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Deleted and restored

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I deleted this article as being non-notable, and have restored it by request for further review. --Anthony Bradbury"talk" 17:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Graham's misunderstanding of both Kant and Heidegger

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Graham's (and his movement's) claim that Kant and post-kantian philosophy including phenomenology give undue precedence to the knowing subject over and above the object is a beginner's misinterpretation. Kant's copernican turn to the subject is in fact a turn to the subject-object-relation. It is all about the question how knowledge of anything can be possible at all. This was well understood by Heidegger who emphasized the importance of Zugang to anything knowable. A simple minded reversal of the subject-object relation amounts to a primitive objectivist ontology, an ontology which Kant and Heidegger have demolished long ago.

Had Graham read Sein und Zeit more carefully, he would have understood that Heidegger was concerned with Dasein's fundamental relation to being and not with human beings' relation to objects. The concept of Zuhandenheit doen not primarily concern the practical handling of objects, rather it served to show that Dasein has many ways of being with beings (alongside beings) which are not primarily of a theoretical nature. But Zuhandenheit is neither theoretical nor practical, it is fundamental, or constitutive of the way Dasein is in the world.

Graham's notion of the inexhaustability of objects presupposes a metaphysical (meaning: representational/theoretical/subjectivist) standpoint outside the subject-object relation, which throws us back into pre-kantian (naive) ontology. How does Graham know of this inexhaustibility? He thinks he knows because he still thinks of himself as a Cartesian ego detached of all knowable nature. Kant and Heidegger have shown that this is impossible (kantian copernican turn). Dasein is neither an object nor a subject, it is the place of encounter (Ereignis) between the two.

Conclusion: Graham & co have misunderstood or misrepresented both Kant and Heidegger, thereby falling victim to cheap philosophology instead of real philosophy.

"There’s a more insidious form of human-centric ontology ..."

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This quotation is very articulate and interesting, but the citation refers to a blog that seems to belong to a different author, and no citation is made there. Is there any reliable information for the source? Thanks. ~ Peter — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter1c (talkcontribs) 13:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ray Brassier

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Harman: "Ray Brassier is evidently stewing about this. According to the excerpts found in Cogburn’s post, Brassier questions the neutrality of the journal Speculations, given its subtitle “A Journal of Speculative Realism,” implying that it has a vested interest in celebrating the existence of a non-existent field." Brassier as part of SR is back in the lede with a ref (ledes summarize, they don't have refs). I don't think the lede should continue to say without qualification that Brassier is considered to be part of a movement that he is currently disassociating himself from in no uncertain terms.Overagainst (talk)

We categorize people in ways they don't like all the time if the categorization is supported by reliable sources. Almost none of the scholars post-structuralism takes as its own would admit to being post-structuralist -- many of them actively mocked the term. Similar claims can be made for structuralism (I'm thinking now of Foucault) and just about every other philosophical movement/trend/buzzword. I think there's a case to be made at the speculative realism page, however, for including Brassier's objections. --— Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
He is a reliable source on his own views, and a living person to boot. It ought to be made clear how he has distanced himself from Harman. I mean Brassier may be best known for his spectacular hostility to SR. Overagainst (talk)
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