meillassoux brassier

CORRELATIONISM AND THE TRANSITION FROM TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM TO TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

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Kevin Richmond Lewis

CORRELATIONISM AND THE TRANSITION

FROM TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM TO

TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM

I. INTRODUCTION

There has been much recent discussion concerning the so-called problem of

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related. On this view being cannot be thought of without positing it in relation to some

form of subjective apprehension. This presupposition on the part of various contemporary

philosophies has come under a considerable amount of criticism. Two of the most

prominent critics of correlationism include Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier. For

both, the problem of correlationism stands in the way of a proper realism which is

motivated in part by the epistemic prio

of correlationism is a critique of the kind of transcendental philosophies represented by

Kant and Husserl. This construal of correlationism leads him to reject transcendental

philosophy through his notion of ancestrality. Brassier, concerned with pushing the project

of the Enlightenment to its nihilistic conclusion, also seeks to circumvent correlationism.

However, unlike Meillassoux he resituates the role of the transcendental through a non-

correlational account of extinction rather than dispense with transcendental philosophy en

masse. For Brassier, the reality of extinction necessitates the move from a transcendental

idealism to a transcendental realism, a move which is reinforced through his encounter

with the work of Francois Laruelle.

II. MEILLASSOUX

OF CORRELATIONISM

In After Finitude, Meillassoux attempts to

A crucial part of this project involves the diagnosis of what he sees as a specific problem

endemic to contemporary philosophy.1 According

to Meillassoux, correlationism involves "the idea according to which we only ever have

access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered

apart from the other."2

He adds further on:

Correlationism consists in disqualifying the claim that it is possible to consider the realms

of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another. Not only does it become

1 After Finitude contains a number of challenging as well as controversial ideas which we cannot

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principle of factiality. I will narrow the discussion to his account of ancestrality and the problem it

poses to correlationism. 2 Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, trans. R. Brassier

(Continuum, 2008), 5.


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necessary to insist that we never grasp an object 'in itself, in isolation from its relation to

the subject, but it also becomes necessary to maintain that we can never grasp a subject

that would not always-already be related to an object.3

If correlationism is tenable, then we cannot avoid what Meillassoux calls the

orrelationist circle,

apart from our subjective relation to it ends in contradiction. We must, in order to avoid the

threat of contradiction, embrace the priority of the relation between both poles of

experience, a principle which goes back to Berkeley and Kant.4 It should be noted that

correlationism encompasses a number of philosophical positions committed to the notion

that we do not have access to the world as it is apart from cognition, i.e., we cannot gain

entry into a mind-independent reality which is "outside" the space of thought. The mutual

reciprocity between thought and being is not limited to the relation between subjectivity

and objectivity. As Meillassoux puts it:

[W]e must emphasize that the correlation between thought and being is not reducible to

the correlation between subject and object. In other words, the fact that correlation

dominates contemporary philosophy in no way implies the dominance of philosophies of

representation. It is possible to criticize the latter in the name of a more originary

correlation between thought and being.5

This broad definition of correlationism includes Heideggerian ontology, according to

which Being is inseparable from the understanding of Being, as well as the so-called

. Regardless of how the correlationist thesis is articulated, its

fundamental claim that the relation between thought and being is incontrovertible is

grounded in the subordination of the "in itself" to finitude, i.e., experience. This is the case

whether "finitude" is cashed out in terms of transcendental subjectivity or as an

intersubjective community, which is meant to play some mediating role between the

world-in-itself and the individual.

For Meillassoux, the commitment to correlationism ultimately ends in paradox once it

is confronted with what he calls an "arche-fossil." An arche-fossil refers to something that

preceded the existence of conscious life, such as the fact that the universe is roughly 13.5

billion years old, or that the origin of life occurred 3.5 billion years ago. These facts, which

are discovered by the empirical sciences, point to the existence of an ancestral realm which

preceded the emergence of life. These arche-fossils become a serious problem for the

3 Ibid.

4 Although Schopenhauer is not mentioned by Meillassoux, his repeated assertion regarding the

primacy of the relation between subject and object distills the essence of correlationism. At the

very beginning of The World as Will and Representation he writes:

which we have recognized as so many particular modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is

valid only for a particular class of representation, of whatever kind it be, abstract or intuitive, pure

or empirical, is generally possible and conceivable. Therefore no truth is more certain, more

independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, namely that everything that exists for

knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception

of the perceiver, in a word, representat The World as Will and Representation: Vol. I, trans.

