The Metaphysics and Things conference at Claremont, in association with the Whitehead Research Project that is based at Claremont, brought together most of the leading figures in what has variously been called speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. A common thread in this movement has been the embrace of metaphysics and a critique of what Quentin Meillassoux has called correlationism. Correlationism, as Meillassoux and others understand it, is the position which holds that the real cannot be known as it is in-itself but only as it is given for a consciousness, culture, conceptual scheme, etc. (and hence there are parallels with the analytic tradition and their debates concerning anti-realism). Among those in attendance were Isabelle Stengers, Donna Haraway, Graham Harman, Steven Shaviro, Levi Bryant, Ian Bogost, James Bono, Nathan Brown, and myself. Graham Harman, one of the leading lights of this burgeoning movement, live-blogged the event and thus provided an excellent summary of it.
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