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End of Phenomenology: Metaphysics and the New Realism
In the 20th century, phenomenology promised a method that would get philosophy "back to the things themselves". But phenomenology has always been haunted by the spectre of an anthropocentric antirealism.
Tom Sparrow shows how, in the 21st century, speculative realism aims to do what phenomenology could not: provide a philosophical method that disengages the human-centred approach to metaphysics in order to chronicle the complex realm of nonhuman reality.
Through a focused reading of the methodological statements and metaphysical commitments of key phenomenologists and speculative realists, Sparrow shows how speculative realism is replacing phenomenology as the beacon of realism in contemporary Continental philosophy.
Tom Sparrow shows how, in the 21st century, speculative realism aims to do what phenomenology could not: provide a philosophical method that disengages the human-centred approach to metaphysics in order to chronicle the complex realm of nonhuman reality.
Through a focused reading of the methodological statements and metaphysical commitments of key phenomenologists and speculative realists, Sparrow shows how speculative realism is replacing phenomenology as the beacon of realism in contemporary Continental philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophy
217 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 27, 2019
If, like myself, you always dismissed phenomenology for being too idealist at its core, this probably won't be much for you here. But considering that phenomenology is the most subtle and accomplished form of idealism and anthropocentrism it is worth dealing with from the perspective of speculative realism and this book fills an important role in that.
June 25, 2020
Prominent for its variety. Sparrow considers species of speculative realism with Harman at the helm and Meillassoux in some kind of near proximity. The condition of the end (both senses) of phenomenology is it’s absolute idealism. Post-phenomenology-as-methodology takes different forms, as described by Sparrow, and in addition to Harman and Meillassoux, in the works of Grant and Brassier (HMGB - the original ‘foursome’ of SR), then in the second-wave with Bryant, Morton, Bogost, and Bennett.
The End of Phenomenology‘s strength is its expositional effect of both the phenomenological problem and speculative realism, a supposed antidote or alternative.
The End of Phenomenology‘s strength is its expositional effect of both the phenomenological problem and speculative realism, a supposed antidote or alternative.
March 21, 2017
starts a lot of sentences with "As everybody knows...
August 19, 2025
This book offers a plausible account of why phenomenology may no longer be a living movement of philosophical thought. However, the claim that phenomenology is always idealist and relies on strong correlationism, all goes back to a faulty reading of Kant. At the same time as accepting the terms of debate raised by Kant. The thing in itself is not the underlying reality in Kant, it is the ultimate speculation to which reason is led that tends to lead to illusions as antinomies and paralogisms.
Kant's problem is that by linking an underlying causality to the thing in itself in order to link his theoretical and practical philosophy, he got himself into a serious pickle. But this is a separate issue from the transcendental dialectic, and even from much of the analytic and aesthetic which expound a view of the forms of experience as irreducibly metaphysically loaded, in order to ground the knowing subject in surrounding reality. This empirical realism informed by moderate metaphysics and largely thanks to his rationalist forebears, is the kind of position Kant can be seen to be defending. In which case it has little to do with a new transcendental or copernican turn in philosophy and it is independent of any claims of a practical philosophy, or critique of practical reason. Further, the metaphysically loaded nature of Kantian experience makes it non-phenomenalist, and the non-realist reading of Kant's appeal to the things themselves, renders this not our route to reality. As such Correlationism does not apply to Kant, and if we are to similarly view many of phenomenologies efforts through a more rationalist lens, rather than an idealist one, then it will not hit so hard in relation to them either.
The end result of this is that having critiqued a largely non-existent position, these speculative realists in response to the end of phenomenology, end up rediscovering largely rationalist styles of argumentation and styles of argumentation already present in Kant, without acknowledgement and whilst giving a false impression of offering something genuinely novel.
Kant's problem is that by linking an underlying causality to the thing in itself in order to link his theoretical and practical philosophy, he got himself into a serious pickle. But this is a separate issue from the transcendental dialectic, and even from much of the analytic and aesthetic which expound a view of the forms of experience as irreducibly metaphysically loaded, in order to ground the knowing subject in surrounding reality. This empirical realism informed by moderate metaphysics and largely thanks to his rationalist forebears, is the kind of position Kant can be seen to be defending. In which case it has little to do with a new transcendental or copernican turn in philosophy and it is independent of any claims of a practical philosophy, or critique of practical reason. Further, the metaphysically loaded nature of Kantian experience makes it non-phenomenalist, and the non-realist reading of Kant's appeal to the things themselves, renders this not our route to reality. As such Correlationism does not apply to Kant, and if we are to similarly view many of phenomenologies efforts through a more rationalist lens, rather than an idealist one, then it will not hit so hard in relation to them either.
The end result of this is that having critiqued a largely non-existent position, these speculative realists in response to the end of phenomenology, end up rediscovering largely rationalist styles of argumentation and styles of argumentation already present in Kant, without acknowledgement and whilst giving a false impression of offering something genuinely novel.
October 22, 2019
I thought this a pretty good book for anyone who has wondered whether people are using the word 'phenomenology' a bit carelessly or in an unclear way. Not sure what different readers would take from it beyond that, depends on how they feel about continental philosophy I think!
As the author notes at the end of the book, a preferred alternative, 'speculative realism', still needs to be defined more clearly itself, or it risks falling into the same traps as phenomenology all over again!
As the author notes at the end of the book, a preferred alternative, 'speculative realism', still needs to be defined more clearly itself, or it risks falling into the same traps as phenomenology all over again!
November 12, 2021
Took longer on this than I wanted to. A lot less Hegel than I was expecting, though he’s in there.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews