Speculative Realism and Other Heresies Ject-Independent Objects.1
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26 ARTICLES cal constitution of thought, and the nature of sub- Speculative Realism and Other Heresies ject-independent objects.1 Anna Longo First of all we have to notice that Speculative Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne Realism is not a doctrine, nor a school, nor a (France) movement, but an “umbrella term”2 gather- ing together heterogeneous thinkers who share nothing but a common enemy: corre- lationism. This name was given by Meillas- 1. Speculative Realism soux to indicate every philosophy that since Kant has considered that knowledge must be peculative realism is the title of a entangled within the relation between hu- workshop held on April 27th 2007 at man subject and object: the first organizes the Goldsmiths University in Lon- the given impressions in order to represent Sdon. Four participants were on the program the latter. For Correlationism we cannot of that unforgettable event: Ray Brassier, know things as they are in themselves, in Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman and their autonomous being, but we have to limit Quentin Meillassoux. All the debate was re- knowledge to things as they are for us: we corded and transcribed in a special issue of cannot access reality beyond our experience Collapse, the journal that has been support- of it. In other words, thanks to a priori struc- ing Speculative Realism since the beginning tures, it is possible to organize sense data in and that is still following its developments. coherent representations, but it is not possi- This is a quote from the introduction by the ble to know if the objects determining our editor Robin Mackay: impression are actually like they are given to us. After Kant, philosophy stopped ques- Rather than announcing the advent of a new theo- tioning about the metaphysical reason for retical ‘doctrine’ or ‘school’, the event conjoined the adequacy of knowledge and started to be four ambitious philosophical projects – all of which interested in finding the best conventional boldly problematise the subjectivistic and anthropo- centric foundations of much of “continental phi- rules for representing phenomena. Thus the losophy” while differing significantly in their re- only feature shared by Brassier, Grant, spective strategies for superseding them. It is pre- cisely this uniqueness of each participant that al- lowed a fruitful discussion to emerge. Alongside the 1 Brassier, Grant, Harman, Meillassoux, “Specula- articulation of various challenges to certain idealistic tive Realism”, in Collapse III: Unknown Deleuze, premises, a determination of the obstacles that any Robin Mackay editor, Urbanomic, London 2007, p. contemporary realism must surmount was equally 307. in effect. Accordingly, some of the key issues under 2 Graham Harman used this expression in the intro- scrutiny included the status of science and episte- duction of Speculative Turn (Briant, Harman, mology in contemporary philosophy, the ontologi- Srnicek editors, Re.Press, Victoria 2011). PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS ISSUE VI – NUMBER 2 – SUMMER 2014 ARTICLES 27 Harman and Meillassoux’s speculation is the lows to dismiss the metaphysical belief in the effort to overcome correlationism in order to necessity of this world’s order and in God as access the subject independent reality of the reason for the world being like this things in themselves, beyond representation, rather than otherwise. To reach this absolute beyond the way they are given within the re- and subject independent truth about any vir- lation with human subjects. This does not tually possible fact, Meillassoux starts ques- mean to go back to a pre-critical metaphysi- tioning correlationism and its anti-dogmatic cal thinking, rather the project aims to de- achievements. Since correlationist philoso- velop a new metaphysics embracing the ra- phers have to admit that the correlation tional anti-dogmatic achievements of criti- could be destroyed and that there is no way cism. In this paper I will outline the different of demonstrating the necessity of a specific a strategies proposed by the Goldsmiths’ priori organization, Meillassoux claims that workshop’s participants , then I will offer an the correlation must be assumed as contin- overview of the more recent developments gent. This implies that it is not possible to of Speculative realism by introducing more prove the necessity of the causal connection recent tendencies like Object Oriented Ontol- that we apply to link the impressions in or- ogy and Accelerationism. der to predict future effects. Thus, from a correlationist point of view, it is not possible to prove the necessity of natural laws, like 2. Quentin Meillassoux: After Fini- Hume already knew. The question, then, tude becomes: why has nobody claimed that the laws are contingent, although nobody suc- uentin Meillassoux’s Après la fini- ceeded in demonstrating their necessity? It is tude, translated