The Revenge of Reason

Neorationalism as a distinctive philosophical trajectory, exploring the outermost possibilities of Prometheanism, Inhumanism, and Enlightenment.

What is the fate of Reason in the twenty-first century? Today more than ever, in the face of disinformation, memetic plagues, and neuroactive media, if we are to resist not just the continual solicitation of our cognitive reflexes, but also the unearned authority of endless everyman rationalists and self-appointed secular priests of rationality, then we have no choice but to mobilize Reason to continually dissect the responsibilities they shirk, and to embrace the future demands of thought. Peter Wolfendale has long been dedicated to this philosophical task, and The Revenge of Reason lays out his vision for Neorationalism as a distinctive philosophical trajectory, exploring the outermost possibilities of Prometheanism, Inhumanism, and Enlightenment.
 
This volume collects interviews and writings on various philosophical figures and topics, addressing the deepest questions of Physis, Logos, and Ethos—all with exemplary clarity and pedagogical generosity. Against those who would chain the fate of humanity to its animal nature, Wolfendale’s work makes the case for unbinding our rationality from every petty naturalism and every fixed image of thought, heralding an inhuman destiny unleashed by the revenge of Reason.

• Foreword (Ray Brassier/Reza Negarestani)
• The Demands of Thought: Neorationalism
• Prometheanism
• Inhumanism
• Enlightenment
• Dialogues
• Physis
• Metaphysics and the Question of Being
• Essay on Transcendental Realism
• Ariadne’s Thread: Temporality, Modality, and Individualism in Deleuze’s Metaphysics
• Logos
• The Greatest Mistake: A Case for the Failure of Hegel’s Idealism
• Is There a TV in my Head? Content, Functional Mapping, and the Myth of the Given
• Copernicanism Without Correlationism
• Ethos
• Technocracy and Classless Society
• The Artist’s Brain at Work
• Art and Value
• What’s in a Game?
• Not So Humble Pie
• Glossary
• Blog Guide

Peter Wolfendale is an independent philosopher living in the North East of England and the author of Object-Oriented Philosophy: The Noumenon’s New Clothes (Urbanomic).
 
Ray Brassier is a British philosopher. A member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, he is the author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction.
 
Reza Negarestani is a philosopher and the author, most recently, of Intelligence and Spirit (Urbanomic / Sequence Press). He directs the Critical Philosophy program at the New Centre for Research and Practice.