E.F.J. Payne (Dover, 1956), 3. 5 Ibid., 7-8.


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correlationist. If the relation between thought and being is insurmountable, then how does

the correlationist account for such facts? In other words, if the correlationist is right

regarding the notion that knowledge of the world always implies some form of givenness,

then how does he or she explain the meaning of scientific facts or events that occurred

prior to the advent of givenness itself?

According to Meillassoux, correlationism implies a commitment to a pernicious form

of anti-realism. The correlationist is ultimately forced to deny that the scientific statements

concerning arche-fossils are to be construed in a literal sense. In other words, the

correlationist is obliged to conclude that the literal meaning of an ancestral statement

describing an event that occurred prior to the advent of givenness can be considered true or

manner. For the correlationist, the

accepted as true in the sense that it is

intersubjectively verifiable. But to completely accept its literal meaning would be nave

according to the correlationist. It must ultimately be pos

true meaning of an ancestral statement can only be reached if we admit that what appears

to describe an event which occurred before the arrival of givenness can only make sense if

it involves a concealed relation to givenness itself.

Meillassoux explains the correlationist's predicament by highlighting the discrepancy

between ancestral time and the time of correlationism:

[F]or the correlationist, in order to grasp the profound meaning of the fossil datum, one

should not proceed from the ancestral past, but from the correlational present. This means

that we have to carry out a retrojection of the past on the basis of the present. What is

given to us, in effect, is not something that is anterior to givenness, but merely something

that is given in the present but gives itself as anterior to givenness. The logical

(constitutive, originary) anteriority of givenness over the being of the given therefore

enjoins us to subordinate the apparent sense of the ancestral statement to a more profound

counter-sense, which is alone capable of delivering its meaning: it is not ancestrality

which precedes givenness, but that which is given in the present which retrojects a

seemingly ancestral past. To understand the fossil, it is necessary to proceed from the

present to the past, following a logical order, rather than from the past to the present,

following a chronological order.6

T7 carried out by the correlationist

statement. To try and reconcile the literal or apparent sense of the ancestral statement with

the commitment to correlationism is impossible

6 Ibid., 16.

7

of the phenomenal world. Schopenhauer accepts that the inorganic preceded the emergence of

organic life. However, his commitment to Kantian idealism forces him to claim that the entire

phenomenal world, including the inorganic, is a product of one's cognitive faculties. The end result

is a situation in which both the mind conditions the world and the world conditions the mind, a

paradox grounded in his commitment to both transcendental idealism and materialism. See, for

instance, The World as Will and Representation: Vol. I (30-31).


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8 The solution to this contradictory state of affairs in

which the two incompatible levels of meaning are held together, of course, is to reject

correlationism as an untenable philosophical position. If the correlationist insists on

interpreting ancestral statements as consisting of both senses, then, according to

Meillassoux, he or she must resemble the creationist who maintains that the earth is 6,000

years old, and that God created evidence to the contrary (the arche-fossil) in order to test

his or her faith.

I now wish to discuss two possible rejoinders the correlationist can make in response to

the objection from ancestrality mentioned by Meillassoux because they reveal what Paul J.

.9 I will not be concerned with

-arguments against the correlationist. I present them here

The first rejoinder is a version of an anti-idealist argument which compares the

ancestral objection to spatial distance, while the second

accuses the critic of correlationism of overlooking the transcendental-empirical distinction.

In regards to the first, the correlationist formulates the objection from ancestrality as

concerned with events devoid of a possible witness. One can, according to the

to space an argument which has hitherto been restricted to time, and

adjoin the question of the distant to the question of th10

For example, craters

observed on the moon are closer to us in terms of perception, than a falling vase where

there is no one present to witness its falling. The anti-idealist objection raised by the critic

of correlationism involves a commitment to the notion that what is un-witnessed is un-

thinkable unless one upholds realism. But, the correlationist insists, this underestimates

been well known since Husserl that what is given is not perceived all at once; rather, it

implies something non-given, i.e., it must present itself within a possible horizon that

sustains every possible adumbration (Abschattung), a horizon which is an intrinsic feature

of perceptual experience. In a similar manner, the critic of correlationism simply overlooks

11 More specifically, had there been a witness to an arche-fossil,

he or she would have witnessed its occurrence according to the laws of science.

