the December 1 abstract

In case you happen to be in Maastricht on December 1, here is the abstract:

Monads for the 21st Century
by Graham Harman

A case could be made for Leibniz as the greatest metaphysician of all time. No one does a better job than Leibniz at integrating the Aristotelo-Scholastic tradition with the new current of modern philosophy that began with Descartes. But at the same time, few metaphysicians have been as ridiculed as Leibniz, both for his metaphysical optimism (“the best of all possible worlds”) and for his apparently wild speculations on monads and their consequences. This lecture will try to sort out what is living and what is dead in the Leibnizian metaphysics, and will end by recommending a 21st century philosophy guided by Leibniz as its hero.