New Realism

El presente texto es el prólogo para mi traducción de Q. Meillassoux, "Metafísica y ficción extracientífica" (Santiago: Roneo, 2020), que co-escribimos M. Ramírez y yo. Contiene una explicación general del 'realismo especulativo' y el rol que el filósofo Q. Meillassoux juega en él, a partir de su propuesta de 'materialismo especulativo' y la crítica a la noción de 'correlacionismo' allí implicada. Luego, el prólogo entrega indicaciones sobre la relación entre metafísica y ficción propuesta por el autor.

Quentin Meillassoux, "Metafísica y ficción extracientífica, seguido de "La bola de billar" de I. Asimov. Santiago: Roneo, 2020. Traducción y notas de Meillassoux por Jean-Paul Grasset B. Prólogo de Jean-Paul Grasset B. y Mario Teodoro Ramírez.
Traducción de 'La bola de billar" por Cristóbal Carrasco y Nicolás Vargas.

This thesis studies new forms of realism in Spanish prose in the 2000s, from a corpus of four novels. It contemplates what makes the contemporary reality aesthetic, what its epistemology is, and what links it bears to other forms of knowledge. What roles do realist narrations play in the configuration of social imaginaries, when the heritage of the democratic transition and the narration of Spanish modernisation are called into question?
We first examine the conditions of historical, socio-economic and cultural possibilities of a renewal of realism, which is mapped throughout the literary field of the last twenty years. The central hypothesis is that realism springs back up from the fact that debates around historical memory in the 2000s, and since 2008, the economic, social and political crisis prompt the revision of the transition myth and the project of modernity which had been structuring Spain’s social imaginaries since the 1960s.
Three parts offer different studies of realist poetics, diachronically and synchronically, to highlight the evolution of the modes of realist referentiality between the start of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, the crisis of 2008 and its beginning as an inflexion point. The first part tackles two novels (Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad, 2001 and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Enterrar a los muertos, 2005), which discuss the social fabrication of documents and historiography to reinterpret the 1936 war, the dictatorship and the transition. The second and third parts (Rafael Chirbes, Crematorio, 2007, and Isaac Rosa, La mano invisible, 2011) analyse the elaboration of a collective narrative of developmental Spain, at the dawn of the crisis, through novels which interact with the economic theory of liberalism and historic sociology.
At the crossroads of literary studies, social discourse, history and the contemporary sociology of Spain, this thesis argues that the appropriation of realism in the 2000s questions a national identity that is democratic, modern, and takes part in the reappearance of a problematic reality after the meta narration of a model transition collapsed. If the novels all try to tackle the social reality according to its representations, they differ through what « reality » means to them, through the nature of its historic and material causes, and through the ways they describe it.

El presente texto es el prólogo  para mi traducción de M. Gabriel, "El poder del arte", Santiago: Roneo, 2019. Contiene una localización general de Markus Gabriel en el panorama del "nuevo realismo" y el previo "realismo especulativo", además de indicaciones sobre su pensamiento sobre arte y sentido.

Here, I follow one of the more exciting and under-explored consequences of grounding media as metaphor - the (not so) sudden compatibility of media ecology with the claim that fictional objects are real. This paper explores what ontological repercussions can be brought to bear on McLuhan's long-evolving media concept in light of some contemporary continental theories concerning the reality-fiction divide. While McLuhan's message has resonated with many since the publication of Understanding Media (1964), some recent criticism has challenged this tradition by suggesting that McLuhan's concept of 'media as metaphor' rests on a pluralistic ontology of media forms. In my view, the creative interplay between figure and ground that marks mediums as sites of causal events blurs without effacing the distinction between actuality and possibility and suggests that the constant extension and remediation of media forms that emerge from consciousness plays an active role in perceptual awareness of objective reality. I argue that this alternative approach to media ontology rehabilitates Aristotle's formal cause by extending the concept to include a form of poiesis. McLuhan's media, therefore, signal that media forms achieve a fictional status through an inexhaustible process of mediation as interpretation. It is in this sense that I read McLuhan as a thinker of the new and a philosopher of fiction.

Hace unos meses, un amigo y colega, profesor en una universidad española, escribía un tuit que borró al día siguiente, por alguna razón que desconozco. El tuit preguntaba: "¿Qué idea filosófica es tan claramente falsa que muy probablemente ni siquiera el filósofo que la propuso se la creía?". Él mismo comenzaba con una respuesta: "Kant: el mundo en sí es incognoscible". Seguían otras variopintas añadidas por otros tuiteros, como éstas: "Berkeley: cuando dejo de percibir una cosa, ésta sigue existiendo porque Dios la percibe", "Nietzsche: el eterno retorno", "Nietzsche: no hay hechos, solo interpretaciones", "Putnam: no hay distinción entre hechos y valores", "Latour: Ramsés II no pudo morir de tuberculosis porque el bacilo de Koch fue descubierto (construido socialmente) en el siglo XIX". Yo añadí una menos clara quizás, aunque no para mí: "Van Fraassen: nuestras teorías científicas actuales tienen éxito no porque nos proporcionen verdades aproximadas sobre entidades inobservables, sino porque las que no tenían éxito predictivo las hemos abandonado". Y al día siguiente me quedé con las ganas de añadir otra: "Vattimo: el adiós a la verdad es la base misma de la democracia", o bien, del mismo autor, "La diferencia entre verdadero y falso es siempre una diferencia entre interpretaciones". Pues bien, el realismo es la teoría filosófica que explica por qué todas estas ideas son falsas. Siendo esto así, y dada la popularidad que han llegado a alcanzar algunas de ellas, es importante conocer qué sostiene el realismo y por qué ha sido tan cuestionado desde hace ya dos siglos al menos.

