<div> <b><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">From the preface by Alain Badiou:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></b> </div><br/><p class=MsoNormal style="mso-layout-grid-align: none"><i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">It is no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy, understood here as the history of what it is to know ... This remarkable "critique of critique" is introduced here without embellishment, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in a particularly clear and logical manner. It allows the destiny of thought to be the absolute once more.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><br/><p class=MsoNormal style="mso-layout-grid-align: none"><i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> </span></i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">"This work is one of the most important to appear in continental philosophy in </span><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">recent years and deserves a wide readership at the earliest possible date ... <i>Après </i></span><i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">la finitude </span></i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">is an important book of philosophy by an authnted emerging voices in continental thought. Quentin Meillassoux deserves our close attention in the years to come and his book deserves rapid translation and widespread discussion in the English-speaking world. There is nothing like it."<o:p></o:p></span></p><br/><p class=MsoNormal style="mso-layout-grid-align: none"><i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt">—</span></i><span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt">Graham Harman in <i>Philosophy Today</i></span></p><br/><div class=MsoNormal style="mso-layout-grid-align: none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Quentin Meillassoux's remarkable debut makes a strikingly original contribution </span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">the future of continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries great clarity of </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">expression with argumentative rigour, <i>After Finitude </i>provides bold readings of the </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">history of philosophy and sets out a devastating critique of the unavowed fideism at </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">the heart of post-Kantian philosophy. <br/><br/>The exceptional lucidity and the centrality of argument in Meillassoux's writing should appeal to analytic as well as continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion. <br/><br/>Meillassoux introduces a startlingly novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. <i>After Finitude </i>proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the creeping return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br/><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><br/><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>>
After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency
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Review
'Rarely do we encounter a book which not only meets the highest standards of thinking, but sets up itself new standards, transforming the entire field into which it intervenes. Quentin Meillassoux does exactly this.' Slavoj Zizek
'In his clearly argued essay, now available in an excellent English translation, the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux shows that subjectivity and objectivity must be conceived of independently of each other ... It is a truly philosophical work in that it develops the original idea of a speculative materialism with uncompromising passion and great consistency.'
Alexander Garcia Düttmann, Professor of Philosophy and Visual Culture, Goldsmiths University of London , UK
'You may entirely disagree with the author's solution (I do) but not with the courage with which he proposes to escape from the prison of discourse and to put the much abused metaphor of the Copernican Revolution right at last.'
Bruno Latour
"Talented and exciting new voice in contemporary French philosophy"—Bookseller Buyers Guide
(Bookseller Buyers Guide )'An exceptionally clear and careful writer... Quentin Meillassoux launches a stinging attack upon the state of philosophy in general, and takes initial steps towards a form of speculative philosophy which, he thinks, overcomes the shortcomings he has identified.' - John Appleby, The Philosopher's Magazine, Issue 43, 4th Quarter 2008
"It's easy to see why Meillassoux's After Finitude has so quickly acquired something of a cult status among some readers who share his lack of reverance for 'the way things are'. The book is exceptionally clear and concise, entirely devoted to a single chain of reasoning. It combines a confident insitence on the self-sufficiency of rational demonstration with an equally rationalist suspicion of mere experience and consensus....[this] is a beautifully written and seductively argued book." - Peter Hallward, Radical Philosophy, 2008
"After Finitude will certainly play a central role in ongoing debates on the status of philosophy, on questions pertaining to epistemology and, above all, to ontology. It will not only be an unavoidable point of reference for those working on the question of finitude, but also for those whose work deals with political theology, and the status of the religious turn of philosophy. After Finitude will certainly become an ideal corrosive against too rigid assumptions and will shake entrenched positions." — Gabriel Riera, University of Illinois, Chicago, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2008
"There is something absolutely exhilarating about Meillassoux's argument, and it is not difficult to see why his book has already aroused so much interest. The exposition and critique of correlationism is brilliant and Meillassoux is at his best when showing the philosophical complacency of contemporary Kantians and phenomenologists. The proposal of speculative realism is audacious and bracing, particularly when he defends the idea of nature as a 'glacial universe', cold and indeifferent to humans. Such is Pascal's 'Eternal silence of infinite spaces', but without the consolation of a wager of God's existence. However, by Mellassoux's own admission, his proposal is incomplete and we await its elaboration in future books. Although, his style of presentation can turn into a sort of fine-grained logic-chopping worthy of Duns Scotus, the rigour, clarity and passion of the argument can be breathtaking." — Simon Critchley, TLS, Feb 2009
"Meillassoux addresses the question whether natural laws are necessary, and if so why, raised by Kant and gnawed by subsequent philosophers from Hume to Foucault. He offers a logical proof that the only feature of the laws of nature that is absolutely necessary is that they are contingent. He explores the ethical and metaphysical implications. Brassier translates Apres la finitude, which was published in 2006 by Editions du Seuil." -Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.
