The Political Ontology of Enlightenment Materialism: Flat Ontology or Radical Anthropology?
The Political Ontology of Enlightenment Materialism: Flat Ontology or Radical Anthropology?

Summary/Abstract: What is the politics of Enlightenment materialism? Or, lessambiguously put, what politics does early modern materialismyield? After examining some misconceptions, including olderideas about the necessary link between materialism and the(French) Revolution, I discuss what one might call the implicitpolitics of ontology in some examples of thoroughgoing ‘mate-rialist political ontology’. Consideration is given to specificcases, like those of Meslier and Diderot, which articulate anargument for a ‘democracy of matter itself’, according towhich, if we are all made of the same matter, there can be nodivine right of kings.

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