tion, Hume’s concern can safely be read as tinues to look elsewhere for Kant’s unique- epistemological rather than ontological. What ness, and another option soon appears: “The no one can deny is that the first Critique never center of Kant’s revolution is A5 Active lets us speak of causal relations between sepa- Knower—the thesis that the mind actively or- rate noumena. This is Kant’s most dominant ganizes and constitutes experience; it is more innovation, disputed since his time only by like a factory than wax or a mirror” (35–36). such metaphysical writers as Samuel Alexan- While this is clearly one of the chief insights of der and , and by out- Kant, it can hardly count as “the center of his right materialists. From here on out, continen- revolution,” since Braver will eventually claim tal philosophy the single Kantian rift (or that the later Heidegger and Foucault reversed Hegelian non-rift) between human and world. A5 in favor of impersonal conceptual schemes The one possible exception in Braver’s anti-re- outside the control of the human subject. And alist pantheon would seem to be Nietzsche, despite his great admiration for Heidegger and whenever he ascribes the will to power to ev- Foucault, Braver’s view is that they followed a erything that exists. new paradigm within Kantian anti-realism, not There is another important feature to that they overturned it completely. To summa- Braver’s reading of Kant. The realist residue rize, the of the Kantian fault line can- for which Kant is most blamed is the one that A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 201 © DePaul University 2008 Braver terms R6 Realism of the Subject. That hypostatized into a separately existing thing is to say, Kant’s categories are permanently which cannot be known” (80). In other words, fixed for all finite rational . He “cannot “Hegel considers the Kantian , the allow the possibility of divergent conceptual object beyond all access to experience, to be schemes or organizing faculties” (49) and “fer- not ultimate reality but rather a confusion” vently insists that he has determined the struc- (81). For “we are the ones who make the dis- tures of experience once and for all” (50). Al- tinction between the in-itself and the for-us” though his Paralogisms forbid our believing in (83). Hegel famously concludes that “logic a substantial self, the permanence of Kant’s therefore coincides with metaphysics” (89) categories yields a frozen R6 Realism of the and that “otherness as an intrinsic being van- Subject that his successors will need to ishes” (91). Braver is pleased to proclaim, in a undermine. Hegelian , that “later eras have greater truth without resorting to realist claims to have Hegel, Nietzsche gotten the world right” (100). Reality is “wholly determined by [the totality of all pos- While Kant established an anti-realist para- sible conceptual schemes] without noumenal digm that revolutionized philosophy, he remainder” (104). showed a lingering realist bias in ascribing Kant’s noumena have now been destroyed R1 mind-independence to the noumena and for all later continental philosophy. That R6 permanent character to the human subject. leaves us with Kant’s other apparent defect, For Braver, the greatness of Hegel is to obliter- R6 Realism of the Subject, which Hegel tries ate the noumena and establish A1 mind-de- but fails to eliminate. “Another flaw in Kant’s pendent reality. The role of Nietzsche is to get is that even by his own Kant owes rid of the structure of thought and us an account of the specific table of categories liberate the subject from any stable character he supplies. To say that our possession of these (Kant), and even from any necessary sequence categories is a brute, inexplicable fact is dog- of historical shapes (Hegel). Hegel is actually matic and compromises our autonomy” (60). aware of both problems in Kant, and thinks he By contrast, “Hegel adds a major innovation to has put an end to both alike. But on Braver’s continental anti-realism in inaugurating a new reading, Hegel succeeds only in suspending thesis which I will call A6 Plural Subject, the noumenal realm. His effort to replace meaning minimally that there is more than one Kant’s fixed categories with a of suc- type of subjectivity or set of experience-orga- cessive forms still gives this succession a nec- nizing faculties, which Hegel ties to specific essary character; he thereby remains entan- historical periods” (73–74). When Kant draws gled in R6 Realism of the Subject, as Derrida his table of categories from the known forms of also complains (103–04). judgment, Hegel calls this “an outrage on Sci- Hegel’s rejection of the noumena is obvious ence” (94). The problem for Hegel is not that enough. Compared with Kant’s mixed signals Kant took them from judgments per se, but the about a mind-independent world, the Hegelian fact that, in Braver’s words, “Kant took these signals are clear. Hegel “[rejects] the coher- categories from anywhere” (94). Although ence of the very idea of noumena. This is the Kant is credited with seeing that the self is an beginning of one of the central threads in the activity rather than a substance (104), he