Category Archives: political theology

Politics of Survival

Posted on April 28, 2010 by reidkane

Anthony Paul Smith has written a post on a debate that has cropped up within his forthcoming edited volume, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion. The debate, therein represented by Michael Burns and Alex … Continue reading →

Posted in political theology, politics, Uncategorized, utopian science | Tagged biopolitics, Derrida, egalitarian politics, Hagglund, justice, liberalism, politics, survival | 13 Comments

Eliminative Marxism 1: Notes on Eliminativism

Posted on September 29, 2009 by reidkane

I’d intended to participate in an online reading group, proposed by Nate, centered on Chapter 25 of Marx’s Capital Vol. I, “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation”, and had been preparing some preparatory posts on my reading of Marx, when … Continue reading →

Posted in historical materialism, neuroscience, political theology, politics, speculative realism, utopian science | Tagged Brassier, capitalism, Churchland, eliminativism, exception, Latour, Marx, mythic violence, nihilism, object-oriented philosophy, ontology, sovereignty, speculative realism, suspense | 13 Comments

Impatient Messianism

Posted on August 25, 2009 by reidkane

Messianic politics is often derided for its passivity, resignation, and ineffectuality. Yet these are not inherent vices, which I’ll attempt to demonstrate here by defending a very different sense of messianism. God’s Waiting Room Messianism is a matter of redemption. … Continue reading →

Posted in eventalism, futurology, hauntology, historical materialism, non-phi, para-ontology, political theology, politics, utopian science | Tagged abandon, Agamben, ancestrality, Benjamin, Brassier, class struggle, communism, decay, Derrida, example, experimentality, exposure, Marx, messianism, nihilism, onto-anthropology, Paul, politics, prefigurative praxis, redemption, ruin, threshold, utopiation, Zizek | 10 Comments

The Fantasy of a Complete Science

Posted on August 14, 2009 by reidkane

Malcolm Gladwell, responding to criticism of Duncan Watts: In the end, though, I suppose that I feel the same ways about his insights as I do about Steve Levitt’s disagreements with me over the causes of the decline in violent … Continue reading →

Posted in futurology, non-phi, political theology, psychoanalysis, utopian science | Tagged accelerationism, Alex Williams, capitalism, creaturely life, eliminativism, ex-appropriation, exception, experimentality, exposure, fantasy, Lacan, militant atheism, Negarestani, normative insecurity, normative suture, quasi-cause, radical openness, real abstraction, Santner, science, sexuation, surplus-jouissance, suspense, taphephobia, unconscious | 31 Comments

Iranian Variations, Marxist Repetitions UPDATED AGAIN

Posted on June 17, 2009 by reidkane

[Images from Boston.com, via Reza] UPDATE: Anyone reading this post should supplement it, at the very least, with Reza’s brief comment’s below, and with this great piece by Ali Alizadeh’s piece here. 2nd UPDATE: See also these great pieces by … Continue reading →

Posted in current affairs, eventalism, hauntology, historical materialism, para-ontology, political theology, politics, schizoanalysis, the real world | Tagged Agamben, ancestrality, Benjamin, capitalism, class struggle, communism, Deleuze, event, ex-appropriation, exception, Foucault, Guattari, inheritance, Iran election 09, Marx, misuse, non-capital, politics, proletariat, redemption, utopiation, xenoeconomics, Zizek | 32 Comments

Anontology 2: Ontology Without Objects

Posted on February 8, 2009 by reidkane

Readers may be curious why I have couched the concept dark matter, which is an avowedly ontological concept (or rather, a non-ontological or anontological concept), in such blatantly epistemological language – judgment, determinability, the ‘unknown unknown’, et cetera. Am I … Continue reading →

Posted in non-phi, para-ontology, political theology | Tagged anontology, anthropic impasse, Bryant, example, foreclosure, Harman, Laruelle, misuse, object-oriented philosophy, ontology | 8 Comments

Anontology 1: Theory of Dark Matter

Posted on February 6, 2009 by reidkane

Imagine an unspecified object. This ‘object’ image is a variable the value of which we cannot deduce. If we introduce this variable into a series of relations with other specified objects, we can determine that value and hence make definite … Continue reading →

Posted in non-phi, para-ontology, planomenology, political theology | Tagged anontology, anthropic impasse, dark matter, example, exception, foreclosure, object-oriented philosophy, ontology, planomenon | 3 Comments

Schizoanalysis 1: Infancy, Ancestrality, and the Non-Signifier

Posted on October 3, 2008 by reidkane

A child is born into language, and is from the outset a speech-being, a speaking thing. The child is not without language, and does not have to be led to language, taught to acquire language, nor does it have already … Continue reading →

Posted in non-phi, para-ontology, political theology, psychoanalysis, schizoanalysis | Tagged Agamben, ancestrality, Brassier, creaturely life, ex-appropriation, exception, foreclosure, Guattari, immemorial, inheritance, Lacan, Laruelle, non-signifier, offspring, operational time, psymbolic, schizoanalysis, schizobject | Leave a comment

Not Not Philosophy

Posted on August 7, 2008 by reidkane

The growing enthusiasm and interest around Speculative Realism and Laurelle’s non-philosophy can not reasonably be ignored. I was indifferent at first, but my interest has been peaked after skimming Mullarkey’s Post-Continental Philosophy, and more recently, having started reading Ray Brassier’s … Continue reading →

Posted in non-phi, political theology | Tagged ancestrality, anthropic impasse, as-not, Brassier, example, exception, Laruelle, Meillassoux, non-phi, speculative realism | Leave a comment

If All Else Fails

Posted on July 31, 2008 by reidkane

In his recent book, Violence, Slavoj Zizek aims to distinguish between ‘subjective’ violence – violence as we ordinarily experience it, as a disturbing intrusion into the normal run of things, which only appears against a background of non-violent normality – … Continue reading →

Posted in historical materialism, political theology, politics, psychoanalysis | Tagged ancestrality, Benjamin, capitalism, catastrophe, cleavage, event, example, exception, misuse, operational time, politics, proletariat, redemption, violence, Zizek | 2 Comments