Meillassoux responds to this rejoinder by pointing out that the correlationist ignores the

case of space). The argument involves construing what is strictly anterior to givenness

itself as an ancient event which already presupposes givenness, i.e., it is, although un-

witnessed, contemporaneous with consciousness. In contrast, an arche-fossil refers to an

refer to occurrences which a lacunary givenness cannot

8 Ibid., 17.

9 Cosmos and History, vol. 7,

no. 1, 2011, 37-48. I agree with Ennis the core of correlationism involves the

commitment to the transcendental method as it is espoused by thinkers such as Kant and Husserl.

lead to a complete rejection

provided one does not overlook the possibility of a transcendental

realism. I hope to show how this is the case 10

Meillassoux, After Finitude, 18. 11

Ibid., 19.


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apprehend, but to occurrences which are not contemporaneous with any givenness, 12

The second rejoinder is far more explicit regarding the transcendentalism underlying

correlationism. Meillassoux exami that the critic of

correlationism is guilty of overlooking the difference between the empirical time of bodies

and that which transcendentally conditions our knowledge of the empirical world. The

latter is, according to the correlationist, not an object of empirical observation. It is argued

that it is important to clearly distinguish between the two in order to avoid any possible

paradoxes associated with their intersection. Granted, the physical organ which supports

the transcendental conditions of knowledge has a beginning and end in time. However, the

critic of correlationism treats the transcendental conditions governing knowledge of the

empirical world in the same manner. In other words, he or she construes the transcendental

register as if it also has a temporal beginning and end. But this will not do because such

This is not to say that they are eternal, but it is to

say that what is transcendental cannot be accounted for in terms of the time described by

science. Therefore, the objection from ancestrality does not have any effect on the status of

the transcendental insofar as it is properly understood.

The problem with this approach, as Meillassoux points out, is that the transcendental

conditions underlying knowledge of the empirical world presupposes a finite point-of-

view. This must be the case if the correlationist wishes to avoid turning transcendental

subjectivity (however it is conceived) into an eternal or metaphysical principle. In other

words, what is transcendental must be related in some manner to a body situated within the

empirical world. Given that such is the case, it remains inexplicable how to account for the

origin of the transcendental. If the two are inseparable, then how does one account for the

fact that the transcendental must emerge from the empirical time of bodies?

Correlationism, according to Meillassoux cannot account for the sudden appearance of the

transcendental. Indeed, it appears as though there is an unbridgeable "gap" or discrepancy

between the cosmological time of material bodies and the time that begins with the advent

of the transcendental. Meillassoux writes:

We thereby discover that the time of science temporalizes and spatializes the emergence

of living bodies; that is to say, the emergence of the conditions for the taking place of the

transcendental. What effectively emerged with living bodies were the instantiations of

the subject, its character as point-of-view-on-the-world. The fact that subjects emerged

here on this earth or existed elsewhere is a purely empirical matter. But the fact that

subjects appeared ~ simply appeared - in time and space, instantiated by bodies, is a

matter that pertains indissociably both to objective bodies and to transcendental subjects.

And we realize that this problem simply cannot be thought from the transcendental

viewpoint because it concerns the space-time in which transcendental subjects went from

not-taking-place to taking-place - and hence concerns the space-time anterior to the

spatio-temporal forms of representation. To think this ancestral space-time is thus to

think the conditions of science and also to revoke the transcendental as essentially

inadequate to this task.13

In other words, the transcendental viewpoint cannot explain its own origin without the aid

12

Ibid., 20. 13

Ibid., 25-26.


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of the scientific description of time.14

The closest one can come to an explanation

regarding the emergence of both the transcendental dimension and the bodies that

undeniably condition it is to accept the notion that it itself

without positing a prior relation between the world and finitude.

As I have already indicated above, Brassier confronts the problem of correlationism

from a very different standpoint, namely through a non-correlational account of extinction.

