Neofinalism / Raymond Ruyer ; translated by Alyosha Edlebi ; introduction by Mark B. N. Hansen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ruyer, Raymond, 1902-1987, author.

Series:

Posthumanities ; 36.

Posthumanities ; 36

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Teleology.

Philosophy, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (326 p.)

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, Minnesota ; London, England : University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

Summary:

Although little known today, Raymond Ruyer was a post-World War II French philosopher whose works and ideas were significant influences on major thinkers, including Deleuze, Guattari, and Simondon. With the publication of this translation of Neofinalism, considered by many to be Ruyer's magnum opus, English-language readers can see at last how this seminal mind allied philosophy with science. Unfazed by the idea of philosophy ending where science began, Ruyer elaborated a singular, nearly unclassifiable metaphysics and reactivated philosophy's capacity to reflect on its canonical questions: What exists? How are we to account for life? What is the status of subjectivity? And how is freedom possible? Ha Neofinalism offers a systematic and lucidly argued treatise that deploys the innovative concepts of self-survey, form, and absolute surface to shape a theory of the virtual and the transspatial. It also makes a compelling plea for a renewed appreciation of the creative activity that organizes spatiotemporal structures and makes possible the emergence of real beings in a dynamic universe.

Contents:

Cover; Contents; Introduction: Form and Phenomenon in Raymond Ruyer's Philosophy; 1. The Axiological Cogito; 2. Description of Finalist Activity; 3. Finalist Activity and Organic Life; 4. The Contradictions of Biological Antifinalism; 5. Finalist Activity and the Nervous System; 6. The Brain and the Embryo; 7. Signification of Equipotentiality; 8. The Reciprocal Illusion of Incarnation and "Material" Existence; 9. "Absolute Surfaces" and Absolute Domains of Survey; 10. Absolute Domains and Bonds; 11. Absolute Domains and Finality; 12. The Region of the Transspatial and the Transindividual

13. The Levels of the Transspatial and Finalist Activity14. The Beings of the Physical World and the Fibrous Structure of the Universe; 15. The Neomaterialist Theories; 16. Neo-Darwinism and Natural Selection; 17. Neo-Darwinism and Genetics; 18. Organicism and the Dynamism of Finality; 19. Psycho-Lamarckism; 20. Theology of Finality; Summary; Translator's Afterword: The Idea of the End Alyosha Edlebi; Notes; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Y; Z

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4529-5012-1

OCLC:

936379716