ABSTRACT
This contribution is dedicated to a specific aspect or movement within New Materialism, namely a materialism that deals with living matter – New Vitalism. In this New Materialism/New Vitalism, the Cartesian dualisms of mind and matter, individual and society, life and society, matter and life are all suspended. Such a philosophy of affects and of matter is to be found in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, which is particularly consequential given that Bergson is a major forerunner of New Materialism, at least in the cases of Brian Massumi and of Jane Bennett. Since the 1950s, such a philosophical perspective was radicalized in the works of Georges Canguilhem, Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze. In Bergson’s, Canguilhem’s, Simondon’s and Deleuze’s works, life (or vital matter) is not only an object for the social and for sociology. Rather, life is the subject of all social facts. Such a new materialist/new vitalist theory is a critical social theory insofar as it criticizes social institutions as well as social concepts in the name of life. It criticizes positivistic (as well as evolutionistic or deterministic) attitudes toward living beings in view of the unforeseeable becoming-another of (human social) life. In sum, this contribution concerns New Vitalism as Critical Social Theory – or rather, Critical Vitalism.
