Vol. 4 No. 1 (2025)
From the Multiple Turn to Ontological Anarchy

Articles

Against Double Ontological Blackmail: Materialist Dialectics between Deconstruction and Speculative Realism

Published 2025-06-30

  • Anton Syutkin

Anton Syutkin
European University at Saint Petersburg image/svg+xml , National Research University Higher School of Economics image/svg+xml

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of materialist dialectics in contemporary philosophy. The author argues that the structure of modern philosophical space is defined by a fundamental conflict between metaphysicians and hermeneuts, speculative realists and deconstructionists, metaphysicians of finitude and new philosophers of the Absolute. The core problem of this conflict lies in both sides insisting on the incompatibility of the Absolute and finite being: the former demand the reduction of finite being in the name of the Absolute, while the latter demand the reduction of the Absolute in the name of finite being. The author pins hopes for resolving this ontological impasse on the materialist dialectics developed by Alain Badiou. Badiou’s materialist dialectics, through its theory of immanent truths, enables the discovery of absolute content within finite being itself. Thus, it suggests a path for overcoming correlationism while avoiding the metaphysical temptations of speculative realism.

Keywords

materialist dialectics, Alain Badiou, correlationism, speculative realism, the Absolute, finite being, immanent truths

PDF (Russian)

Author Biography

Anton Syutkin

Senior Lecturer, European University at St. Petersburg; Research Fellow, Laboratory of Critical Theory of Culture, National Research University Higher School of Economics. 191187, Russian Federation, St. Petersburg, Gagarinskaya St., 6/1. 

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