Copernicanism Without Correlationism

1. Copernicanism Without Correlationism

2. Meillassoux on Kant “But what was the goal of this Ptolemaic revolution in philosophy, and what did it hope to achieve? What was the fundamental question on the basis of which the [first] Critique reconfigured the whole of philosophy? It was the question about the conditions under which modern science is thinkable – that is to say, the conditions of the Copernico-Galilean revolution in the literal and genuine sense of the term. In other words, the philosopher who placed the task of understanding the conditions of possibility for modern science at the heart of his project is also the philosopher who responded to this exigency by abolishing its initial condition – thus, the Copernico-Galilean decentring carried out by modern science gave rise to a Ptolemaic counter-revolution in philosophy.” – AF, p. 118

3. Reconstructing Meillassoux Meillassoux frames correlationism in terms of the relation between subject and object. This is perhaps better reframed in terms of the relation between Thought and Being. There are three different dimensions of this reframing that it is important to highlight in advance:- Methodological: epistemology and ontology [ in terms of Thought ] and [ in terms of Being ] Structural: form and content [ categories / forms of intuition / Being ] and [ judgements / objects of experience / beings ] Substantive: modalities [ judgment / cognition / experience / practice ] and [ Being / Thought / Seeming / Ought ]

4. Reconstructing Kant (I) Core Kantian Ideas:- Primacy of Judgment: combination of terms [ thought > cognition > experience ] [ understanding < judgement > reason ] [ sensibility / understanding ] Objective Validity: What is it to be responsible for an objective judgment? What is it to be capable of this responsibility? How do objects and concepts constrain one another? Constructivism: construction in mathematics construction in experiment rules and representativeness

5. Reconstructing Kant (II) Key Reconstructive Ideas:- Transcendental Method: transcendental deontology transcendental psychology transcendental reflection Computational Kantianism: functionalism information finitude (ought → can) Inferentialism: Sellars / Brandom Kant / Hegel inferentialism vs. constructivism?

6. Meillassoux’s Dialectic Subject and Object: priority of object (realism) priority of subject (idealism) priority of relation (correlationism) Correlationism: weak / strong universalism / pluralism Naive Realism ---[circle of correlation]---> Weak Correlationism <---[absolutization of correlation]--------------------| Absolute Idealism ---[argument from facticity]---> Strong Correlationism <---[absolutization of facticity]------------------------------------| Speculative Materialism

7. Reframing Correlationism The methodological question: are we dealing with epistemology or ontology? The structural question: are we dealing with the form or the content of Thought and Being? The substantive question: are we dealing with the same modalities of Thought and Being? The Transparent Cage: Correlationism essentially consists in treating contingent epistemic conditions as insurmountable epistemic constraints. Correlational Strength: The relative strength of a form of correlationism is a function of the epistemic constraints it imposes, which are to be understood in terms of how they re-articulate the relevant modalities of Thought and Being. <<WEAK> Badiou – Kant – Husserl – Heidegger – Derrida – Laruelle <STRONG>>

8. Manifestation and Existence How does Meillassoux characterise Kant’s correlationism? Meillassoux on Manifestation: universalism / pluralism, character / existence Kant on Manifestation: function / implementation, intersubjectivity, and intellectual intuition Does Meillassoux’s account of the manifestation of the transcendental get any purchase on Kant? There are two distinct senses in which the existence of objects is relative to space and time as conditions of possible experience: as conditions of synthesis (forms of intuition) and as conditions of reference (relations of location). There is no sense in which space and time can be said to exist qua forms of intuition. There is a sense in which space and time can be said to exist qua referential framework. Although capacity to maintain an Autonomous Referential Framework (ARF) is a functional condition of the unity of consciousness, objective validity is secured by our capacity to co-ordinate, integrate, and ultimately revise our different personal frameworks into a Global Referential Framework (GRF).