Daß alle unsere Erkenntnis mit der Erfahrung anfange, daran ist gar kein Zweifel", sentenzia Kant in apertura alla prima Kritik. L'affermazione che tutte le nostre conoscenze inizino dall'esperienza, ahimè, è ancora "cosa" dubbia. Sul banco degli imputati troviamo, come maggiore responsabile della strage di certezze sull'esistenza del mondo esterno, il concetto di "rappresentazione" che rende mediata, e non immediata, la nostra esperienza. L'evidenza della cosa che si offre alla nostra coscienza è apodittica, ma non la sua esistenza nel mondo esterno. La rappresentazione segna una distanza dal mondo difficilmente sanabile dal linguaggio e dalle cure offerte dalle metafisiche di matrice "soggettivistica". Eppure vi sono ottime ragioni per pensare la conoscenza come qualcosa di immediato: non ogni conoscenza, ma l'inizio della conoscenza in quanto tale. Questo inizio non va incentrato unicamente nel cogito, nel pensiero o nel linguaggio, non risiede nel "nome" che dice la cosa, non riposa nel linguaggio, bensì nella cosa stessa, nel fenomeno colto iuxta propria principia. Il linguaggio rappresenta un aspetto, un possibile sistema di riferimento sulla cosa. Rovesciamo la prospettiva dal pensiero al phainomenon, per ri-tornare al logos. Possiamo ritrovare il senso della fenomeno-logia nella relazione e nel rinvio di questi due concetti che ne compongono il termine. Tale giunzione sarà operata attraverso l'"esperienza immediata", nozione che contraddistingue la storia della fenomenologia: altrove abbiamo definito "eretica" questa fenomenologia, per la sua eterodossia rispetto a

This paper sets out four fundamental theses. The first (REALITYSM) is the
critique of the postmodern hypothesis according to which all reality is socially constructed, a thesis that led to a distorted conception of the media as omnipotent manufacturers of reality. The second (NEW REALISM) is the thesis that there is a fundamental layer of reality that not only exists independently of the media, but also of the mind. The third (DOCUMENTALITY) proposes an ontology that accounts for the
construction of social objects as dependent on recording, a function to be considered as superordinate both with respect to the media and to the construction of reality as a whole. The fourth (EMERGENCE) asserts that intentionality and normativity are a product of documentality and therefore also of the media as part of it.

This paper aims to get a general overview over this question : can the conception of reality as it is consecrated in Clément Rosset's theory, as being a totality and of which little can be known, be opposed to the one promoted by Markus Gabriel around the fields of sense, key concept of his theory (fundamental in the new realist ontology) ? In a first chapter, it will therefore be necessary to determine in what way reality is constituted according to Clément Rosset, and more particularly the different approaches constituting the human capacity to admit reality – or to refuse it – from a gathering of his works on the question of reality. After having identified the meaning of his proposal on this subject, we will examine whether it could be called into question in relation to the new realistic movement in which Markus Gabriel is the leading figure. To his famous assertion that "Everything exists but the world", the German philosopher intends to rebuild the foundation of realism by constituting its own movement (the new realism). We will thus see how Rosset’s philosophy seems to be built on a radical conception of reality while trying to put it in parallel with the idea developed by Markus Gabriel on the matter.

Markus Gabriel nem csupán az újrealizmus kitüntetett képviselő-je, hanem az "újrealizmus" elnevezés kiötlője is-beszámolója szerint egy 2011-es nyári napon, egy Maurizio Ferrarisszal eltöltött nápolyi ebéd során javasolta e terminus használatát. Ám miközben kétségtelen, hogy Gabriel fenntartások nélkül újrealistának tekinthető, a "józan észnek" és a hagyományos realizmusoknak is gyakran grimaszt vágó meghökkentő állításai ismeretében érdemes hozzátenni, hogy némiképp szokatlan realizmusról van szó. A gabrieli filozófia, mint oly sok másik újrealizmus, szemben áll az általa régi típusúakként számon tartott realizmusokkal, amelyek szerint a realizmusoknak az elmefüggetlen valóság léte mellett kell letenniük voksukat. Ezzel Gabriel azt a felfogást szegezi szembe, miszerint az elme teljesítményei a valóság teljes jogú részét képezik, s a kiiktatásukra való törekvés elfogadhatatlan.

