Ernst Bloch's speculative materialism : : ontology, epistemology, politics / / by Cat Moir.

• Superior document: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 202
• VerfasserIn: Moir, Cat, 1983-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2020.
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 202.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

In Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics, Cat Moir offers a new interpretation of the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. The reception of Bloch’s work has seen him variously painted as a naïve realist, a romantic nature philosopher, a totalitarian thinker, and an irrationalist whose obscure literary style stands in for a lack of systematic rigour. Moir challenges these conceptions of Bloch by reconstructing the ontological, epistemological, and political dimensions of his speculative materialism. Through a close, historically contextualised reading of Bloch’s major work of ontology, Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz (The Materialism Problem, its History and Substance), Moir presents Bloch as one of the twentieth century’s most significant critical thinkers.

Table of Contents

Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The materialism problem -- 2. Ontology -- Nature contra mechanism -- Matter as the subject of nature -- The logic of matter -- Real possibility -- Teleology without a telos -- 3. Epistemology -- The structure of the concept -- The influence of neo-Kantianism -- The role of irony -- Rationalism, empiricism, and practice -- 4. Politics -- The German Philosopher of the October Revolution? -- For Stalin, against Hitler -- The Politics of Speculative Materialism -- Speculation, totality, and immanent critique -- Chapter 5: Relevance and critique -- The speculative turn: Bloch and Meillassoux -- New materialism: Bloch and Bennett -- Ecological materialisms: Bloch, Foster, and Moore -- Epilogue: The speculative expanse -- Bibliography.