Contemporary Realisms: Philosophical Perspectives on Reality

The principal feature of contemporary thought so far is a turn toward realism. The focus on language (the ‘linguistic turn’), logic, and perspectivism (or relativism) that typified twentieth century thought are more and more being called into question, along with postmodern scepticism and suspicion of metaphysics. However, the nature of the real is hotly contested. Some draw upon metaphysical traditions less well-known in the Anglosphere that precede postmodernity, for example, ‘spiritualist realism’ (Maine de Biran, Ravaisson, Lavelle), like Andrea Bellantone’s yet to be translated Métaphysique possible (2012); others, like François Laruelle, operate in the wake of postmodernism and poststructuralism, calling into question some of its basic assumptions about the relation between thought, language, and the real. Such trends in European thought follow along broadly similar lines to developments already taking place in Anglophone philosophy (for example, Charles Taylor’s Realism). What marks many of them is the central importance that the subject, the human – however construed –, and/or the body plays in this turn toward realism. This is the touchstone for the series and allows diverse fields to be drawn together under the aegis of realism, such as politics, aesthetics, ethics, phenomenology, metaphysics, literature, and theology, and distinguishes the realist turn traced in this series from the ‘speculative’ realisms of more well-known figures. This series is, then, a project in its own right, rather than a merely passive survey of contemporary currents in European thought.