Iain Hamilton Grant: Philosophies of Nature after Schelling (2006)

5 January 2011, dusan

‘The whole of modern European philosophy’, wrote F.W.J. Schelling in 1809, ‘has this common deficiency – that nature does not exist for it.’ Despite repeated echoes of Schelling’s assessment throughout the natural sciences, and despite the philosophy of nature recently proposed but not completed by Gilles Deleuze, Philosophies of Nature After Schelling argues that Schelling’s verdict remains accurate two hundred years later. Presenting a lucid account of Schelling’s major works in the philosophy of nature alongside those of his scientific contemporaries who pursued and furthered that work, this book does not simply aim to present Schelling’s extravagant ‘speculative physics’ as an historical episode. Rather, Schelling’s programme is presented as a viable and necessary corrective both to the rejection of metaphysics and the correlative ‘antiphysics’ at the ethical heart of contemporary philosophy.

Publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006
Transversals: New Directions in Philosophy
ISBN 0826479030
232 pages

review (Joseph P. Lawrence)

publisher
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A. Kiarina Kordela: $urplus: Spinoza, Lacan (2008)

2 January 2011, dusan

“Maintains that Lacanian psychoanalysis is the proper continuation of the line of thought from Spinoza to Marx.

Opposing both popular “neo-Spinozisms” (Deleuze, Negri, Hardt, Israel) and their Lacanian critiques (Zizek and Badiou), Surplus maintains that Lacanian psychoanalysis is the proper continuation of the Spinozian-Marxian line of thought. Author A. Kiarina Kordela argues that both sides ignore the inherent contradictions in Spinoza’s work, and that Lacan’s reading of Spinoza—as well as of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Wittgenstein—offers a much subtler balance of knowing when to take the philosopher at face value and when to read him against himself. Moving between abstract theory and tangible political, ethical, and literary examples, Kordela traces the emergence of “enjoyment” and “the gaze” out of Spinoza’s theories of God, truth, and causality, Kant’s critique of pure reason, and Marx’s pathbreaking application of set theory to economy. Kordela’s thought unfolds an epistemology and an ontology proper to secular capitalist modernity that call for a revision of the Spinoza-Marx-Lacan line as the sole alternative to the (anti-)Platonist tradition.”

Publisher SUNY Press, 2008
SUNY Series, Insinuations: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Literature
ISBN 0791470202, 9780791470206
195 pages

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Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek, Graham Harman (eds.): The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism (2011)

30 December 2010, dusan

“Continental philosophy has entered a new period of ferment. The long deconstructionist era was followed with a period dominated by Deleuze, which has in turn evolved into a new situation still difficult to define. However, one common thread running through the new brand of continental positions is a renewed attention to materialist and realist options in philosophy. Among the current giants of this generation, this new focus takes numerous different and opposed forms. It might be hard to find many shared positions in the writings of Badiou, DeLanda, Laruelle, Latour, Stengers, and Zizek, but what is missing from their positions is an obsession with the critique of written texts. All of them elaborate a positive ontology, despite the incompatibility of their results. Meanwhile, the new generation of continental thinkers is pushing these trends still further, as seen in currents ranging from transcendental materialism to the London-based speculative realism movement to new revivals of Derrida. As indicated by the title The Speculative Turn, the new currents of continental philosophy depart from the text-centered hermeneutic models of the past and engage in daring speculations about the nature of reality itself. This anthology assembles authors, of several generations and numerous nationalities, who will be at the center of debate in continental philosophy for decades to come.”

With essays by Alain Badiou, Ray Brassier, Nathan Brown, Levi Bryant, Gabriel Catren, Manuel DeLanda, Iain Hamilton Grant, Martin Hägglund, Peter Hallward, Graham Harman, Adrian Johnston, Francois Laruelle, Bruno Latour, Quentin Meillassoux, Reza Negarestani, John Protevi, Steven Shaviro, Nick Srnicek, Isabelle Stengers, Alberto Toscano, Slavoj Žižek

Publisher re.press, Melbourne, 2011
Anamnesis series
ISBN 9780980668346, 9780980668353
430 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2021-3-9)