Abstract
The aim of this talk is to detect and explain a methodological shortcoming that affects three contemporary theories: Speculative Materialism, Object-Oriented Philosophy and New Realism. All profess to go beyond Kant's interdiction to think the absolute, but in trying to do so, they commit the epistemological fallacy, conflating epistemic properties with ontological ones - ad ignorantiam.
Meillassoux turns the limits of finite human cognition into an absolute finitude of "necessary contingency". Harman projects our ignorance of the thing in-itself for us into the thing in-itself.
The flaw in question is most visible in the "ontology of fields of sense" as proposed by Gabriel. For him, to exist means "to appear in a field of sense", and since totality can never appear in a "field of sense", it cannot exist.
Hence, they rather corroborate than overcome Kant. Ultimately, their failure stems from being too loyal to Kant's methodology.