Alain Badiou’s treatment of objects in Logics of Worlds is both rich and highly technical, though its terminological challenges are softened by his use of illuminating examples. This article takes a twofold approach to the topic. In a first sense, the theory of objects developed in Logics of Worlds by way of an imagined protest at the Place de la République in Paris exhibits two questionable aspects: (1) the notion that the object is a bundle of qualities (found proverbially in (...) Hume, but also in Kant’s “transcendental object=X”), and (2) the ultimately idealist assumption of a possible isomorphy between appearance and reality. But in a second sense, Badiou’s transcendental account of worlds leads him to a fascinating theory of exemplary entities, one that is immune to the critiques of onto-theology made by Heidegger and Derrida. This can be found in his account of the “transcendental functor” in Alexander the Great’s decisive victory over Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C.E. (shrink)

I argue against the use of general ‘ism’ terms such as ‘speculative realism’ and ‘correlationism’ by Harman. This use is contrasted with more nuanced readings of philosophers, referring to Bryant and DeLanda’s more subtle versions of materialism that do not fit the general label. Instead of general categories I defend Deleuze’s use of the concept of problem as studied by Bell. This argument is then developed through a close reading of Logic of Sense, against Harman’s denial of the reality of (...) relations and processes. I demonstrate that Deleuze is not a correlationist as defined by Harman, by following Sauvagnargues, Smith and Beistegui on the concepts of event and simulacrum in Logic of Sense. I then consider Deleuze’s study of language and his argument that designation, signification and manifestation rely on the concept of sense. This argument leads to a position which is neither idealism, nor materialism, because the differential processes at work in sense cannot be reduced to matter or to the subject, working instead between them and denying their independent reality. (shrink)

A recent political critique of Speculative Realism by Catherine Malabou finds fault with this loosely arranged movement for its focus on reality in its own right, apart from the subject. Malabou responds with a radical ontological claim, holding effectively – if not always explicitly – that subject and object mutually generate one another amidst a primal void. After criticizing this idea, I point to some of the difficult political consequences of such a position, though Malabou defines it positively as an (...) anarchic awakening that generates new collectivities unconstrained by any thing-in-itself. By contrast, I contend that nonhuman constraints and collaborators are an intimate part of the human political sphere. More generally, it is shown that there are consequences for which sorts of relations are taken to be the primary political relations. (shrink)

The claim is frequently made that, as cities become loaded up with information and communications technology and a resultant profusion of data, so they are becoming sentient. But what might this mean? This paper offers some insights into this claim by, first of all, reworking the notion of the social as a spatial complex of ‘outstincts’. That makes it possible, secondly, to reconsider what a city which is aware of itself might look like, both by examining what kinds of technological (...) practices are becoming commonplace and by considering the particular case of spatial awareness. In turn, this leads to a third rumination on how cities might become aware as different kinds of sprite, channelling outstincts in spatially variable ways. Whatever the case, it is clear that new technical-artistic interventions are required if these sprites are not to become simply servants of the security–entertainment complex. Some of these interventions are examined in the fourth part of the paper. (shrink)

This article mounts a defense of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) from various criticisms made in Russell Sbriglia and Slavoj Žižek’s co-edited anthology Subject Lessons. Along with Sbriglia and Žižek’s own Introduction to the volume, the article responds to the chapters by Todd McGowan, Adrian Johnston, and Molly Anne Rothenberg, the three in which my own version of OOO is most frequently discussed.