W]rite about yourself. Don't imitate literary models. Of course, imitating literary models is the best thing one can do. -Harry Mathews, "The Art of Fiction No. 191" 1 These include sections in works of autobiography studies which are quoted here (Anderson, Smith and Watson), along with anthologies such as Thomas G.

Realism and new realism need to be reconsidered in terms of new representatives of the literature in America. One of the prominent names who skillfully employs these literary currents in his fiction is Philip Roth. In this paper I analyzed how Philip Roth's work Operation Shylock helps readers understand the transformation from realism to new realism.

Quello di “fusione degli orizzonti” è senza dubbio uno dei concetti-chiave dell’ermeneutica filosofica di Gadamer. Introdotto in Verità e metodo per indicare l’integrazione reciproca tra l’orizzonte di partenza dell’interprete, determinato dai suoi pregiudizi e dalle sue aspettative di senso, e quello della “cosa stessa” che è in gioco nel testo da interpretare, tale concetto è stato successivamente anche applicato alla comprensione del linguaggio in quanto dialogo ed assunto come modello per lo studio dei rapporti tra culture diverse o per la comparazione tra paradigmi filosofici differenti. In questo libro si analizzano diversi aspetti della filosofia di Gadamer (estetica, etica, ontologia, linguaggio) sulla base del concetto di fusione degli orizzonti inteso in quest’ultima accezione.

This is a discussion of what I call Le Guin's dark realism. A version of this paper was presented at the conference Héritages d'Ursula Le Guin. Science, fiction et éthique pour l'Anthropocène which was held in Paris between the 18th and 21st of June 2019.

The paper itself is an early version of an extended effort to come to terms with Le Guin's writing, and particular with Le Guin's understanding of the relationship between writing and the environment. This version of the paper is particularly interested in questions of time in Le Guin, though the discussions of time in this text are-- in the opinion of the author-- somewhat inchoate. I nevertheless leave the text on the site with the assumption that it may be of interest to some, if only as an illustration of how not to get our minds around a difficult writer.

"Introduction to New Realism" provides an overview of the movement of contemporary thought named New Realism, by its creator and most celebrated practitioner, Maurizio Ferraris. Sharing significant concerns and features with Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology, New Realism can be said to be one of the most prescient philosophical positions today. Its desire to overcome the postmodern antirealism of Kantian origin, and to reassert the importance of truth and objectivity in the name of a new Enlightenment, has had an enormous resonance both in Europe and in the US. Introduction to New Realism is the first volume dedicated to exposing this continental movement to an anglophone audience.

Featuring a foreword by the eminent contemporary philosopher and leading exponent of Speculative Realism, Iain Hamilton Grant, the book begins by tracing the genesis of New Realism, and outlining its central theoretical tenets, before opening onto three distinct sections. The first, 'Negativity', is a critique of the postmodern idea that the world is constructed by our conceptual schemas, all the more so as we have entered the age of digitality and virtuality. The second thesis, 'positivity', proposes the fundamental ontological assertion of New Realism, namely that not only are there parts of reality that are independent of thought, but these parts are also able to act causally over thought and the human world. The third thesis, 'normativity,' applies New Realism to the sphere of the social world. Finally, an afterword written by two young scholars explains in more detail the relationship between New Realism and other forms of contemporary realism.

RESUMEN

El objetivo de este trabajo es elaborar un concepto de cine a partir de las posiciones de autores clásicos y contemporáneos sobre el tema.  Se trata de una elaboración que articula una aproximación histórica y otra sistemática. Reconstruye, por una parte, las condiciones de aparición y desarrollo del fenómeno cinematográfico; y, por otra parte, recoge y valora las propuestas sobre la esencia y los aspectos fundamentales que del cine han hecho grandes realizadores cinematográficos y filósofos como Alain Badiou y Gilles Deleuze. La perspectiva de este trabajo es básicamente filosófica, conceptual, pero incorpora una preocupación práctica, en la medida que busca esclarecer las condiciones mediante las que creamos e interpretamos el cine. El trabajo se divide en 4 capítulos, una introducción y unas conclusiones: en el primer capítulo se aborda el surgimiento histórico del cine; en el segundo se analizan las teorías de varios realizadores sobre el cine; en el tercero se reconstruye el concepto deleuziano de cine; y en el cuarto se hacen algunas anotaciones sobre el aspecto hermenéutico de la experiencia cinematográfica.

PALABRAS CLAVE: cine, realismo,  imaginación, imagen-movimiento, interpretación.


ABSTRACT

The aim of this work was to expand upon the concept of cinema from the positions of classic and contemporary authors, developing it through both a historic and a systematic approach. On the one hand, it reconstructs the conditions that made way for the appearance and development of the cinematographic phenomenon. And on the other, it brings together and analyzes the proposals on the essence and fundamental aspects of cinema made by great film directors and philosophers, such as Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. The perspective of this work is basically philosophical, conceptual, but it incorporates a practical concern in its attempt to clarify the conditions through which we create and interpret film. The work is divided into an introduction, 4 chapters, and conclusions: the first chapter discusses the historic emergence of the cinema; the second analyzes the film theories of various directors, the third chapter recreates the Deleuzian concept of film, and the fourth includes annotations on the hermeneutic aspect of the cinematographic experience. 

