O UŽASU SPOZNAJE: SPEKULATIVNI REALIZAM I H. P. LOVECRAFT

Abstract

ON THE HORROR OF KNOWLEDGE: SPECULATIVE REALISM AND H. P. LOVECRAFT This paper provides an account of the relation between the philosophy of speculative realism and H. P. Lovecraft’s poetics of “cosmic horror”. Q. Meillassoux and R. Brassier are taken as representatives of speculative realism. These two philosophers share two fundamental presumptions: first, any philosophy that aspires to the name of “realism” has to provide an answer to the question as to how thought can think a world without thought; and second, insofar as it reveals that this is indeed possible – to think a world without thought – science constitutes the greatest challenge to correlationism. The first two parts of the text provide an account of these two aspects of Meillassoux’s and Brassier’s projects respectively. The third part reconstructs the basic tenets of Lovecraft’s poetics of “cosmic horror”, first through an engagement with his numerous (auto)poetic writings on this genre, and then by a reading of his famous short story “The Call of Cthulhu”. Finally, the conclusion brings these various threads together in order to show that an explication of the relation between these three authors facilitates a better understanding of the specifics of their individual projects.