"But then it is as if the distinction between transcendental idealism - the idealism that is (so to speak) urbane, civilized, and reasonable - and speculative or even subjective idealism - the idealism that is wild, uncouth and rather extravagant - it is as if this distinction which we had been taught to draw - and which separates Kant from Berkeley - became blurred and dissolved in light of the fossil-matter. Confronted with the arche-fossil, every variety of idealism converges and becomes equally extraordinary - every variety of correlationism is exposed as extreme idealism, one that is incapable of admitting that what science tells us about these occurrences of matter independent of humanity effectively occurred as described by science. And our correlationist then finds himself dangerously close to contemporary creationists: those quaint believers who assert today, in accordance with a `literal`reading of the Bible, that the earth is no more than 6000 years old, and who, when confronted with the much older dates arrived at by science, reply unperturbed that God also created at the same time as the earth 6000 years ago those radioactive compounds that seem to indicate that the earth is much older than it is - in order to test the physicist`s faith. Similarly, might not the meaning of the arche-fossil be to test the philosopher`s faith in correlation, even when confronted with data which seem to point to an abyssal divide between what exists and what appears?"
Well fuck you too, Quentin.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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3 comments:
*tee hee* I looked up the guy 'cause I didn't have a clue what the context was for this. Are you displeased that he lumps agnostics in theists, and says everyone is wrong 'cause they ignore the facts?
Or are you annoyed that he blithely insults all young-earth Bible lovers with a mere paragraph?
I'd be curious to know what turned up when you looked him up.
You know that all too clever koan "if a tree falls, blah blah blah?" Philosophy, for a few centuries now, has been pretty sure that if no one is around to hear the tree falling, then no, it doesn't make a sound. Even more, there is no "tree," at least not as we'd recognize it.
Nothing appears if there is nothing to appear to. Stuff is still there, obviously, but exactly what the ontological status of that stuff is is at question.
This is a quick and dirty explanation of what Meillassoux (Meal-a-soo?) is calling "correlationism." He's saying that this sort of thinking is utterly incapable of dealing with things that existed long before the rise of man (technically known as the withdrawal of being). He's basically throwing up his dukes and going after 230 years of philosophical doxa.
It's doxa for a reason, of course, and I'm not sure he'll succeed. His polemical style sure makes it fun, though.
Mmm, I just googled him and looked at his wiki stuff, mostly. Thanks for the explanationizing, it's very interesting to me...
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