Moreover, this account of extinction plays a transcendental role, albeit one which is not of

the Kantian or phenomenological variety Meillassoux seeks to critique. Although Brassier

his attempt to refute

correlationism from the perspective of extinction does not involve a complete rejection of

imary concerns. Indeed, Brassier (as well as others) regard After Finitude

as an impressive work due to its originality as well as argumentative rigor.15

A great deal

of what appears in own nihilistic project should be construed as a much needed

supplement to the bas , i.e., the attempt to get

outside of ourselves, to grasp the in-itself, to know what is whether we are or not.16

However, before turning to Brassier it is necessary to take a brief detour involving a

-philosophy. -

philosophy which provides the conceptual resources needed for developing a

transcendental realism capable of bypassing the transcendental idealism behind

correlationism.

III. LARUELLE AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM OF

NON-PHILOSOPHY In order to attain a proper understanding of the transcendental role of extinction, it is first

necessary to have some grasp of the way in which Brassier uses certain concepts

-philosophy. Laruelle plays a major role throughout

Nihil Unbound. Nevertheless, I will not attempt to engage in a detailed

of non-philosophy. I merely wish to present a simplified

model of non-philosophy as a way to elucidate , which I

14

-itself (consciousness) from the in-itself

in his discussion of temporality in Being and Nothingness

questions regarding the sudden appearance of the for-itself are to be ignored because they concern

a past which does not exist apart from the ecstatic structure of the for-itself. Indeed, he simply

-itself. See Jean-

Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. (Washington Square Press, 1956), 197-199. 15

After Finitude

the history of philosophy, hitherto conceived as the history of what it is to know; a path that

vii). Martin Hagglun

argumentation

in The Speculative Turn, ed. L. Bryant, N. Srnicek, & G.

Harman (Melbourne, 2011), 114. 16

Meillassoux, After Finitude, 27.


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will discuss in section IV.17

What Laruelle is after is a transcendental of philosophy.18

But in order for

there to be such a science

the order of priority between

philosophy and the real. Philosophy attempts to think the real. Non-philosophy, the

transformation of the order of priority between philosophy and the real through which the

real thinks philosophy. Non-philosophy is a transcendental science of philosophy on the 19

Laruelle defines philosophy in terms of Decision. denotes the

. For Laruelle,

philosophy is inherently decisional because it cannot avoid positing a dyadic unity (unity-

in-difference) which involves a mutual reciprocity between the real and ideal, thought

and being, condition and conditioned, etc. There is always a co-positing of an empirical

datum (the conditioned) and an a priori facktum (condition) as well as their synthetic

unity. This decisional unity-of-contraries, which occurs in a variety of different forms, is

-legislation as well as auto-fetishization. For philosophy,

the real (or One) cannot exist apart from this structure of decision; it must remain forever

within - scission, mediation, reversal, etc. Laruelle

calls p own capacity to constitute the real the Principle of

Sufficient Philosophy (PSP):

Philosophy is regulated in accordance with a principle higher than that of Reason: the

Principle of sufficient philosophy

its essence as self-positing/donating/naming/deciding/grounding, etc. It guarantees

sciences. Ultimately, it articulates

the idealist pretension of philosophy as that which is able to at least co-determine that

Real which is most radical.20

Non-philosophy is not a negation of philosophy or a deconstructive procedure.21

Non-

17 -philosophy implies that I will not be overly concerned

with distinguishing between the diff

between Philosophies I, II, and III. 18

The idea of non-

will later on choose to describe non- and science in

Principles of Non-Philosophy, a crucial text outlining the basis of Philosophy III. 19

transcendental project of non-

with

ultimate immanence. But whereas Husserl and every phenomenologist afterwards have

characterized immanence in relation to some other basic term, Laruelle is suspending the self-

sufficiency of all these - The

Speculative Turn, ed. L. Bryant, N. Srnicek, & G. Harman (Melbourne, 2011), 167.

