Although little known today, Raymond Ruyer was a post World War II French philosopher whose works and ideas were significant influences on major thinkers, including Deleuze, Guattari, and Simondon. With the publication of this translation of "Neofinalism, " considered by many to be Ruyer s magnum opus, English-language readers can see at last how this seminal mind allied philosophy with science.Unfazed by the idea of philosophy ending where science began, Ruyer elaborated a singular, nearly unclassifiable metaphysics and reactivated philosophy s capacity to reflect on its canonical questions: What exists? How are we to account for life? What is the status of subjectivity? And how is freedom possible? Ha "Neofinalism" offers a systematic and lucidly argued treatise that deploys the innovative concepts of self-survey, form, and absolute surface to shape a theory of the virtual and the transspatial. It also makes a compelling plea for a renewed appreciation of the creative activity that organizes spatiotemporal structures and makes possible the emergence of real beings in a dynamic universe."