Speculative Realism: Aporia or Transition?

A workshop sponsored by the Departments of Comparative Literature and European Languages and Studies, UCI

Critical Theory’s existence and appellation have been defined by the space of thinking opened up by Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Oriented around both a particular mechanistic view of nature as well as the centrality of the subject position, Kant’s form of critique and its privileging of the transcendental over the metaphysical have set the constraints for Critical Theory’s trajectory. Recent attempts by theorists such as Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux, and Catherine Malabou, to develop a “speculative realism” have attempted to point out the limitations of Critical Theory’s subject-centered perspective as well as the focus on transcendental as opposed to metaphysical questions. They have suggested new approaches, such as object-oriented ontology, radical contingency, and epigenesis, that define a stance of metaphysical realism against the dominant forms of post-Kantian and post-structuralist philosophy, referred to collectively as correlationism. Their interventions have established a new set of questions for Critical Theory that go to the heart of some of its primary commitments. Was the linguistic turn a philosophical dead-end for Critical Theory? To what extent is an object more than the projection of a subject? How can we discuss nature as dynamic form rather than predictable mechanism? What are the possibilities and limitations for a kind of theory that goes beyond a transcendental analysis in order to make metaphysical claims? Should we, on the contrary, and as proposed by Malabou, present a new version of the transcendental, and re-elaborate our relationship to Kantianism?

This one-day workshop will include presentations by David Bates (UC Berkeley), Marcello Fiocco (UCI), Wayne Hudson (University of Tasmania), Christophe Litwin (UCI), David Pan (UCI). In addition, we will have an extended conversation with Catherine Malabou (UCI) about her recent book, Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality, as well as a response by Karl Schafer (UCI).

Schedule

9-9:10am: David Pan (European Languages and Studies, UCI)
Introduction.

9:10-10:15a: Moderator: Catherine Malabou (European Languages and Studies and Comparative Literature, UCI)

“The Critique of Automatic Reason,” David Bates (Rhetoric, UC Berkeley)
30 minute presentation with 30 minute discussion.

10:30am-12pm: Moderator: Gail Hart (ELS, UCI)

“Radical Ontology” Marcello Fiocco (Philosophy, UCI)

“A Skeptic’s Take on Meillassoux's ‘Speculative Materialism,’” Christophe Litwin (European Languages and Studies, UCI)
Two 20 minute presentations, 45 minute discussion.

12 to 1:15 pm: Lunch

1:15-2:45pm  Moderator: TBA

“Naturalism, Schelling, and Theology,” Wayne Hudson (University of Tasmania)

“The Metaphysics of Language and the Hermeneutics of Nature,” David Pan (European Languages and Studies, UCI)
Two 20 minute presentations, 45 minute discussion.

3 to 5 pm Moderator: TBA

“It Does Not Have to Be Like That,” Catherine Malabou (European Languages and Studies and Comparative Literature, UCI), Response by Karl Schafer (Philosophy, UCI), 45 minute presentation, 10 minute response, and 60 minute discussion

5 pm: Coffee