This article contends that the central principle of modern philosophy is obscured by a side-debate between two opposed camps that are united in accepting a deeper flawed premise. Consider the powerful critiques of Kantian philosophy offered by Quentin Meillassoux and Bruno Latour, respectively. These two thinkers criticize Kant for opposite reasons: Meillassoux because Kant collapses thought and world into a permanent “correlate” without isolated terms, and Latour because Kant tries to purify thought and world from each other rather than realizing (...) that they are always combined in “hybrid” form. What both critiques tacitly accept is the notion that “thought” and “world” are the two major poles of the universe. I claim that this stems from the post-Cartesian assumption that thought and world are the two basic kinds of things that exist. The name “onto-taxonomy” is introduced for this view. (shrink)

Speculative Realism (SR) has often been characterised as a heterogeneous group of thinkers, united almost exclusively in their commitment to the critique of what Quentin Meillassoux terms ‘correlationism’ or what Graham Harman calls the ‘philosophy of (human) access.’ The terms ‘correlationism’ and ‘philosophy of access’ are in turn often treated – at times even by Meillassoux and Harman themselves – as synonymous. In this paper, I seek to analyse these terms to evaluate their similarities, but also possible differences. I shall (...) argue that the difference between the two terms ought to be retained and emphasised, since it hints at important differences between the positions of Harman and Meillassoux. (shrink)

This article concerns Quentin Meillassoux’s claim that Kant’s revolution is responsible for philosophy’s catastrophic loss of the ‘great outdoors’, of our knowledge of things as they are in themselves. I argue that Meillassoux’s critique of Kant’s ‘weak’ correlationism and his defence of ‘strong’ correlationism are predicated on a fallacious argument (termed ‘the Gem’ by David Stove) and the traditional, but in my view mistaken, metaphysical interpretation of Kant’s transcendental distinction. I draw on Henry Allison’s interpretation of Kant’s idealism to argue (...) that when Kant’s transcendental distinction is understood epistemologically we can avoid the fallacious reasoning underpinning Meillassoux’s argument, and at the very least attenuate his concerns about the ‘Kantian catastrophe’. (shrink)

In this article, we evaluate Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism in general and of Heidegger’s correlationism in particular. Contrary to earlier contributions, we argue that Meillassoux’s reflections on uncorrelated being not only serve an epistemological but also an ontological interest; both Meillassoux and Heidegger are interested in the way we have access to uncorrelated being as well as in the nature of uncorrelated being itself. After introducing Meillassoux’s criticism of the correlationism of Heidegger, we reflect on three arguments of his account (...) of planet earth as un-correlated being; the emergence of planet earth, the presupposed accessibility of un-correlated being and his criticism of Heidegger’s fideism. Although it becomes clear that Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism is not applicable in the case of Heidegger, it also helps us to articulate the relevance of Heidegger’s “realist” approach of uncorrelated being in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The realm of intentionality is definitive of phenomenology as a reflective methodology. Yet it is precisely the focus on the intentionalgiventhat has been condemned recently.Speculative realism argues that phenomenology is unsatisfactory since the reduction to the intentional realm excludes the ‘external’, i.e. reality independent of consciousness. This criticism allows me to clarify the nature of intentionality.Material phenomenologyfinds, in contrast, that the intentional realm excludes the ‘inner’. This criticism allows me to discuss the way in whichipseityenters as an element of experience. (...) Intentionality, viewed psychologically, is rightly the distinct arena of phenomenological psychology. However, there is no doubting the difficulty of maintaining a research focus precisely on the realm of intentionality; there areaporiasof the reduction. I discuss some of the difficulties. (shrink)

The thrust of the argument presented in this paper is that phenomenological ontology survives the criticism of “correlationism” as advanced by speculative realism, a movement that has evolved in continental philosophy over the past decade. Correlationism is the position, allegedly occupied by phenomenology, that presupposes the ontological primacy of the human subject. Phenomenology survives this criticism not because the criticism misses its mark, but because phenomenology occupies a position that is broader than that of correlationism. With its critique of correlationism, (...) speculative realism rightly identifies a battle that no longer needs to be fought: the battle against 19th century brands of mechanical realism. Free from the impatient and defensive posturing against the mechanization of the human, phenomenology is also free to explore the world beyond its emphasis on human experience. Doing so requires a return to Husserl's discussion of hylé and the “twofold bed” of phenomenology. Phenomenology may emphasize hylé – that is, material; or it may emphasize nous – the world as it appears to or is transformed by consciousness. By returning to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, a case is made for hyletic phenomenology. Hyletic phenomenology allows for ontological reversibility and recognizes the “unhuman” elements in things. It is hyletic phenomenology that grounds phenomenological ontology after the critique of correlationism has been assessed. (shrink)