'A penetrating critique of the post-Kantian "correlationism" that has dominated philosophy on the European mainland over the last 250 years.' - Books of the Year, Times Literary Supplement
'In his clearly argued essay, now available in an excellent English translation, the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux shows that subjectivity and objectivity must be conceived of independently of each other ... It is a truly philosophical work in that it develops the original idea of a speculative materialism with uncompromising passion and great consistency.'
Alexander Garcia Düttmann, Professor of Philosophy and Visual Culture, Goldsmiths University of London , UK
"Talented and exciting new voice in contemporary French philosophy"—Bookseller Buyers Guide
(, )"It's easy to see why Meillassoux's After Finitude has so quickly acquired something of a cult status among some readers who share his lack of reverance for 'the way things are'. The book is exceptionally clear and concise, entirely devoted to a single chain of reasoning. It combines a confident insitence on the self-sufficiency of rational demonstration with an equally rationalist suspicion of mere experience and consensus....[this] is a beautifully written and seductively argued book." - Peter Hallward, Radical Philosophy, 2008
“After Finitude will certainly play a central role in ongoing debates on the status of philosophy, on questions pertaining to epistemology and, above all, to ontology. It will not only be an unavoidable point of reference for those working on the question of finitude, but also for those whose work deals with political theology, and the status of the religious turn of philosophy. After Finitude will certainly become an ideal corrosive against too rigid assumptions and will shake entrenched positions.” – Gabriel Riera, University of Illinois, Chicago, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2008
“There is something absolutely exhilarating about Meillassoux’s argument, and it is not difficult to see why his book has already aroused so much interest. The exposition and critique of correlationism is brilliant and Meillassoux is at his best when showing the philosophical complacency of contemporary Kantians and phenomenologists. The proposal of speculative realism is audacious and bracing, particularly when he defends the idea of nature as a 'glacial universe’, cold and indeifferent to humans. Such is Pascal’s 'Eternal silence of infinite spaces’, but without the consolation of a wager of God’s existence. However, by Mellassoux’s own admission, his proposal is incomplete and we await its elaboration in future books. Although, his style of presentation can turn into a sort of fine-grained logic-chopping worthy of Duns Scotus, the rigour, clarity and passion of the argument can be breathtaking.” – Simon Critchley, TLS, Feb 2009
About the Author
Quentin Meillassoux teaches Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.
Alain Badiou teaches at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Collège International de Philosophie in
Ray Brassier is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the American University of Beirut
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98 of 103 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Meillassoux's first book is nothing less than a completely original and meticulously argued philosophical manifesto. Drawing upon the ontology of his teacher, Alain Badiou, Meillassoux aims to prove what was only implicit in Badiou's "Being and Event": the absolute contingency of all being. A writer working largely within the tradition of continental thought--often decried for its putative obscure prose and shoddy methods of argumentation--Meillassoux (unlike Badiou) never sacrifices clarity, and displays a stunning capacity to take down canonical philosophers with implacable reasoning. Although he will doubtless be exposed to criticism as his argument gains a wider readership, Meillassoux has already, in this slim volume, circumvented the many of the critiques that could be thrown his way.
"After Finitude" targets two principal philosophical opponents: the metaphysician and the correlationist. The prime representative of the metaphysical tradition here is Descartes, whose assertion of the absolute goodness of God allowed him to "prove" the existence of an objective world exterior to the human subject. Although Meillassoux is sympathetic to Descartes' attempt to think the absolute--and takes Descartes' metaphysical presumptions seriously--he also recognizes that the metaphysician's reliance on either the principle of sufficient reason or at least one necessary entity (God, atom, history, etc.) hinders any engagement with unconditional truth.
This repudiation of metaphysical dogmatism not withstanding, Meillassoux's primary adversary is the correlationist (Kant and his disciples fall under this category), who subordinates knowledge of the "great outdoors" to its relation with a human being, a thinking subject, Dasein, etc. The correlationist cannot properly interpret the "ancestral" realm that preceded all forms of life. He either rejects the claims of science altogether or qualifies them by confining their truth-value to the world of the scientist and his instruments. Thus, the correlationist "retrojects" this ancestral past and denies its temporal priority with respect to the human present. Meillassoux's most ambitious project in AF is to break the "correlationist circle" whereby human access to the world is hypostatized at the expense of both world itself and thinking as such. Meillassoux shows that the correlationist must either covertly presuppose a world without humans, or "absolutize the correlation" and hence reinstate the dogmatic position he claims to have eschewed.
