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Unpublished MA Thesis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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Collapse: Journal of Philosophical Research and Development, No. 1-4 (2006-2008)

Collapse Vol. IV: Concept Horror
May 2008

Collapse IV features a series of investigations by philosophers, writers and artists into Concept Horror. Contributors address the existential, aesthetic, theological and political dimensions of horror, interrogate its peculiar affinity with philosophical thought, and uncover the horrors that may lie in wait for those who pursue rational thought beyond the bounds of the reasonable. This unique volume continues Collapse’s pursuit of indisciplinary miscegenation, the wide-ranging contributions interacting to produce common themes and suggestive connections. In the process a rich and compelling case emerges for the intimate bond between horror and philosophical thought.

Editor: Robin Mackay
Associate Editor: Damian Veal
ISBN 978-0-9553087-3-4
403 pages

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Collapse Vol. III: Unknown Deleuze [+ Speculative Realism]
November 2007

Collapse III contains explorations of the work of Gilles Deleuze by pioneering thinkers in the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, music and architecture. In addition, we publish in this volume two previously untranslated texts by Deleuze himself, along with a fascinating piece of vintage science fiction from one of his more obscure influences. Finally, as an annex to Collapse Volume II, we also include a full transcription of the conference on ‘Speculative Realism’ held in London in 2007.

The contributors to this volume aim to clarify, from a variety of perspectives, Deleuze’s contribution to philosophy: in what does his philosophical originality lie; what does he appropriate from other philosophers and how does he transform it? And how can the apparently disparate threads of his work to be ‘integrated’ – what is the precise nature of the constellation of the aesthetic, the conceptual and the political proposed by Gilles Deleuze, and what are the overarching problems in which the numerous philosophical concepts ‘signed Deleuze’ converge?

Editor: Robin Mackay
Associate Editor: Dustin McWherter
ISBN 978-0-9553087-2-7
458 pages

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Collapse Vol. II: Speculative Realism
March 2007

Comprising subjects from probability theory to theology, from quantum theory to neuroscience, from astrophysics to necrology, and involving them in unforeseen and productive syntheses, Collapse II features a selection of speculative essays by some of the foremost young philosophers at work today, together with new work from artists and cinéastes, and searching interviews with leading scientists.
Against the tide of institutional balkanisation and specialisation, this volume testifies to a defiant reanimation of the most radical philosophical problematics – the status of the scientific object, metaphysics and its “end”, the prospects for a revival of speculative realism, the possibility of phenomenology, transcendence and the divine, the nature of causation, the necessity of contingency – both through a fresh reappropriation of the philosophical tradition and through an openness to its outside. The breadth of philosophical thought in this volume is matched by the surprising and revealing thematic connections that emerge between the philosophers and scientists who have contributed.

Editor: Robin Mackay
Associate Editor: Damian Veal
ISBN 978-0-9553087-1-2
330 pages

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Collapse Vol. I: Numerical Materialism
September 2006

Collapse I is an unprecedented collection of work by leading practitioners in diverse fields of enquiry. Conceived as a meticulously compiled and compendious miscellany, a grimoire or instruction manual without referent, as a delirious carnival of sobriety, Collapse operates its war against good sense not through romantic flight but through the formal insanity secreted in the depths of the rational (“the rational is not reasonable”).

Collapse aims to force unforeseen conjunctions, singular correspondences, and unnatural cross-fertilisations; to diagram abstract regions as yet unnamed.

The first volume of Collapse investigates the nature and philosophical uses of number through interviews with philosophers scientists and mathematicians, essays on the mathematics of intensity, terrorism, the occult and information theory, and graphical works of multiplicity.

Editor: Robin Mackay
Associate Editors: Ray Brassier, Michael Carr
ISBN 978-0-9553087-0-4
288 pages

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Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism, No. 1 (2010)

Speculations is a journal dedicated to research into speculative realism and post-continental philosophy. Our aim is to facilitate discussion about ongoing developments within these emerging movements and related disciplines. The journal is open access and peer-reviewed.

Edited by Paul Ennis, University College, Dublin
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license
ISBN 978-0-557-57344-8

Authors

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