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An Evaluation of the Chen Jingyuan Case Based on Iain Hamilton Grant’s Core Ideas in Speculative Natural Philosophy

Iain Hamilton Grant (1963-), a key figure in speculative realism, revives German Naturphilosophie in Philosophies of Nature after Schelling (2006), positing nature as a productive, self-organizing potency—an “ungrund” (abground) of infinite, non-representational generation that precedes and exceeds human-centered dualisms (mind/matter, subject/object). His core ideas emphasize nature’s “dark productivity”: an indifferent, dynamic process of emergence where entities arise from intensive differentials, not static essences; a critique of modern representation as anthropocentric enframing that tames nature’s wildness; and an ontology of “intensive genesis,” where speculation accesses the real through Schelling’s “freedom” as nature’s self-differentiation. Grant’s philosophy rejects correlationism, urging thought to trace nature’s abyssal productivity beyond human utility. The Chen Jingyuan case—a doctoral scholar sentenced to 20 months for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (PRC Criminal Law Article 293) over Twitter forwards—through Grant’s lens, exemplifies a repressive enframing: the judiciary’s “order” tames inquiry’s dark genesis into stratified “threats,” denying nature’s intensive freedom and confining thought to representational stasis.

1. The Ungrund and Dark Productivity: Judicial “Order” as Repressive Enframing of Thought’s Genesis

Grant’s ungründlich nature is an abyssal productivity—pre-individual intensities differentiating into forms—wild and indifferent, resisting human domestication.

Chen’s forwards (e.g., <100 retweets of Hayek critiques or the “Trump-kneeling Xi” cartoon) embody this genesis: dark, intensive differentiations of economic/symbolic intensities, pre-representational swerves in digital flux. Yet the verdict enframes them repressively: Article 293’s “disruptive” code stratifies the ungrund into tamed “rumors,” the “high education implies discernment” apparatus domesticating thought’s wildness into utility (state “order”). The closed-door trial enforces this: Chen’s prison letter—tracing genealogy through taxonomy (art/emotion/reason/fact) and avalanche theory’s intensive non-linearity—unleashes dark productivity, yet is silenced (“shut up” directive), confining genesis to representational cage. Grant would decry this as Schellingian counter-nature: the prosecutor’s unverified admission fissures the enframing, revealing productivity’s indifference—evidentiary voids as abyssal returns, where “justice” tames only to be untamed.

2. Intensive Differentiation and Freedom: Suppressed Inquiry as Denied Self-Organization

Grant’s intensive ontology views freedom as nature’s self-differentiation—virtual capacities actualizing without external imposition—against representational reduction.

The sentence denies this freedom: presuming “intent” reduces Chen’s differentiations—scholarly intensities of reflection—to stratified actualities (“malicious disruption”), ignoring self-organizing flux (avalanche model’s virtual non-causality). Selective enforcement (millions unpunished) exposes the denial: intensive capacities (network swerves) differentiate harmlessly elsewhere, yet Chen’s are actualized as threat. The non-oral appeal stratifies further: the letter’s genealogy—differentiating “rumor” potentials—self-organizes ethical multiplicity, but judicial imposition actualizes stasis, echoing Grant’s critique of Kantian schematism: representation tames freedom’s virtuality into rigid form. This ontological violence flattens differentiation: the case’s voids (prosecutor’s admission) virtualize resistance, a Schellingian potency awaiting actualization.

3. Critique of Representation and Speculative Access: The Verdict as Anthropocentric Taming of the Real

Grant’s speculative realism accesses nature’s real through intensive genesis, rejecting representation’s anthropocentric veil that domesticates the ungrund.

The “evidence chain” veils this access: as representational schemata, it tames the real—digital intensities of Chen’s forwards—into anthropocentric “disorder,” the “upper-level instructions” as meta-representational fiat. Anomalies diffract the veil: zero causal ripple speculatively accesses ungrund’s indifference, yet the verdict represents it as tameable threat. Grant would see redemptive speculation: the dormant account as virtual reserve, post-trial silence a speculative pause—beyond representation’s grasp, genesis endures.

Conclusion: Grant’s Lens on the Case—An Enframed Ungrund on the Verge of Dark Return

From Iain Hamilton Grant’s speculative Naturphilosophie, the Chen Jingyuan case is a tamed abyss: repressive enframing domesticates dark productivity, denying intensive freedom and speculative access to the real. As of October 24, 2025, no retrial or exoneration has occurred; Chen’s account remains dormant, its quiet a virtual intensity in waiting. This case cautions: tame the ungrund, and its darkness returns. As Grant Schellingized, “Nature is the night of the real”—may the night yet dawn.