20 - trans. R. Brassier, in Pli, vol. 8, 1999, 138-

139. 21

-

Euclidean geometry. Non-


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philosophy is -

It requires -

positing) nature in order to situate philosophy itself from the standpoint of science, or

-in- Philosophy and Non-

Philosophy he writes:

Non-

rule of philosophical decision, the rule of Unity-of-contraries [dyadic unity], of the

circular simultaneity of two principles the One and the Dyad, supposed coextensive

for a completely different principle, that of vision-in-One, which dismembers the

One/Dyad system of philosophical decision and rigorously subordinates the Dyad to the

One, which is first of all restored to its real or ante-dyadic essence.22

The One, according to Laruelle, is itself devoid of division; it is strictly speaking

indivisible. It is a pure or singular

alienation; it is a lived experience (of) self that is precisely experienced in its own mode, 23

Moreover, it is given-without-givenness, which implies

that it belongs to a type of given that is radically given (to) itself rather than to a subject

or to any other form of transcendence, and which is thus given without an operation of 24

This absolute autonomy on the part of the One is denied through philosophical decision.

Whereas philosophy subordinates the real as One to a Dyad, non-philosophy transforms

philosophy itself into a material or object of a transcendental science which proceeds from

the One rather than from the circular (self-contained) structure of philosophy. This

resituating or reversal of philosophy from the standpoint of vision-in-One, a resituating

-sufficiency (PSP) to a state of contingency, is what

Laruelle, borrowing an expression from Althusser , calls

mination-in-the-last- For Althusser, determination-in-the-last-instance

refers to the notion that, although the economic base or infrastructure has primacy over the

superstructure, the superstructure is granted a certain degree of .

However, Laruelle redefines the idea of determination in such a way that it refers to the

priority of the real as the conditioning factor, not the economy. This implies, of course, that

philosophy possesses a relative autonomy with respect to the real. This means that the real

acts as the sine qua non of philosophy, but that the non-philosophical determination of

philosophy on the basis of the One simultaneously requires the relative autonomy of

philosophy to effectuate this determination. This effectuation is the necessary step towards

The latter

proceeds from the Dyad to the One. The former proceeds from the One in order to

there is no reciprocity between the One and philosophy. To introduce reciprocity would be

to reintroduce the self-sufficiency of philosophical decision with respect to the real,

opposed to its destruction. 22

Francois Laruelle, Philosophy and Non-Philosophy, trans. T. Adkins (Univocal, 2013), 16. 23

Ibid., 43. 24

Francois Laruelle, Principles of Non-Philosophy, trans. N. Rubczak & A. P. Smith (Bloomsbury,

2013), 21.


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thereby overlooking the radical immanence of the One:

on the One. ly unilateral

and undivided and when the effect cannot determine its cause in return when it is not

shared between two terms.

Because any possible co-relation or reciprocity between philosophy and non-philosophy is

suspended through vision-in-One, the relation between them is a form of non-relation

which . In other words, philosophy, because

of its nature as decision, distinguishes itself from non-philosophy without the latter

distinguishing itself from the former. Non-philosophy determines philosophy, rendering its

decisional structure inert, but without maintaining a dialectical relation to philosophy. If it

were possible for non-philosophy to be dialectically reinscribed with respect to philosophy,

i.e., if the relation between the two were not unilateral, then it would be possible to

reestablish the authority of philosophical decision or the principle of sufficient philosophy.

Non-philosophy carries out a tra

of vision-in-One. This transcendental deduction of philosophy does not involve referential

statements about philosophy. The non-philosophical determination of philosophy must be

neo-

Philosophy is -in-One

as non- on-philosophy effectively turns the

transcendent structure of philosophy into an object, but it becomes an object which is

given-without-givenness. If vision-in-One is grounded in radical immanence, then it must

not (or cannot) posit a co-relation between a transcendental subject and a transcendent yet

immanently constituted object. To posit such a relation is to reestablish philosophical

decision, thereby reintroducing transcendence into immanence. Laruelle does speak of a

non-philosophical subject (what ), but it is a subject which is purely

performed by

non-philosophy on philosophy. This performative subject is also non-

already separated from any kind of philosophical decision which would situate it within a

duality involving the distinction between givenness and what is given. As Brassier puts it,

the subject of non-philosophy

is no longer the phenomenological subject, whether the latter be construed in terms of

intentional consciousness or being-in-the-world. But nor is it the subject as caesura, self-

relating negativity. It is neither the explicitly reflexive, self-conscious subject, nor the

pre-reflexive, unconscious subject, who is merely the obverse of the latter and therefore

implicitly enveloped by decisional reflexivity. It is simply a function: the transcendental

function which non-philosophy effectuates for philosophy on the basis of immanence as

real invariant and decision as occasional variable.25

25

- Radical

Philosophy 121, 2003, 30.


