engleski

H. P. Lovecraft and the Horror of Knowledge: Towards an Aesthetics of Speculative Realism

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little ; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” (H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu) From the Galilean-Copernican revolution which marked its inception, modern science poses a challenge to humanity's self-conception. Contrary to our delusions of grandeur, the natural sciences confront us with a „cold world“ indifferent to our existence and beliefs. As usual, literature responded to this predicament much faster than philosophy and the humanities. As evidenced by the quote above, the weird and horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft presents one of the most impressive literary engagements with this theme. And what about philosophy and the humanities? According to an emerging philosophical movement known as Speculative Realism, Kant's Copernican revolution, under whose banner all of us, modern or postmodern, still think, should be interpreted as an attempt to avoid the most disquieting implications of modern science. The aim of this paper is threefold. First, to introduce as briefly as possible but in enough detail Speculative Realism as a new and vibrant philosophical movement and its challenge to the post-Kantian continental orthodoxy. Second, to extract from Lovecraft's work a concept of Horror. Finally and most importantly, to pose the question of the possibility of a speculative realist aesthetics and to propose Lovecraft's concept of Horror as the key to its solution.

H. P. Lovecraft; Speculative Realism; weird fiction; horror of knowledge

nije evidentirano