Speculations V (on Aesthetics)

Sometime in the next two years I hope to teach a class where the only texts are issues of Speculations.

Ridvan Askin, Paul J. Ennis, Andreas Hägler and Philipp Schweighauser did a great job editing Issue V. The introduction by Askin, Hägler, and Schweighauser is worth the price of admission alone.* Anyone interested in all the hoopla surrounding Speculative Realism could do much worse than to begin there.

Analytic philosophers tend to dismiss Continental metaphysics because they don't think that the principle historical figures (German Idealists, phenomenologists, soixante-huitards) have much to offer. Continental philosophers tend to dismiss it because they misunderstand Meillassoux's critique of correlationism as a critique of transcendental epistemology, instead of as a recapitulation of Hegel's critique of the claim that transcendental epistemology must replace metaphysics.

The reality is that none of us can read everything, so we usually just have to go with methodological hunches concerning what is going to be most helpful for our various projects and what is going to be fruitful for coming up with new ones.** But, this being said, it's still nice to read good overviews such as Askin, Hägler, and Schweighauser's piece to see what people are up to.***

[*Minor infelicity above. Every issue is actually available free as a PDF. But you can purchase a print edition for $19.00 U.S. here.

**The empirical sciences are no different in this respect.

***Among other things, taking some time to read survey pieces like this helps keep us from falling into the all too human tendency to mock philosophical approaches and positions we don't find helpful with respect to our own work. I should note that empirical scientists on the whole have the good sense not to do this to each other. For some reasons it's philosophers who have perfected the art of the circular firing squad. Feh.]