Meillassoux against the Principle of Reason: An Ontology of Factiality

Abstract

While Meillassoux has famously argued for the necessity of contingency, this chapter offers a critique of Meillassoux in order to pose the possibility of the contingency of necessity. An alternative conception of chaos, in opposition to Meillassoux’s Hyper-Chaos, is offered that is not amenable to an empirical rather than rationalist approach, even if Meillassoux does reject the principle of sufficient reason. In addition, Meillassoux’s argument for factiality and his argument that only contradictory beings are necessary beings, and therefore cannot exist, are exposed as sophistical.