TRANSCENDENTAL EXTINCTION: A PHILOSOPHICAL RESPONSE TO THE ANTHROPOCENE Cover Image

TRANSCENDENTAL EXTINCTION: A PHILOSOPHICAL RESPONSE TO THE ANTHROPOCENE
TRANSCENDENTAL EXTINCTION: A PHILOSOPHICAL RESPONSE TO THE ANTHROPOCENE

Author(s): Mehdi Parsa
Subject(s): Metaphysics, Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
Published by: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų
Keywords: extinction; Deleuze; the transcendental; agency;

Summary/Abstract: The main thesis of this paper is that the philosophical response to the Anthropocene entails employing rather a transcendental than an empirical or practical approach. In response to new attacks on transcendental philosophy by speculative realists, I defend a certain type of transcendentalism, which can be called transcendental realism. Gilles Deleuze’s reading of the ancient Stoics would be the best example of an effort to keep transcendentalism while taking a realist or even a materialist stand. In this regard, I examine the concept of extinction as the central idea of the Anthropocene. I refer to two contemporary philosophers, namely Catherine Malabou and Ray Brassier, who, reacting to the Dipesh Chakrabarty’s and Quentin Meillassoux’s demands to abandon the transcendental philosophy, direct their analyses towards a unificatory view, which is the core characteristic of the version of the transcendental approach applied in this paper. Malabou’s unificatory tool is her notion of “the brain of history”, which will be discussed together with Deleuze’s idea of the agency of death. Brassier’s method to connect ancestrality and the “here and now”, or the idea that the absolute extinction has already happened, will be considered as a feature of his transcendentalism. Ultimately, I conclude that as both Malabou and Brassier, despite their materialism, have to incorporate the transcendental approach into their theories, a philosophical response to the Anthropocene must view the transcendental extinction as its problematic.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 25-39
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: English