Annotation
NOTA BENE: THIS IS NOT AN ERAMUS CLASS. IF YOU ARE AN ERAMUS STUDENT AND WANT TO ATTEND THIS CLASS, PLEASE CONTACT ME BEFOREHAND
Fall Semester 2021-2022
Charles University
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
(MA)
Daniele De Santis, Ph. D.
Office hours: Thursday 14:00-15:00 (Room: 221)
Phenomenology and Speculative Realism: The Controversy over Correlation
(Wednesday 09:10-10:45)
Room: P217 1. General Description and Aims of the Module
The goal of the present module is to discuss the phenomenological principle of “correlation,” with a special focus upon Husserl and Heidegger and in light in the recent criticism to which it has been submitted by the supporters of “speculative realism” ever since the publication of Q. Meillassoux, After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. The booklet ignited a debate concerning the validity of the co-relation between consciousness (Dasein) and world and the very possibility of a transcendental philosophy worthy of its name. For this reason, the module will have a critical and discussion-based structure. Accordingly, we will take, as a point of departure, the first chapter of After Finitude, where the author introduces and further elaborates on the ancestrality-argument. The latter claims that, given the principle of “correlation” according to which the “world” is always and necessarily to be regarded as a correlate of the subject (be it consciousness or Dasein or other), then the very possibility of natural science (i.e., objective knowledge) is jeopardized once and for all.
Prior to Meillassoux, however, this very same argument was presented by V. Lenin in his famous Materialism and Empiriocriticism of 1909: here Lenin had already harshly rejected the philosophies of correlation (primarily: the Kantian one) based upon the thesis that the necessary relation between consciousness and the world entails the de-materialization of this latter. A comparative analysis will hence be attempted between Lenin’s and Meillassoux’s own work so as to highlight analogies and differences between them. Our attention will finally turn to Husserl and Heidegger in order to both discuss how they understand the principle of correlation and verify whether they fall victim to the criticisms above.