The End of Phenomenology: Metaphysics and the New Realism (Speculative Realism)

This is a great book. It serves both as a fine overview of phenomenology and as a critique of its main purposes. All of this in order to prepare the ground for the launching of the new OOO. Whether one agrees with the author's conclusions or not, and I am not sure that I do, the work is clearly and orderly written. As such it is worth reading, mostly if someone is new to the topic. Anyway, I feel it should be read along that other great book by Simon Glendinning "In the Name of Phenomenology". Definitely five stars if not more.

Sparrow demonstrates a great command of both phenomenology and the speculative materialist/realist positions of Meillassoux and Harman in this book. I would have liked to have seen more in this book on the developments in phenomenological research made by Varela, Thompson, Gallagher, Zahavi and so on, but the comments Sparrow does make about this kind of phenomenological research express my same concerns with it. Definitely worth a read if you're into phenomenology and/or speculative realism.

Sparrow provides an excellent encapsulation of both speculative realism and phenomenology before using the core claims of the former to unseat the latter. In this book you will find a fascinating and comprehensive survey of phenomenology as well as an extremely up-to-date analysis of speculative realist philosophy. Sparrow manages to do the very difficult work of presenting ideas while also arguing for and against them in powerful, critical ways.An amazing book all around and perfect for anyone who wants to either increase or simply stabilize their knowledge about both phenomenology and speculative realism.

Though I disagreed with almost all of it, "The End of Phenomenology" provides an impressively learned and thoroughly committed presentation of the new Skeptical Realism. Where so many books in my Continental area are loathe to stake out strong positions, Tom Sparrow places not only his erudition but also his philosophical passion on every page.

If phenomenonology is so false, why belabor it so? Show me your alternative and let me decide if it's better.

I came across this book as I was researching speculative realism. Speculative realism is a new school of philosophy that began in 2007 at a conference held at Goldsmiths College, Univ of London. Speculative realism seeks to go beyond phenomenology, which has been the dominant paradigm is philosophy since Husserl, although one could argue that one could go even further back, at least to Kant, if not Berkeley. Author Tom Sparrow does a SUPERB job of explaining, in plain English, what phenomenology is (its fundamental idea is that when one is conscious, one is always conscious of something), why it is really a disguised form of idealism, and what the proponents of speculative realism have to say about phenomenology, and how to go beyond its limitations. Phenomenology is tied to the "human/nature correlate", and contemporary philosophers like Quentin Meillasoux and Graham Harman, among others, are trying to go beyond this in order to determine the true nature of objects.This book is well-written, covers all the relevant ground in sufficient detail, but without falling into the trap that people studying philosophy typically fall into: trying to show off that one knows a lot and thinks deeply by writing so obtusely that no one can really understand what one is saying. Tom Sparrow does not fall into this trap. This is a SUPERB first book to read to get oriented to what speculative realism is, the differences in philosophy among the current major players, and also to get a better understanding of phenomenology. Tom Sparrow does not preach, and he does not try to enforce any particular viewpoint. He even gives phenomenology the possibility of being able to continue being a viable tool for further philosophical investigations.Five stars, well-earned.John V. Karavitis

Object oriented ontology is quite frankly ridiculous and phenomenology is very much alive.