Adrian Johnston, "Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism: The Outcome of Contemporary French Philosophy " (Northwestern UP, 2013)
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What is Adrian Johnston’s Prolegomena and why does it matter for contemporary materialism?
Welcome back to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Stephen Dozman. In the contemporary philosophical landscape, a variety of materialist ontologies have appeared, all wrestling with various political and philosophical questions in light of a post-God ontology. Entering into this discussion is my guest today, Adrian Johnston, to discuss the first volume of his three-volume Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism, an attempt to develop a systematic and thoroughly atheistic material ontology of the subject. The first volume, subtitled The Outcome of Contemporary French Philosophy, published in 2013, looks at three recent French theorists, Jacques Lacan, Alain Bedou, and Quentin Mielisu, arguing that all three ultimately fail to maintain a consistent atheism, regularly relying on various supramaterial elements to hold their systems together.
In doing so, the book attempts to clear the ground for. for a consistently materialist ontology to be pursued in the latter two volumes. Adrian Johnston is Chair and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico and a faculty member at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the author of close to a dozen books, including among others Time-Driven, Metapsychology and the Splitting of the Drive, and Adventures in Transcendental Materialism: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers. He is also a co-editor of Northwestern University Press's book series. Diuresis, of which this trilogy is a contribution. So, Adrienne Johnston, welcome back to the New Books Network.
Thank you, and I'm delighted to be back. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you again, Stephen.
All right, so as always, we like to always introduce our guests or have them introduce themselves. So could you maybe tell us a bit about what your main research interests are and how this fits into that?
Um, I can begin by saying that uh I take my philosophical inspiration from three orientations German idealism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, uh, and that uh using the resources from these particular Intellectual traditions. I attempt to intervene in a number of areas of both perennial and contemporary concern, you know, issues in ontology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, uh, philosophy of religion, uh, and of course, contemporary socio-political and cultural matters. Uh so this is you know the sort of basic uh you know framework. framework that uh that governs you know what I do in terms of ongoing research and that you know I anticipate in the foreseeable future continuing to guide uh my my thinking and
Writing.
Wonderful. So to kind of start things off, I'd like to quote you from this book at length a bit. You write, quote, Lacan predicts that religion will triumph not in spite of the thrusts and encroachments of modernizing science and technology, but precisely because of this relentless collective march forward. To be more exact, The Lacanian prophecy approprios this issue is that the more techno scientific development intensifies and expands the meaninglessness of desacralization and disenchantment, the All the more to a parallel proportional degree will people turn to authorities appearing to guarantee the meaningfulness of life in the universe. The growing desert of the real is a harsh terrain within which subjects are prone to lapse into religious deliriums and hallucinations.
Today's societies are living out the disastrous consequences of this toxic, potent inmixing of religion and science, stuck between Between capitalist techno manipulation and its irrationalist discontents, seesawing between the twin big others of the nature of scientism and the god of superstition within the constraining global space of neoliberal economy, humanity is stranded in the waking nightmare of a disgustingly reactionary and horrifically hopeless period of history. So you have said a lot in this passage, but I think it gives a really valuable cultural background to your work or political background. So can you unpack your understanding of our current political and economic moment and how this series is intended not just as a set of theoretical developments, but as an intervention in a larger set of issues we're facing?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Adrian Johnston’s Prolegomena and why does it matter for contemporary materialism?
0:05–11:01
2
How does Johnston describe his research background in German idealism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis?
11:01–21:49
3
Why does Johnston argue that today’s political‑economic moment demands a materialist intervention?
21:49–30:53
4
What does a consistent Lacanian materialism look like, and why does atheism alone not guarantee it?
30:53–40:27
5
How does Johnston’s upcoming book *Infinite Greed* connect to his critique of Lacan, Badiou, and Meillassoux?
40:27–50:50
6
In what way does Johnston claim contemporary science still hides a theological “God‑of‑nature”?
50:50–59:13
7
Why does Johnston say neuroscience is not merely phrenology and how does neuroplasticity support his materialist view?
59:13–1:08:01
8
How does Johnston critique Badiou’s and Meillassoux’s ontologies and propose a materialist politics for radical change?
1:08:01–1:18:28
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