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More importantly, the subject of non-philosophy determines its own conditions of

manifestation through determination-in-the-last-instance. What began as an object of

philosophy, i.e., the real, becomes, through determination-in-the-last-instance, the subject

should not be construed as a mere reversal of roles between subject and object. They do

-reflexive or immanent identity between

subject and object which is non- ctuates the

coincidence of subject and object through dialectical mediation, the non-philosophical

coincidence or identity between subject and object is grounded in the radical immanence of

vision-in-One which is indifferent to the activity of mediation characteristic of

philosophical decision.

What exactly does non-philosophy do aside from demonstrate the contingency of

philosophy? Although non-philosophy does not seek to negate philosophy, otherwise it

would maintain a dialectical relation to it, it seeks to use philosophy. Laruelle envisions

non-

philosophical language. In Principles of Non-Philosophy, which outlines the basis of

Philosophy III, non-philosophy receives an explicitly democratic voice which is opposed

mode of organization.26

The reduction of philosophical

decision to an inert material implies the establishment of an egalitarianism through which

the self-sufficiency of philosophy and its inherent tendency towards hierarcherization is

suspended. I will not go into the details of this aspect of non-philosophy simply because

plays no significant role with

respect to Br What is important for our present concerns is to understand

that non-philosophy is tantamount to a transcendental realism.

insofar as it seeks to transform philosophy into an empirical datum, thereby determining its

a priori structure(s) from the non-thetic perspective of vision-in-One. It is a

the sense that it begins with the real itself (radical immanence) instead of trying to think or

constitute the real on the basis of philosophical decision.

-philosophy from the

according to Laruelle, a

transcendental idealism. It is idealistic because of its pretensions to constitute the real or at

least situate the real within the mixture-form (the One and the Dyad) of philosophical

decision. In contrast, the transcendentalism of non-philosophy begins with the separation

-form in order to demonstrate the illusory status of

the latter on the basis of the former. From the standpoint of non-philosophy, the

transcendental structure of philosophy is reduced to an empirical given. In this sense, the

transcendentalism of non-philosophy involves what Brassier

perspective.

In the next section I will

realism through a critique of transcendence on the basis of extinction. Brassier proposes a

fully developed transcendental nihilism which borrows a great deal from non-philosophy.

Contra Meillassoux, the transcendental reality of extinction demonstrates that it is possible

to bypass correlationism without jettisoning transcendental philosophy as a whole.

26

Ibid., 48-52.


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IV. BRASSIER AND THE REALITY OF EXTINCTION

For Brassier, nihilism is the natural consequence of the claim that there exists a mind-

independent reality which is devoid of value or meaning. According to Brassier,

correlationism involves the attempt to posit a pre-existing relation or bond between the

world and our subjective apprehension of it in order to ensure that meaning is an

radical

critique of this attempt to reestablish meaningful experience through the auspices of

correlationism. I will be concerned primarily with the transcendental dimension of this

project as it is presented in Nihil Unbound. I will not be concerned with summarizing the

entirety of Brassier's Nihil Unbound; to attempt to do so would be a difficult task given the

book's semi-labyrinthine structure. My focus will be on Brassier's fundamental claim

regarding the transcendental role of extinction and its relation to -

philosophy.

world. In the preface to Nihil Unbound he writes:

[T]he disenchantment of the world understood as a consequence of the process whereby

hence an

invigorating vector of intellectual discovery, rather than a calamitous diminishment.27

project

ancestrality is not strong enough to refute the correlationist's arguments. According to

Brassier, it is always possible for the correlationist to reinscribe the anteriority of the

arche-fossil as a postulate "for us" within a chronological framework. In contrast, Brassier,

in order to avoid this possibility, adds a more radical dimension to Meillassoux's critique of

correlationism, namely the reality of extinction. For Brassier, a proper understanding of

extinction leads to the provocative revelation that we are already dead.

