Summary: | Abstract The most valuable contribution of Hartmut Rosa’s social theory is the extension of the scope of Critical Theory from the individual world and the social world to the thing-world. However, Rosa’s analysis of the thing-world is somewhat insufficient. The present article provides an attempt to apply new materialism to the thing-world to compensate for the missing elements of Rosa’s resonance theory. An examination and integration of two of the most representative theories of new materialism, namely agential realism and object-oriented ontology, yield four types (or quadrants) of thing-world relations based on intra-action or inter-action and on inclusion or exclusion: namely resonance, alienation, appropriation, and catastrophe. This quadrant can provide a clearer criterion for resonance in Rosa’s Critical Theory, and manifest that the problem in contemporary society we have to concern might exclusion instead of alienation.
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