New images of thought: on two kinds of speculative realism

Abstract

Speculative realism is a major element of the recent speculative turn in the humanities. The four original speculative realist philosophers are united in their rejection of correlationism. Correlationism implies that there can be no knowledge of reality beyond knowledge of how human beings happen to experience reality. This article reconstructs the main tenets of correlationism and the consequences for research once it gains axiomatic status. It then discusses the four original speculative realists and explores the consequences of adapting their respective theories, rather than a correlationist perspective, as guiding frameworks for research. It turns out that two of these theories – Grant’s naturephilosophy and Meillassoux’s speculative materialism – are ‘non-interventionist’ in that they do not prescribe any significant changes to current practices in fields beyond philosophy. Conversely, Harman’s object-oriented ontology and Brassier’s eliminativist nihilism are highly ‘interventionist’ in that they explicitly prescribe significant (though very different) changes to a variety of fields.