still history of philosophy that I will be following sees it as a kind of stability rather than as a out: the erosion of noumena” (79). A central movement (74). All of this suggests a radical thread indeed! In continental philosophy the overcoming by Hegel of Kant’s R6 Realism of noumenal realm has only a handful of defend- the Subject. But not quite, according to Braver. ers. (For disclosure purposes, Braver correctly The problem with Hegel is that “[his] famous cites me as one of them, and expresses polite claim that the true is the whole assumes a clo- astonishment at my realist reading of sure to the object of true descriptions….Despite Heidegger’s tool-) (532n23). Whereas the variety he introduces into the subject, he Kant’s noumena were unknowable, Hegel wants to end up with a list of the subject’s ‘cat- holds that “the problem comes when [a] goal egories’that is as complete and final as Kant’s” of which is not known gets (101). And “in this way, [Hegel] is still operat- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 202 © DePaul University 2008 ing within the Kantian Paradigm” (101). plicate his narrative of anti-realism triumphing Braver’s claim that Hegel’s model of the self is over all adversity, Braver accuses Nietzsche of insufficiently historical opens the door to fur- backsliding into noumenal naiveté of a sort ther progress by those who find a way to that Hegel had ended, and that even Putnam is historicize the self even more. praised for transcending (159). For despite And that brings us to Nietzsche. Braver Nietzsche’s apparent dissolution of reality into writes that “A6 Multiple Selves…isNietzsche’s infinite interpretations, “this metaphor of in- greatest advance in my narrative of continental terpretations brings in the idea of the text that anti-realism” (125). While Kant preserves a gets interpreted, masks [that] imply an original frozen table of categories, and Hegel totalizes face, and so on” (159). Braver’s verdict is the sum of possible , “Nietzsche clear: “[Nietzsche’s] Kantian way of framing plunges the self completely into the physical, the issues is strewn with conceptual traps….An- empirical world….without closure, law, iden- other revolution is needed” (159). For Braver tity, or reason (A6)….Nietzsche scatters an ir- that revolution is found in the later Heidegger, reconcilable multiplicity of power-hungry with the early Heidegger paving the way. drives” (125). In Nietzsche’s own words, “be- coming does not aim at a final state, does not Heidegger Early and Late flow into ‘being’” (125). The world is a cease- less of , and our im- Heidegger is the second great watershed of pose fixity only for the interests of survival: Braver’s history. He radicalizes the chief fea- this is Braver’s reading of the will to power tures of the Kantian Paradigm pursued by (126). For Nietzsche the world is made of Hegel and Nietzsche, though Heidegger never verbs, not nouns (121); chance, not necessity fully reverses Kant, and remains within the (127); dynamic quanta, not things (143). If we anti-realist lineage. The reading of Heidegger subtract from a thing’s properties and rela- is certainly diligent: at nearly 180 pages, it is tions, we are left with nothing (152). In double the treatment given to anyone else in Braver’s reading, those who remain realists in the book. The early Heidegger was already an the face of cosmic flux are nothing but various anti-realist, but remained trapped in a Kantian degenerate types: “the ascetic, the Christian, vision of “authentic” human Dasein and its the reactive, weak, herd, slave, and so on. constitutive temporal structure. The later These types….I will group under the umbrella Heidegger depersonalized the world with his term ‘the weak’” (114). By contrast, “[the epochal history of being, which places Dasein strong] are anti-realists” (122). in the passive role of a shepherd of being who For Braver, this amounts to an excellent fur- waits and thanks. But the later Heidegger is ther step toward the end of realism, which he eventually purged for the same reason as ev- seems to agree with Nietzsche in viewing as eryone else in this story: he too harbors a hid- the doom of the West (115). But following den realist bias. By demanding a permanent Braver’s usual , Nietzsche is accused of openness to being, Heidegger turns wonder a lingering realist bias of his own. By viewing into a new form of authenticity, a new fixed vi- chaos and the will to power as real, and by up- sion of human reality that Foucault and holding a real kernel of the self, Nietzsche un- Derrida will need to subvert. My main objec- dercuts his own anti-realist breakthroughs. tion to this reading is that Braver misses the “[Nietzsche] has to claim to have gotten it traces of R1 mind-independent reality in both right about chaos in order to accuse metaphys- the early and later Heidegger. This leads him to ics, , and so on of getting it wrong see nothing but residual, “bad” forms of real- in positing stable things, heaven, and so on” ism in Heidegger, although Heidegger’s brand (144). Braver cites an important passage from of realism is a more productive designed Beyond Good and Evil in