010083 VO Metaphysics (2020W)

In spite of all the diversity of approaches, it was commonsense in 20th century philosophy to distance oneself from metaphysical thinking. Either the violent character of metaphysics was denounced or it was rejected as mere conceptual poetry. At the turn of the millennium, however, the situation seems to have changed. Under titles such as Speculative Realism or New Materialism, approaches to thinking emerged that advocate a positive notion of speculation. They thus emphasize what for Kant and in his successors was the actual deficit of metaphysical thinking: the meaning and content of reality do not depend on the forms of human experience. What being is, is primarily not bound to what it is for us.
In spite of all the diversity of approaches, it was commonsense in 20th century philosophy to distance oneself from metaphysical thinking. Either the violent character of metaphysics was denounced or it was rejected as mere conceptual poetry. At the turn of the millennium, however, the situation seems to have changed. Under titles such as Speculative Realism or New Materialism, approaches to thinking emerged that advocate a positive notion of speculation. These approaches thus emphasize what for Kant and his successors was the actual deficit of metaphysical thinking: the nature of reality does not depend on the forms of human experience. What being is, is primarily not bound to what it is for us.
The lecture will present some of the most recent speculative approaches and their central points of reference (Badiou, Deleuze). It will discuss to what extent they really reflect a new desire for metaphysics (Gabriel, Hogrebe). In doing so, it aims at developing the contours of a new metaphysical thinking that is able to withstand the criticism of classical metaphysics.
In order to introduce the problem, the first sessions of the lecture will deal with the main features of classical metaphysics and its later criticism.