Frédéric Neyrat
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277551
- eISBN:
- 9780823280605
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277551.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Atopias argues for a transcendence that is a relation between thought and the world, rather than an object or a substance that escapes the world. In doing so, Atopies intervenes within the fields of ...
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Atopias argues for a transcendence that is a relation between thought and the world, rather than an object or a substance that escapes the world. In doing so, Atopies intervenes within the fields of object-oriented ontology and speculative realism, as well as classical philosophy, psychoanalysis, structuralism, poststructuralism, ecology, and global studies. The book posits that existence must be thought prior to being. Neyrat’s radical existentialism becomes the basis for a new theory of being, understood as the self-differentiation of the existent. Such self-differentiation, or spacing, is fundamentally different than the “Grand Divides” that postructuralist theories have critiqued. The first part of the book develops a critique of saturated immanence, or a world that attempts to immunize itself by rejecting forms of transcendence. From here the book turns to an internal divergence at the heart of philosophy, offering a new reading of Socrates. The second part of the book is a theory of the “trans-ject,” or an existing living being that is formed from the outside. The third section of the book examines the creation of metaphysical propositions through the transgression of the law of the excluded middle. Elaborating a politics of existence, Atopias calls us to defend the eccentricity of the living against that which prevents the living from existing.Less
Atopias argues for a transcendence that is a relation between thought and the world, rather than an object or a substance that escapes the world. In doing so, Atopies intervenes within the fields of object-oriented ontology and speculative realism, as well as classical philosophy, psychoanalysis, structuralism, poststructuralism, ecology, and global studies. The book posits that existence must be thought prior to being. Neyrat’s radical existentialism becomes the basis for a new theory of being, understood as the self-differentiation of the existent. Such self-differentiation, or spacing, is fundamentally different than the “Grand Divides” that postructuralist theories have critiqued. The first part of the book develops a critique of saturated immanence, or a world that attempts to immunize itself by rejecting forms of transcendence. From here the book turns to an internal divergence at the heart of philosophy, offering a new reading of Socrates. The second part of the book is a theory of the “trans-ject,” or an existing living being that is formed from the outside. The third section of the book examines the creation of metaphysical propositions through the transgression of the law of the excluded middle. Elaborating a politics of existence, Atopias calls us to defend the eccentricity of the living against that which prevents the living from existing.
Frédéric Neyrat
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277551
- eISBN:
- 9780823280605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277551.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter proposes the necessity of a radicalized existentialism for a world in which both philosophy and existence are denied the possibility of an outside. Outlining the situation of ...
More
This chapter proposes the necessity of a radicalized existentialism for a world in which both philosophy and existence are denied the possibility of an outside. Outlining the situation of contemporary thought, in which both poststructuralism and Object-Oriented Ontology have tended to deny binary difference and hierarchy at the expense of reproducing those hierarchies or of flattening everything onto a single plane of existence, Neyrat defines a new version of transcendence, transcendence ≈ x, which does not delimit a transcendent entity so much as set up a motion toward the outside. In the face of this contemporary ontological regime of saturated immanence, which is both philosophical and practical, Neyrat argues that philosophy’s task is to re-think existence in all its eccentricity, starting from the category of the trans-ject, and to stake out an atopia, an inside-outside space for thought and being.
Less
This chapter proposes the necessity of a radicalized existentialism for a world in which both philosophy and existence are denied the possibility of an outside. Outlining the situation of contemporary thought, in which both poststructuralism and Object-Oriented Ontology have tended to deny binary difference and hierarchy at the expense of reproducing those hierarchies or of flattening everything onto a single plane of existence, Neyrat defines a new version of transcendence, transcendence ≈ x, which does not delimit a transcendent entity so much as set up a motion toward the outside. In the face of this contemporary ontological regime of saturated immanence, which is both philosophical and practical, Neyrat argues that philosophy’s task is to re-think existence in all its eccentricity, starting from the category of the trans-ject, and to stake out an atopia, an inside-outside space for thought and being.
Frédéric Neyrat
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277551
- eISBN:
- 9780823280605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277551.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter considers the problem of thinking singular existences as they are formed from the outside. Existence can only be encountered by the mechanism of the double advance, a dual motion that ...
More
This chapter considers the problem of thinking singular existences as they are formed from the outside. Existence can only be encountered by the mechanism of the double advance, a dual motion that depends on the relations of existences in an existential field. In a central polyvocal section called “Coalitions,” the concept of the adventurous coalition is proposed to explain the creation of trans-jects, or subjective trajectories, through relation. This chapter also considers the implications of this new atopian trans-ject for both freedom and language. Finally, this chapter takes up the question of the trans-ject in the case of animals: Posing the subject as the repetition of an existential trans-ject, Neyrat argues, offers a way of thinking existence in its multiplicity, unpredictability, and eccentricity.
Less
This chapter considers the problem of thinking singular existences as they are formed from the outside. Existence can only be encountered by the mechanism of the double advance, a dual motion that depends on the relations of existences in an existential field. In a central polyvocal section called “Coalitions,” the concept of the adventurous coalition is proposed to explain the creation of trans-jects, or subjective trajectories, through relation. This chapter also considers the implications of this new atopian trans-ject for both freedom and language. Finally, this chapter takes up the question of the trans-ject in the case of animals: Posing the subject as the repetition of an existential trans-ject, Neyrat argues, offers a way of thinking existence in its multiplicity, unpredictability, and eccentricity.