KEY WORDS: cinema, realism, imagination, movement-image, interpretation.

Excerpt from Ch. 5 of Capitalism's Holocaust of Animals: In order to equate the human and the non-human animal in the chain of destruction that sustains economy and technology, or to render them equal in the instance of necessary killing, Haraway chooses to treat both the animal (including the lab animal and animals for slaughter) and the human animal as “laborers.” But neither are “laborers” under the terms of capitalism. The system of capitalist economy does not recognise any other form of labor except “wage labor.” The estranged, abstracted wage labor, the abstraction of labor turned into a self-standing reality and commodity (in the narrower economic sense) as reified abstraction are the creation of philosophy and, by structural homology, of capitalism too. By the same token, the wage laborer is by definition human and, in his determination in the last instance, a male human, also more often than not—white. Wage labor is applicable to humans only, or to be more concise—to man only. Women and animals are resource, material, as will become men too with the extinction of the wage laborer—the flesh necessary for the combustion of the Machine-Capital. Haraway seeks to “emancipate” the animal through this move, and in spite of her declared expansion of the category of the animal to include the human, a gesture of subjectivisation of the killed or the suffering animal takes place. Therefore, in spite of the opposite intention, animal’s humanisation takes place. She is elevating both the human and the non-human animal into laborers, which implies both agency and “meaningful purpose” of existence (or productiveness)—her solution is too “philosomorphic” (to borrow the term from Ó Maoilearca).

Phenomenology has entered its second century showing essential advances along with movements that have raised questions about its scope and limits. When Phenomenology ceases to be so and enters into field considered even extra-philosophical? Can the device designed to give foundation to the full knowledge give rise to what cannot be reduced to the intentional scheme? Our work explores this disputed topic and proposes a way of conceiving a Phenomenology that returns to the Husserlian roots and contains inside itself the breaking elements showing their belonging to a unique program. For this we will formulate the guidelines of what we call "Phenomenology of the Inapparent", an approach that leads to the exploration of the ways of appearing up to the borders of the phenomenological realm, but at the same time tries to point out what has been inapparent, in the sense of latent in Phenomenology itself. In this sense, we will analyse what has been seen as a field outside the view of Phenomenology to indicate aspects and possibilities of redirecting them within and dissolving with it long-standing misunderstandings.

We will discuss the belief that Phenomenology could treat only marginally some regions and that the variants within it constitute proof of the absence of a reliable methodology and stable features of its central notions. On the contrary, we will show that what has been interpreted as an indication of its internal disruption is, in fact, a mark of its flexibility to account for the entire range of phenomenality.

The delayed publication of the Husserlian texts produced partial interpretations and fragmentary exegesis. In an attempt to show the breadth of readings that operate on a reduced interpretation of the Husserlian field, R. Rizo-Patrón offers an eloquent list, according to which the transcendental Phenomenology has been criticized because it is presented "as an a-historical idealism or essentialism; an epigonal form of the metaphysics of subjectivity that, qua solipsistic egology established by epojé and reduction, consecrates the self-transparency of the ego vs. the opacity of the unconscious or the false consciousness, leading to the failure of his theory of intersubjectivity; a logocentric, intellectualist and foundationalist scientific philosophy that fails to overcome the prejudices of modern philosophy; a metaphysics of presence that leads to failure his analyzes of temporality; a centripetal philosophy of self-sufficient immanence and self- contained, which excludes and reduces any dependence on a transcendence, centrifugal, decentral and exceedant; in short, a philosophy of identity (selfhood, ipseity, or the realm of autonomy), which, through objective and constitutive intentionality, seeks to subdue all difference (otherness, or the realm of heteronomy), among other things" (R. Rizo- Patrón, 2015, 426).

Several of these characterisations are recognisable and arise from the critical statements regarding the Husserlian Phenomenology. This construction is composed of portions that are detached from the philosophical totality that sustains these parts. This should be taken into account since from the beginning Philosophy was an attempt to search for the truth, but also a dispute to install readings that supposedly nobody saw before except in an incomplete way. From Aristotle and his reconstruction of the previous history in terms of steps towards his own system to Heidegger's criticisms of onto- theology as a confusion of being with the entity that hypostasizes one of these to the place of the foundation, Philosophy has surrendered to the logic of the refutation of previous ideas and their replacement by novelty.

Husserl, in some sense, does nothing else, but it is clear that in his declaration of a new beginning based on apodictic evidence he supports the project in a different dynamic. Thus, what in other regions of philosophy is merely an expected procedure, within Phenomenology becomes a point of tension, if we hope to consider it as a living and effective philosophical option and not just as a historical piece. The validity of the works produced in its sphere is enough evidence that Phenomenology is more than a direction without an exit, and that it is not diluted in its familiarity with thought as Heidegger suggests, but it preserves its pretension of foundation and method.