So what remains to be thought after correlationism? For Meillassoux, philosophy's objective is to reinvestigate ancient metaphysical problems and find new solutions. Meillassoux takes a large first step here by arguing that contingency alone is necessary. While David Hume had already debunked the notion that one can know the truth of the principle of sufficient reason, he failed to convert this deficit into a positive gain for epistemology. Moreover, Hume smuggled in metaphysical presuppositions about a necessity internal to things themselves even as he claimed that our access is limited by our understanding of probability. (Thus, Hume's skepticism has no answer for the fideist who maintains that things and events may harbor some unfathomable necessity residing beyond the reach of human thought.) Guided by Badiou's use of set theory, Meillassoux argues that Hume's probabilistic reasoning rests upon the dubious assumption that the set of possible outcomes of an event can be totalized. Probability as a metaphysical fact is undermined by Cantor's discovery of "transfinites"--that is, the multiplicity of infinities that cannot be gathered into a single "meta-set." Thus, if probability can no longer be secured, one is forced to concede that contingency, and thus, "hyper-Chaos," constitutes an absolute reality. This omnipotent chaos can produce anything other than a necessary entity or event. Lurking immediately beneath Meillassoux's clean prose (Ray Brassier's translation is superb) and cold logic is a terrifying vision--"something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare."
Meillassoux's debut, though a stunning achievement, is not without problems. First, he too readily conflates the registers of pure and applied mathematics and uncritically suggests that all deployments of mathematics have equal purchase on the absolute. For instance, he levels off the distinction between, say, a physicist's use of mathematical equations and his own use of transfinites. Similarly, he does not explore the distinctions within "primary qualities" such as the difference between an object's being-contingent and, for example, its temperature or speed. Furthermore, as Ray Brassier points out in his lengthy critique of Meillassoux (see his book "Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction"), "AF" does not answer the tricky question of thought's ontological status within the world. Brassier poses the following problem. If one argues that the truth of absolute contingency is necessary, one would also have to concede that the thought that generated that truth is necessary--unless, of course, one were a Platonist and believed in the existence of an ideal realm. Hence, Brassier's charge is that Meillassoux either unwittingly confers a necessary existence on the bio-physical contingency, that is, Meillassoux's thought itself; or, he exempts thought from the material world. It will be interesting to see whether Meillassoux renounces his Cartesianism on this point, or finds another way to refute Brassier's critique.
These reservations aside, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. "AF" represents not only a challenge for continental philosophers, but also followers of Wittgenstein who claim that ontology is obsolete because its claims are nonsensical. Proponents of both traditions are bound to be surprised, and possibly horrified, by what they encounter: metaphysics not dispelled but turned inside out: an absolute without absolute entity; a foundational truth without security.
"After Finitude" targets two principal philosophical opponents: the metaphysician and the correlationist. The prime representative of the metaphysical tradition here is Descartes, whose assertion of the absolute goodness of God allowed him to "prove" the existence of an objective world exterior to the human subject. Although Meillassoux is sympathetic to Descartes' attempt to think the absolute--and takes Descartes' metaphysical presumptions seriously--he also recognizes that the metaphysician's reliance on either the principle of sufficient reason or at least one necessary entity (God, atom, history, etc.) hinders any engagement with unconditional truth.
This repudiation of metaphysical dogmatism not withstanding, Meillassoux's primary adversary is the correlationist (Kant and his disciples fall under this category), who subordinates knowledge of the "great outdoors" to its relation with a human being, a thinking subject, Dasein, etc. The correlationist cannot properly interpret the "ancestral" realm that preceded all forms of life. He either rejects the claims of science altogether or qualifies them by confining their truth-value to the world of the scientist and his instruments. Thus, the correlationist "retrojects" this ancestral past and denies its temporal priority with respect to the human present. Meillassoux's most ambitious project in AF is to break the "correlationist circle" whereby human access to the world is hypostatized at the expense of both world itself and thinking as such. Meillassoux shows that the correlationist must either covertly presuppose a world without humans, or "absolutize the correlation" and hence reinstate the dogmatic position he claims to have eschewed.
So what remains to be thought after correlationism? For Meillassoux, philosophy's objective is to reinvestigate ancient metaphysical problems and find new solutions. Meillassoux takes a large first step here by arguing that contingency alone is necessary. While David Hume had already debunked the notion that one can know the truth of the principle of sufficient reason, he failed to convert this deficit into a positive gain for epistemology. Moreover, Hume smuggled in metaphysical presuppositions about a necessity internal to things themselves even as he claimed that our access is limited by our understanding of probability. (Thus, Hume's skepticism has no answer for the fideist who maintains that things and events may harbor some unfathomable necessity residing beyond the reach of human thought.) Guided by Badiou's use of set theory, Meillassoux argues that Hume's probabilistic reasoning rests upon the dubious assumption that the set of possible outcomes of an event can be totalized. Probability as a metaphysical fact is undermined by Cantor's discovery of "transfinites"--that is, the multiplicity of infinities that cannot be gathered into a single "meta-set." Thus, if probability can no longer be secured, one is forced to concede that contingency, and thus, "hyper-Chaos," constitutes an absolute reality. This omnipotent chaos can produce anything other than a necessary entity or event. Lurking immediately beneath Meillassoux's clean prose (Ray Brassier's translation is superb) and cold logic is a terrifying vision--"something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare."
