Meillassoux, Correlationism, and the Ontological Difference

G Anthony Bruno

doi:10.22329/p.v12i2.5027

Abstract

Meillassoux defines “correlationism” as the view that we can only access the mutual dependence of thought and being—specifically, subjectivity and objectivity—which he attributes to Heidegger. This attribution is inapt. It is only by accessing being—via existential analysis—that we can properly distinguish beings like subjects and objects. I propose that Meillassoux’s misattribution ignores the ontological difference that drives Heidegger’s project. First, I demonstrate the inadequacy of Meillassoux’s account of correlationism as a criticism of Heidegger and dispense with an objection. Second, I argue that Meillassoux’s neglect of the ontological difference stems from a question-begging appeal to transcendental realism, which is at odds with Heidegger’s twin claims for a variety of transcendental idealism in Being and Time. Third, I offer a reflection on three general marks of transcendental idealism.

Highlights

Proponents of speculative realism include Ray Brassier, Levi Bryant, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Graham Harman, my focus will be on Quentin Meillassoux, whose work has been influential both within this movement and for its sympathizers
It is Meillassoux who coins “correlationism” to name the view that we can only access the mutual dependence of thought and being and that, neither is explicable in isolation, even by the natural sciences (Meillassoux 5)
If empirical realism is identical to transcendental idealism, as Kant argues, and if Heidegger identifies phenomenology with a variety of transcendental idealism, it should come as no surprise that Heidegger espouses empirical realism. Heidegger implies his awareness of the identity of empirical realism and transcendental idealism when he describes the resolution of the traditional debate between realism and idealism in History of the Concept of Time: In elucidating these positions it is not so much a matter of clearing them up or of finding one or the other to be the solution, but of seeing that both can exist only on the basis of a neglect: they presuppose a concept of ‘subject’ and ‘object’ without clarifying these basic concepts with respect to the basic composition of Dasein itself (222223)

Summary

Introduction

Proponents of speculative realism include Ray Brassier, Levi Bryant, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Graham Harman, my focus will be on Quentin Meillassoux, whose work has been influential both within this movement and for its sympathizers. Heidegger rejects Meillassoux’s ontic gloss of the strong correlationist thesis, according to which the subject-object (or thinker-thing) relation is absolute.

Results

Conclusion