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Since Bacon, Gallileo and Descartes in the early 17th century, the relations between science and religion as well as mind and body have remained volatile fault lines of conflict. The controversies surrounding these relations are as alive and pressing now as at any point over the course of the past four centuries. Adrian Johnston's transcendental materialism offers a new theoretical approach to these issues. Arming himself with resources provided by German idealism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, the life sciences and contemporary philosophical developments, Johnston formulates an account of subjectivity that, although being both materialist and naturalist, does full justice to human beings as irreducible to natural matter alone. At the same time he argues against relapses into idealisms, dualisms and spiritualisms. <strong><strong><em>Adventures in Transcendental Materialism<strong> elaborates Johnston's position through critical engagements with some of today's most important thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Catherine Malabou, Jean-Claude Milner, Martin Hägglund, William Connolly, and Jane Bennett.
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Adventures in Transcendental Materialism
Speculative Realism Series Editor: Graham Harman Since its first appearance at a London colloquium in 2007, the Speculative Realism movement has taken continental philosophy by storm. Opposing the formerly ubiquitous modern dogma that philosophy can speak only of the human-world relation rather than the world itself, Speculative Realism defends the autonomy of the world from human access, but in a spirit of imaginative audacity. Editorial Advisory Board Jane Bennett Nathan Brown Levi Bryant Patricia Clough Mark Fisher Iain Hamilton Grant Myra Hird Adrian Johnston Eileen A. Joy Books available Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making by Graham Harman Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media by Levi R. Bryant Adventures in Transcendental Materialism: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers by Adrian Johnston Form and Object: A Treatise on Things by Tristan Garcia, translated by Mark Allan Ohm and Jon Cogburn The End of Phenomenology: Metaphysics and the New Realism by Tom Sparrow Forthcoming series titles Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology by Markus Gabriel Romantic Realities: Speculative Realism and British Romanticism by Evan Gottlieb After Quietism: Analytic Philosophies of Immanence and the New Metaphysics by Jon Cogburn Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making Second Edition by Graham Harman Visit the Speculative Realism website at www.euppublishing.com/series/specr
Adventures in Transcendental Materialism Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers
Adrian Johnston
© Adrian Johnston, 2014 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 7328 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 7329 2 (paperback) ISBN 978 0 7486 7330 8 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 7331 5 (epub) The right of Adrian Johnston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
Acknowledgmentsvii
Series Editor’s Prefacex
Introduction: Reports From Philosophical Fronts: Exchanges with Contemporaries Past and Present
1
Part I No Illusions: Hegel, Lacan, and Transcendental Materialism
1. The Latest System-Program of German Idealism: From Tübingen to Today
13
2. For a Thoughtful Ontology: H