The System of Absentology in Ontological Philosophy

Description

This volume deals primarily with absentology, an ontological and social-scientific epistemological mode, dedicated to the analysis of absence. The book is drawn by manifestations of absence wherever they may be encountered. It deals with three terms, the shadow economy, corruption and pollution, while constructing a non-realist ontology predicated upon the emptiness of all predicates, as expounded by certain strands of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. According to the absentological viewpoint, there is nothing outside, beyond, below or above relations. Relations exist on their own, enchained within an immense, infinite regress, opening and closing upon one another. Absentology is, by consequence of its nonattachment to phenomena, a form of social inquiry fundamentally alien to each and every social form, and it abandons any illusions about the possibility of an escape from the realm of relationality. This book will appeal to students and academics interested in ontological philosophy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Invisible Tangibility ............................................................... 1 Part I: The Economy of Light I.1. Skinning the Body ............................................................................... 20 I.2 Volcanic Ejaculation ............................................................................ 41 I.3 Receiving the Alien .............................................................................. 60 I.4 Sinister Solitude ................................................................................... 79 Part II: Incorruptibility II.1 Nocturnal Funerary Immersion ......................................................... 104 II.2 The Vaginal Wound .......................................................................... 131 II.3 Impenetrable White Ash ................................................................... 161 Part III: The Purity of Emptiness III.1 Autoaffective Receptivity ................................................................ 196 III.2 Smoke Rises from the Burning-Ground .......................................... 231 Conclusion: Self-Emptying Disincarnation ............................................. 260 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 267