A Formal Ontological Game.
Does Meillassoux’s Speculative Realism
Need a Correlation?*
Jan Voosholz
1. Posing a question
need an interconnection between us and the things around us.
dyad
(triad
After Finitude
the claim that it is possible to consider the realm of subjectivity and objectivity
correlationist ontology.
remarks. I wrote this mainly in Paris during a stay at the Panthéon-Sorbonne which was
After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (New
to be the total and absolute correlation which he names Weltgeist between the
world (Welt Geist
3
He also does not seem to have a problem
with the idea of correlationism when it comes to our mundane dealings in everyday
life. His disagreement with correlationism focuses on the ontological level.
Under no circumstances does he want to become a correlationist.
speculative realist philosophies need a correlation for similar reasons?
2. Formal ontological games
ancestrality.
Genealogies of
Speculation
3
After Finitude
After Finitude
second reading of the problem is the deeper one.
possibility of a correlating subject. So correlationism can either contradict its own
givenness of any possible correlation thinkable without a creatio ex nihilo? In other
that space and time depend on the correlation between subjectivity and objectivity?
I call this the ontological reading of the ancestral problem since it is concerned with
latter aspect.
contradictory (which he deduces from his Principle of Unreason and the concept
of Hyperchaos
in After Finitude
the mathematical properties of certain objects in the universe. Ergo we know some
that describes how we know these things. Nor does he put forward a philosophy
of mind to present a model for our subjectivity and its ability to know and act in
correlationist stance and get into the messy business of outlining the details of any
connection of our subjectivity to the factual and actual world around us.
connection between our subjectivity and objective reality if it wants to be more
formal ontological game
its possibility.
ontological
but also of
objecitve world and the objective preconditions of our subjecitivity. In Potentiality
and Virtuality
ex nihilo as a real
that it is possible.
3. The periodic table of things
3.1. A most perfect ontology
assume I could present to you an argument which clearly shows that all primary
s position on the periodic table of things.
Collapse
conradictory
looking at the table.
3.2. Four pressing questions
on the periodic table of things. I would have to give you a method for knowing the
at all related to the periodic table of things? I would have to present an answer to
Then you would ask me about all those other things which are not on the
in reality?
and relevant as a huge step forward to overcome correlationism. But the PTT is
PTT
PTT only permits me to claim
The
sometimes does not get the attention it deserves.
subjects and intersubjectivity seem to be necessary. So I would argue that these
(surgissement
interconnection with objects of any kind and with one another.
4. Conclusion
4.1. Other new and speculative realisms
the correlationistic contesting of dogmatic metaphysics and subjectalism as well
offers a polydualistic and very slim epistmology with even less of a philosophy of
approach.
In Fields of Sense and Neo-Existentialism
I owe this point to Sergio Genovesi.
Even if Gabriel does not have a problem
subjects never appear because this would contradict the primacy of the correlation
(if there are many universes at least in one universe there need
all
conception of the subject.
4.2. Concluding remarks
that any speculative realist or materialist argues for something like it. Certainly
PTT is merely an
Fields of Sense. A New Realist Ontology
Neo-Existentialism
this volume.
Fields of Sense
within his materialist ontology. I am fairly certain he wants to avoid this task
because his ontology is not to be tainted with temporally situated philosophies about
revolutions.
nor offers us
emergence ex nihilo. To make
ex nihilo without abandoning
his core insights of the necessity of contingency.
know
Time
Without Becoming
Breaking the Spell. Contemporary
Realism under Discussion
Methode
interconnection to better separate terms. It will be different from a correlation in
subjective side will not be a necessary condition for the objective side. So it is more
subjectivity. In this way the interconnection will still entail a meaningful relation
between those parts.
There are a lot of options for such interconnections. In the simplest case it
dyadic connections interlinked with one another and so on. In addition to the
different possible structures for the interconnection we can choose very different
strive to create new concepts for its interconnections.
the fate of composing an ontology that ends up as a formal ontological game. If
the new realisms are unable to spell out a compelling concept of subjectivity in
account of subjectivity and of the knowledge of objective reality. I do not think we
need the sciences and in order to understand how their practices and theories relate
to one another and how they are grounded in our epistemic situation we need a
philosophy of science.
unresolved.
would have to become an ontological and epistemological pluralist.
interconnection to understand them.
and philosophy.
References