which Nietzsche largely to fight against the Kant/Hegel/ makes clear that the self has some inner reality, Nietzsche tradition of present-at-hand some true nucleus of selfhood that speaks in metaphysics. every event (147). But this means that “Nietz- Braver gives abundant praise to the early sche’s is grounded in a realist ” Heidegger, whose Being and Time he rightly (147). Instead of taking this as a spur to com- calls “astonishing” (163). He views this classic A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 203 © DePaul University 2008 work as the culmination of the Kantian para- Braver’s main criticism of Being and Time digm, which will be grounds for criticism no is that it shows a lingering attachment to less than praise (163). What is most ruinous in R6 Realism of the Subject: Heidegger’s eyes is Vorhandenheit, or pres- the early work [of Heidegger] still operates ence-at-hand—and Braver jumps the gun by within the Kantian paradigm in important ways, identifying presence with realism (164). There are three supposedly anti-realist points for most particularly in that Being and Time is orga- which the early Heidegger is lauded: the nized around a realist conception of the subject tool-analysis, the dependence of being on (R6). Though it is inseparable from the world… Dasein, and truth as unconcealment. First, fundamental moods and the anticipation of Braver follows the usual reading for which death reveal a formal structure of Dasein that is presence-at-hand means independence from permanent and universal (R6), allowing us to Dasein: “[present-at-hand objects] are inde- appropriate it to live appropriately. Heidegger pendent of us; they do not depend on the en- also employs a Kantian counter with Dasein in order to be” (167). By [that] posits an ultimate definition of Dasein as contrast, ready-to-hand or zuhanden entities, temporality. (253) also known as “tools,” gain meaning only as part of the system of worldhood (172). Tools To summarize, the early Heidegger steers have meaning only in relation to one another clear of the noumena, makes being and Dasein and to us, thereby undercutting the independ- co-dependent, and gets rid of truth as correct- ence of present-at-hand objects. Thus, by turn- ness, but remains enslaved to a permanent ing to our pre-theoretical grasp of the world, structure of temporality and the belief in a true, Heidegger destroys realism (173). This fur- authentic self that is recuperable in special thers the glorious downfall of noumena, which moods. For Braver, the later Heidegger aban- Braver finds “incoherent,” (183) since if some- dons the bad points while preserving the good thing is independent of appearance, it must ap- ones. The later Heidegger is “one of the turn- pear as independent—the typical claim of Ger- ing points, for better or worse, in the history of man Idealism and its sympathizers (193). philosophy as a whole” (341). One achieve- ment of the later Heidegger is to eliminate the Second, Braver has no doubt that being is de- fixed temporal structures and true authentic pendent on Dasein. “The idea that Being needs self of Being and Time, replacing them with Dasein is uncontroversial, even obvious: epochs of being sent in different ways at differ- presencing requires someone to whom or a site ent times—beyond the control of Dasein, and in which to be present….Thus we arrive at not occurring for any specific reason. An even Dasein-dependent Being, the rejection of more intriguing feature of Braver’s later R1 Mind-Independence at this level” (186). Heidegger is his apparent rejection of a key Elsewhere, Braver goes so far as to say that ev- anti-realist doctrine. Until now, Braver has al- eryone agrees with this claim: “it is admitted ways praised the emergence of anti-realist “A” on all sides that Being is Dasein-dependent” doctrines as a good thing, and denounced their (190, emphasis added). Third, Braver judges abandonment as a form of regression. But now, the doctrine of truth as unconcealment to be for the first time, he applauds the disappear- the most radical aspect of the early Heidegger. ance of an “A” feature: none other than the cru- Heidegger drops R2 Correspondence Truth cial A1 Mind-Dependence, which had previ- and complains that the tradition has stuck with ously been one of the pillars of the continental this model for much too long (199). But Braver world-view in Braver’s account. “[The takes an additional, more extreme step, read- Heideggerian] paradigm transforms ing the end of correspondence as entailing that A1 Mind-Dependence…. Mutual interdepen- truth is not different from appearance. “[For dence: man and Being intertwine and can only Heidegger] Being is what Being presents itself be understood and exist in relation to each as” (226), and “the key to his advance beyond other” (341). Nonetheless, Braver does not the Kantian paradigm is that [he] dispenses bite the bullet and read Heidegger as convert- with the reality-appearance distinction, the ing A1 back into R1 Mind-Independence. In- key feature of metaphysics for him” (205). stead, he labels the new position as an “Imper- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 204 © DePaul University 2008 sonal Conceptual Scheme” (ICS), which he anti-realist because of the tool-analysis, the finds both in Heidegger’s epochs of being and dependence of being on Dasein, and the model Foucault’s . of truth as unconcealment. He also judges the Braver realizes that the ICS cannot be a later Heidegger to be anti-realist for the latter fully anti-realist doctrine, since it strips hu- two reasons, despite the admittedly realist mans of the power to constitute reality, restor- overtones of Gelassenheit and its passive ing that power to Being as “first among equals” shepherdly waiting for the next epoch of be- (278). Braver concedes that being is some- ing. But as I see it, none of Braver’s three thing “prior” for Heidegger, (328) and rightly points qualify Heidegger as an anti-realist. labels Gelassenheit as R5 Passive Knower, a Let’s go in reverse order for ease of presenta- direct contradiction of Kant’s vehement tion. A5 Active Knower model (306). Does all this First, consider Heidegger’s model of make the later Heidegger a realist, thereby col- aletheia. Instead of truth as something in the lapsing the Whig history of continental mind corresponding to something in the world, anti-realism? No, says Braver. He insists that truth is now a matter of unveiling; Dasein is al- even if being is prior, it is nonetheless ex- ways both in and in shadow. Braver takes hausted by its appearance to humans, holding this downfall of R2 Correspondence to lead nothing in reserve. “[For Heidegger,] how automatically to the end of R1 Mind-Inde- things present themselves is how they are; if pendence. We have already seen that the in- they present themselves differently at different ability to correspond with external reality does points in history, then they are in different not entail that there is none. Surprisingly, ways” (266). On the next page, we read that Braver slips back into this assumption despite “[Heidegger] considers whatever appears to be his early unmasking of it. He defends this read- ” (267). And later, “being, which isn’t a ing of Heidegger with numerous citations, but being, simply isn’t the kind of thing that could they are inconclusive, especially when juxta- exist apart from its appearings to people posed with contrary passages cited by Braver throughout history; it is its appearings, which himself. It is by no means the case that veiling occur historically” (271). In short, any realist implies there is nothing hidden behind the veil. tendency awakened by passive Gelassenheit This is an odd claim to make, and really and impersonal historical epochs is blocked amounts to a strange of Hegel onto from reversing into realism by Braver’s insis- Heidegger. I mentioned above that Braver is tence on A1 Mind-Dependence, that being can too quick to see basic agreement between exist only in correlation with humans. Braver Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger in questions of never even toys with the notion that Heidegger A1 Mind-Dependence. Despite Heidegger’s might be an R1 realist. His sole disappoint- obvious respect for Hegel, his references to ment with the later Heidegger concerns symp- him are overwhelmingly negative, including toms of that old Kantian disease, R6 Realism the key passage early in Being and Time where of the Subject. Despite the A6 intent of the Hegelian definition of being as “the inde- Heidegger’s openness to multiple historical terminate immediate” is cited as one of the epochs, this A6 position slides toward a hid- most horrific examples of the forgetting of be- den R6 bias, just as Hegel’s did earlier. For, ing in favor of presence-at-hand. Braver also “however much…opennessmay differ from pe- makes no productive use of Heidegger’s jar- riod to period, man must always be open to Be- ring Zen-like statement at the end of Kant and ing…simplyin order to be human. This rein- the Problem of Metaphysics that when German states the R6 Realism of the Subject and its Idealism suppressed the things-in-themselves concomitant ethics [of authenticity] that it closed off human finitude. On the whole, I [Heidegger] had apparently left behind. Won- find it impossible to read the collected works der then becomes a new form of authenticity as of Heidegger and think that he views Hegel as recapturing or living in accordance with our an ally; there is too much evidence to the con- essence..” (339). trary. This, of course, bears directly on I will now give a brief statement of what is Braver’s reading of Heidegger. For his re- wrong with this reading of Heidegger. We saw peated assertions that things are nothing more that Braver views the early Heidegger as an than their appearing is a good summary of A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 205 © DePaul University 2008 Hegel, but a disastrous reading of Heidegger, enough: tools belong to world, and world is de- the thinker par excellence of veiledness, termined by its for-the-sake-of-which, and this hiddenness, concealment, sheltering, hinting, turns out to be human Dasein. Tools are not signaling, formal indication, and withdrawal just slabs of wood or stone that are later in- from every view. To say that the world