New French Book Series: MetaphysiqueS

A few years back, must have been early 2008, Michael Burns and I had the pleasure of speaking with Quentin Meillassoux at dinner after he spoke at Middlesex. He told us that he was a co-editor on a new series for Presses Universitaires de France (PUF) that would focus on metaphysics. It would be more focused than Jean-Luc Marion’s “Epimethée”, which publishes a lot of historical works and major works in contemporary phenomenology and French philosophy generally. It has tended, however, to have an anti-metaphysical bent (save for some of the historical texts they publish and the Deleuze texts). I see from looking around the blogs that the first two books in the new series have been released and that the series name is “MétaphsiqueS” (that capital S is a bit annoying, but I guess they wanted to emphasize the pluralism of the series and, in French, metaphysics [métaphysique] is singular). In the speculative realism aspects of the blogosphere there is some excitement about a reissue of a text by Étienne Souriau called Les différents modes d’existence that is important for Latour who introduces the volume with the much under-appreciated Isabelle Stengers.

I’ll admit this does look interesting, but what really got my book lust going was the other book in the series by Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. The book, entitled Métaphysiques cannibales, appears to merge together metaphysics and anthropology to critique and break free from the narcissism of colonial metaphysics. For anyone who wants to read more there was a nice review in the Le Monde, though it only skims the Souriau text.

If anyone wants to buy these for me my birthday is coming up. I wish I was joking.