Introduction to New Realism

by Maurizio Ferraris

Introduction to New Realism provides an overview of the movement of contemporary thought named New Realism, by its creator and most celebrated practitioner, Maurizio Ferraris. Sharing significant concerns and features with Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology, New Realism can be said to be one of the most prescient philosophical positions today. Its desire to overcome the postmodern antirealism of Kantian origin, and to reassert the importance of truth and objectivity in the name of a new Enlightenment, has had an enormous resonance both in Europe and in the US. Introduction to New Realism is the first volume dedicated to exposing this continental movement to an anglophone audience.Featuring a foreword by the eminent contemporary philosopher and leading exponent of Speculative Realism, Iain Hamilton Grant, the book begins by tracing the genesis of New Realism, and outlining its central theoretical tenets, before opening onto three distinct sections. The first, 'Negativity', is a critique of the postmodern idea that the world is constructed by our conceptual schemas, all the more so as we have entered the age of digitality and virtuality. The second thesis, 'positivity', proposes the fundamental ontological assertion of New Realism, namely that not only are there parts of reality that are independent of thought, but these parts are also able to act causally over thought and the human world. The third thesis, 'normativity,' applies New Realism to the sphere of the social world. Finally, an afterword written by two young scholars explains in more detail the relationship between New Realism and other forms of contemporary realism.

Genres: Philosophy

170 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 18, 2014

About the author

Maurizio Ferraris (Torino, 1956) è un filosofo e accademico italiano.
Dal 1995 è professore ordinario di filosofia teoretica presso la Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia (dal 2012 "Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell'Educazione") dell'Università degli Studi di Torino.
Ha studiato a Torino, Parigi (prendendo un diploma d'études approfondies con Jacques Derrida alla Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), all'Università di Heidelberg e insegnato in importanti università europee. Dirige la Rivista di Estetica ed è nel comitato direttivo di Critique, del Círculo Hermenéutico editorial e di aut aut. Dal 1989 al 2010 ha collaborato al supplemento culturale de Il Sole 24 ORE; dal 2010 scrive per le pagine culturali de la Repubblica. È inoltre editorialista per la Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Dopo aver scritto e condotto Zettel - Filosofia in movimento per Rai Cultura, dal 2015 conduce Lo Stato dell'Arte su Rai 5, dedicato all'approfondimento di temi d'attualità, politica e cultura.

Reviews

[Phil Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work provides an introduction to the work of the New Realists via Ferraris. After an introduction summarizing transcendental fallacies, Ferraris spends the main portion of the book outlining his approach to realism. He addresses the fallacies of postmodern antirealism and constructivism, focusing on the ways in which the world, existing outside of our conceptual schemes, intrudes in on our consciousness. The last third of the book is dedicated to social objects, which are constructed, which requires some fancy footwork on Ferraris’ part. Nevertheless, his concepts of documentality and inscription provide a realist understanding of how societies operate even when no one is actively considering the nature of social formation. The afterword helpfully summarizes Ferraris’ work, as well as that of Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux.

It’s a must read for anyone interested in an at times materialist philosophy that allows the universe to be as it is, in all its unknowable, surprising glory.

[Isabella Panagrosso · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When one argues that observers equipped with different theories see reality differently, one gives philosophical dignity to a psychological error, and most importantly makes a category mistake that lies in confusing seeing with knowing.” (p. 38)

Ferraris believes conceptual schemes mistake the real world for our interpretations of it, and his focus is on this mistake. In his view, our experience of the world should not be confused with our sense perception (as though objective perception was possible), otherwise it falls into error and must be corrected.

But what’s interesting about conceptual schemes is not that they try to understand non-subjective reality, but that they immediately create meaning from what is perceived, to the point that perception is interpretation. Conceptual schemes have little to do with reality in and of itself (as in, reality abstracted from knowing). Ferraris’ ‘return to reality’ misses this point, and thus strays from the understanding that it is the way our sense perception interprets that enables us to create meaning in the world.

[Yağız Ay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one by Ferraris is more or less the same as Manifesto for New Realism, but I liked it a little bit more. The final chapter has really interesting ideas about the Web, what I found striking is Ferraris' critique of Bauman's liquid society, that this concept is outdated in the age of call-out culture, and our societies in the age of Web are more concrete than the court of Versailles and Constantinople: society is based on documents, and the web is a vast and endless tabula on which we record, write, and inscribe constantly. This makes our social ties stronger, not weaker. Likewise, it also increases moral responsibility. Superb and very lucid as always, I'm more and more convinced that Ferraris is a thinker for our times. Also, a very nice afterword eloquently puts all the debates concerning New Realism, Speculative Realism, etc. in context.