Speculative Dreams against Constructivism: Generic Thought and Truth Politics

CONSTANZA FILLOY

Indiana

Workshop; Fall Workshop on Philosophical Responses to Crisis; 2020

Indiana Philosophical Association

Over the first decades of the 21st century, critical theory has become dissatisfied with social constructivism and has subsequently invested in philosophy´s speculative turn as a means of returning to ?the things in themselves?. Speculation aims to question anthropocentrism while debating the thesis that all reality is a construction. In this presentation, I briefly develop the Badiouian critique of constructivism in order to show how it lays the groundwork for a concept of subjectivity that might address the type of transformations demanded by our current conjuncture. I argue that, by presenting the question about the limits of constructivism, the Badiouian project offers a positive critique of the axiom of constructibility, and thus moves toward a possible transformation of the real via the reintroduction of the category of truth.