in English by Ray because we experience the stability of the Q Brassier as After finitude3 provoqued laws of physics, because we see that the same the wave of anti-correlationist awareness causes are regularly followed by the same ef- that brought about the meeting of the Gold- fects. Accordingly, we have the tendency to smiths. The book presents a brilliant ration- believe that laws cannot change and that alistic demonstration of the absolute contin- there is reason making them to be thus gency of reality which is attained by over- rather than otherwise. If laws were contin- coming correlationism from the inside. Con- gent, in fact, we would expect to see them tingency is assumed to be an absolute feature change frequently, thus the evidence of their of any possible fact that can be affirmed in- stability is assumed to prove their necessity dependently of experience. Moreover, it al- and to support the idea of a transcendent reason for the order of the world. But, Meil- lassoux claims, there is a mistake in this rea- 3 Q. Meillassoux, After Finitude. Essay on the neces- soning which consists in thinking that con- sity of contingency, Continuum, London 2008. tingent laws must change frequently. Refer- ISSUE VI – NUMBER 1 – SUMMER 2014 PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS 28 ARTICLES ring to the set theory, in fact, he explains an absolutely contingent way: everything that the mistake derives from an erroneous can happen at any time, even nothing. Since application of the probability calculus to a the laws of this and all the other possible non-totalizable set, like the set of all the worlds can be exactly mathematically for- imaginable mathematical functions describ- malized, reality is absolutely contingent but ing possible laws of physics. Actually, we totally rational. This implies that we can are allowed to apply probability only to to- mathematically describe all the virtually pos- talizable sets, like the set of the six sides of a sible facts even if nobody is there to perceive dice. If a dice fell always on the same of its them. six sides, we are driven to think that there is a trick, a reason for the same number to be drawn at every throw. But it is not possible 3. Iain Hamilton Grant: Philosophy to calculate the probability of something in- of Nature after Shelling cluded in a non-totalizable set, like the set of the rationally acceptable physical laws: we ain Hamilton Grant’s subject independ- should not be surprised if a hypothetical dice ent reality has almost nothing in com- with a non-totalizable number of faces falls mon with Meillassoux’s, as every specu- always on the same side. In this way, the ob- Ilative realist elaborated his anti-correlationist served stability of laws does not exclude strategy from a very different starting point. their contingency: the fact that they do not Meillassoux’s references are Descartes, change frequently does not imply their ne- Hume, Kant and Badiou, by contrast Grant’s cessity. Thus Meillassoux can declare that, work is based on Shelling, Plato and Deleuze although we do not observe them changing, and it aims to create a new realist philosophy natural laws are contingent: the fact that we of nature inspired by Idealism. In Philosophy cannot prove their necessity is not due to the of nature after Shelling4, Schelling is presented limitation of our understanding regarding as the philosopher who first understood na- the metaphysical reason for their stability, ture as having its own history that extends far but to their absolute contingency, to the ac- deeper into the past than was ever before ac- tual absence of a reason for them to be in a knowledged, while even now producing certain way or otherwise. Contingency be- forms in excess of what human understanding ing the only rational necessity that we must might make of them. Dispensing with the acknowledge to laws, we have to state that sharp separation between organic and inor- they can change at any time but also that ganic, Schelling unveiled in nature a material they do not have to change. This means that vitalism that rescues matter from the category we do not need a God to be the origin of the order of the world because the world we 4 make experience of is just one of the virtu- I.H.Grant, Philosophy of Nature after Shelling, London: Continuum 2008. ally infinite possible that can be actualized in PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS ISSUE VI – NUMBER 2 – SUMMER 2014 ARTICLES 29 of the inert and mechanical to which Kant and ops, is not simply a speculative physics but a Fichte had relegated it. For Grant, Ideas per- specifically Platonic physics that endeavors to tain to nature and must be considered as actu- understand that which is darkest and most ob- alities rather than mental subjective principles: scure: matter itself as the last instance of the they are the natural tendencies driving the real. For Grant reality is nature as condition flux of becoming whose thought and subject for production of everything, thought in- are nothing but products.