Meillassoux's debut, though a stunning achievement, is not without problems. First, he too readily conflates the registers of pure and applied mathematics and uncritically suggests that all deployments of mathematics have equal purchase on the absolute. For instance, he levels off the distinction between, say, a physicist's use of mathematical equations and his own use of transfinites. Similarly, he does not explore the distinctions within "primary qualities" such as the difference between an object's being-contingent and, for example, its temperature or speed. Furthermore, as Ray Brassier points out in his lengthy critique of Meillassoux (see his book "Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction"), "AF" does not answer the tricky question of thought's ontological status within the world. Brassier poses the following problem. If one argues that the truth of absolute contingency is necessary, one would also have to concede that the thought that generated that truth is necessary--unless, of course, one were a Platonist and believed in the existence of an ideal realm. Hence, Brassier's charge is that Meillassoux either unwittingly confers a necessary existence on the bio-physical contingency, that is, Meillassoux's thought itself; or, he exempts thought from the material world. It will be interesting to see whether Meillassoux renounces his Cartesianism on this point, or finds another way to refute Brassier's critique.
These reservations aside, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. "AF" represents not only a challenge for continental philosophers, but also followers of Wittgenstein who claim that ontology is obsolete because its claims are nonsensical. Proponents of both traditions are bound to be surprised, and possibly horrified, by what they encounter: metaphysics not dispelled but turned inside out: an absolute without absolute entity; a foundational truth without security.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By Nin Chan
Format:Paperback
Well, I sat up all evening reading this- I had to read various sections twice to make all the connections that the text supplies. I have to say that it is, beyond being a startlingly *original* text, astonishingly *clear*. In fact, it is the most lucid work of philosophy i have read in years, an example of truly 'zero degree writing' (barthes) that privileges exposition over style. Of course, one sometimes misses the lofty lyricism of a Badiou or the deadpan slapstick of a Zizek, but i don't think i have read a text that develops in such a programmatic and rigorous fashion since Spinoza.
I don't really understand the objections toward the text, reservations that concern the 'hype' surrounding it, rather than the content of the book itself. The book is clearly a sort of 'prolegomena' that outlines meillasoux' problematic, rather than an attempt to resolve it (this, i suspect, shall be reserved for his delayed 'L'inexistence Divine', which Badiou refers to in 'Logics of Worlds').
What you DO get here is the formulation of a consummately atheistic thought, one that attempts to consummate a rupture that has been promised since the dawn of modernity- philosophy's irrevocable divorce from the One. This is the most rigorous attempt yet to initiate the 'Death of God', breaking with the disavowed fideism/pietism of post-structuralism. I can't help but feel that meillasoux takes especial issue with the haphazard bricolage of Bataille, Levinas and Kierkegaard that constitutes 'deconstructive' religiosity today, and this can be read alongside Zizek's 'The Puppet and the Dwarf' as an attempt to salvage a (militant) thought of universality and the absolute from mystical obscurantism.
It should be said that Meillasoux is unequivocal on this point: he is a hyper-rationalist who is attempting to free philosophy from its own affectations of modesty, a legacy of self-deprecation that has only served to dissimulate its ressentiment and will to power. In consigning thought to the iron cage of the all-too-human, 'correlationism' is nothing other than the name of thought's prostration, connoting the surrender of its own indomitable sovereignty. By inserting the (thinking/linguistic/intentional/historical/conscious) being-in-the-world into every thought, correlationism effectively forecloses thought's access to the alterity of the world, the 'great outdoors' of non-human/ahistorical reality. Even in its most radical variants (nietzsche, heidegger, foucault), correlationism scarcely breaks with this imperative of mediation and 'co-propriation'.
One of the things that makes Meillasoux' argument so gripping is his insistence that the history of modern philosophy is a story of religious passion. Critical philosophy's endlessly-rehearsed tragedy of finitude and limitation, its plaintive (and, as deleuze would certainly add, characteristically 'french') lamentation for a lost Real that is ever-absent, is an interminable exercise of self-flagellation. The hegemony of the 'for-us', ceaselessly elaborated upon in its various postmodern incarnations, is a cry of destitution. Beneath all of its affirmations of plurality and its 'multiple regimes of truth', its denunciations of eurocentric phallagocentrism, post-structuralism's vehement de-legitimation of every truth claim effectively situates God *outside* the ambit of rationality. In this way, spirituality is safeguarded from the incursions of reason. The invariable consequence of this persistent transfixion with the ineffable One is philosophy's capitulation before every mystical fanaticism. As such, fundamentalism is the shadowy obverse of post-structuralist practice (is this the way in which we should read foucault's delirious escapades in iran?)- in proscribing and prohibiting any positive discourse ON transcendence, critique disguises and represses its insatiable hankering for a shattering jouissance. This paradox, which subordinates thought to the violent absurdity of belief, is unconscionable.
