Postcontinental Realism

Is philosophy still alive? Are there any alternatives to univocal postmodernist thought? Is there any point in asking age-old questions about the existence of reality and the possibility of knowledge, about being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology)? In this book, Ernesto Castro issues a resounding yes to these and many other questions plaguing philosophy today. "Postcontinental realism” is the term coined by Castro to designate a group of realist thinkers who have overcome contemporary philosophy's time-honored division between the analytic tradition (concerned with epistemological and scientific questions) and the continental tradition (concerned with artistic and ontological questions). Written in a perfectly plain style that is accessible to readers from all walks of life, including those without a previous academic education, the author introduces the readers to the works and ideas of important, living philosophers such as Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant, Maurizio Ferraris, or Markus Gabriel.
Published with the support of Fundación Sicomoro.Foreword by José Luis Villacañas
Preface
§ 1. Introduction
§ 1.1. Philosophical Realism and Its Enemies
§ 1.2. But What Is Reality?
§ 1.2.1. The Translations of "ousia”
§ 1.2.2. The Reality of the Categories
§ 1.3. Transcendetals or Transcendents?
§ 1.3.1. The Naturalistic Fallacy
§ 1.3.2. The Principle of Individuation
§ 1.4. The Problem of Universals
§ 1.5. The Problem of the External World
§ 1.6. Continental and Postcontinental Philosophy
§ 2. Quentin Meillassoux
§ 2.1. This Is Not Realism
§ 2.2. The Ontological Proof
§ 2.3. The Epistemological Proof
§ 2.4. The Figures of Factiality
§ 2.4.1. The Canonical Question
§ 2.4.2. The Principle of Non-Contradiction
§ 2.4.3. The Principle of Identity
§ 2.4.4. The Non-Being of the Whole
§ 2.5. Divine Irreligion
§ 3. Ray Brassier
§ 3.1. Somewhere in La Manche
§ 3.2. Non-Philosophy
§ 3.3. Non-Materialism
§ 3.4. From Mysticism to Nihilism
§ 3.5. The Extinction of the Human Species
§ 3.6. The Two Images of Brassellars
§ 4. Graham Harman
§ 4.1. Readiness-To-Hand and Presence-At-Hand
§ 4.2. The Question Concerning the Thing
§ 4.3. Intention and Consciousness
§ 4.4. Undermine, Overmine, and Duomine
§ 4.5. The Quadruple Object
§ 5. Iain Hamilton Grant
§ 5.1. It Is Easier to Imagine the End of the World Than the End of Capitalism
§ 5.2. Beyond the Sokal Scandal
§ 5.3. The Post-Kantian Nature-cide
§ 5.4. Animal or Number?
§ 5.5. The Physics of Everything
§ 5.6. An Incomplete Dualism
§ 5.7. Graschelling's Abyss of Forces
§ 5.8. An Additional Idealism
§ 6. Maurizio Ferraris
§ 6.1. Concerning the Italian Embezzlement of Continental Philosophy
§ 6.2. Negative Thought and the Crisis of Reason
§ 6.3. Weak Thought and Negative Realism
§ 6.4. Rational Aesthetics and the Definitions of "Interpretation”
§ 6.5. What's Dead and What's Alive in Kantian Philosophy?
§ 6.6. Unamendability
§ 6.7. Documentality
§ 6.8. Social Objects
§ 6.9. From the iPhone to the European Union
§ 7. Markus Gabriel
§ 7.1. A Pundit From Germany
§ 7.2. German Idealism for Postanalytic Philosophers
§ 7.3. The Definitions of "Metaphysics”
§ 7.4. Naïve, Critical, and Special Ontologies
§ 7.5. Sense, Existence, and Modality
§ 8. Conclusions
§ 8.1. Those Who Learn From History Are Doomed to Repeat It?
§ 8.2. Postcontinental Realism and the Problem of the External World
§ 8.3. Postcontinental Realism and the Problem of Universals
§ 8.4. Postcontinental Varieties of Nominalism, Idealism, and Skepticism