Eugene Thacker: After Life (2010)

Life is one of our most basic concepts, and yet when examined directly it proves remarkably contradictory and elusive, encompassing both the broadest and the most specific phenomena. We can see this uncertainty about life in our habit of approaching it as something at once scientific and mystical, in the return of vitalisms of all types, and in the pervasive politicization of life. In short, life seems everywhere at stake and yet is nowhere the same.

In After Life, Eugene Thacker clears the ground for a new philosophy of life by recovering the twists and turns in its philosophical history. Beginning with Aristotle’s originary formulation of a philosophy of life, Thacker examines the influence of Aristotle’s ideas in medieval and early modern thought, leading him to the work of Immanuel Kant, who notes the inherently contradictory nature of “life in itself.” Along the way, Thacker shows how early modern philosophy’s engagement with the problem of life affects thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Georges Bataille, and Alain Badiou, as well as contemporary developments in the “speculative turn” in philosophy.

At a time when life is categorized, measured, and exploited in a variety of ways, After Life invites us to delve deeper into the contours and contradictions of the age-old question, “what is life?”

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2010
ISBN 0226793729, 9780226793726
312 pages

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PDF (updated on 2012-7-25)

Daniel Miller (ed.): Materiality (2005)

“Throughout history and across social and cultural contexts, most systems of belief—whether religious or secular—have ascribed wisdom to those who see reality as that which transcends the merely material. Yet, as the studies collected here show, the immaterial is not easily separated from the material. Humans are defined, to an extraordinary degree, by their expressions of immaterial ideals through material forms. The essays in Materiality explore varied manifestations of materiality from ancient times to the present. In assessing the fundamental role of materiality in shaping humanity, they signal the need to decenter the social within social anthropology in order to make room for the material.

Considering topics as diverse as theology, technology, finance, and art, the contributors—most of whom are anthropologists—examine the many different ways in which materiality has been understood and the consequences of these differences. Their case studies show that the latest forms of financial trading instruments can be compared with the oldest ideals of ancient Egypt, that the promise of software can be compared with an age-old desire for an unmediated relationship to divinity. Whether focusing on the theology of Islamic banking, Australian Aboriginal art, derivatives trading in Japan, or textiles that respond directly to their environment, each essay adds depth and nuance to the project that Materiality advances: a profound acknowledgment and rethinking of one of the basic properties of being human.”

Contributors. Matthew Engelke, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Bill Maurer, Lynn Meskell, Daniel Miller, Hirokazu Miyazaki, Fred Myers, Christopher Pinney, Michael Rowlands, Nigel Thrift

Publisher Duke University Press, 2005
Politics, History, and Culture series
ISBN 0822335425, 9780822335429
304 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2015-2-21)

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

Publisher (FR)
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)