Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology (Speculative Realism)

A new realist ontology based on the concept of fields of senseMarkus Gabriel presents us with an innovative answer to one of the central questions of philosophy: What is the meaning of 'being' - or, rather, 'existence' - and how does that concept relate to the totality of what there is? Gabriel argues that there is no all-encompassing totality: that the world, in the traditional sense of a domain of all domains, cannot exist. Yet, he convincingly shows that this does not entail ontological nihilism. Rather, he argues that the non-existence of the world entails an infinity of domains and shows that this motivates a general realism - we can know things in themselves because our knowledge of things in themselves is itself part of these things. This ontology hinges on Gabriel's concept of fields of sense, which shows that, fundamentally, he opposes the idea that mathematics or the natural sciences could ever replace a richer philosophical understanding of what there is and how we know about it.