YOEL REGEV’S COINCIDENTOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY MATERIALIST PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to define the logic and place of the theory of the Israeli philosopher Yoel Regev called «coincidentology» in the context of contemporary materialist philosophy (Bruno Latour, Quentin Meillasoux, Graham Harman, Manuel DeLanda, accelerationists). Methodological principles of the study are historical and philosophical comparative studies, analysis and synthesis, generalization. Scientific novelty. Contemporary philosophy of new materialists is mired in antinomies: objective reality exists here and now and with necessity or treated as potential, inexhaustible and contingent, knowable or unknowable, things constituted by relations or internal qualities, capitalism exists employing technological determinism or social determinism, there is a general ontology of objective reality (all objects are “x”) or a particular ontology of objective reality (“all objects” are unique, singular). Yoel Regev in his theory called “coincidentology” tries to solve these antinomies by reviving, in a purely metamodernist gesture, Spinoza’s theory of substance (unity of substance in different attributes) and dialectical-materialist philosophy (appropriation and alienation, approaching and distancing of attributes). Conclusions. Contemporary materialist philosophers consider one principle, one side, one attribute, one category of reality to be the principle according to which the other side, etc., are excluded, left behind brackets, or placed as unattainable Good, Truth, Surplus. This is precisely the danger, from Regev’s point of view, because such thinkers of attributes do not think substantially, prioritize one of the attributes, the principle of separation, while Regev designates the main principle of a substance as holding-together-in-holding-apart, and the alienation of attributes as the Immanent Impossible. Contemporary philosophers carry out the battle of attributes, creating different versions of the Immanent Impossible, or the givenness of ungiven, which consider the non-primary attribute as an unworthy or an ideal, which allows exaggerating the significance of the primary attribute: the necessity becomes a victim of contingency, relations – qualities, human – technology, human – inhuman and vice versa. Instead of understanding the internal division of one substance, there is a battle of tragically separated attributes. The essence of coincidental philosophy is precisely to see the real conflict behind the veil of illusory conflicts, the struggle of hostile attributes with each other to affirm unity, substantiality, to reveal the mechanism that creates the desire for the Immanent Impossible.