/r/speculativerealism

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Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary philosophy which defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against the dominant forms of post-Kantian philosophy or what it terms 'correlationism'.

While often in disagreement over basic philosophical issues, the speculative realist thinkers have a shared resistance to philosophies of human finitude inspired by the tradition of Immanuel Kant.

What unites the core members of the movement is an attempt to overcome both “correlationism” as well as “philosophies of access.” In After Finitude, Meillassoux defines correlationism as "the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other."

Philosophies of access are any of those philosophies which privilege the human being over other entities. Both ideas represent forms of anthropocentrism.

All four of the core thinkers within Speculative Realism work to overturn these forms of philosophy which privilege the human being, favouring distinct forms of realism against the dominant forms of idealism in much of contemporary philosophy.

Notable Thinkers:

...among many others.

Resources:

PLEASE SEE THE SPECULATIVE REALISM PATHFINDER

Notable Philosophical Influences:

Alain Badiou, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Manuel DeLanda, Jacques Lacan, François Laruelle, Bruno Latour, Jacques Ranciere, Isabelle Stengers, Alfred North Whitehead, and Slavoj Žižek

... many among others.

Related Subreddits:

/r/speculativerealism

2,387 Subscribers

2

Exploring Qualia Field Theory: A Speculative Intersection of Consciousness and Quantum Field Theory

1 Comment
2024/04/19
02:26 UTC

3

The Stuff of Life by Timothy Morton was shit.

The only thing I liked was how they called a PhD thesis a worn-out teddy bear. I hope they can do better in their next book, Hell, a Christian Ecology.

0 Comments
2024/03/29
15:02 UTC

0

Graham Harman: The Left is becoming the new Christianity

"People adopt a leftist position to say that you have not saved your soul if your work somehow does not redeem the oppressed or exploited of the Earth, it becomes a moralistic bottom line that attacks everything else, it becomes a moral high ground people can take and not do any work, just denounce the others around them."

Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrgtbfWOXqo

5 Comments
2024/02/24
03:55 UTC

2

A mystical solution to the problem of the being and the fredom-necessity problem

Your metaphysical reflection introduces four stages of the "world." The Metaworld is a liquid, formless realm defying the principle of non-contradiction. Extraworld, where the principle of non-contradiction holds, but no other principles, is inhabited by creatures at the border between the Metaworld sea and the Interworld refuge. The Interworld complies with the principles of non-contradiction and necessary consequence (distinct from the Principle of Sufficient Reason or PSR). Finally, the Intraworld complies with the principles of non-contradiction and necessary consequence, featuring natural laws and at least one defined instant, forming a pseudo-closed causal chain.

The amalgamation of these stages into something like a world or an absolute is self-denied. The Metaworld, chaotic and stagnant yet a limit akin to nothingness, endows reality with self-sufficiency but remains indeterminate—an undefined something, not nothing or the absolute.

The sum of the three stages excluding the Metaworld also fails to constitute a world, excluding something and thus not an absolute. The Metaworld may harbor infinite Interworlds with respective Intraworlds and extraworldly beings. Therefore, the concept of a world is refuted. There are stages, and these stages cannot aggregate into an absolute. Three are bounded and sustained by indetermination—infinite and self-sufficient, but not absolute or negative.This unconventional theory serves to unravel many philosophical mysteries, such as the problem of the existence of being or the quandary of freedom and determinism. The first issue finds resolution by grounding itself ontologically in indetermination. The predicament of freedom is addressed by recognizing that it exists solely in the Interworld (due to the logical principles it adheres to and those it does not), while our universe is an Intraworld devoid of freedom. Our sense of freedom could be explained by understanding the Intraworld as an egg of an Intermundane being. We are free because we are Intermundane, yet our Intraworldly universe is deterministic. However, determination arises a posteriori from the exercise of freedom. Once an action is taken, it becomes part of destiny, yet simultaneously, we are the authors of our destiny. All of us, actually phases in the fetal development through reincarnations of the Intermundane being, of which this Intraworld is an egg. It's acknowledged that this perspective is mystical and pseudoreligious, offering a unique approach to resolving profound philosophical problems.

