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| Speculative realism | |
|---|---|
| Name | Speculative realism |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| Era | 21st-century philosophy |
| Main interests | Metaphysics, ontology, epistemology |
| Notable ideas | Realist ontology, withdrawal, object-oriented ontology, correlationism critique |
Speculative realism is a contemporary movement in Anglo-European philosophy that emerged in the early 21st century as a reaction to predominant trends in postwar thought. It gathers a heterogeneous set of thinkers who challenge entrenched positions associated with Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Theodor W. Adorno, and late modern hermeneutic and critical theories. The movement reconceives metaphysics, ontology, and realism through engagements with figures such as Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, Bruno Latour, and technological and scientific developments tied to institutions like Max Planck Society and laboratories such as CERN.
Speculative realism arose from a 2007 conference and subsequent special issue of the journal Collapse that grouped together philosophers including Quentin Meillassoux, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier, and Iain Hamilton Grant. The term captures a shared dissatisfaction with what critics labeled "correlationism"—the idea that humans can only access relations between thought and being—a critique aimed at readings of Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and post-Kantian continental figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Influences derive from a wide intellectual milieu that includes Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, as well as engagements with the sciences represented by researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Royal Society.
Key figures associated with the movement include Quentin Meillassoux, founder of the term "speculative materialism" and author of After Finitude; Graham Harman, developer of object-oriented ontology and author of Tool-Being; Ray Brassier, interlocutor of nihilism and translator of work by Alain Badiou; and Iain Hamilton Grant, who revives a nature-philosophy allied to Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Schelling. Secondary and related voices include Bruno Latour (science and technology studies), Nick Srnicek (political economy and accelerationism), Reza Negarestani (rationalist speculative thought), Paul Churchland (neurophilosophy), William E. Connolly (political theory), and Giorgio Agamben (biopolitics). Schools and currents span object-oriented ontology associated with Graham Harman, speculative materialism linked to Quentin Meillassoux, nihilistic realist tendencies tied to Ray Brassier, and neo-vitalist or neo-Romantic strains connected to Iain Hamilton Grant and references to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.
Speculative realist thought centers on metaphysical commitments such as realism about objects and the independence of reality from human thought, drawing on predecessors like Baruch Spinoza and Gottlob Frege. Central concepts include the critique of correlationism developed against interpretations of Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; the idea of withdrawal or the autonomy of objects emphasized by Graham Harman with resonances in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology; the contingency of natural laws highlighted by Quentin Meillassoux through his notion of ancestral statements; and the acceptance of realism compatible with scientific practice as practiced at institutions such as Stanford University and California Institute of Technology. Debates incorporate terminologies borrowed from David Lewis (modal realism), Alain Badiou (event and multiplicity), and Henri Bergson (duration), while also engaging technical literature in cosmology, paleontology, and cognitive science associated with researchers at Smithsonian Institution and Princeton University.
Speculative realism deliberately crosses and critiques boundaries between the Continental philosophy and Analytic philosophy traditions. It opposes post-Kantian continental figures such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean-François Lyotard on issues of linguistic mediation, while simultaneously incorporating analytic concerns exemplified by Bertrand Russell, Willard Van Orman Quine, and Saul Kripke regarding metaphysical ontology and reference. This syncretism produces dialogues with scholars at universities like Oxford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University, and prompts re-evaluations of methods advocated by Wilfrid Sellars and P.F. Strawson. The movement’s stylistic heterogeneity mirrors engagements with figures ranging from Martin Heidegger to Hilary Putnam.
Speculative realism has informed a variety of fields beyond academic philosophy, influencing practitioners and institutions in art, architecture, media studies, and science and technology studies. Artists influenced by object-oriented ontology exhibit work in galleries associated with institutions like Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, and Serpentine Galleries; architects draw on speculative ideas at events such as the Venice Biennale; and media theorists deploy realist ontologies in analysis emerging from departments at Goldsmiths, University of London and University of Warwick. The movement resonates with debates in environmental humanities and anthropology, connecting to scholarship at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and museums like the Natural History Museum, London, and it intersects with computational and AI research at DeepMind and Google where questions about objecthood, emergence, and autonomy receive technical instantiations.
Critics challenge speculative realism on methodological, historical, and political grounds. Continental critics affiliated with traditions tracing through Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault argue that speculative realism underestimates linguistic and historical mediation; analytic critics drawing on W.V.O. Quine and David Lewis sometimes contest its metaphysical claims as insufficiently rigorous. Feminist and postcolonial scholars connected to frameworks by Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty critique its perceived neglect of power and social situatedness. Debates also arise over the movement’s relationship to scientific realism as defended by figures like Hilary Putnam and contested by philosophers tied to the London School of Economics and the sociology of knowledge exemplified by Bruno Latour.
Category:Metaphysical movements