For that, it is necessary to demonstrate that Phenomenology does not consist in a rigid form of thinking, but that it has intrinsic plasticity. That is precisely where its highest value lies, given that this flexibility makes it suitable to sustain very varied explorations that prolong its vitality. In this sense, the "vulgate" of the phenomenological method is composed of elements associated with the static aspects, with some elements of the genetic approach, and in general blurs the sphere of generative Phenomenology as a display of approaches to geneticity. In this line, moreover, it is more usual to find statements of an evolutionary type that states that Husserl would have gone through stages that implied the abandonment of the previous ones. There is a lack of readings emphasising the long-term lines that sustain Husserl's production in his different approaches. Therefore, it is necessary to indicate how, without reducing one to another, these approaches are linked to cover various aspects of experience and allow Phenomenology to account for a vast field of experiences.

Moreover, the proposals associated with progressive and regressive aspects are often omitted, although they imply not only a variety of links between the static, genetic and generative approaches, but the deployment of mechanisms that give to the general view a high degree of cohesion. Considering these points, we can show that some of the criticisms of the most recent phenomenological lines oriented to think the lack of perspective omit these general features of the Husserlian Philosophy and therefore exaggerate their distance, taking it as a step to overcome or correct and not as a nucleus of developments that by virtue of its intrinsic plasticity can be revised and increased without breaking its limits.

This point is essential because it implies that Phenomenology is established as a theoretical program, but also as a horizon for collective scientific work. From this perspective, the supposed dissidence within the phenomenological scope is exaggerated and could be summarized by revealing that many of the later drifts were already present in the Husserlian approach. The initial device constitutes a framework of maximum plasticity that admits the development of new methodological and thematic modalities, with the only requirement of making explicit connections between the new developments and the modalities of demonstration already developed.

To support this general idea, we will undertake a study in two parts. The first deals with the way in which Husserl presented Phenomenology to identify the different strategies used, in conjunction with the drifts that we find in Heidegger's philosophy, which is a powerful incentive for the lines that have dealt with excess and the inapparent. On this basis, the second part characterises the features acquired by Phenomenology seen from the point of view of its unfolding in the inapparent and analyses three central spheres for the general device: the method, the phenomenon and the subject.

Indeed, the first part pays attention to the Husserlian presentations of Phenomenology for different audiences. In The Idea of Phenomenology, of 1907, the transcendental elements are presented for the first time and the traits of neo-Cartesianism are established. We will then turn to "Philosophy as a strict science", the article that in 1911 aims to situate Phenomenology in the concert of current discussions. Regarding the opening of the Freiburg period, we will study Husserl's inaugural Conference, delivered in 1917 at the time of assuming his teaching position. It offers a general synthesis of central aspects of his philosophical contributions to that date. On that basis, we will follow the drifts of the presentation model that he inaugurated in 1922 in his London Conferences and form the substrate on which later, in 1929, he delineated the Paris Conferences. We will refer finally to the relationship between the conflicting German version of this text and the project of retaking the System of phenomenological philosophy that constituted an idea from the beginning of the 20s.

(See attached files)

"En nous penchant dans les pages suivantes sur l’argumentation que Quentin Meillassoux élabore à l’appui de sa pensée, nous aimerions tenter de faire ressortir un problème dans l’argument qu'il développe lorsqu’il prétend identifier le moyen d’échapper au cercle corrélationnel. Nous ne nierons pas ainsi les nombreux mérites qui lui reviennent, mais tâcherons de montrer que, s’il est bel et bien possible de sortir du cercle pour arriver aux conclusions auxquelles il arrive, il faut sans doute s’y prendre autrement. Tandis que Joshua Heller et Jon Cogburn ont donné raison à Meillassoux quant à la validité de son raisonnement, Thibaut Giraud et Raphaël Millière lui ont donné tort en essayant de formaliser son argument, dont la reconstruction demeure sujette à discussion. Pour notre part, nous n’utiliserons pas la logique formelle, mais procèderons grâce à la « logique informelle » dans le but d’en faire saillir une insuffisance, ou tout au moins une fragilité."

Speculative realism has grown strong in philosophy, challenging what its supporters call philosophies of correlation. Aiming at a renewal of previous ideas, this train of thought relies on mechanisms to indicate its originality and report the previous tradition as a wrong path towards the proper opinion. In this procedure, the election of opponents is deliberated and is anchored in both the history of philosophy and contemporary trends, such as phenomenology. A colourful gigantomachia occurs, one that in many ways goes back to the struggle between materialists and the friends of Ideas that Plato recounted in Sophist. 1 This iteration, as has also happened many times, hides the concepts that are actually at stake, since phenomenology is seen in a partial and restricted way that completely distorts its scope. A quick survey of the works of authors who in recent times have addressed this issue reveals a tendency to rely on the static and genetic stages of phenomenology as if they were a synthesis of Husserl's thought. Thus, any development that lacks these traits is considered alien, including some ideas of Husserl himself. The development of French phenomenology illustrates this point well, pointing out some issues that exceed common phenomena and overtake the limits of intentional correlation. The so-called theological turn shows this tension, as does speculative realism, which incorporates some similar elements. Meillassoux's challenge to "think a world without thought, a world without the givenness of the world" to "understand how thought is able to access the uncorrelated, which is to say, a world capable of subsisting without being given", 2 or Harman's proposal about the irreducibility and inexhaustibility of objects are examples of this point. Indeed, the new realisms often object to many philosophies because they are not be able to account for a non-metaphysical absolute. In the case of phenomenology, this is a very impoverished view of its scope and a revision of this idea could lessen the collision. Texts like Tom Sparrow's The End of Phenomenology, which cuts ties between realism and phenomenology, do not help to solve the issue. 3 In this work, we shall take as our source the phenomenological horizon in order to show its deep compatibility with many developments associated with new realisms. Firstly, we shall review some aspects of what we call the 'phe …

