Work

The Political Ontology of Enlightenment Materialism: Flat Ontology or Radical Anthropology?

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: What is the politics of Enlightenment materialism? Or, less ambiguously put, what politics does early modern materialism yield? After examining some misconceptions, including older ideas about the necessary link between materialism and the (French) Revolution, I discuss what one might call the implicit politics of ontology in some examples of thoroughgoing ‘materialist political ontology’. Consideration is given to specific cases, like those of Meslier and Diderot, which articulate an argument for a ‘democracy of matter itself’, according to which, if we are all made of the same matter, there can be no divine right of kings.

Source: Praktyka Teoretyczna

DOI: 10.19195/prt.2024.3.5

Author: Charles Wolfe

Language: English

Topic: Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

Subfield: Philosophy

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: University of Oxford, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

OpenAlex ID: W4405724268

FWCI:

Cites: 8

Cited by:

Related to: 10