Brassier adopts Lyotard's challenge to philosophy in his "Can Thought go on without a

Body" concerning the inevitability of a future solar catastrophe.28

The fact that we know

that the sun will die in roughly 4.5 billion years from now proves to be devastating to

every terrestrial, i.e., finite, horizon. The death of the sun entails the complete annihilation

of every form of human-orientation with which philosophy would attempt to position

itself, regardless of whether the finite horizon in question is Husserl's "Ur-earth,"

H "deterritorialisation." It obliterates even the conceptual

negativity underlying Hegelian subjectivity. In any case, the inevitable death of the sun

already unravels every possible modality of finite transcendence. Not only is the sun set on

the path of dissolution, matter itself will be disintegrated. Indeed, "Every star in the

universe will have burnt out, plunging the cosmos into a state of absolute darkness and

27

Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), xi. 28

Jean Francois Lyotard, "Can Thought go on without a Body?" in The Inhuman: Reflections on

Time, trans., G. Bennington & R. Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 8-23.


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leaving behind nothing but spent husks of collapsed matter."29

According to Brassier:

Everything is dead already. Solar death is catastrophic because it vitiates ontological

relationship to the future. But far from lying in wait in for us in the far distant future, on

the other side of the terrestrial horizon, the solar catastrophe needs to be grasped as

something that has already happened; as the aboriginal trauma driving the history of

terrestrial life as an elaborately circuitous detour from stellar death. Terrestrial history

occurs between the simultaneous strophes of a death which is at once earlier than the

birth of the first unicellular organism, and later than the extinction of the last

multicellular animal.30

The future demise of the sun, as well as of all matter, entails the truth of extinction with

respect to all present life. The fact that death is "before" as well as "after" life means that

extinction itself is to be characterized as an "anterior posteriority" that subsumes (or

swallows) every possible finite point-of-view. The reality of extinction is the absolute

endpoint which overwhelms the present of human finitude, not in an indifferent manner,

but as internally destroying its legitimacy as the fulcrum upon which correlationism rests.

The time of extinction represents the death of thought, a time which, through its

incapacitation of thought, turns thought itself into an object by disentangling all forms of

interior exteriority or transcendence in immanence. He writes further on:

Extinction portends a physical annihilation which negates the difference between mind

and world, but which can no longer be construed as a limit internal to the transcendence

of mind an internalized exteriority, as death is for Geist or Dasein because it implies

an exteriority which unfolds or externalizes the internalization of exteriority concomitant

with consciousness and its surrogates, whether Geist or Dasein. Extinction turns thinking

inside out, objectifying it as a perishable thing in the world like any other (and no longer

the imperishable condition of perishing).31

Extinction causes the collapse of transcendence in such a way that there results a non-

dialectical identity between thought and object. The non-dialectical identity between

thought and object is based on a radical immanence which is anterior as well as posterior

with respect to the advent of givenness. Brassier, in order to elucidate the idea of a

coincidence between thought and the real, of stellar death with

Freud's account of the death-drive as it is presented in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. He

adopts Freud's controversial claim, derived from the phenomenon of traumatic repetition,

that the ultimate aim of all life is death, or the notion that the organic has the originary

tendency to return to the inorganic. The death-

through which thought coincides with the real.

ossible

to further elucidate its -philosophy. To

begin -in-One with a

-

29

Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound, 228. 30

Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound, 223. 31

Ibid., 229.


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nihilism is also a transcendental realism -nothing is to be

understood in terms of radical immanence. It is given-without-givenness insofar as it is

Moreover, it implies a non- opposition nor 32

This negativity, because of its non-correlational status, is not in the

service of a Hegelian Subject which presupposes a correlational circle within which

negativity is implicated as the catalyst of a higher synthesis between subject and object.

The real as being-nothing escapes the logic of mediation because it is strictly immanent to

itself.

Extinction represents the non-dialectical identity between thought and the real as

being-nothing. This is why extinction is not to be simply construed in terms of physical

annihilation. It represents the decisive moment wherein the real thinks itself through

thought, thereby transforming thought itself into an object. The transformation of thought

into an object (the absence of correlationism) corresponds to the unilateralizing force of

determination-in-the-last-instance:

Determination-in-the-last-instance involves an ascesis of thought whereby the latter

abjures the trappings of intellectual intuition as well as objectifying representation. By

submitting to the logic of determination-in-the-last-instance, thought ceases to intend,

apprehend, or reflect the object; it becomes non-thetic and is thereby turned into a vehicle

for what is unobjectifiable in the object itself. The object becomes at once the patient and

the agent of its own cognitive determination.33

The transformation of thought into an object results in a non-reflective identity. Thought is

transformed into a pure immanence which is not posited in relation to the a priori

tions are

explained in terms of Being-in-the-world, transcendental subjectivity, Life, etc. This is

the real on the basis of (to use the language of Laruelle) philosophical decision.