The argument of this dissertation is that despite the intellectual gendered burden of the problem of disembodiment I define, it can be employed from within the limitations of a gendered account in feminist philosophy of the continental-realist type. I formulate the problem of disembodiment as rooted in the notion of the boundless (apeiron) associated with femininity. Both boundlessness and disembodiment are subject to radicalization in Plato (chōra) and Plotinus (to hen). Read as a dyad, they culminate in a tendency towards gendered disembodiment, mediated by Plato’s soul-body dualism. The dissertation seeks to compare the gendered dimension of disembodiment in the work of Plato and Plotinus and that of the non- philosophers François Laruelle and Katerina Kolozova.
“Part I. The Problem of Boundlessness: Radicalizing Disembodiment” is divided in three chapters, which present an intellectual history of the problem of boundlessness as femininity. I survey the problem of boundlessness as drafting relations between elements and principles and femininity in Greek mythology (Chapter 1), Plato’s cosmology (Chapter 2), and Plotinus’ metaphysics (Chapter 3). I argue that the relation between death and the female was ambivalent by the time of the Anaximandrean apeiron and that it became a subject of radicalization via Plato’s chōra and Plotinus’ One, mediated by the notion of the Indefinite Dyad and the doctrine of divided matter. The problem of boundlessness was subject to conceptual radicalization that led to hierarchical metaphysics and deepened the division between body and soul via the association of femininity, reproductivity and matter.
“Part II. The Problem of Disembodiment: Revising Boundlessness” is divided in two chapters focusing on the contemporary relevance and importance of the problem of disembodiment as a way of revising boundlessness. I present and explain the legacy of the Platonic chōra and the Plotinian One and what they as a dyad entail for contemporary continental philosophy. I offer (Chapter 4) a trajectory for a continental feminist philosophy interpretation of disembodiment by combining continental feminist philosophy, non- philosophy and new realism. With the aid of Laruelle’s non-philosophy, I explain how and why chōra and the One can be used for/from continental feminist philosophy, followed by a presentation of how chōra and the One are revised in continental philosophy from non- philosophical and new realist perspectives. I then develop (Chapter 5) a continental feminist philosophical interpretation of and approach to the problem of disembodiment from a realist perspective by problematizing continental and feminist philosophical anti-realism. The approach presented is itself an argument in defence of a feminist engagement with disembodiment and the dissertation’s contribution: a non-philosophical contribution to the problem of disembodiment via a continental feminist-realist philosophical approach. The approach is offered through the intersection of continental feminist realism and non- philosophy, and partially new realism. My conclusion is that an affirmative project and consideration of disembodiment for continental feminist philosophy is possible via a non- philosophical and new realist reconsideration of the One.

Literary Studies of contemporary works of literature, in the absence of a canon, are to a high degree directed by order-making umbrella terms. Using the umbrella term “new realism” as example the study examines (1) its relationship with poetological discourses as well as discourses of a diagnosis of the present, (2) how the umbrella term’s attractiveness corresponds to its conceptual underdetermination, and (3) which different forms text analytical concepts of “new realism” can take.

Entre las diferentes tendencias de la filosofía contemporánea, el llamado "nuevo realismo" es probablemente uno de los más interesantes. El "Nuevo Realismo" no es simplemente un "regreso" a la realidad, un reconocimiento banal y trivial de la existencia del mundo externo. Más bien, es un movimiento filosófico polémico (y por lo tanto político) contra el monopolio teórico, especialmente en la filosofía continental, gobernada por el discurso filosófico posmoderno. Por lo tanto, el Nuevo Realismo es una especie de antagonista filosófico de la posmodernidad. Sin embargo, no podemos reducir el Nuevo Realismo a la simple crítica de la posmodernidad. De hecho, el Nuevo Realismo es un movimiento filosófico multifacético y estratificado. Hay muchos Realismos Nuevos diferentes. Estos Nuevos Realismos incluyen diferentes autores, líneas y caminos de investigación, unidos por la crítica de la posmodernidad, pero distinguidos de muchas maneras. El objetivo de esta contribuciónes doble. En primer lugar, se rastreará brevemente la historia teórica del Nuevo Realismo. En segundo lugar, se pondrá el acento en las temáticas más importantes del nuevo realismo y, al mismo tiempo, en las diferentes teorías filosóficas (Ferraris, Meillassoux, Gabriel, Boghossian, Harman, Gratton) desarrolladas bajo la denominación de "Nuevo Realismo".