Now, having established the stakes involved in this contextual conjuncture, what sort of intervention does 'After Finitude' attempt to facilitate? Meillasoux' extraordinary book aspires to 'set correlationism upon its head', extracting a material truth from its mystical kernel. What if, he asks, we refuse the negative theology of the critical attitude, substituting its profession of uncertainty for a conviction of certitude? What if this senseless 'void', the halting point for all discursive description, is not a transcendental gap that separates us from some Ultimate Truth, but the Ultimate Truth itself? What if we give this wordless oblivion a POSITIVE VALUE? Lack then becomes an absolute fullness- Chaos is no longer a perjorative but an ontological invariant, the possibilities of which we can hypothesize without the circumscription of the all-too-human imperative of the 'for-us'. There is something of Zizek's 'Parallax View' in this, which articulates the latent truth between the (heretofore insurpassable) dogmatism/correlationism dyad. Starting from this point, we can begin to navigate a way through these polar alternatives while avoiding the pitfalls of either.
Now, some may accuse Meillasoux of being excessively reductive (this being the same choir that harps incessantly about the 'complexity' [or, shall we say, atonicity] of the world), subjecting the entire field of (post)modern philosophy to the Badiouan 'point' of correlationism and realism, but this takes nothing from the power and elegance of his argument, which draws a definitive line between the Copernican Turn and its philosophical betrayal. This book is refreshingly free of aestheticism and obscurantism- it is a work of philosophy that upholds the most stringent standards of argument. There are those, of course, who will continue to regard such standards as being anachronistic, but those of us who have held fast to them can only welcome their rehabilitation.
I don't really understand the objections toward the text, reservations that concern the 'hype' surrounding it, rather than the content of the book itself. The book is clearly a sort of 'prolegomena' that outlines meillasoux' problematic, rather than an attempt to resolve it (this, i suspect, shall be reserved for his delayed 'L'inexistence Divine', which Badiou refers to in 'Logics of Worlds').
What you DO get here is the formulation of a consummately atheistic thought, one that attempts to consummate a rupture that has been promised since the dawn of modernity- philosophy's irrevocable divorce from the One. This is the most rigorous attempt yet to initiate the 'Death of God', breaking with the disavowed fideism/pietism of post-structuralism. I can't help but feel that meillasoux takes especial issue with the haphazard bricolage of Bataille, Levinas and Kierkegaard that constitutes 'deconstructive' religiosity today, and this can be read alongside Zizek's 'The Puppet and the Dwarf' as an attempt to salvage a (militant) thought of universality and the absolute from mystical obscurantism.
It should be said that Meillasoux is unequivocal on this point: he is a hyper-rationalist who is attempting to free philosophy from its own affectations of modesty, a legacy of self-deprecation that has only served to dissimulate its ressentiment and will to power. In consigning thought to the iron cage of the all-too-human, 'correlationism' is nothing other than the name of thought's prostration, connoting the surrender of its own indomitable sovereignty. By inserting the (thinking/linguistic/intentional/historical/conscious) being-in-the-world into every thought, correlationism effectively forecloses thought's access to the alterity of the world, the 'great outdoors' of non-human/ahistorical reality. Even in its most radical variants (nietzsche, heidegger, foucault), correlationism scarcely breaks with this imperative of mediation and 'co-propriation'.
One of the things that makes Meillasoux' argument so gripping is his insistence that the history of modern philosophy is a story of religious passion. Critical philosophy's endlessly-rehearsed tragedy of finitude and limitation, its plaintive (and, as deleuze would certainly add, characteristically 'french') lamentation for a lost Real that is ever-absent, is an interminable exercise of self-flagellation. The hegemony of the 'for-us', ceaselessly elaborated upon in its various postmodern incarnations, is a cry of destitution. Beneath all of its affirmations of plurality and its 'multiple regimes of truth', its denunciations of eurocentric phallagocentrism, post-structuralism's vehement de-legitimation of every truth claim effectively situates God *outside* the ambit of rationality. In this way, spirituality is safeguarded from the incursions of reason. The invariable consequence of this persistent transfixion with the ineffable One is philosophy's capitulation before every mystical fanaticism. As such, fundamentalism is the shadowy obverse of post-structuralist practice (is this the way in which we should read foucault's delirious escapades in iran?)- in proscribing and prohibiting any positive discourse ON transcendence, critique disguises and represses its insatiable hankering for a shattering jouissance. This paradox, which subordinates thought to the violent absurdity of belief, is unconscionable.
Now, having established the stakes involved in this contextual conjuncture, what sort of intervention does 'After Finitude' attempt to facilitate? Meillasoux' extraordinary book aspires to 'set correlationism upon its head', extracting a material truth from its mystical kernel. What if, he asks, we refuse the negative theology of the critical attitude, substituting its profession of uncertainty for a conviction of certitude? What if this senseless 'void', the halting point for all discursive description, is not a transcendental gap that separates us from some Ultimate Truth, but the Ultimate Truth itself? What if we give this wordless oblivion a POSITIVE VALUE? Lack then becomes an absolute fullness- Chaos is no longer a perjorative but an ontological invariant, the possibilities of which we can hypothesize without the circumscription of the all-too-human imperative of the 'for-us'. There is something of Zizek's 'Parallax View' in this, which articulates the latent truth between the (heretofore insurpassable) dogmatism/correlationism dyad. Starting from this point, we can begin to navigate a way through these polar alternatives while avoiding the pitfalls of either.