-in-the-last-instance which occurs

through the thought of extinction effectively destroys the locus of correlationism in its

entirety. For Laruelle, determination-in-the-last-instance renders philosophical decision

-sufficiency. The thought

-philosophy by transforming

e real (being-nothing) into a destructive

possibility. Contrary to Laruelle, Brassier maintains that the non-dialectical negativity of

the real harbors a positive

which involves rom relations, amputating reciprocity, and sharpening

one-34

Whereas non-philosophy sets out to suspend the self-sufficiency of

correlationism on the basis of the real, the real as being-

correlationism through the thought of extinction, which represents a coincidence of

thought with the real. Due to its destructive potential, the thought of extinction functions,

not only as the basis for a transcendental realism, but also as a philosophical justification

32

Ibid., 147. 33

Ibid., 139. 34

Ibid., 147.


- 14 -

for a transcendental nihilism.

this paper, is the transition from transcendental idealism to transcendental realism. We saw

some of the

conceptual paradoxes that accompany the former. However, Meillassoux assumes that

transcendental philosophy must be grounded in some form of idealism, whether Kantian or

Husserlian. either species of

correlationism, neither exhausts transcendental philosophy as a whole. Brassier has shown,

-philosophy, how it is possible to replace the idealist

pretensions of correlationism with a transcendental realism which explains how thought is

conditioned by the real.

V. CONCLUDING REMARKS Before concluding, inder

discussed by Meillassoux because it helps demonstrate the effectiveness of the kind of

transcendental realism presented above. We saw how, according to the correlationist, the

critic of correlationism is guilty of overlooking the transcendental-empirical distinction.

The correlationist wishes to situate the transcendental conditions of knowledge apart from

the empirical time of bodies, and that the attempt to conceive of the transcendental realm in

intra-worldly terms ends in paradox. However, according to Meillassoux, the correlationist

cannot maintain a strong separation between the transcendental and the empirical because

-of-view, i.e., a body. The

fact that the transcendental conditions of knowledge cannot be described in empirical

terms, even though such conditions must be instantiated within a body, leaves the problem

concerning the origin of the transcendental a mystery, a mystery which transcendental

If the transcendental is conceived on the

basis of subjectivity, whether it is construed in terms of cognition or Being-in-the-world,

no account can be given of how the transcendental emerges from within the material

world. this

problem by separating the transcendental realm from the conventional transcendental-

empirical distinction which governs philosophical idealism. Following Laruelle, Brassier

grants the real with a transcendental capacity. Moreover, the relation between thought and

the real is non-reciprocal; the real conditions thought without thought conditioning the real

in turn . But this is simply another way of rejecting the

standard transcendental-empirical distinction. Once the transcendental conditions of

manifestation (or givenness) are located outside the circle of correlationism, it becomes

possible to escape idealism in all its forms.

correlationism, there is a significant problem worth considering. It is not really clear how

extinction is supposed to play a transcendental role if it is meant to incapacitate thought.

erms of

transcendence) is an illusion of sorts. To be more specific, it implies that both life and

death are unreal. The question arises how the positive negativity of extinction can function

on a transcendental level if it simultaneously destroys what it conditions. This makes

diffrance. A is compatible


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with his commitment to transcendental realism. The problem

attempt to provide a transcendental justification for nihilism is already apparent within

Nihil Unbound Although I

Wilfrid Sellars, it is clear that the work of Sellars

, especially

given that Sellars and a handful of his successors have proposed a sophisticated version of

transcendental realism. While it is true that Brassier devotes the first chapter of Nihil

Unbound to an in-

given full consideration.35

A crucial part of Sellars that conceptual norms are

irreducible to the scientific image of man-in-the-world, a position which seems

Whether the latter can in fact be reconciled with

the former position remains to be seen.

35

The most famous presentation of Sellars

In the Space of Reasons: Selected Essays of Wilfrid Sellars, ed. K. Scharp & R. Brandom (Harvard

University Press, 2007).

meillassoux brassier

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