is ex- vested with human meaning; in true hausted by its appearance is tantamount to say- phenomenological style, they are encountered ing that it is exhausted by its presence—the as laden with significance from the start. This most un-Heideggerian teaching one can imag- apparently supports Braver’s mainstream view ine. that present-at-hand means “independent from Second, Braver is fascinated by “the mutual Dasein” while ready-to-hand means “linked interdependence of man and being.” Although with Dasein in a relational system.” Else- he never has the gall to label this as an outright where, I have argued that exactly the opposite “A” doctrine, he still contends that it forbids is the case.6 The argument can be stated briefly R1 Mind-Independent noumena. But this is by considering the several different examples simply a case where meets orange. For it Heidegger gives of presence-at-hand. He does is not at all “obvious,” as Braver holds, that be- not use the term Vorhandenheit only (or even ing is exhausted by its appearance to humans primarily) for independent physical sub- in specific epochs. All that is obvious is that stances, as Braver and others so often imply. Heidegger believes in a permanent correlation Instead, presence-at-hand also refers to the or rapport between man and being, a doctrine presence of phenomena in , as in that Quentin Meillassoux has aptly termed 5 Husserl’s philosophy, which Heidegger ac- “correlationism.” Heidegger’s correlationism cuses of never raising the question of the being is easily proven by his famous discussion of of the phenomena. In fact, presence-at-hand Isaac ’s laws: without Dasein, these refers more broadly to perceptions, objects of laws would be neither true nor false. It is clear theoretical comportment, broken equipment enough that for Heidegger, being and Dasein that suddenly juts into view, and also to physi- (and later, being and man) exist only in com- cal substance. Now, it is quite obvious that pany with one another. But this is nothing more than what I have called A7 Privileged what links all these modes is not “independ- Human-World Relation; it does not amount to ence from Dasein.” Au contraire, all of them A1 Mind-Dependence. If two things need are explicit objects of Dasein’s comportment, each other to exist, it does not follow that their and hence all are present to human awareness. existence is exhausted by their interaction. No This is perfectly obvious in the case of percep- matter how much “being needs man,” it is only tions, Husserlian phenomena, and broken the presencing of being that is accessible to hu- tools, all of which plainly exist only in con- mans, not being itself. Even if we grant junction with a human observer. Yet the same Heidegger’s (rather bizarre) idea that being is true even of Braver’s showcase example of would disappear without Dasein, it does not “independent” presence-at-hand: natural follow that being is completely accessible to physical substance. Heidegger’s point is not Dasein within this endless marriage. When that physical substance is independent, but that Braver claims otherwise, his citations are thin; it seems to be independent: it is mathematized he seems to be projecting either Hegel or in the Cartesian manner, but this means - Derrida onto Heidegger in order to make his ization in terms of present-at-hand properties, story flow more smoothly. The key point to re- which loses the being of the things. In short, member is this: if being were truly reducible to there is nothing remotely Dasein-independent all its transient historical incarnations, then be- in the idealized scientific conception of matter, ing would be equivalent to its presence. But by which for Heidegger is no better than a violent definition, being for Heidegger is that which reduction of the world to Vorhandenheit. Con- always withdraws into absence. tra Braver and many others, true independence This brings us to the Father of Waters in belongs only to Zuhandenheit, since tools Heidegger studies: the tool-analysis. Braver is withdraw from all human awareness—a far far from alone in reading this analysis as a tri- more independent place to be than conscious- umph of anti-realism. His reasoning is clear ness. PHILOSOPHY TODAY 206 © DePaul University 2008 Braver would probably make the under- Heidegger is the opposite of what Braver standable objection that tools belong to world, claims. He is more like an anti-Kant, sparking that world is a holistic system, and that this a realist revolution of concealed, withdrawn system only gains meaning from human things, and merely lapsing into a bit of Dasein, thereby making tools utterly old-fashioned anti-realist bias: namely, Dasein-dependent. But this view is subverted A7 Mutual Interdependence of human and by the crucial fact that tools break for world. But if Heidegger is not an anti-realist, Heidegger. If ready-to-hand items were really then the basic conception of Braver’s narrative exhausted by their current system of refer- is in danger. ences, with nothing held in reserve, then there would be no surplus in them able to break Foucault, Derrida down or malfunction. What breaks in the tool cannot