This article addresses how the Iranian-born philosopher Reza Negarestani has negotiated human distinctiveness in the course of his intellectual journey from speculative realism to inhuman rationalism (Rather than rationalist inhumanism, as some sources have it (Anon 2021)). Moving from challenging the correlationism of post-Kantian Western philosophy, via critiques of the Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine, Nick Land’s accelerationism, and Ray Brassier’s nihilism, Negarestani eventually turns to the neo-pragmatists of the Pittsburgh School and their reflections on reason, normativity, and praxis. The (...) mapping of this trajectory is divided into four parts: Having already discussed the political theology of Reza Negarestani elsewhere (Kersten, World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research, 78(2–4), 256 267, 2022), the first part of this article briefly introduces Reza Negarestani’s early theory fiction as an exponent of speculative realism (Negarestani 2008), followed by two sections dedicated to close readings of Negarestani’s investigations of the inhuman (Negarestani 2011 and 2014). The examination of these writings will demonstrate how they have served as prolegomena to his next book-length publication, Intelligence and Spirit (2018), a connection that will be briefly assessed in the final part. (shrink)

In Graham Harman’s realist philosophy, which I call “ontological liberalism,” all objects are considered equal, there being no unbridgeable gap between various modes of being. Every object is a unique individual, endowed with a positive being. Any privileging of a certain class of objects over other classes of objects is invalidated. An object is composed of its relations, summarized under the heading of what Harman calls “sensual qualities,” while objects also contain mutually inaccessible essences. Supposedly, every object may be characterized (...) by the duality of relationality and substantiality. According to ontological liberalism, all objects exist. In this essay, I propose an ontological nihilist critique of Harman’s liberal ontology. We cannot exclude the possibility of every object being equally nonexistent. Appearances could pertain all the way down, with no final substance at the end of the infinite chain of appearances. Building on insights gleaned from Jan Westerhoff’s defence of ontological nihilism, I propose a nihilist reconfiguration of Harman’s ontological liberalism. If objects and relations are empty and reality is made of appearances all the way down, no underlying objective essence can or should be posited. Because relations are without basis, lacking in substance, nothing exists, nothing happens, and no objects exist. (shrink)

The article investigates Meillassoux’s notion of the absolute in relationship with the Kantian and Hegelian philosophical systems. The absolute, as independent of subjective consciousness, is showcased as the meeting point of speculation and fiction. By looking into Meillassoux’s notions of speculation and some works of weird fiction, it is argued that the significant role of imagination as well as a deferred temporality is what facilitates the discussion of both speculation and fiction as faculties able to transcend the limitations that are (...) projected by the correlationist mind. Through a reading of Lovecraftian fiction, both the strong and weak points of Meillassoux’s argumentation in After Finitude and Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction are identified, proving the latter to be a less successful way of grasping the chaotic real. (shrink)