This unconventional theory serves to unravel many philosophical mysteries, such as the problem of the existence of being or the quandary of freedom and determinism. The first issue finds resolution by grounding itself ontologically in indetermination. The predicament of freedom is addressed by recognizing that it exists solely in the Interworld (due to the logical principles it adheres to and those it does not), while our universe is an Intraworld devoid of freedom. Our sense of freedom could be explained by understanding the Intraworld as an egg of an Intermundane being. We are free because we are Intermundane, yet our Intraworldly universe is deterministic. However, determination arises a posteriori from the exercise of freedom. Once an action is taken, it becomes part of destiny, yet simultaneously, we are the authors of our destiny. All of us, actually phases in the fetal development through reincarnations of the Intermundane being, of which this Intraworld is an egg. It's acknowledged that this perspective is mystical and pseudoreligious, offering a unique approach to resolving profound philosophical problems.

This contemplation draws inspiration from Quentin Meillassoux and Markus Gabriel, who reject the notion of the world as absolute and challenge the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). Additionally, the short story "The Egg" by Andy Weir has played a pivotal role in shaping these ideas.

1 Comment
2023/12/31
17:03 UTC

5

Hyperchaos

Hi there!

There's a movie which is partially decided to Quentin Meillassoux. It's called Hyperchaos. This film explores some ethical problems. You can find it here:

https://boosty.to/enigmaton/posts/4dc008ac-c6fe-43e3-9b07-159a1918f577?share=post_link

1 Comment
2023/07/17
00:55 UTC

2

Making a social experiment/prediction of the effects of powdered food on the society

Hello guys, I am doing a speculative project/experiment, on what would happen if powdered drinkable food supplements (such as huel) would start becoming an integral part of our society, and these drinks would start substituting regular food, and normal meals would become a luxury.

I have created a community, which is supposed to act as an opposition to such trends, I am curious to see what would be the reaction of our society to such a course of events. This is not a full-on, serious protest group, more like a speculative prediction of the future (like the film metropolis in 1927). Please join the community, and feel free to 'act' as an opposition or just express your thoughts on the subject.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialFoodprotest/

This Reddit group is planned to exist for only about 5-10 weeks, as its a short-term experiment, but if the engagement will be great and the community will grow, I will keep the sub alive.

https://preview.redd.it/lw9544m23ila1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a96b30a298d0202a597d55da33d2523cd1357e1c

0 Comments
2023/03/03
10:22 UTC

2

THE END OF HISTORY

The end of history because-EVERYTHING ends in nonsense rubbish

https://www.scribd.com/document/605875005/THE-END-OF-HISTORY

Hither to monkey man has been arrogant about its reason It believed reason was a tool to understand to create knowledge it created vast systems deep ideologies profound “truths” Monkey man believed its reason could unlock “truths” but now it has come to the end of its arrogance its all pervading belief in the abilities its reason

There is nowhere to go now it is the end point reason is bankrupt it is all over it is the end of history-for everything that comes from the mind of monkey man any system any ideology any science any mathematics etc from now and into the future will be seen to end in nonsense rubbish meaninglessness

All products of human thought end in meaninglessness-even Zen nihilism absurdism existentialism all philosophy post-modernism Post-Postmodernism critical theory etc mathematics science etc

The end of history because-EVERYTHING ends in nonsense rubbish

All products of human thought end in meaninglessness-even Zen nihilism absurdism existentialism all philosophy post-modernism Post-Postmodernism critical theory etc mathematics science etc

a theory of everything

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Theory-of-Everything.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/455372682/A-Theory-of-Everything

All products of human thought end in meaninglessness-even Zen nihilism absurdism existentialism all philosophy post-modernism Post-Postmodernism critical theory etc mathematics science etc

All things are possible

With maths being inconsistent you can prove anything in maths ie you can prove Fermat’s last theorem and you can disprove Fermat’s last theorem

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/All-things-are-possible.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/324037705/All-Things-Are-Possible-philosophy

Mathematics ends in contradiction:6 proofs

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/MATHEMATICS.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/40697621/Mathematics-Ends-in-Meaninglessness-ie-self-contradiction

Scientific reality is textual

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/Scientific-reality-is-textual.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/572639157/Scientific-Reality-is-Textual

The-Anthropology-of-science

(science is a mythology)

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Anthropology-of-science.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/512683685/Prolegomenon-to-The-Anthropology-of-Science

Prolegomenon to undermining the foundations/fundamentals of science

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/undermining-the-foundations-of-science.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/591616840/Prolegomenon-to-Undermining-the-Foundations-of-Science

The age of the enlightenment is at an end: reason is bankrupt

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/The-age-of-the-enlightenment-is-at-an-end.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/552377365/The-Age-of-the-Enlightenment-is-at-an-end-reason-is-bankrupt

Godels theorems 1 & 2 to be invalid:end in meaninglessness

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Theory-of-Everything.pdf

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/wp-content/uploads/GODEL5.pdf

or

https://www.scribd.com/document/32970323/Godels-incompleteness-theorem-invalid-illegitimate

from

http://pricegems.com/articles/Dean-Godel.html

"Mr. Dean complains that Gödel "cannot tell us what makes a mathematical statement true", but Gödel's Incompleteness theorems make no attempt to do this"

Godels 1st theorem

“....., there is an arithmetical statement that is true,[1] but not provable in the theory (Kleene 1967, p. 250

Godel cant tell us what makes a mathematical statement true,

thus his theorem is meaningless

in the statement

"there is an arithmetical statement that is true,[1] but not provable in the theory"

godel cant tell us what the word "true" means

thus

the word "true" is meaningless

thus

the statement

"there is an arithmetical statement that is true,[1] but not provable in the theory"

is meaningless

thus

thus godels 1st theorem is meaningless

checkmate game over

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Mathematics

Gödel thought that the ability to perceive the truth of a mathematical or logical proposition is a matter of intuition, an ability he admitted could be ultimately beyond the scope of a formal theory of logic or mathematics[63][64] and perhaps best considered in the realm of human comprehension and communication, but commented: Ravitch, Harold (1998). "On Gödel's Philosophy of Mathematics".,Solomon, Martin (1998). "On Kurt Gödel's Philosophy of Mathematics"

thus by not telling us what makes a maths statement true Godels 1st theorem is meaningless

Magister colin leslie dean the only modern Renaissance man with 9 degrees including 4 masters: B,Sc, BA, B.Litt(Hons), MA, B.Litt(Hons), MA, MA (Psychoanalytic studies), Master of Psychoanalytic studies, Grad Cert (Literary studies)

He is Australia's leading erotic poet: poetry is for free in pdf

http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com/book-genre/poetry/ or

https://www.scribd.com/document/35520015/List-of-FREE-Erotic-Poetry-Books-by-Gamahucher-Press

1 Comment
2022/11/08
03:59 UTC

6

SLICEDUB - Grotesque Coil (Dark Ecology inspired music)

0 Comments
2022/08/13
11:53 UTC

5

Is it true that Meillassoux converted to Catholicism and thus abandoned his philosophical project????

3 Comments
2022/08/10
17:20 UTC

8

On the value of anger as a force of change across history - Conceptions and misconceptions of the "I am"

0 Comments
2022/08/05
11:18 UTC

5

Are You Even A Mystic? Philip K. Dick Dissertation | Fiction & Academia Booktube | Books #shorts

0 Comments
2022/08/03
22:04 UTC

2

Items highly subsidized by the government are highlighted.

0 Comments
2022/08/03
16:28 UTC

11

The end of endings - with Timothy Morton’s philosophy

1 Comment
2020/03/15
13:18 UTC

2

Time Travel Into the Past

I just watched Brian Greene's lecture, 'The Richness of Time' from the World Science Festival. As somebody with no professional background in quantum physics, I feel like I have a better idea as to how time works, though I wouldn't be surprised if I were grossly inaccurate, (tiny physic is hard :c). To start off, this next paragraph will be the...

TLDR; There was an example Greene used with a wine glass. When he dropped it, he glass shattered and spread out into the air. Greene made the point that it could be put back together if he could reverse the velocities of every molecule and atom that makes the glass up. If that's the case, then if we could reverse the velocity of every atom in the Milky Way (anything smaller would cause a collision), theoretically we could go back in time (up until the Milky Way collides with another Galaxy).

If that is a possibility, would living bodies reemerge from the grave? If so, would their conscious timeline reverse as well? Or would they wake back up and wonder why tf everything is moving in reverse?

Again, I'm no quantum physics expert, I only study as a hobby with no better mentor to correct me other than Google.

