LES NOUVEAUX RÉALISTES (THE NEW REALISTS) by Alexander Galloway is a
book that aims at giving a unified perspective on a group of 5 French
thinkers (Catherine Malabou, Bernard Stiegler, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem,
Quentin Meillassoux, et François Laruelle) who do not form a movement,
but who have enough of a “family resemblance” with each other to allow
them to be discussed together in a single book. The book thus contains 5
chapters, each of which deals with one of the 5 philosophers, plus a
Preface, an Entracte, and a Postface, that give a more synthetic
treatment.
The authors discussed form more of a constellation than a movement or
a school, and they are related by their shared desire to inherit from
the great preceding generation of French philosophers (Deleuze, Derrida,
Foucault, Lyotard) and to engage critically with their common themes
and their individual theses. The title is slightly deceptive as these
thinkers are neither “new” (certain of them, for example Bernard
Stiegler and François Laruelle have a published work spread out over
more than two decades) nor necessarily “realists” (some of them, such as
once again Stiegler and Laruelle are very critical of the classical
philosophical vocabulary and have elaborated bodies of thought that
cannot easily be classified in such traditional terms). Further, the
book also contains an extended discussion of the philosophy of Alain
Badiou, whose shadow looms over the whole book, as he comes in a certain
sense “between” the two intellectual generations that Galloway
thematises. Engaged in a critical dialogue with his vanished elders,
Badiou has elaborated a philosophical system which serves often either
as a positive model to be imitated or simply as a source of inspiration
or rather as a negative model of what is to be avoided or to be
criticised. He functions as a foil for the 5 thinkers discussed in
Galloway’s book.
From
Agent Swarm blog in another great post,
HERE.
Agent Swarm is on a roll these days: just an awesome, awesome blog. Definitely check out his lastest series of posts. I've also posted some time back about Galloway's research into the new realists,
HERE.