My thesis reads Ernst Bloch’s materialist ontology with the aim of producing a utopian perspective on language’s materiality. As my Introduction outlines, set against the backdrop of a contemporary renewal in speculative philosophy, the present context is marked by a twofold limitation: (1) the perdurant marginalisation of Bloch’s form of utopian speculation, serving to couch contemporary materialism in thoroughly un-prospective tendencies; and (2), a relative failure of contemporary speculative philosophy to reflect on language, a failure attributable to the long drawn-out (...) dominance of post-structuralism’s linguistic form of relativism. To overcome these limitations I dedicate Chapter I of my thesis to expounding the core categories of Bloch’s materialism, casting a light on what I call its fundamental compositional structure: Incompleteness → Process → (possibility of an) Outfall, i.e. completion or arrival. In light of this, I argue that, placed within the horizon of Bloch’s materialism, incompleteness, process, and futural-directedness ought to be taken as cornerstones of language’s materiality. So as to better position what this means, in Chapter II a reading of the metaphysical Sens of Bloch’s materialism is given. There I consider Bloch’s materialism as a novel form of analogic metaphysics. Insofar as at the core of Bloch’s materialism there lies a metaphysical conception whereby being as such (e.g. Aristotle’s ontōs on) names an ultimate desire and not—pace the classical metaphysical tradition—an already existent beingness—a metaphysical conception Bloch proleptically terms the “ontology of not-yet being“—so then the essential dynamic of this materialism hinges on an incomplete analogy, for all things relate to that which is not-yet in existence; this not-yetness is the sustaining meaning of what is. In the final chapter I concretise my findings by turning to the question of language proper, reading “anacoluthon” as a speculative materialist figure of language which expressive this utopian analogic metaphysics. Anacoluthon denotes an interruption in syntactical flow (Greek: an-akóluthos, “not following“; German: Satzbruch, “sentence fracture/rupture“) and marginally features in Bloch’s corpus. But precisely because of its marginal status the figure possesses a real force in understanding language’s utopian materiality. Indeed, I read anacoluthia as expressive of the Blochian ontological composition. Anacoluthic discontinuities of speech are read as linguistic expressions of ontological incompleteness, ontological novelty, and ontological directedness to what is not yet. They linguistically express both the non-existence of ontological totality, but also, crucially, a real and open intending towards it: a utopian, creative, linguistically-based transgressiveness expressive of the world’s ontology. (shrink)

The paper analyzes Quentin Meillassoux’s conception of the fideistic approach to religious faith intrinsic to the “strong correlationism” that he considers pervasive in contemporary thought. Backman presents the basic elements of Meillassoux’s speculative materialism and especially the thesis according to which strong correlationism involves a “fideistic” approach to religiosity. In doing so, Backman critically examines Meillassoux’s notions of post-metaphysical faith, religious absolutes, and contemporary fanaticism, especially against the background of Heidegger’s philosophy. According to Backman, Meillassoux’s logical and conceptual critique of (...) strong correlationism is innovative, and it may remain legitimate if its presuppositions are accepted. And yet, Backman argues that Meillassoux’s allegations of fideism seem to rely on the questionable application of Enlightenment conceptions to the contemporary situation. (shrink)

This article discusses three recent philosophers who speak in different ways about the retroactive construction of reality by human knowledge. Bruno Latour unapologetically claims that the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II could not have died of tuberculosis, as determined by a team of French doctors in 1976, since this disease was not discovered until three thousand years after his death. Slavoj Žižek often makes comparable arguments, though his version of retroactivity draws on both psychoanalysis and dialectics in a way that is (...) never the case for Latour. Yet in his 2012 book Less Than Nothing, Žižek takes the more prudent, realist-sounding line that changes in scientific theories do not change nature itself. The real novelty in retroactive theories is provided by Thomas Kuhn, who draws our attention to a grey temporal zone in scientific discovery in which it is impossible to pinpoint the exact date of any breakthrough. For Kuhn, this stems from a dualism found in reality itself: one between the fact “that” a thing exists and the determination of “what” its properties are. The tension between these two moments is responsible for much of the vagueness and drama surrounding any paradigm shift in the sciences and is closely related to at least one plausible theory of metaphor. In closing, three Hollywood films are cited as helpful examples for understanding the different ways in which a paradigm shift works its retroactive magic. (shrink)

