Real Objects or Material Subjects: Additions…

So many have seen the announcement for the ‘Real Objects or Material Subjects‘ conference being held in March, 2010 in Dundee. Wanted to let everyone know about some additions we’ve made.

First, Peter Hallward will be joining us as well, giving a presentation on the socio-political stakes of the debate. This will be an amazing addition, as Peter’s work stakes an interesting position in context of the contemporary debates, and it will be interesting to hear more about his recent work on will and self-determination. (presuming he talks about this some)

Also, James Williams (Dundee) will also be giving a presentation. No more details on this yet, but James is a leading scholar on Deleuze and contemporary French philosophy, and will be another amazing addition to the line-up.

This conference is sure to be a great event, so plan your trip up to Dundee this march and join us!

the REAL future of philosophy: OPP

Recently debates have been raging across the internet. From whence will the new trend come that will save continental philosophy from endless texual analysis? Some have said speculative realism, others are on the OOP bandwagon, but in a comment thread earlier today APS finally shed light on where the real future of philosophy is located:

OPP

welcome to the future…bitches.

[also, hip-hop is a way more philosophical than video games. get off the couch and into the streets.]

Review of Prince of Networks in TPM

So I’ve taken most of the summer off from blogging, which I think was a good thing. But with the start of a new term I hope to start posting again on a semi-regular basis.

For now, go read my colleague Brian Smith’s review of Graham Harman’s Prince of Networks over at The Philosophers Magazine.

see you all soon.

Conference Announcement

Well, seeing as his new book is being published as we speak, I figured it was as good a time as any to make a ‘Harman related’ announcement I’ve been holding back for a while.

Although we’re still a ways off, I’d like to give everyone a heads up on a conference we’ll be holding at the University of Dundee next March called:

‘Real Objects, or, Material Subjects? A Conference on Continental Metaphysics’

Which will feature keynote presentations from Graham Harman and Adrian Johnston. I am still working on arranging one more (very good) keynote speaker, but it’s still too uncertain to announce anything. The conference will take place over two days and we’ll soon be putting out a call for papers. It’d be great to have some of those involved in recent ‘interweb’ debates on these matters show up in person and contribute to what will hopefully be a lively and important weekend of philosophical debate. Also, there are early talks on having selected papers from the conference published in a wonderful journal (which will for the time being go un-named).

So, mark your calenders for 27-28 March 2010. It will be great to see Harman and Johnston go ‘head to head’ on these issues, especially as Graham has already come up with the title “I Am Also of the Opinion That Materialism Must Be Destroyed” for his presentation. Should be fun.

just a thought…

Does anyone else notice how (some of) the online scientific-realism contingent is basically becoming the reformed Calvinism of continental philosophy? This may reveal a bit of ‘naivete’, but are we really back at the place where continental philosophers need to take too seriously questions of determinism and eliminitivism? If the determinist are right, then almost all of the work in recent continental philosophy falls out the window, so one should either find one of the sub-groups within contemporary anglo philosophy who rejects free will. And as for eliminitivism, as I understand it, weren’t the Churchlands basically disregarded by the anglo philosophy world years (and years) ago? I confess I wasn’t studying philosophy a decade ago, and am only familiar with bits and piece of the literature, but speaking with people who were around then, and do know the literature, they seem astonished when they find out young Continental philosophers are taking this stuff seriously again.

I’m just not sure what motivates someone to ‘do’ philosophy if theories such as determinism and eliminativism are right? If there is no such thing as a freely existing subject…then shit…count me out.

(sorry for the micro rant)

meillassoux vs. hallward vs. brown

An interesting debate seems to be taking place in response to Peter Hallward’s recent review of ‘After Finitude’ which was published in this month’s issue of radical philosophy. If you don’t normally read radical philosophy, I highly recommend getting a copy from your library or local bookstore and reading this review, which is on par, and in many ways similar, to the previously mentioned review of Logics of Worlds Hallward published in last month’s New Left Review.

Over at speculative heresy they have posted a response to Hallward’s review by Nathan Brown. It’s a well thought out review that brings up many good points, but, I must say that I still side with Hallward’s review. I think his critique of Meillassoux’s use of mathematics (which is very similar to the way he critiques the use of mathematics in Badiou) is quite accurate, and poses an interesting problem for those of us working on Badiou and Meillassoux.

For a taste of Brown’s piece, towards the end he says:

“Throughout Hallward’s critique of After Finitude, the basic move is to extend the book’s arguments beyond the proper domain of their application and then to hold Meillassoux accountable for the resulting difficulties.”

I, for one, find this critique a bit problematic. Hallward brings up some important questions regarding the potential (or lack there of) present in Meillassoux’s contingent ontology to bring about political and social transformation. As much as Meillassoux doesn’t explicitly set out to make an argument of this sort in After Finitude, can’t it still be said that every ontology necessarily has political and social implications? And if Meillassoux holds a position of absolute contingency, doesn’t it leave us waiting for political novelty to happen, rather than providing a way towards developing the sort of ‘transformational materialism’ that Hallward seems to be aiming for? In a sense this critique is very similar to those levelled against Badiou, and specifically in regards to what is to be done in the pre-evental state of existence from the perspective of the potential subject. Whereas Badiou has (to an extent) clarified this in Logiques des Mondes in the sections on the commune, intensity, and evental sites; Meillassoux has yet to clarify what is to be done towards the work of transformation in a situation of absolute contingency. He could very well, and I would assume likely will, clear this up in his future work; but as it stands now, it seems as if Hallward has every right to make this critique.

The only thing I would say regarding Hallward, is that in light of his two recent reviews, I’m quite anxious to see how he attempts to solve these problems haunting contemporary French materialism in his own work. As far as I know he still seems to be working on his political will/determination project, but hopefully he takes a more constructive and original path in his future work and begins to develop this transformational materialism he seems to find lacking in both Badiou and Meillassoux.

in lieu of ‘real’ posting

Due to being currently caught in the grips of quite a nasty flu, I am incapable of posting anything worth reading. So instead I recommend you go and read this post over at poetix, which is an interesting reading of Meillassoux ’spectral dillema’ in relation to Marx’s theory of alienation.

Here is the conclusion to whet your appetite:

“What we should seek to recover from the political and cultural projects of the past is not their squandered vitality, but their abandoned fidelity.”

Laurelle…in Rome??

Well, according to the updated conference poster, the internet sensation Francois Laruelle will be presenting at the Grandeur of Reason conference in Rome this September. Although many on the interweb were quite skeptical about this conference intially, we now have a speculative realism panel (featuring Grant and Meillassoux), a presentation by Francois Laurelle, as well as Zizek, Agamben, John Mullarkey, and James Williams. Should be a great time, and hopefully those of us attending will have the common sense to get some audio/video/notes and post them on the internets soon afterwards.

collapse volume IV

It has been announced that Collapse IV: ‘Concept Horror’ is going to be printed next month. Once again they have an exciting (and quite diverse) line-up of contributions. Visit urbanomic for the full list of contributions.

also, check back here soon for an announcement regarding an event coming up featuring some of the contributors to this edition of collapse…