be something already at work, but must Braver does a fine job of showing be something withdrawn or sequestered that Heidegger’s underrated influence on suddenly breaks forth. Hence, the best path to Foucault’s philosophy: “I have tried to show in follow is simply to admit that tools are not de- this chapter that Foucault is best read as a dis- finable as a system of relations. The relational ciple of Heidegger, and that the later system certainly explains the status of tools for Heidegger’s influence on him is more general Dasein in any given moment, but broken tools and more illuminating than, for example, show that Dasein is always partly wrong in Nietzsche’s” (427). Foucault furthers the later how it grasps them. The tool holds surprises in Heidegger’s model of impersonal conceptual store—surprises not currently expressed in the schemes, or epistemes, in which the subject is system of worldhood. The tools themselves not a fixed root as in Kant, but is produced by a are absent from view, independent from conflux of . Yet Foucault differs from Dasein, which is precisely not the case for Heidegger in several ways. Instead of presence-at-hand. Among other , this Heidegger’s “” approach to his- reading of tool-being makes immediate sense tory, Foucault digs into the archive of “minor” of Heidegger’s remark that readiness-to-hand documents such as prison registers, giving him is the way things are “in themselves,” a claim more empirical than Heidegger. And that puzzles Braver and pushes him to compli- though Foucault’s archaeological period cated explanatory efforts. adopted “[the later] Heidegger’s monolithic Braver’s view that Heidegger removes conception of a single dominant understand- R1 Mind-Independent Reality from the pic- ing for each Epoch,” he later “insists that some ture converts Heidegger into an idealist. Yetre- elements can be carried over to another period, call that the first impetus to Heidegger’s career [and] take on new significance in this new ho- came from his objection to the idealist side of listic context, altered by the fact that other ele- Husserl, who brackets the world and reduces ments change drastically” (412). Even more things to their appearance in consciousness. importantly, while the later Heidegger’s per- The young Heidegger insisted that things are manent openness to being flirts with an R6 Re- not primarily observed as phenomena in con- alism of the Subject, it is Foucault who “makes sciousness. The tools are independent things, the essence of human nature an anti- or coun- withdrawing into shadow no less than being it- ter-essence, the ability to transgress anything self. In the later Heidegger this tendency is prescribed as our necessary or true ” equally strong (but no stronger). Hence it is (424). Yet the merciless Braver charges even somewhat alarming that Braver pays so little Foucault with a hidden realist bias. For attention to Heidegger’s 1949 reflection on Foucault “takes the traditional form of authen- “the thing,” in which the jug is given powerful ticity—uncover your true self [so] that you independence from the potter who makes it. may live in accord with it. He has determined And we have already seen that Braver con- human nature to be the inability ever to be de- cedes other realist points in the later termined once and for all by any specific na- Heidegger, especially Gelassenheit as a ver- ture. Although this is as distant as one can get sion of R5 Passive Knower. The more the evi- from a traditional realist essence, it is still what dence mounts, the more it seems that we really are, which in turn determines what A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 207 © DePaul University 2008 kind of behavior is appropriate to this this narrative up to this point, Derrida should anti-identical identity” (426). On Foucault’s move ahead by attacking the most realist ele- model a cannabis-using, transgendered envi- ment of the Heideggerian Paradigm” ronmental activist will surely be privileged (472–73). Derrida’s central target, according over a dull yuppie businessman, as somehow to Braver, are the impersonal conceptual closer to the transgressive anti-essence of the schemes (ICS) that we find in Heidegger’s ep- subject. Braver would see it as a lingering form ochs of being and Foucault’s epistemes. of realism if the activist were called closer to Braver argues that “ICS is in many ways the “true” human reality than the yuppie. linchpin of the Heideggerian Paradigm,” (473) Derrida is awarded first place by Braver for since it strips power from Kant’s A5 Active philosophical brilliance in the Knower even while keeping reality dependent post-Heideggerian era, surpassing even on its accessibility to humans (A1). “Derrida’s Foucault (342). Though Braver humbly admits objection (put into my terms) is that these Im- to less about Derrida than the other personal Conceptual Schemes still partake too figures covered in his book, he does a fine job much of R3 Uniqueness. Although they are of integrating him into his narrative. Derrida multiple and change over the course of history “defines [the] history [of philosophy] as the (A3), each one monolithically determines the era of the metaphysics of presence because its characteristics of virtually everything that is ‘matrix…isthe determination of Being as pres- during its reign” (473). In Derrida’s eyes, ence in all of this word.’ Those who transferring the schemes from individual have read my book to this point will not be sur- Dasein (in the early Heidegger) to impersonal prised that I interpret this metaphysics of pres- schemes (in the later Heidegeger), is no great ence as a form of realism” (434). Here is help. “It is the very idea of conceptual schemes Braver’s final grave accusation against real- that bothers Derrida, so Heidegger’s moves of ism, which was already blamed for the transferring them from A5 subject to imper- ressentiment of Nietzsche’s weaklings, and for sonal Being, changing them from apparently the general ruin of the West in Heidegger’s ac- one permanent set (R3) to an indefinitely open count. But I have already suggested that under succession (A3), rendering them abyssal by no circumstances should the metaphysics of giving up any attempt to account for them, are presence be confused with realism. Stated in all secondary issues” (474). Braver’s terminology, basic realism can be de- In conclusion, Braver observes that “[for scribed primarily as an R1 doctrine of Derrida] there is nothing outside the text be- Mind-Independent Reality. By contrast, the cause our experience is always linguistically metaphysics of presence (a.k.a. mediated….Meaning gets generated by ele- “ontotheology”) is a thoroughly R2 Corre- ments differing from each other [différance], a spondence Truth doctrine, which holds that process that creates meaning while perma- certain present-at-hand beings can embody the nently deferring the full presence of referents presence of being as a whole. But we have seen that would constitute ultimate meaning” repeatedly that R1 mind-independent realism (495). Unlike for Heidegger and Foucault, “the is in no way committed to R2 correspondence, system has no stable identity in the first place despite Braver’s tendency to treat them as a to change; each system is simultaneously package. In fact, Heidegger provides a fine ex- many things at once” (496). In this way, ample of a philosopher with realist traits who “Derrida’s reformation of the [Kantian] notion denounces ontotheology utterly (though [of conceptual schemes] is far deeper than the Derrida has a special talent for finding the Heideggerian Paradigm’s changes, giving it a places where Heidegger lapses into it despite strange new shape that more successfully es- himself). capes the lingering vestiges of realism,” an es- In describing how Derrida surpasses cape that Braver regards as the very mission of Heidegger and Foucault, Braver shows witty philosophy (496). self-awareness: “The overall pattern traced by But once again, the notion that there is noth- the history of continental anti-realism that I ing outside the text, nothing outside the play of have been describing is that of the progressive différance, is a better fit with Hegel’s position erosion of realism….According to the of than with Heidegger’s. If Hegel had been a bit PHILOSOPHY TODAY 208 © DePaul University 2008 flashier, he might easily have written the fol- there would seem to be no central anti-realist lowing words of Derrida: “The exit from the thread in his story. This is why I proposed an book, the other and the threshold, are all articu- additional A7 doctrine of Privileged Hu- lated within the book.” Hegel might also have man-World relation; surely A7 is the one com- written these words of Lee Braver: “a transcen- mon thread leading through continental dental signified or the notion of something anti-realism from Kant to Derrida. Notice that ‘outside the text’—that is, wholly untouched even Kant makes no effort in the Critical Pe- by human thought or description—is itself part riod to deal with the relations between two in- of the text—that is, an idea, a description, a animate things. His constant focus is on the posit, or a characterization” (445). Such words single gap between phenomena and noumena, go easily with Hegel’s demolition of the never between two noumena. And though I noumena. But they do great violence to myself read Heidegger as an R1 realist, there is Heidegger’s philosophy of a Being withdrawn no place in Heidegger where two things are al- from all access, a jug that can only be produced lowed to relate apart from any human access to because it is and not the reverse, and tools that them. Heidegger’s jug recedes from all human break precisely because they are more than contact, but is never described as withdrawing their current efficient functioning. from the wine or the environing air. (Once After all, it is not Heidegger’s critique of again Nietzsche is the possible odd man out, Husserl that the signified is nothing apart from given his frequent granting of the will to power the infinite dispersal of its signs. Heidegger’s to non-human entities; indeed, I believe this is critique is the opposite: Husserl makes the sufficient grounds for placing him outside the things too shallow, not too falsely Kantian lineage). deep. Husserl lets the phenomena