This article mounts a defense of my and Slavoj Žižek’s co-edited anthology, Subject Lessons: Hegel, Lacan, and the Future of Materialism, against the two main criticisms of it made throughout Graham Harman’s article “The Battle of Objects and Subjects”: (1) that we and our fellow contributors are guilty of gross overgeneralization when we classify thinkers from various schools of thought – among them New Materialism, object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, and actor–network theory – under the broad rubric of the “new materialisms”; (...) and (2) that despite our pretensions to the mantle of materialism, our Lacano-Hegelian position is actually a full-blown idealism. In responding to and attempting to refute these criticisms, I make the case that our Lacano-Hegelian model of dialectical materialism is an “extimate materialism.”. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of Meillassoux's attempt to articulate a “philosophical divine” based on, and consistent with, his radical ontology of contingency. The critical claim developed is that Meillassoux's conception of the divine is inconsistent with his wider commitment to immanence and that this is due to his uncritical endorsement of key evaluative and affective features of religions of the transcendent. This affinity is evident in his view that the phenomenon of “unjust death” generates a problem concerning the (...) justification of a world thus characterised and in the solution proposed. The critical question regarding the compatibility of immanence and such a theodicy is explored. Further examples of Meillassoux's unacknowledged allegiance to the sensibility of transcendent religion are identified including his concern for “justice” and “humanity” and persistent avowal of “God”. An alternative conception of a religion of immanence is sketched which emphasises impersonality and a-moralism. This alternative, it is claimed, integrates more consistently than Meillassoux's the evaluative-affective and theoretical domains. On this basis the claim is advanced that Meillassoux misappropriates the considerable resources his ontology contains for the formulation of a religion of immanence. (shrink)

This review essay attempts to present a coherent and reasonably unitary picture of the contemporary ‘speculative turn’ in continental philosophy as charted in Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman, eds, The Speculative Turn: Continental Realism and Materialism (2011). Avoiding a more objective yet more anodyne chapter by chapter summary, I paint an intentionally synoptic view by selecting some common concerns of the authors involved, and group them under five ‘core themes’. Throughout, I try to keep open the comparative channel (...) with the realist tenets of critical realism, and conclude vouching for the necessity for more bridge-building works to appear in the future. (shrink)

We revisit the notion of vicarious causation in Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) in order to first show that Harman has articulated two iterations of his account that are in tension with one another; one is found in his earlier paper “On Vicarious Causation,” while the other is contained in his later writings following the publication of Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. This involves a critical assessment of his developing theory of metaphor in a way that encourages sympathetic (...) revision in the service of improving his non-correlationist view of intra-objective relations. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the character of the literary and contends that if, instead of accepting the legitimacy of the question “what is literature?” and trying to answer it, one were to subject the question itself to a critical scrutiny—i.e. in order to lay bare what the question presupposes about the literary—it becomes obvious that any attempt to answer the question by uncritically accepting the legitimacy of the puzzle it puts forward can only give rise to contradictions. For the question (...) requires and presupposes for an answer an ontologically independent foundation, and the latter, given its immutability, requires the positing of a reality/representation disjunction—where the latter of the pair permits of and accommodates the experience of change—thereby ensuring that representation, too, requires a foundation, which, due to the impossibility of a foundation being the foundation of its other, that is, mutability, ends up undermining the very possibility of a disjunction, and, hence, the coherence of the foundationalist enterprise. Given that the problem of incoherence is bound to recur in all attempts to explain the literary in a foundationalist framework and given that the logic of foundationalism is one with the logic of nihilism—for the incoherence necessitates the denial of the possibility of literature—a release from the contradictions and a reinstatement of the reality of literature can come about only if one is awakened to the incoherence of the foundationalist undertaking. The resulting turn away from foundationalist thinking to differential thinking—where the incoherence of the demand for coherence is grasped and the reality of time reinstated—sheds light on the twining of the destinies of the literary and the philosophical: if philosophy as differential thinking awakens us to the displacement of being in the flow of time, literature sets into work the displacement of meaning in the functioning of language. This confirms that not only are the attempts to unearth a ground for the literary a mistake, but denying the reality of the literary event—i.e. upon failing to find a ground—is equally a mistake. (shrink)

