Terence Blake

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Follow to get new release updates and improved recommendations
OK
About Terence Blake
Terence Blake is an Australian-born philosopher whose research concerns contemporary epistemological and ontological pluralism and also the relations between philosophy and science fiction. He lives and teaches in France (Faculty of Law, Nice; and lycée Léonard de Vinci, Antibes). His writings have been published in Art & Text, Tension, Local Consumption, Cycnos, Screening The Past, and on his blogs Agent Swarm and Xeno Swarm.
Are you an author?
Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
1 11 1
Author Updates
-
-
Blog postMy basic idea is that different research programmes, or « traditions », may well be incommensurable in a strong sense when taken as abstract traditions and be compartmentalised, mutually hermetically sealed, with nothing to say to each other (semantic incommensurability and deductive disjunction), but these same traditions when taken as historical traditions are pragmatically both commensurable and mutually permeable.
Religion and science are merely «1 week ago Read more -
Blog postIn my recent posts on Badiou’s method I am making no unusual or unduly metaphysical claims about the logic of necessity or the nature of reality..
I am merely starting out from the famous « layer-cake » model of testing starting with observational theories (I say observational « theories because there are no pure observations) going upwards via more and more conceptually elaborated auxiliary theories and ending with some very general speculative theory1 week ago Read more -
Blog postFar from privileging the « poetic » my interpretation is methodological, I have been applying Popper’s and Lakatos’s multi-layered concept of « metaphysical research programmes » to contemporary French philosophy for the twelve years of existence of my blog.
The emphasis of my reading is on the methodological dimension for the global structure of the system of ideas and I give relative importance to the poetic procedure as there exists alrea1 week ago Read more -
-
Blog postIn my previous post I discussed Badiou’s method of taking one particular truth procedure, in his case mathematics, and proceding by a form to guided abduction to elaborate speculative hypotheses at the more general philosophical level (noetic ascent) that could then be tested by a process of investigation within any of the four truth procedures (noetic descent). The particular experimental montage differs for each of the truth procedures.
Note: I am indebted to a discussion with Serge1 week ago Read more -
Blog postI do not think mathematics contains the essential content to Badiou’s ideas, although it may be the key, or more properly it is the ladder which we climb up and can then throw away (except if we’re specially interested in that particular ladder).
Mathematics is the heuristic starting point only because it is easier (despite its difficulties) compared to the other truth procedures to see the concepts that Badiou is trying to develop in clear and distinct form.
Mathematics is tr1 week ago Read more -
Blog postI have strongly criticised Jan Rehmann’s ideas on Nietzsche and on French leftist Nietzscheanism in my previous posts but I have no personal vendetta with Jan Rehmann. In the video-interview he comes across as a nice person, and the last part of the video contains some interesting remarks about his own personal evolution with respect to psychoanalysis that I found interesting and didn’t want to include in my polemic.
Rehmann is very clear and pedagogical in his writing and also3 weeks ago Read more -
-
Blog post« I believe a book, if it deserves to exist, can be presented in three quick aspects: you do not write a ‘worthy’ book unless: 1) you think that the books on the same subject or on a neighboring subject fall into a type of overall error (polemical function of the book); 2) you think that something essential has been forgotten in relation to the subject (inventive function); 3) you believe yourself capable of creating a new concept (creative function). Of course, it is the3 weeks ago Read more
-
Blog postHaving disposed of Nietzsche’s global critique of ideologies by reducing it to « fictionalism » Rehmann can now award him a bonus point for his specific ideology critiques (e.g. his critique of resentment).
Rehmann then mitigates this point by claiming that Nietzsche equates all resistance « from below » with ressentiment. I cannot explore this seemingly simple and easily decidable question here but I will have to content myself with an allu3 weeks ago Read more -
-
Blog postIn this post I will be writing up my live-tweet running on commentary on Daniel Tutt’s recently posted interview of Jan Rehmann on his book DECONSTRUCTING POSTMODERN NIETZSCHEANISM.
The interview is well-structured and well-conducted and Rehmann’s replies are clear and concise, thus giving us a coherent argument and providing us with a synoptic view of the book’s content and inciting us to pursue the discussion further by reading the book.
Unfortunately I think that Rehmann’s3 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postBadiou’s THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS is out now in English (I almost said it exists in English, but « exist » is a technical term in Badiou’s system denoting anywhere between the minimal and the maximal intensity of appearing in a world. Does THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS exist in the sense of a high degree of appearing? I see no clear sign of this for the moment).