ASCA Workshop 2019 ‘Realities and Fantasies’
Relations, Transformations, Discontinuities
10-12 April, organized by Divya Nadkarni, Alex Thinius, Nadia de Vries.

Keynote lectures:
• Jonathan Culler (Cornell University): Fantasizing Narrators for Novels and Speakers for Poems
• Annabelle Dufourcq (RU Nijmegen): Do we have to be Realistic? The imaginary dimension of the real: a phenomenological approach to imagination, images and the imaginary field.
• Nkiru Nzegwu (SUNY Binghamton): Dancing the In-Between: The Immense Power of Madness
• Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku): Thinking Sex, Thinking Play

        “Fantasy is precisely what reality can be confused with. It is through fantasy that our conviction of the worth of reality is established; to forgo our fantasies would be to forgo our touch with the world.” (Stanley Cavell)

What are the contemporary ways in which reality and fantasy relate, how do they contrast, and how, under what conditions, can one transform into the other? In the workshop, artists and scholars from a range of approaches, cases, and places, discuss the kinship between realities and fantasies and its contemporary use. Papers focus on love and desire in the time of tinder, AI, authenticity, narrative selves, enactment, transliminality, futurism, utopism, nationalisms, absurdity, oppressive regimes, trauma, ‘grotesque’ bodies, animal sanctuaries, magical realism, sound, intentionality, discovery between arts and science, and the normative use of art and literature. Next to paper presentations, there is an exhibition, and a workshop performance.

Keynote lectures will take place in Doelenzaal, Singel 425, the concluding keynote panel will be in the VOC zaal, Bushuis. Everyone is welcome to the keynotes and panels.

More info: https://realitiesfantasies.wordpress.com/

Encyclopedia entries, bets, gains and losses, research projects, books, lessons, relationships, votes, credits, exams certificates, exams, records, academic degrees, students, professors, art works and consumerist literature, cathedrae, aulas, application forms, hiring, revolutions, work-shops, conferences, dismissals, unions, parliaments, stock societies, laws, restaurants, money, property, governments, marriages, elections, games, cocktail parties, tribunals, lawyers, wars, humanitarian missions, voting, promises, buying and selling, prosecutors, physicians, perpetrators, taxes, vacation, medieval soldiers, presidents. What are all those objects made of? And, first of all, are they objects? Some philosophers would say they are not, since––according to them––only physical objects exist. Other philosophers would dare say that even physical objects are socially constructed, since they are the result of our theories. For real, thus, the world would be Prospero’s world: We are such stuff / As dreams are made on and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. That is not the case, though: social objects exist indeed, the proof being the difference between thinking to promise something, and actually promising something: once you give your word, the promise keeps on existing, even in case you forget about it, or––as more frequently happens––you change your mind.
The first aim of this article is to expand on the nature of social objects, as contrasted with physical and ideal objects, and to spell out the steps that lead to their discovery. Secondly, I will illustrate and criticize the major contemporary theory on social objects, John Searle’s theory, and compare it with another theory, according to which social objects are a kind of inscription. Lastly, I want show how, from this standpoint, a social ontology evolves naturally into a theory of documents, which I propose to name “documentality”.

