Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism

Cat Moir, Ph.D. (2014), University of Sheffield, is Senior Lecturer in Germanic Studies at the University of Sydney. She has published widely on the history of ideas in the German-speaking world.

• PrefaceIntroduction1. The materialism problem2. OntologyNature contra mechanismMatter as the subject of natureThe logic of matterReal possibilityTeleology without a telos3. EpistemologyThe structure of the conceptThe influence of neo-KantianismThe role of ironyRationalism, empiricism, and practice4. PoliticsThe German Philosopher of the October Revolution?For Stalin, against HitlerThe Politics of Speculative MaterialismSpeculation, totality, and immanent critiqueChapter 5: Relevance and critiqueThe speculative turn: Bloch and MeillassouxNew materialism: Bloch and BennettEcological materialisms: Bloch, Foster, and MooreEpilogue: The speculative expanseBibliography

"Overall, readers from a range of background and interests will find much in this broad, varied and eminently readable study of an underappreciated thinker likely to become a first port of call for much future philosophical engagement with Bloch." - Jack Kellam, in Marx & Philosophy Review of Books [Full review]