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86 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Work of Contemporary Philosophy, June 24, 2008
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.
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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sobering, January 11, 2010
This review is from: After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (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.
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, Bold, Provocative, June 15, 2009
There is no questioning that Continental philosophy is derided for a supposed obscurantist quality--mostly by Analytic philosophers, but also other forms of lazy minded people. French thinkers in particular suffer from this reputation. Deleuze and Guattari come to mind, but so to does Lyotard, Baudrillard, Lacan and Derrida. In my time studying philosophy, I have found that this reputation is mostly wrong, although I do admit that some of the French style of writing (if such a thing exists) is hard for Anglophone speaking people to grasp. But there seems to be a strong and fundamental shift in the role French thought plays in today's scene, and it has as much to do with thought as it has to do with style. As far as I see, it starts with Badiou's strong clear style, though difficult, writing. Meillassoux fits within this strain. So, if you are interested in contemporary philosophy but have been scared off from French thought in the past, I ask that you pick this book up, as I think it demonstrates the kind of excitement that is happening right now in Continental philosophy. I will say that it is not easy reading--it takes a little elbow grease--but I assure you it is difficult because the subject matter demands some intricate linguistic twists and turns, not from some self-congratulatory excercise of language play. I will not however make the more farreaching claim that the Continental/Analytic divide is being bridged, as I can imagine that an Analytic philosopher would still object to its style. (Indeed, it seems that the divide in philosophy is destined to the divide in breakfast foods. As one can see the merits in eating both a Continental and English breakfast without reconciling them into one buffet, I think we are destined to appreciate both Continental and Analytic approaches to philosophy without wasting our time trying to set them up in a buffet.) The occassion of After Finitude is as elegant as it is fascinating. When it comes to ascribing the origins of attributes, we have come to accept that they neither derive solely from the object itself nor from the subject's mind itself, but rather, from the subject-object relation--or correlation. But turn on any show on Disovery or National Geogarphic on the universe and you will learn that scientists are now able to use math to describe phenomena, such as, the beginning of the universe, that is anterior to any kind of consciousness as such. The statements of these scientists are called ancestral. And Meillassoux is asking: a) what is the status of such statements; and b) what does this mean for correlationalism? The subtitle of the book refers to its solution. Whenever correlationists reach an impasse in thought, they claim that it is a result of our fundamental finitude and that we cannot know ultimately what lies on the other side of thought. Meillassoux attempts to break with this correlational answer by suggesting that the impasse is a statement that describes the otherside of thought thus making it ancestral in its form. Instead of seeing fundamental impasses as a result of the ignorance that defines our finite minds, he sees it as (ancestral) knowledge of the absolute itself. In other words, the Absolute is contingency itself. I have a question that is actually quite naive. Let us use scientists' use of math to describe the beginning of the universe as the example. If correlationism locates an attribute in the interaction of subject and object, then how does ancestral math break from this? Yes, Meillassoux is correct to observe that the object existed anterior to any subject at all. But the math did not. The math exists as an invention of the subject. So, could it not be said that math is STILL correlational in that it ascribes an attribute (e.g., the age of the universe) within a correlation (e.g., math or indeed language) that exists between the subject (e.g., the scientists) and the object (e.g., the beginning of the universe)? It seems that if something is to completely break from correlational thought, it must be autonomous of both the object and the subject. But isn't it true that the moment a subject devises some way of saying something about an object, even if that object preexisted any subject, isn't it already correlational? To ask this a different way: What is the FORMAL difference between a mathematical proof about the beginning of the universe and the Biblical phrase "In the beginning was the Word"? It seems that Hegel would say that math is a more developed form of religious statements but that they are fundamentally the same, formally speaking. Math is more determinate, but that does not mean it is different. I am not sure Meillassoux provides a more convincing response. (This really is a question, so if someone can chime it, I would appreciate it.)
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