4 Comments
2020/03/04
18:22 UTC

1

Graham Harman's epistemology

I'm currently embarking on a research which has to do with triple O and language. However, to give a satisfactory account of the object of my research i need to understand epistemology seen through the lens of OOO, specifically Graham Harman's, since Levi has already written a blog post on his epistemology.

What i could gather from my research (which has just started) is that Graham Harman has a very bad account of knowledge, being just "what a thing is made of or what it does". Can really truth reside only in the consideration of effects and constituent parts according to Graham Harman? I know that aesthethics, now turned first philosophy, has a more important role in his view, but does it have access to truth (through metaphor)?

He also claims philosophy to be love of wisdom and not wisdom, but how can we maintain the position of OOO, a philosophical position which claims to be truthful on its account of ontology, without claiming to have knowledge?

Is someone able to clear this doubts?

2 Comments
2020/02/08
15:02 UTC

3

The Tree of Knowledge as a Metaphor About Early Humans' Evolution Away from Nature

I'm not here to preach, or turn anybody into a Christian, nor do I mean ANY disrespect on the religion. If I offend, I apologize, as it's not my intention to debunk or chage anybody, but to look at these old famous stories differentlt. This is just a look at old Biblical stories/mythology as a view I've yet to encounter.

(TL;DR at the bottom)

The Tree of Knowledge represents the connections between everything within reality, specifically at the point of view of early humans, whether those connections are direct, obvious, physical, emotional, opinion, and so on. The first "consumption" of the ToK was when humans first innovated (made tools, wrote language, whatever), something most animals in nature don't do. This growing innovation lead humans to worry about their survival/comfort, causing them to learn efficient ways to hoard food, hoard water, consume more resources for shelter, and so on. This initial worry is a product of good and evil, or (as I like too look at that specific duality) love and fear. The fear being what drove humans to worry about their comfort and survival.

It's at this point that "Adam" and "Eve" begin making clothes, and are required to toil with the land in order to survive and live up to their standards of comfort. This is when they would "leave" the "Garden of Eden." I use quotes here because Eden might be a metaphor for nature/wilderness at it's organic and untampered state, and their departure from Eden wasn't walking from point A to B, but leaving nature in favor of society.

So humans take something from (the tree of) knowledge, and that knowledge grows and expands from two rocks making a spark, to supercolliders today. And here we are, the most intelligent species on the planet, not smart enough anymore to know how to survive in the wilderness, (for the most part). Our innovation could lead to our doom, right before our eyes. So many modern marvels, that would seem Godlike to most animals, are causing Earth to undergo a change in climate.

Despite many climate repercussions from our lack of moderation, I'm going to focus specifically on the slow flooding caused by global warming. And I choose flooding because of (you guessed it) the story of Noah's Ark and the flood. Along with that story, we see plenty of ancient flood stories from many other cultures. Our innovation has led us closer (maybe not directly AT) the point Noah went through in that story.

What I'm getting at is that humans learned, invented, got comfortable, feared, began doing our own thing separate from the natural course of the planet, and sped up climate change. The literal interpretation of Adam and Eve eating from the ToK, put on clothes, toiled the land, disconnected from nature, and indirectly caused a forty day and night flood.

This isn't to say I'm trying to tell people to stop learning, get naked and live in the woods. What I'm saying is to keep it simple, and live in the moment like how the animals in nature do (for the most part). At this point we are where we are, so to live in the moment on our end, (with our modern human intellect), sometimes means learning something new, something useless at times.

TL;DR The Tree of Knowledge is just the advancement of ancient human intellect that grew to where we are today, and Noah's flood was a warning about climate change. Still TL;DR? Everything in moderation, even innovation.

0 Comments
2020/02/07
04:40 UTC

4

Where Are Your Thoughts?

This is something I've attempted to discuss and debate with my peers, but we end up just talking in circles because they don't understand the question. Maybe r/speculativerealism will get what I'm asking.

When I ask 'where are your thoughts?' I'm not talking about specific regions of the brain where specific thoughts happen. I'm asking about the images you see when you recall something. Say you think of an apple. Where is that taking place? Is there literally an apple inside your head? Of course not! What's it made out of? If it's not physically there, then it's not made out of atoms. There's no glowing apple coming from your head, so one could rule out photons, though maybe not entirely.

I have no answers, but it's just a fun question I like to think about from time to time.

