Unruffled by the motif of the end of philosophy, Raymond Ruyer elaborated one of the most singular and unclassifiable metaphysics of the 20th century and reactivated philosophy's capacity to speculate on its canonical questions: What exists? How to account for life? What is the status of subjectivity? And how is freedom possible? Hailed by Deleuze as “the latest disciple of Leibniz,” Ruyer's philosophical alliance with science is unique in French philosophy and underlies the strikingly original rigor of his argumentation. His work weds new scientific discoveries with philosophical speculation ... More

Unruffled by the motif of the end of philosophy, Raymond Ruyer elaborated one of the most singular and unclassifiable metaphysics of the 20th century and reactivated philosophy's capacity to speculate on its canonical questions: What exists? How to account for life? What is the status of subjectivity? And how is freedom possible? Hailed by Deleuze as “the latest disciple of Leibniz,” Ruyer's philosophical alliance with science is unique in French philosophy and underlies the strikingly original rigor of his argumentation. His work weds new scientific discoveries with philosophical speculation in a way that sets him apart from other thinkers in the continental tradition. Neofinalism, his magnum opus, is a systematic and lucidly argumentative treatise that deploys the new concepts of “self-survey”, “form”, and “absolute surface” in order to fashion a theory of the virtual and the trans-spatial, and to make a compelling plea for a renewed appreciation of the creative activity that organizes spatio-temporal structures and makes possible the emergence of real beings in a dynamic universe. The book should appeal to readers interested in the renewal of metaphysics and in the alliance between philosophy and science. This translation of Ruyer, one of the last great French philosophers whose work is not yet available in English, helps complete the panorama of continental philosophy in the twentieth-century and is invaluable to those working on the history of philosophy.