Now, some may accuse Meillasoux of being excessively reductive (this being the same choir that harps incessantly about the 'complexity' [or, shall we say, atonicity] of the world), subjecting the entire field of (post)modern philosophy to the Badiouan 'point' of correlationism and realism, but this takes nothing from the power and elegance of his argument, which draws a definitive line between the Copernican Turn and its philosophical betrayal. This book is refreshingly free of aestheticism and obscurantism- it is a work of philosophy that upholds the most stringent standards of argument. There are those, of course, who will continue to regard such standards as being anachronistic, but those of us who have held fast to them can only welcome their rehabilitation.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Brian C.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is one of the most exciting philosophy books I have read in a long time. Quentin Meillassoux is an exceptionally clear and lucid writer. I have been waiting for a long time for Continental philosophers to finally embrace the virtues of clarity of expression and I think that time is finally coming.
Quentin Meillassoux's primary goal in this work is to escape what he calls the correlationist circle which has dominated modern philosophy since Kant. Quentin Meillasoux is trying to find an outside to thought, or an absolute, and his strategy, as he himself suggests, is similar to Descartes' strategy in the Meditations. Descartes, of course, begins with a self-present cogito and then attempts to find something within that immanent sphere which can secure a certain knowledge of something outside that sphere. Descartes finds the key he needs in the idea of God. Since God is infinite, and since a cause must possess at least as much formal reality as the effect possesses of objective reality (or vice versa, I never could get those terms straight in Descartes), the idea of God cannot have been created by finite minds. Once Descartes has that all he has to do is prove the veracity of God and he can also be certain of external objects and the external world. Descartes has found an escape route from solipsism in the idea of God.
Quentin Meillassoux follows a similar strategy in attempting to find something within the correlationist circle which will provide a means of escape, like the idea of God in Descartes. Quentin Meillassoux finds this escape route in the idea of facticity or what he comes to call factiality. Meillassoux's argument is actually quite subtle and I am not really capable of summarizing it, or doing it justice, in this review. The upshot is that the correlationist has to admit the absoluteness of contingency or facticity. The correlationist has to admit that the possibility to be other-than-it-is, is not merely relative but absolute, otherwise death would become inconceivable. If the possibility of becoming other were merely a possibility for me, and not a possibility in itself, or, an absolute contingency, then I would wind up surviving my own death. Meillassoux argues that any attempt of the correlationist to deny the absoluteness of contingency requires its tacit admission. This short summary is not likely to make much sense to anyone reading this who has not read Meillassoux's book, and is unlikely to convince anyone, but I would like to emphasize again that Meillassoux's argument is quite subtle and powerful once you understand it. It appears strange at first, and, as Meillassoux says, "Philosophy is the invention of strange forms of argumentation" (76). But despite its strangeness, Meillassoux is a very rigorous thinker, so please, whatever you do, do not judge Meillassoux's argument based on my rather feeble attempt to summarize it.
Meillassoux's argument is similar to the old proofs for God, but it has the opposite outcome. Rather than proving that there must be a necessary being Meillassoux's argument winds up proving that everything must be contingent (which explains the subtitle of the book: an essay on the necessity of contingency). Again, Meillassoux's method of argumentation may seem strange at first but his arguments carry a great deal of force once one has managed to penetrate their subtleties.
This proof of the necessity of contingency provides what Meillassoux was looking for: an escape route from correlationism. There must be at least one absolute, namely, facticity or contingency itself. Meillassoux's description of what we see once thought is once again opened to the outside is so strangely beautiful I feel compelled to quote it in full, "If we look through the aperture which we have opened up onto the absolute, what we see there is a rather menacing power - something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare, of engendering random and frenetic transformations, or conversely, of producing a universe that remains motionless down to its ultimate recesses, like a cloud bearing the fiercest storms, then the eeriest bright spells, if only for an interval of disquieting calm. We see an omnipotence equal to that of the Cartesian God, and capable of everything, even the inconceivable; but an omnipotence that has become autonomous, without norms, blind, devoid of the other divine perfections, a power with neither goodness nor wisdom, ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas" (64). Despite the rigorous nature of his arguments Meillassoux also displays, at times, a rare poetic gift.
The last clause of that quote is actually quite important; we have discovered an absolute but one that is "ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas" (64). Descartes was able to move from God to external reality and the truth of mathematical knowledge because the absolute, God, was conceived as having to be benevolent. There is nothing benevolent about the chaos that Meillassoux discovers as the absolute, and yet, Meillassoux's main goal is to ground scientific and mathematical knowledge. So how do we move from this indeterminate chaos and contingency to the veracity of scientific and mathematical knowledge?
