Hegel and Speculative Realism

has two main objectives. Firstly, to assess the speculative realist formulations of regarding the ‘withdrawn’ object, radical contingency, the absolute register of extinction, and the current interest in ‘powers philosophy’, with special attention to their possible relation to the absolute scope of Hegelian philosophy. Secondly, to invite the reader to reconsider Hegel in a new way; uncovering rare insights into his thoughts on astronomy, actuality, the concrete and non-being. Johns’ inclination is to not mistake the path to the absolute as the path. Johns argues that Hegel describes the unique trajectory of the dialectical relationship between Nature and Idea as a Spirit oriented by both logical and physical (spatio-temporal) dimensions. Johns reads this as a theory of and makes the bold claim that there may be other paths not taken by the Hegelian spatio-temporal path synonymous with the dialectic; synthesis, sublation and unfolding. In-fact, philosophy should not be satisfied to study only “what exists” but also what “could exist” or what it means to “inexist” and should entertain multiple modes of potential between Hegel’s initial triad of logical categories; Being, Non-Being and Becoming.