My topic arose from a feeling of surprise, even stupefaction, facing the philosophical configuration of the last 30 years. Indeed, philosophical production seems to be reduced to a unique claim which we could summarize (to invoke A. Musset) by this command dictated to the children of the century: “Become realist”.
Let us quote in this respect some recent titles extracted from the Italian, French, German and Anglo-American production : Manifesto del nuovo realismo (Ferraris), Realism with the human face (Putnam), Realistic spirit (Diamond), The speculative Turn, continental realism and materialism (Meillassoux, Grant, Brassier and Harman), Pour un réalisme du monde de la vie (Romano), Elements de philosophie réaliste (Benoist), Petit traité de métaphysique réaliste scientifique (Tiercelin), Realismus Jetzt (Armen), Der neue Realismus (Gabriel).
Yet, except for postulating that these philosophers use the term realism flippantly or still to demonstrate that a different term unites manifold important texts today, it seems difficult, for the historian of philosophy, not to wonder about this phenomenon of crystallization, which is surprising all the more as its origins are so multiple (from the phenomenology to the philosophy of the ordinary language, and from the analytical metaphysics to continental ontology) that it transcends the divisions which structured, since 1945, our philosophic landscape (such, that between analytical and continental). It is phenomenon of crystallization that will be the object of my study.
Three questions will be asked here: first of all, what does the term realism mean today for those who claim it? Or to say it another way, what are the fundamental acts which are common to all beyond diverse approaches?
After we analyze these structural principles, we can discuss the difficulties  and shortcomings associated with their conception of realism.
Finally, while we analyze these problems, we will interrogate the unanimous definition of truth advanced by contemporary realists as well.
This definition, fastening the truth to a lone reality, seems to darken one of the other faces of the truth : the truth as universality. This current eclipse of universality is problematic. Can we truly abandon the notion of universality? Can we, moreover, characterize it and specify its dynamics? Questions which will lead us to try to understand how the philosophers are less exhibitors of reality than architects of the universal.
Abstracts La réflexion proposée dans cette conférence prend sa source dans un étonnement, voire une stupéfaction, face à la configuration de la philosophie de ces trente dernières années. En effet, la production philosophique paraît s’y réduire à une unique revendication, que l’on pourrait résumer par cette injonction lancée aux enfants du siècle : « Faites-vous réalistes ». Et de fait, qu’il faille être réaliste, et non plus relativiste comme dans les années 60, semble ne plus faire de doute pour bon nombre de philosophes aujourd’hui. Citons, à cet égard, quelques titres  récents, extraits de la production italienne, française et anglo-américaine, soit, Ferraris : Le manifeste du nouveau réalisme ; Romano : Pour un réalisme du monde de la vie ; Putnam : Le réalisme à visage humain ; Diamond : L’esprit réaliste ; Benoist : Éléments de philosophie réaliste ; Meillassoux, Brassier, Grant et Harman : Le tournant spéculatif, réalisme et matérialisme continental ou encore Tiercelin : Petit traité de métaphysique réaliste scientifique, tous titres que condense, au final, un collectif allemand de 2013 : Le réalisme maintenant ! Or, sauf à postuler que ces auteurs revendiquent le terme de « réalisme » sans autre finalité que d’ornement, ou encore à démontrer qu’une autre notion fédère une quantité aussi importante de textes aujourd’hui, il semble difficile, pour l’historien de la philosophie, de ne pas s’interroger sur ce phénomène de cristallisation, qui est d’autant plus étonnant que ses origines sont à ce point multiples (de la phénoménologie à la philosophie du langage ordinaire, en passant par la métaphysique analytique comme continentale) qu’il transcende les grandes partitions qui ont structuré, depuis l’après-guerre, notre paysage philosophique (telle, celle entre analytique et continentale). C’est ce phénomène de cristallisation qui sera l’objet de mon étude.
Trois questions seront ainsi posées : tout d’abord, que signifie, pour ceux qui le revendiquent aujourd’hui, le terme « réalisme », ou, pour le dire autrement, quels sont les actes fondamentaux qui, par-delà la diversité des approches, sont communs à tous et donnent quelque consistance à l’appellation affichée ? Peut-on, ensuite, à partir de l’analyse de ces principes structurels qui délimitent la sphère du réalisme contemporain, en repérer les apories, ou pour le dire de manière moins négative, dessiner les interrogations que suscite cette actuelle configuration, interrogations qui peuvent être conçues comme autant de pistes de recherche pour qui voudrait affermir, ou à l’inverse critiquer, cette nouvelle constellation conceptuelle ? Enfin, ces problèmes rencontrés ne nous conduisent-ils pas à revenir sur la définition de la vérité unanimement mise en avant par les actuels réalistes ? Cette définition, arrimant la vérité à la seule réalité, semble occulter l’un des autres visages de la vérité, à savoir l’universalité. Cette occultation, pour être partagée aujourd’hui, n’en est pas moins philosophiquement problématique en ce qu’elle génère de multiples contradictions au sein même des doctrines qui entendent faire l’économie de l’universel. Peut-on vraiment abandonner la notion d’universalité ? Peut-on, d’ailleurs, la caractériser et en spécifier la dynamique ? Questions qui nous entraîneront, à terme, à tenter de comprendre comment les philosophes sont moins des montreurs de réel que des architectes de l’universel

In den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten hat in Frankreich und Italien eine Abwendung vom neoavantgardistischen und vom postmodernen literarischen Paradigma und eine Überwindung von deren Zentrierung auf tendenziell selbstbezügliche, spielerisch-artifizielle Textwelten stattgefunden. Diese Abwendung verbindet sich mit einem sozial-ethischen Engagement und einem neuen Verhältnis zur ‚Wirklichkeit‘ – für diesen Paradigmenwechsel wurden in der Forschungsliteratur programmatische Schlagworten wie ‚Rückkehr zur Wirklichkeitsdarstellung‘ oder ‚Neuer Realismus‘ benutzt.
In diesem Kontext ist u.a. ein Kennzeichen mit besonderer Evidenz hervorgetreten: die hybride Form der narrativen Texte, die oft auf dokumentarischen Rekonstruktionen basieren, zugleich aber eine Lesart zulassen, die in mancherlei Hinsicht an traditionelle fiktionale Erzählungen und Romane erinnert. Sehr oft haben wir es mit Texten zu tun, in denen faktuales und fiktionales Schreiben miteinander kombiniert werden.
Die zwei Texte, die wir ausgewählt haben – Antonio Franchinis L’abusivo (2001) und Yannick Haenels Jan Karski (2009) –, dienen als exemplarische Stichproben, anhand derer wir versuchen wollen, folgende Fragen zu beantworten, die für mehrere Texte der Gegenwartsnarrativik zentral sind: Wie wird die Mischung von faktualem und fiktionalem Schreiben realisiert? Wie wird eine solche Hybridisierung jeweils begründet? Welche Wirkungen und Konsequenzen ergeben sich daraus?