I no longer have space to summarize the intricacies of Meillassoux's arguments, and the fact is Meillassoux does not provide the ultimate answer to this question in this particular book. What Meillassoux does do, in the penultimate chapter on Hume's problem, is provide a counter-argument to one possible objection against his assertion that contingency or chaos is ultimate reality. The argument against chaos as the ultimate nature of the in-itself goes something like this: if chaos were the ultimate nature of reality in-itself the stability of the world, and natural laws, would be so unlikely as to be virtually impossible, but since this stability is an undeniable fact of our world, the falsity of the first premise follows (this is, again, a short summary that does not do justice to the actual argument that Meillassoux is going to critique). Meillassoux's counter-argument works by under-cutting the validity of probabilistic, or what Meillassoux calls aleatory, reasoning in relation to the universe as a whole, as opposed to inner-worldly events like the rolling of dice. What allows the possibility of probabilistic reasoning in regard to an inner-worldly event like the rolling of dice is the totalizability of all possible outcomes. Meillassoux argues that Cantor's notion of the transfinite shows us that totalization is only valid within certain axiomatics and there is no reason to assume that possible worlds can be totalized. If they cannot be totalized then probabilistic reasoning is invalid which allows Meillassoux to claim that the necessity of contingency (or chaos) is not necessarily inconsistent with the stability of natural laws. Meillasoux's arguments here are, again, quite subtle and powerful, not to mention original (although he does draw heavily on Alain Badiou).
An interesting implication of all of this is that mathematics itself provides the grounds for a critique of calculative reasoning, "a gesture altogether more powerful than any external critique of calculation in the name of some supposed superior register of philosophical thought" (103). It is not necessary to oppose mathematical thinking with another, non-mathematical, form of thought, since mathematics itself provides the resources necessary for critiquing the absolute validity of calculative reasoning (obviously Heidegger is the target here).
In the final chapter Meillasoux attempts to explain the Kantian Copernican revolution (which Meillassoux calls a Ptolemaic counter-revolution) as a result of the genuine Copernican revolution in natural science. The final chapter seemed to me to be a program more than a solution. Meillassoux believes that philosophy should be attempting to understand the possibility of what he calls science's dia-chronic statements (dia-chronic because they claim to provide genuine knowledge in regard to events both before and after their manifestation within the correlationist circle of human knowledge). Rather than attempting to explain the possibility of science's dia-chronic statments philosophy has instead, since Kant, devoted itself to relativizing the meaning of dia-chronic statements. Meillassoux rightly points out that, "no correlationism, however insistent its anti-subjectivist rhetoric, is capable of thinking a dia-chronic statement without destroying its veritable meaning" (121). It does not matter if the subject is de-subjectivized as being-in-the-world a la Heidegger, being is still conceived as relative to human beings and this fundamentally changes the nature of science's dia-chronic statements.
Quentin Meillassoux does not provide final answers in this work, but he provides an exciting new starting point for the budding philosopher. All modern Continental philosophy still lies in the shadow of Heidegger to some degree, and that is as true of Meillassoux as it is of anyone, but Meillassoux opens up the possibility of beginning to move beyond that shadow to some degree. If you find that prospect at all interesting or exciting I highly suggest giving Meillassoux a read...
Quentin Meillassoux's primary goal in this work is to escape what he calls the correlationist circle which has dominated modern philosophy since Kant. Quentin Meillasoux is trying to find an outside to thought, or an absolute, and his strategy, as he himself suggests, is similar to Descartes' strategy in the Meditations. Descartes, of course, begins with a self-present cogito and then attempts to find something within that immanent sphere which can secure a certain knowledge of something outside that sphere. Descartes finds the key he needs in the idea of God. Since God is infinite, and since a cause must possess at least as much formal reality as the effect possesses of objective reality (or vice versa, I never could get those terms straight in Descartes), the idea of God cannot have been created by finite minds. Once Descartes has that all he has to do is prove the veracity of God and he can also be certain of external objects and the external world. Descartes has found an escape route from solipsism in the idea of God.
Quentin Meillassoux follows a similar strategy in attempting to find something within the correlationist circle which will provide a means of escape, like the idea of God in Descartes. Quentin Meillassoux finds this escape route in the idea of facticity or what he comes to call factiality. Meillassoux's argument is actually quite subtle and I am not really capable of summarizing it, or doing it justice, in this review. The upshot is that the correlationist has to admit the absoluteness of contingency or facticity. The correlationist has to admit that the possibility to be other-than-it-is, is not merely relative but absolute, otherwise death would become inconceivable. If the possibility of becoming other were merely a possibility for me, and not a possibility in itself, or, an absolute contingency, then I would wind up surviving my own death. Meillassoux argues that any attempt of the correlationist to deny the absoluteness of contingency requires its tacit admission. This short summary is not likely to make much sense to anyone reading this who has not read Meillassoux's book, and is unlikely to convince anyone, but I would like to emphasize again that Meillassoux's argument is quite subtle and powerful once you understand it. It appears strange at first, and, as Meillassoux says, "Philosophy is the invention of strange forms of argumentation" (76). But despite its strangeness, Meillassoux is a very rigorous thinker, so please, whatever you do, do not judge Meillassoux's argument based on my rather feeble attempt to summarize it.
