Hysteresis: The External World

Since the 1780s, Western philosophy has been largely under the spell of Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy. In this book, Maurizio Ferraris offers a number of important criticisms of Kant in a book of two parts, written 21 years apart. The first part of the book, 'Observation', originally published in 2001, lays the foundations of Ferraris' New Realism, foreshadowing the realist turn that has become characteristic of 21st century philosophy. The second part, 'Speculation', written in 2021, outlines a complete metaphysical theory of realism. What ties both parts of the book together is the the notion of hysteresis, the ability of effects to survive even when their causes have ceased to exist.

Maurizio Ferraris is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin. He has written more than fifty books that have been translated into several languages. His books in English are History of Hermeneutics (Humanities Press, 1996), with Jacques Derrida - A Taste for the Secret (Blackwell, 2011), Documentality or Why it is Necessary to Leave Traces (Fordham University Press, 2012), Goodbye Kant! (SUNY, 2013), Where are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone (Fordham University Press, 2014), Manifesto of New Realism (SUNY, 2014), Introduction to New Realism (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Positive Realism (Zero Books, 2015).

Sarah De Sanctis is an academic translator specialising in philosophy. She translated these books by Maurizio Ferraris, Where are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone (Fordham University Press, 2014) and Introduction to New Realism (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is co-editor of Breaking the Spell: Contemporary Realism under Discussion (Mimesis International, 2015).