Although Quentin Meillassoux’s philosophy desires to be postmetaphysical and posttheological, I argue in this paper that it remains structurally theological. Specifically, I argue that Meillassoux’s speculative thesis on the contingency of nature and its laws repeats at a formal level the medieval theological distinction between God’s absolute power and God’s ordained power. The first part of this paper discusses how this distinction allowed medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus to understand and have faith in the stable contingency (...) of the present order of things in light of divine omnipotence. The second part of this paper discusses how Meillassoux repeats this distinction, intentionally or not, between God’s absolute power and God’s ordained power in his attempt to think the absolute contingency of the laws of nature as an effect of hyper-Chaos. Although, unlike the medieval God, Meillassoux’s hyper-Chaos remains fundamentally without reason and devoid of any moral valence, I argue in the third section of this paper that Meillassoux sneaks in an existential faith in the present and future order of things with his appeal to hope in a speculative resurrection of the dead, a move that brings him further in line with the substance of the distinction between God’s absolute power and God’s ordained power. (shrink)

Since its inception in the late 2000s, supporters of Quentin Meillassoux tended to oppose the movement he founded, speculative materialism, to Derrida and the Derridean community. The arc of Meillassoux's later publications, however, did not support that opposition, especially when it became clear that he neither dismissed correlationism nor set aside literary concerns. These approaches might not be as incompatible as has been supposed. Still, if any affinity is to be established, a first need is to reassess the core of (...) Meillassoux's argument in After Finitude, which has continued to influence his publications. In this article, I attempt not merely to comment upon Meillassoux's argument, but to justify it from within, and so to demonstrate its logic. Then, using a method of re-reading that will be familiar to many, I will attempt to show how that logic reveals speculative materialism and Derridean concerns to be better treated as logical affiliates. Doing so will not presuppose agreement, but will set the stage for more thorough comparisons in future. (shrink)

Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism rests on the historical claim that European philosophy since Kant is “correlationist” in its denial that thought can know being as it is in itself rather than merely for us. But though the claim is central to Meillassoux, it has not been much explored in the literature on his work. This paper argues that Nietzsche does not fit so easily into Meillassoux’s story. Though there are certain superficially correlationist elements in Nietzsche’s thought, part of his core (...) project is an ethically motivated rejection of the issues with respect to which realism and correlationism are alternatives. Thus, rather than denying that thought can access being in itself, Nietzsche aims to leave behind ways of thinking within which the question of thought’s access or lack of access matters. This means that Meillassoux loses some of the motivation for his positive position. (shrink)

This article investigates the analogy of the “laws of nature” through Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and Gilbert Simondon’s ontogenetic naturalism (ON). Both thinkers challenge the literalist interpretation of scientific knowledge by emphasizing the indirect nature of relation and the primacy of the autonomy of discrete beings over pre-established physical laws. Harman’s OOO defends this autonomy as the irreducible independence of objects from their relations, while Simondon focuses on the modulation of information in shaping the laws of nature through individuation. (...) The article argues that while science remains the best recursive triangulation between logic and empirical evidence, its grasp of an ultimate, literal Truth is constricted by an epistemological relation to autonomous realities, grounded in analogy. Consequently, the laws of nature are considered as legislated by discrete autonomies, with space and time emerging from the things themselves. The article concludes by discussing the consequences of this reframing in light of the ancient conception of díkēkosmos (cosmic justice). (shrink)

This article is about a pedagogical movement I discern in Quentin Meillassoux’s ontology. The goal of the essay is to introduce his approach to reality in outline form and offer it as a possible route to conceptualize education as the practice of keeping the bodymind attentive and agile against its unsound ossification by way of providing a unified heightened sense of meaning, that is, consummatory experience, in a radically open and contingent world. Meillassoux offers a new conception of necessity and (...) contingency based on the Badioun principle that ‘nothing is inaccessible to reason.’ This move helps Meillassoux to claim that reason can access the absolute for there is no inaccessible necessary transcendence by providing an intriguing critique of the principle of sufficient reason. As a result, Meillassoux’s argument leads to the conclusion that the only necessity is contingency itself. By excluding any necessary being, but also maintaining the absolute necessity of contingency itself, Meillassoux establishes what he calls the “factial.” Meillassoux’s factiality induce pedagogical interventions that lead to acquiring a new point of view whereby ossification of bodymind is staved off and a state of mind that is endlessly fascinated by the immanence, or the most radical becoming, of the world is achieved. (shrink)