PROLEGOMENA TO A MATERIALIST HUMANISM

Abstract

This article sets the agenda for a new materialist humanism through a critique and analysis of theories of materialist subjectivity in recent French philosophy. I begin with a critique of the lack of a properly internal account of the human subject in the work of Alain Badiou, arguing that his disavowal of any sort of humanism and a dismissal of the natural sciences leaves him without a way to conceptualize the internal activity of the human subject. I then consider the neurological account of human subjectivity offered in Catherine Malabou's recent materialist articulation of human consciousness and consider how this internal theory of human subjectivity can supplement the wholly external account offered by Badiou. I conclude the article with a consideration of Quentin Meillassoux's speculative materialism to show the manner in which at the ontological level he offers a materialist account of human thought as contingently emerging from wholly material processes. Building upon this, I point towards the possibility of a non-hierarchical form of materialist humanism that is wholly immanent in its affirmation of the unique capacities of human thought and activity without claiming any special metaphysical significance for human beings.