Speculative Realism

Throughout the history of Heideggerian thought - a thought which surely shapes our understanding of ’Being’ in the 20th and 21st century (as well as the history of western metaphysics in general) - there seems to be no place for what Plato, Hegel and Marx before him called ’dialectics’. For Heidegger, the dialectical method was ＂a philosophical embarrassment＂. Equally, for one of our more contemporary philosophers, Graham Harman, there is no appearance of the word ’dialectic’ in his complete oeuvre.

In this relatively short book, Johns and Bensusan, in the style of Derrida, looks over the absence or spectre of the signifier ’dialectic’ in both Heidegger and Harman’s work, arguing that such a negation of the term turns out to be more of an intentional repression than any passive neglection. Rather, the editors insist that such a repression finds its way into their writing as an alternative interpretation of their core concepts. Bringing together for the first time Hegelian thought in relation to both Speculative Realism and Harman’s work, this volume markedly serves less as a Hegelian critique of such thinkers and more as a Heideggerian and Harmanian resuscitation of the dialectic in Hegel; as a realist method capable of integration into contemporary philosophy. Offering a new way of conceiving ’dialectics’ based on recent developments in science and the most cutting edge of contemporary philosophy, this book is indispensable to anyone interested in the crossroads of contemporary strands of idealism, materialism and realism. Perhaps, in this sense, the ’speculative’ term antecedent in both Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy and Speculative Realism can finally be reconciled in true dialectical form.

Charles William Johns is a Research Assistant at University of Lincoln, UK. His research focuses on discourses that combine or challenge the distinctions between philosophy and literature.