Ray Brassier: Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (2007)

Nihilism is not an affliction to be overcome, but a vector of intellectual discovery which philosophy should try to push to its ultimate conclusion. Rather than trying to safeguard the experience of meaning-construed as the defining feature of human existence-from the incursions of science, philosophy should strive to demystify it and deploy its considerable speculative resources to facilitate science’s labor of disenchantment. Disregarding the orthodox division between analytic and continental traditions, this book tries to forge a link between revisionary naturalism in Anglo-American philosophy and speculative realism in contemporary French philosophy.

Publisher Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
ISBN 0230522041, 9780230522046
275 pages

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Quentin Meillassoux: After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (2006–) [FR, EN, IT, ES, CR]

“Quentin Meillassoux’s debut makes an original contribution to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on the future of continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries clarity of expression with argumentative rigour, After Finitude provides readings of the history of philosophy and sets out a critique of the unavowed fideism at the heart of post-Kantian philosophy.

The centrality of argument in Meillassoux’s writing should appeal to analytic as well as continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion.

Meillassoux introduces a novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. After Finitude proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse.”

Publisher Seuil, 2006
ISBN 2020847426

English edition
Preface by Alain Badiou
Translated by Ray Brassier
Publisher Continuum, 2008
ISBN 0826496741, 9780826496744
148 pages

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Publisher (EN)

Après la finitude: essai sur la nécessité de la contingence (French, 2006, 6 MB, updated on 2021-3-15)
After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (English, 2008, updated on 2020-5-26)
Dopo la finitudine: saggio sulla necessità della contingenza (Italian, trans. Massimiliano Sandri, 2012, added on 2021-3-15)
Después de la finitud: ensayo sobre la necesidad de la contingencia (Spanish, trans. Margarita Martinez, 2015, 5 MB, added on 2021-3-15)
Poslije konačnosti: esej o nužnosti kontingencije (Croatian, trans. Vladimir Šeput, 2016, added on 2020-5-26)

Nick Srnicek: Assemblage Theory, Complexity and Contentious Politics. The Political Ontology of Gilles Deleuze (2007)

The purpose of this thesis is to reconsider the nature of ontology in contemporary political science, with the belief that such a move can be of great benefit to understanding changes in our era of globalization and terrorism. This is accomplished by examining the ontologies of both social constructivism and critical realism in order to show their reliance upon illegitimate presuppositions, and then developing a novel ontological position on the basis of these criticisms.

Gilles Deleuze’s concept of assemblages – and his ontology, more generally – are examined as particularly powerful ways to conceptualize the complexity, dynamism and differences that are inherent to the political world. This is brought out concretely in a study of recent academic work on contentious politics in order to show the centrality of conflict and difference to politics, and to show the power of a reconceptualization of ontology.

Keywords: Deleuze; Bhaskar; individuation; ontology; complexity; contentious politics; critical realism; assemblages; social constructivism

Unpublished MA Thesis
The University of Western Ontario, 2007.

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