TY - JOUR

T1 - Thinking Against Nature: Nature, Ideation, and Realism between Lovecraft and Shelling

AU - Woodard, Ben

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022, Gaidar Institute Press. All rights reserved.

PY - 2022/1/1

Y1 - 2022/1/1

N2 - The article develops the possibilities of several philosophical concepts to ground a philosophy of nature that would be capable of withstanding correlationist critics. The author refers to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and exposes productivity of the concept of self-productive Nature by the means of contemporary speculative capabilities. Precisely, the traditionally evaded by process philosophy and “naive” realism issue of production of thought of the one that is being produced itself. The means for the new philosophy of nature the author finds in weird fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and in “non-philosophy” of François Laruelle as read by Ray Brassier. Lovecraft’s unnameable and Schellings’ unconditioned eternal not only stand against metaphysics in the process philosophy. They also provide the means to formalize the thought that emerges out of Nature. The author criticizes Meillassoux’s metaphysical hyper-Chaos and Deleuzian virtuality for their prioritization of thought. He confronts them with the thought about the horrible as a challenge, with the escalation of thought up to the ontology which is incomparable to humane. Schelling’s Nature becomes the basis for the possible realism beyond the limits of common sense. Deep, endless objects do not contradict Nature but are being produced out of it against our epistemological restrictions. Schelling’s transcendental realism and naturalism turn out as a Lovecraftian-Schellingian realism, the result of horribly speculative reason. This reason operates in the Real, it is produced from the very Nature itself. Its formalizations point at the objects of deep Nature’s cosmic processes instead of descending to the limits, established by Kant. An object in such a philosophy of nature is a representation of the suspension of boundless Nature. Nature that produces itself and explores itself in such suspensions. The Nature that is shrouded in long timescales.

AB - The article develops the possibilities of several philosophical concepts to ground a philosophy of nature that would be capable of withstanding correlationist critics. The author refers to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and exposes productivity of the concept of self-productive Nature by the means of contemporary speculative capabilities. Precisely, the traditionally evaded by process philosophy and “naive” realism issue of production of thought of the one that is being produced itself. The means for the new philosophy of nature the author finds in weird fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and in “non-philosophy” of François Laruelle as read by Ray Brassier. Lovecraft’s unnameable and Schellings’ unconditioned eternal not only stand against metaphysics in the process philosophy. They also provide the means to formalize the thought that emerges out of Nature. The author criticizes Meillassoux’s metaphysical hyper-Chaos and Deleuzian virtuality for their prioritization of thought. He confronts them with the thought about the horrible as a challenge, with the escalation of thought up to the ontology which is incomparable to humane. Schelling’s Nature becomes the basis for the possible realism beyond the limits of common sense. Deep, endless objects do not contradict Nature but are being produced out of it against our epistemological restrictions. Schelling’s transcendental realism and naturalism turn out as a Lovecraftian-Schellingian realism, the result of horribly speculative reason. This reason operates in the Real, it is produced from the very Nature itself. Its formalizations point at the objects of deep Nature’s cosmic processes instead of descending to the limits, established by Kant. An object in such a philosophy of nature is a representation of the suspension of boundless Nature. Nature that produces itself and explores itself in such suspensions. The Nature that is shrouded in long timescales.

KW - Correlationism

KW - François Laruelle

KW - Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

KW - Howard Phillips Lovecraft

KW - Philosophy of nature

KW - Speculative realism

KW - Cultural studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135262740&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/6aaad637-0818-3b0b-87a2-cc707ba47073/

U2 - 10.22394/0869-5377-2022-2-43-63

DO - 10.22394/0869-5377-2022-2-43-63

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85135262740

VL - 32

SP - 43

EP - 64

JO - Logos (Russian Federation)

JF - Logos (Russian Federation)

SN - 0869-5377

IS - 2

ER -