Meillassoux's argument is similar to the old proofs for God, but it has the opposite outcome. Rather than proving that there must be a necessary being Meillassoux's argument winds up proving that everything must be contingent (which explains the subtitle of the book: an essay on the necessity of contingency). Again, Meillassoux's method of argumentation may seem strange at first but his arguments carry a great deal of force once one has managed to penetrate their subtleties.
This proof of the necessity of contingency provides what Meillassoux was looking for: an escape route from correlationism. There must be at least one absolute, namely, facticity or contingency itself. Meillassoux's description of what we see once thought is once again opened to the outside is so strangely beautiful I feel compelled to quote it in full, "If we look through the aperture which we have opened up onto the absolute, what we see there is a rather menacing power - something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare, of engendering random and frenetic transformations, or conversely, of producing a universe that remains motionless down to its ultimate recesses, like a cloud bearing the fiercest storms, then the eeriest bright spells, if only for an interval of disquieting calm. We see an omnipotence equal to that of the Cartesian God, and capable of everything, even the inconceivable; but an omnipotence that has become autonomous, without norms, blind, devoid of the other divine perfections, a power with neither goodness nor wisdom, ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas" (64). Despite the rigorous nature of his arguments Meillassoux also displays, at times, a rare poetic gift.
The last clause of that quote is actually quite important; we have discovered an absolute but one that is "ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas" (64). Descartes was able to move from God to external reality and the truth of mathematical knowledge because the absolute, God, was conceived as having to be benevolent. There is nothing benevolent about the chaos that Meillassoux discovers as the absolute, and yet, Meillassoux's main goal is to ground scientific and mathematical knowledge. So how do we move from this indeterminate chaos and contingency to the veracity of scientific and mathematical knowledge?
I no longer have space to summarize the intricacies of Meillassoux's arguments, and the fact is Meillassoux does not provide the ultimate answer to this question in this particular book. What Meillassoux does do, in the penultimate chapter on Hume's problem, is provide a counter-argument to one possible objection against his assertion that contingency or chaos is ultimate reality. The argument against chaos as the ultimate nature of the in-itself goes something like this: if chaos were the ultimate nature of reality in-itself the stability of the world, and natural laws, would be so unlikely as to be virtually impossible, but since this stability is an undeniable fact of our world, the falsity of the first premise follows (this is, again, a short summary that does not do justice to the actual argument that Meillassoux is going to critique). Meillassoux's counter-argument works by under-cutting the validity of probabilistic, or what Meillassoux calls aleatory, reasoning in relation to the universe as a whole, as opposed to inner-worldly events like the rolling of dice. What allows the possibility of probabilistic reasoning in regard to an inner-worldly event like the rolling of dice is the totalizability of all possible outcomes. Meillassoux argues that Cantor's notion of the transfinite shows us that totalization is only valid within certain axiomatics and there is no reason to assume that possible worlds can be totalized. If they cannot be totalized then probabilistic reasoning is invalid which allows Meillassoux to claim that the necessity of contingency (or chaos) is not necessarily inconsistent with the stability of natural laws. Meillasoux's arguments here are, again, quite subtle and powerful, not to mention original (although he does draw heavily on Alain Badiou).
An interesting implication of all of this is that mathematics itself provides the grounds for a critique of calculative reasoning, "a gesture altogether more powerful than any external critique of calculation in the name of some supposed superior register of philosophical thought" (103). It is not necessary to oppose mathematical thinking with another, non-mathematical, form of thought, since mathematics itself provides the resources necessary for critiquing the absolute validity of calculative reasoning (obviously Heidegger is the target here).
In the final chapter Meillasoux attempts to explain the Kantian Copernican revolution (which Meillassoux calls a Ptolemaic counter-revolution) as a result of the genuine Copernican revolution in natural science. The final chapter seemed to me to be a program more than a solution. Meillassoux believes that philosophy should be attempting to understand the possibility of what he calls science's dia-chronic statements (dia-chronic because they claim to provide genuine knowledge in regard to events both before and after their manifestation within the correlationist circle of human knowledge). Rather than attempting to explain the possibility of science's dia-chronic statments philosophy has instead, since Kant, devoted itself to relativizing the meaning of dia-chronic statements. Meillassoux rightly points out that, "no correlationism, however insistent its anti-subjectivist rhetoric, is capable of thinking a dia-chronic statement without destroying its veritable meaning" (121). It does not matter if the subject is de-subjectivized as being-in-the-world a la Heidegger, being is still conceived as relative to human beings and this fundamentally changes the nature of science's dia-chronic statements.
Quentin Meillassoux does not provide final answers in this work, but he provides an exciting new starting point for the budding philosopher. All modern Continental philosophy still lies in the shadow of Heidegger to some degree, and that is as true of Meillassoux as it is of anyone, but Meillassoux opens up the possibility of beginning to move beyond that shadow to some degree. If you find that prospect at all interesting or exciting I highly suggest giving Meillassoux a read...
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