be ex- To find a major post-Kantian philosopher hausted by their accessibility to us. Heidegger who puts the relation between wind and clouds would never say that “whatever is outside the on the same footing as that between humans text is accessible only within the text.” This no- and clouds, we have to go to Whitehead (or to tion is purely Hegelo-Derridean, and Hegel in any materialist), and hence outside the conti- Heidegger’s eyes is among the worst of all fel- nental tradition. The A7 privilege of hu- ons in the reduction of being to pres- man-world interplay, whether it be defined as ence-at-hand. Despite Braver’s assertions that gap or as marriage, is the central unspoken presence-at-hand means independence, dogma of continental philosophy, even more Hegel’s thoroughgoing doctrine of mediated than A1 mind-dependence. And I do mean dependence is seen by Heidegger as one of the “unspoken”! A7 is missing even from Braver’s most flagrant cases of a metaphysics of pres- uncommonly thorough catalogue of anti-real- ence. Relational contexts are precisely what ist variants, and I have never heard it men- Heidegger cannot accept as a model of being. tioned as a basic principle by any continental His rejection of R2 Correspondence is not a re- thinker. Only when first reading Whitehead’s jection of R1 Mind-Independence, but the op- blatantly anti-Kantian did posite: it is only because being is so inexhaust- it even occur to me to question this privilege of ible that correspondence fails. the human-world pairing. Now, there are two possible reactions to the discovery of this Concluding Remarks A7 principle. One is to praise it for being so sensible—for how could we talk about rela- As I see it, Heidegger is the Trojan horse in tions to which we have no access? But the Braver’s narrative, the first of his heroes since other possibility is to view A7 as dogmatic Kant to defend R1 noumena (aside from baggage preventing anti-realists from sailing Nietzsche’s flirtation with will to power in the for new seas. How might continental philoso- inanimate realm). Even those who reject my phy look if we endorsed an R1 noumenal read- ascription of R1 noumena to Heidegger will ing of Heidegger, and enriched it with an probably concede that they are defended by R7 view that any two will relate in the Kant. What this means is that all six realist same basic manner as Dasein and being or doctrines in Braver’s matrix have been upheld Dasein and beings? We would then have a by at least one of his anti-realist heroes. Hence, strange model in which entities withdraw not A FESTIVAL OF ANTI-REALISM 209 © DePaul University 2008 just from Dasein, but from each other as well: announcing the anti-realist trend of continen- veiling and unveiling all the way down, even in tal thought from Kant to Derrida, the author the brute sphere of inanimate causation. But wants to focus and amplify the A1 destruction this is a story for another time. of noumena. But I prefer to interpret his book To summarize, Braver’s frank statement of according to the old Hegelian maxim that the the continental anti-realist credo was long owl of Minerva flies at dusk. The introduction overdue. It would be hard to ask for a more states that “[continental anti-realism] is still thoroughly researched work on the topic, or close to us, still alive, which makes its struc- for one more honest or more technically pre- ture difficult to discern; anatomy is easier to cise. The main flaw of the book is its Whig his- make out during an autopsy than a surgery” tory of realism progressively demolished by a (7). And yet, there are only minor problems radical train of anti-realists (with little room with Braver’s excellent anatomy lesson. This for improvement after Derrida), and its news leads us to a ghoulish conclusion worthy of a blackout of realist uprisings on the analytic tale by Poe: the book is not surgery, but an au- side of the river. My suspicion, and my hope, is topsy of continental anti-realism. The surgeon that the book will be a landmark for reasons is a master, but does not realize that he is oper- quite the opposite of Braver’s aspirations. By ating on a dead body.

ENDNOTES

1 Lee Braver, A Thing of This World: A History of prior to 1960, DeLanda is the only one known to me Continental Anti-Realism (Northwestern Univer- who openly proclaims realism. ’s claim sity Press, 2007). to realism in Pandora’s Hope (, MA: Har- 2 On this topic see David Skrbina, in the vard Univ. Press, 1999) is more ambiguous. West (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 137–39. 5 Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on 3 In Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. A. Bass. the Necessity of Contingency, trans. R. Brassier. (Chicago: Press, 1985). (London: Continuum, 2008). 4 Manuel DeLanda’s influential Intensive Science 6 Graham Harman, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the and Virtual Philosophy (London: Continuum, Metaphysics of Objects (Chicago: Open Court, 2002) even argues that Deleuze and Félix Guattari 2002). are realists to the core. Of continental thinkers born

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