Speculative Annihilationism: The Intersection of Archaeology and Extinction

Speculative Annihilationism: The Intersection of Archaeology and Extinction

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  • Create Date:2021-04-26 11:56:46
  • Update Date:2025-09-06
  • Status:finish
  • Author:Matt Rosen
  • ISBN:1789041473
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Summary

If Levinas and Negarestani raised a child enchanted by the dark, then this is his debut。 In this book, Rosen argues that current archaeological theoretic approaches are not up to the task of adequately theorizing exhumation in our present age of extinctions。 Speculative Annihilationism attempts to “think thought’s extinction,” suggesting a new ontological ground for archaeology。 Combining contemporary work in speculative philosophy, saprophytic dialectics, and Levinasian ethics, Rosen’s “putrefied-thought” explores themes of the unthought and unthinkable, anonymity, otherness, and meaninglessness so that archaeology can be granted a new basis, a new avenue of inquiry at its intersection with extinction。

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Reviews

Brandon Hensley

As a student of Quentin Meillassoux's, Rosen's reading is dense。 Fair warning that this <100 page thesis is not an easy or light read。 It is however a brilliantly challenging one。 A secular eschatology, Rosen takes contemporary Speculative Realist approaches about what lies just beyond our horizons of finitude and positions them within the temporal question。 By examining the correlation between material and phenomenal being in archaeology, Rosen ambitiously attempts to posit similar analogies of As a student of Quentin Meillassoux's, Rosen's reading is dense。 Fair warning that this <100 page thesis is not an easy or light read。 It is however a brilliantly challenging one。 A secular eschatology, Rosen takes contemporary Speculative Realist approaches about what lies just beyond our horizons of finitude and positions them within the temporal question。 By examining the correlation between material and phenomenal being in archaeology, Rosen ambitiously attempts to posit similar analogies of what lies beyond our temporal finitude。 To think the end of phenomena demands a reckoning with thinking the end of thought。 While the epistemic truth of such an exercise sits tantalizingly out of reach, he nevertheless demonstrates that it is possible to think a thing even we can never know it。 The greatest thing I took from this is the hammer-blow of humility it demands of anyone who agrees with it。 Though this is a running theme in contemporary Realism writ large (cf Lee Smolin's critique of Quantum Mechanics and the privilege of human observation), Speculative Realism has as a general characteristic the suppression of the anthropocentric privilege built into the history of Western philosophy。 So while Rosen delivers this humility with a weighty hammer, this isn't a particularly new exercise on this front。 It is entirely possible that the value his book gives to the archaeologist and historian is significantly greater, and my failure to properly appreciate it would be due to the fact that I am neither an archaeologist or a historian。 But this is also not an inaccessible text for the lay reader, and it doesn't appear that he intended it to be a rigidly specialist text。 It's for this reason I gave it three stars out of four despite overall finding it deeply meaningful in what it means to be phenomenally human in the Anthropocene。 。。。more

Christopher

An essential new addition to the speculative realist canon。 I dealt with it in greater detail here:https://geotrickster。com/2019/06/02/b。。。 An essential new addition to the speculative realist canon。 I dealt with it in greater detail here:https://geotrickster。com/2019/06/02/b。。。 。。。more

David Peak

I blurbed this。 Here is what I wrote:"Rosen's Speculative Annihilationism brilliantly poses difficult questions--about the facticity of extinction, about being without thought--and dares to answer them。 We should thank him for showing us the way in such clear, concise language, for peeling back the bruised veil and rendering the utterances of the abyss intelligible。 Here now we can grasp extinction for what it really is--not possibility, but inevitability。" I blurbed this。 Here is what I wrote:"Rosen's Speculative Annihilationism brilliantly poses difficult questions--about the facticity of extinction, about being without thought--and dares to answer them。 We should thank him for showing us the way in such clear, concise language, for peeling back the bruised veil and rendering the utterances of the abyss intelligible。 Here now we can grasp extinction for what it really is--not possibility, but inevitability。" 。。。more