6 Comments
2020/01/30
10:32 UTC

11

Everything is equally weird - On Graham Harman's philosophy

2 Comments
2020/01/29
20:51 UTC

7

Could someone eli5 Speculative Realism/OOO and why it’s important to academic thought?

My crude understanding is that it’s a move away from German idealism but not all the way to naive realism. Seems like a natural synthesis but what makes this shift important and how is it applied to specific problems? Why are there entire books written on it alone and, not to sound dismissive, but does this have any relevance to the world outside metaphysical navel gazing?

4 Comments
2020/01/22
20:50 UTC

8

Hi everyone, my most recent video attempts to explain Bergnonian time. ;-)

0 Comments
2019/12/25
01:59 UTC

2

Lemurians&Tellurians

Greetings.
Can anyone summarize known information about Lemurians and Tellurians?

0 Comments
2019/11/03
18:44 UTC

3

Question regarding DeLanda's model of Assemblages and the Absolute Contingency of Meillassoux.

Question: Does DeLanda's collapse (flattening of the original Deleuzo-Guattarian ontological modes) hinge on the Speculative Realist formulation of Absolute Contingency?

In the book "Philosophy and Simulation", DeLanda develops a comprehensive guide for the "multiagent" theory, which he, by the end of the book, relates better to his assemblage theory developed from Deleuze&Guattari's many fragmentary "definitions" of an assemblage in "A Thousand Plateaus". Both what he defines as assemblages and the multiagents hinge on a flattening of ontology, from what he understood as D&G's modes of Individual/Group/Social modes, into that of the Individual/Group as sole pseudo-dual mode (he gave an explanatory lecture on why he understands the Social mode to be a Marxist conflation, and why the new realism tries to get rid of it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzJqOX4ASA8]). So now the world is composed of individuals, and these individuals are composed of groups (and vice-versa), so truly these are two aspects of the same ontological mode that is "singular". Assemblages seem to be to the "individual" what multiagents are to "groups". He does all this to account for the expansion of the concept of emergence, that he develops in contrast to the notion of consistency also found in D&G's ATP. The question here is if this collapse of ontological modes into one flattened ontology hinges on the conflation of the understanding of contingent into that of Absolute Contingency developed by Quentin Meillassoux in his book "After Finitude", that kickstarted the Speculative Realism movement of which DeLanda is kind of a part of. That is, the Social mode is replaced by the conditional of emergence that is "necessary contingency" to account as ground/unground for the individual difference.

The flattening of an ontology seems to hinge on the dissolution of the "possible" into the "real", now the possible is the contingent real, and, as developed by Yuk Hui in the book "Recursivity and Contingency" in treating of these matters, the contingent [in the speculative formulation] reveals itself as necessary. Necessary contingency is not possible, but real (now the real englobes the impossible, too).

If needed, I can try to expand more on this problematic, but DeLanda or others might have already talked about this, and so I ask if you guys know anything about it. I have a comparative analysis (more of a genealogy) between these "classical" modes (possible, real, etc.) with the complexified ones found in Deleuzian thought (virtual, actual, intensive, extensive, etc.) and DeLanda's terminologies (capacity, tendency, potential, etc.).

0 Comments
2019/07/16
02:43 UTC

5

Animated essay on the Anthropocene with an OOO framework

0 Comments
2019/06/03
06:45 UTC

4

Graduate Schools in the States for Speculative Realism

Hi all, I was wondering if there are any funded philosophy graduate programmes in the states that would happen to have a faculty member familiar with or working within the Speculative Realist movement.

* I know Negarestani is at New School and DeLanda is at Princeton but New School doesn’t fund and DeLanda is under the Architecture dept *

Basically my question here is; how do I get to study and publish work with a Speculative Realist bent?

2 Comments
2018/10/22
09:29 UTC

3

What is speculative realism?

What unites the core members of the movement is an attempt to overcome both “correlationism” as well as “philosophies of access.” In After Finitude, Meillassoux defines correlationism as "the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other."

Can somebody please elaborate correlationism further?

Also, why is it called speculative realism? What is speculative and realistic about it?

1 Comment
2018/10/05
12:16 UTC

7

Is process philosophy (Whitehead, Deleuze) associated with speculative realism? • r/askphilosophy

0 Comments
2018/04/20
02:34 UTC

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