The customary (and necessary) work of exploration, exegesis, and application is no doubt well under way in th1 month ago Read more -
Blog postStar Maker is a masterpiece among the greatest works of science fiction. Praised by many of the essential authors of science fiction, the novel’s influence extends through the history of science fiction to the most speculative works of space opera today.
In his introduction to the publication of the novel in the prestigious collection of the SF Masterworks, Brian Aldiss, the great author and critic of science fiction, states:
“Star Maker is the most wonderful book I have ever1 month ago Read more -
Blog postMOINEAU DE DIEU (1996) par Mary Doria Russell est un de ces romans de science fiction qui figurent régulièrement parmi les “grands classiques” qui alimentent les listes des 100 meilleurs livres de science fiction, ou d’autres classifications du même type, dont le statut réel est obscur, mais qui nous fournissent des suggestions de lecture utile, … Continue reading LE MOINEAU DE DIEU: le classique comme stéréotype et comme traumatype1 month ago Read more
-
Blog postCréateur d’étoiles est un chef d’œuvre parmi les plus grandes œuvres de la science fiction. Salué par des auteurs essentiels de la science fiction, le roman étend son influence jusqu’aux oeuvres de space opera les plus spéculatives d’aujourd’hui. Dans son introduction à la publication du roman dans la collection prestigieuse des SF Masterworks, Brian Aldiss, … Continue reading CRÉATEUR D’ÉTOILES (Olaf Stapledon) – Une Divine Comédie&2 months ago Read more
-
Blog postThis is a follow-up to a previous post on Arthur C. Clarke’s classic short story “The Star” as being more optimistic than it may seem at first sight – as expressing perhaps the first phase in a future self-transformation of the priest.
The story works as expressing the subjective drama of the Jesuit when faced with a crucial objection to his beliefs. He believes in the literal truth and historical accuracy of the Christian narrative and in the theological conception of God as both all9 months ago Read more -
Blog postI have just watched episode 9 of Apple TV+’s adaptation of Asimov’s FOUNDATION and it has once again made me depressed to the point of tears welling in my eyes, and yet I feel compelled to go on watching. Such is its mentalic power. I think the show was made by the Mule, or rather by one of his a mutant precursors, a sub-Mule.
One aim of the show is to teach us all to be both predictive psycho-historians and slaves to the Mule. The twists are predictable (as is the boredom), but the d9 months ago Read more -
Blog postWe all know Darko Suvin’s definition of science fiction as “the literature of cognitive estrangement”. This is a bold hypothesis (in the best of the Popperian tradition of conjectures and refutations) and so capable of falsification, and thus more scientific, because falsifiable, than nominalist definitions of the sort “science fiction is whatever I point at … Continue reading Science fiction as the literature of cognitive estrangeletment11 months ago Read more
-
Blog postLIGHT CHASER is a short novel written by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell and logically should have been a science fiction novel, but a certain disconnect between the narrative point of departure and a key point of the underlying world-building deflected it from this goal.
Very impatient to read this novel as soon as it was released, I came across a mixed review on the blog The Cult of Apophis which left me perplexed. Reading this review I wondered if it was a bit too harsh, but11 months ago Read more -
Blog postLIGHT CHASER est un court roman écrit par Peter F. Hamilton et Gareth L. Powell et logiquement aurait dü être un roman de science fiction, mais un certain décalage entre le point de départ narratif et un point clé de la construction du monde sous-jacente l’a dévié de ce destin.
Très impatient de lire ce roman dès sa sortie je suis tombé sur une critique mitigée sur le blog Le culte d’Apophis qui me laissa11 months ago Read more -
Blog post“How we lost the moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen” est une courte nouvelle par Paul McAuley, publiée il y a une vingtaine d’années. Je suis redevable au blog Le culte d’Apophis por avoir attiré mon attention sur cette nouvelle. Elle est disponible sur audible.fr, et l’audio dure 36 minutes.
Le récit est très agréable, bien écrit, comportant assez peu d’action. La partie la plus importante du récit est composée de descr1 year ago Read more -
Blog postIs there something special about reading science fiction? does it require a special mindset? does reading science fiction over a long period of time, or over a whole life, change you in any way? Any long-time reader of science fiction may want to ask themselves these questions, with the feeling that it may give some insight into our life and our approach to life.
Over at the excellent blog Classics of Science Fiction, Jim Harris discusses the long-term evolution of his “changing attit2 years ago Read more
Titles By Terence Blake
$2.99
François Laruelle is a prominent French philosopher who is only just beginning to be read and studied in English. He has produced an abundant oeuvre, of which only a small part has been translated into English. There exist some introductory works expounding the basic ideas of his "non-philosophy", but the time has come for a critical analysis of some of his major theses.