response from Speculum Criticum Traditionis

There are a few minor things I would dispute ABOUT THIS POST, but on the whole it’s so useful in both content and tone that I will let this blogger have the last word for now.

Oh, just one point:

“For this, however, we have to really think through the problem [of correlatinoism]. I think Meillassoux gives us better traction here than Harman; the latter has more or less acknowledged he thinks correlationism to be transparently silly, and his attacks on correlationism are indeed yawns. ‘Correlationism thinks the moon is made of fingers’ (PoN, p 185) is a beautiful bon mot, but it does give you a sense of how seriously Harman takes this position. In some moods, anyway, Harman seems indeed content to philosophize as if correlationism just wasn’t there, in a way.”

A couple of quick points…

1. Yes, Meillassoux definitely takes correlationism more seriously than I do, for precisely the reason the blogger indicates.

2. Sometimes merely treating something dismissively has a certain strategic efficacy. Correlationism has been taken as simply obviously right by, I dare say, all mainstream continental philosophers from around 1900-2000 [ADDENDUM: I didn’t mean to say it started in 1900; it started in 1781] (I still think DeLanda and I in 2002 were the first in the continental current to say “we are realists” with no smirky irony or wordplay involved). For that reason, simply to treat it as obviously ridiculous is a nice way to shake things up. It might give people the idea that other words are possible.

3. That said, #2 obviously isn’t enough. And that’s why you’ll find a more dedicated critique of correlationism in The Quadruple Object which will soon appear in both English and French. And I still don’t think that’s my definitive critique of corelationism. I can still do better.

As for people saying that the ontology/epistemology divide is dead after Kant, this reminds of Rorty’s sarcastic remark that “it turns out that what’s beyond realism and idealism is– idealism!”