9. Content and Consciousness (I) Fichtean Consciousness: The I posits the not-I as not posited. Kant and Fichte: positing, judgment, and construction How strong is Kant’s constructivism? Content and Objective Validity: general / transcendental logic concept / schema Inferentialism vs. Constructivism: functional role semantics strong inferentialism singular concepts RDRDs

10. Content and Consciousness (II) Hegel’s Natural Consciousness: 1. Consciousness relates itself to its object, or takes its object to be a certain way. What this means, is that it makes a judgment about its object. 2. Consciousness distinguishes between its relating (or its judgment) and the object as it is in itself. In essence, consciousness allows for the possibility of error. These then have two implications:- 3. Because consciousness itself makes the distinction between its judgment and the object it is about, the object cannot be truly in-itself, but must be for-consciousness. This means that consciousness must have a concept of its object. 4. However, consciousness cannot be aware that the object is for-it without ceasing to be consciousness, and thus must suppress this fact. This means that consciousness cannot recognise that the concept of the object is dependent upon it, without undermining the possibility of error.

11. Objectivity (I) This gives us the resources to distinguish between two different ways of understanding the notion of the in-itself: Mind Independence: an object in-itself is if its existence is independent of the existence of minds. Attitude Independence: an object is in-itself if its character is independent of the way we take it to be. Correlationism and Objectivity: relative / absolute attitude-independence relative / absolute authority withdrawal control and givenness

12. Objectivity (II) Objectivity as Reference: analytic / synthetic (semantic holism) de re / de dicto attribution (sense / reference) perspectival navigation (in principle / in practice) Objectivity as Revisability: testimonial authority and RDRDs (e.g., colour) circumstances / consequences of application (e.g., acid) singular / general constraint (criteria of application) Logical Objects: consistency as condition of the possibility of disagreement. Empirical Objects: consistency as condition of the possibility of revision. The Problem: How do we revise the criteria of identity of the objects that permit us to revise the concepts we apply to them?

13. Competing Copernicanisms Cartesian-Copernicanism: sees the mathematical revolution in experimental science as providing access to the primary qualities of the natural world, thereby decentring human experience and those secondary qualities that are given in it alone. The signature achievement here is Descartes’s invention of analytic geometry and its consequences for mechanics, i.e., the mathematical study of motion as change in position (as modifications of extension). Kantian-Copernicanism: sees the mathematical revolution in experimental science as not simply providing us with new purchase on qualities, but new purchase on the objects that bear them, enacting a decentring which moves beyond questioning the givenness of qualities in order to question the givenness of objects. The signature achievement here is Newton’s invention of calculus and its consequences for dynamics, i.e., the mathematical study of forces producing changes in motion (and eventually changes that are irreducible to motion). Kant’s Copernicanism leads him to Correlationism, by forcing him to reject metaphysically primitive criteria of identity in favour of epistemically primitive conditions governing individuation.

14. Objects and Entities From Logic to Metaphysics: identity, consistency, existence Substance: Unity: individuality and invariance ---> essence Ground: inherence and independence ---> substratum Reference: Categorial Difference: things, stuffs, events, states, relations, times, places, situations, etc. Categorial Priority: individuals as primitive referents (primary substances, physical objects, monads, etc.), partial criteria of identity From Metaphysics to Logic: brute correctness, metaphysics as foundation of epistemology

15. Before and After Kant Precursors: Aristotle: typing (secondary substance) provides partial criteria of identity. Locke: spatio-temporal location (continuity) provides partial criteria of identity. Leibniz: individual concept provides complete (but intractable) criteria of identity. Successors: Continental: Husserlian phenomenology, Heideggerian ontology, Badiou, Foucault Analytic: realism/conventionalism, ontic structural realism

16. Kant on Individuation Functional Components: Understanding as Type System: identity, quantification, predication, anaphora, deixis, proper names Imagination as Object Construction: transcendental/pure/empirical schema Imagination as Object Tracking: ARF, GRF Conditions and Constraints: Forms of Intuition: formatted information (construction) / relative location (tracking) Transcendental Affinity: perceptual invariance (construction) / referential autonomy (tracking)

17. Kantian Errors Kant’s correlationism is a consequence of trying to get the same functional system (ARF/GRF) to implement two distinct functional roles: securing objective validity through singular reference and maintaining the unity of consciousness within experience. In doing so, he imposes untenable constraints on the co-ordination, integration, and revision of the GRF by requiring the imagination to operate under the same conditions of construction in scientific modelling and everyday experience. Constraints on space/time forms used in building models. Constraints on type systems linked to causal invariants. Constrains on mappings between models.

18. Sellarsian Corrections Manifest and Scientific Images co-ordination, integration, and revision conditions and constraints mappings and unification Sense and Reference anaphoric gluing local/global existence noumena as limits Practical Copernicanism computational simulation sheaf topoi geometric logic