Whether they like it or not, continental philosophers have to come to terms with the fact that metaphysics has made a comeback. It’s on the program at SPEP and there are plenty of book, articles, and events covering the new developments. At this point, however, I’m not sure that I (or anyone else) needs to spend too much energy defending metaphysics or realism against the postmodern critiques. Postmodernism, for all of its influence and scandal, doesn’t seem to have put the past to rest or gotten us beyond metaphysics. There’s a story to be told about the overcoming of metaphysics, but I think it remains just a story. If postmodernism entails leaving metaphysics behind, being able to think without making metaphysical commitments, then we have never been postmodern. My sense is that there are plenty of old-guard continentals who will double down on the “end of metaphysics” rhetoric of the last few decades, but there will always be something reactionary about this, and it’s rather withering under the light. I think what folks are realizing is that metaphysics never came to an end, that it’s never been possible to escape metaphysics or do metaphysics-free philosophy. Even apart from the work done in the niches of speculative realism or object-oriented philosophy, the allure of philosophers like Deleuze, Badiou, and Latour testifies to the fact that we are still drawn to metaphysical puzzles, that we take them seriously, and have kept open the avenues of research that will help us work them out. There is more than one person out there working on the “realism” in Derrida’s work, so I think realism is ascendant even in neighborhoods where it was believed to be banished for good. In short, this is an extremely exciting time to be writing continental philosophy because it’s no longer unfashionable to talk about things other than language, writing, and différance. People are hungry to get back to the things themselves, but they want to find alternatives for doing so instead of falling back on phenomenology all the time. There are other routes out there; there are new paths to be cut.

The above passage comes from an interview that Graham Harman conducted with Tom Sparrow concerning Tom’s new book “The End of Phenomenology: Metaphysics and the New Realism.” The book sounds really interesting to me.

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Photo Credit: Dee McIntosh

Tags:Graham Harmonmetaphysicsooospeculative realismTom Sparrow