Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality
This paper shows that Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism doesn’t offer us the means to account for the ancestral statements that the modern sciences produce, i.e. for the scientific statements about events preceding all forms of life. An analysis of the reasons why Meillassoux thinks that...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universitatea "Stefan cel Mare" Suceava
2014-12-01
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| Series: | Annals of Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines |
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| Online Access: | http://www.apshus.usv.ro/arhiva/2014II/001.%20pp.%2011-32.pdf |
| _version_ | 1827320927712444416 |
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| author | Ciprian Jeler |
| author_facet | Ciprian Jeler |
| author_sort | Ciprian Jeler |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper shows that Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism doesn’t offer us the means to account for the ancestral statements that the modern sciences produce, i.e. for the scientific statements about events preceding all forms of life. An analysis of the reasons why Meillassoux thinks that the problem of ancestrality problematizes the contemporary self-evidence of correlationism is first offered. The results of this analysis are then applied to speculative materialism itself and the consequences are not very promising: very much like correlationism, speculative materialism explicitly denies what I call the “generalized version of the realistic assumption of science” and, in so doing, renders scientific ancestral statements de jure unverifiable. Therefore, if correlationism is rendered suspicious by the issue of ancestrality, the same can be said of speculative materialism. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:56:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2dd99576b9b54d0fb103208f61fc40d5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2069-4008 2069-4016 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-25T00:56:52Z |
| publishDate | 2014-12-01 |
| publisher | Universitatea "Stefan cel Mare" Suceava |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Annals of Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines |
| spelling | doaj.art-2dd99576b9b54d0fb103208f61fc40d52024-03-11T09:53:55ZengUniversitatea "Stefan cel Mare" SuceavaAnnals of Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines2069-40082069-40162014-12-01vol II1132Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with AncestralityCiprian Jeler0Researcher Ph.D. Interdisciplinary Research Department – Human and Social Sciences “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Romania This paper shows that Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism doesn’t offer us the means to account for the ancestral statements that the modern sciences produce, i.e. for the scientific statements about events preceding all forms of life. An analysis of the reasons why Meillassoux thinks that the problem of ancestrality problematizes the contemporary self-evidence of correlationism is first offered. The results of this analysis are then applied to speculative materialism itself and the consequences are not very promising: very much like correlationism, speculative materialism explicitly denies what I call the “generalized version of the realistic assumption of science” and, in so doing, renders scientific ancestral statements de jure unverifiable. Therefore, if correlationism is rendered suspicious by the issue of ancestrality, the same can be said of speculative materialism.http://www.apshus.usv.ro/arhiva/2014II/001.%20pp.%2011-32.pdfMeillassouxspeculative materialismcorrelationismancestral statements |
| spellingShingle | Ciprian Jeler Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality Annals of Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines Meillassoux speculative materialism correlationism ancestral statements |
| title | Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality |
| title_full | Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality |
| title_fullStr | Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality |
| title_full_unstemmed | Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality |
| title_short | Why Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism Struggles with Ancestrality |
| title_sort | why meillassoux s speculative materialism struggles with ancestrality |
| topic | Meillassoux speculative materialism correlationism ancestral statements |
| url | http://www.apshus.usv.ro/arhiva/2014II/001.%20pp.%2011-32.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ciprianjeler whymeillassouxsspeculativematerialismstruggleswithancestrality |