After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency

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After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency

by Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier (Translator), Alain Badiou (Preface)

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 178 ratings · 19 reviews

It is no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy, understood here as the history of what it is to know ... This remarkable "critique of critique" is introduced here without embellishment, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in a particularly clear and logical manner. It allows the destiny of thought to be t...more

Hardcover, 160 pages

Published June 7th 2008 by Continuum (first published 2008)

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Aug 09, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Incredibly interesting and, in all likelihood, philosophically important, but not something I'd call a whole whackadoodle of fun. For the second time in a row, a French philosopher has—at least via translation—composed his thought in a way that strives for clarity and readability, which has so impressed me that I shall no longer sub in the words Benelux(er*) Bay when I'm singing along to Ænema.

And as for Meillassoux's contention?** More or less, as far as I can determine it, a hearty Hey, you Po...more

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Oct 24, 2012 David Spencer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: best

This is revolutionary. This might be the best philosophical essay I've ever read. I'd been reading buzz about this for over a year before I bought it online, and one incomprehensible review praising it was what turned me on to it initially, after which I read an equally incomprehensible review shitting all over it from some withered old tenured idealist fossil (though certainly no arche-fossil), whose arguments I now understand and shake my head at, given his clear misunderstanding of this amazi...more This is revolutionary. This might be the best philosophical essay I've ever read. I'd been reading buzz about this for over a year before I bought it online, and one incomprehensible review praising it was what turned me on to it initially, after which I read an equally incomprehensible review shitting all over it from some withered old tenured idealist fossil (though certainly no arche-fossil), whose arguments I now understand and shake my head at, given his clear misunderstanding of this amazing work. But more recently, I stumbled across the speculative realist conference's audio of Quentin Meillassoux, in English no less! Of course, his accent was pretty thick and I had to grab the transcript, but it was so illuminating, and his response to Ray Brassier's critique in Nihil Unbound so complete and so solid...well, I was in love. Instant love. So I went online and picked up Nihil Unbound and this book, along with Laruelle and Non-Philosophy , in which Brassier has an essay I'm excited to read.

I sort of thought of it as above my level of comprehension. But, as usual with philosophical works, I was surprised by how much I have already absorbed from my feverish readings that let me understand this with only a couple furrowed brows and side-long glances at Wikipedia. It helps that while I haven't read Being and Event , I've read a couple excellent breakdowns of Alain Badiou's thought, and it really helps that my college philosophy profs gave me a good grounding in Descartes, Hume and Kant.

But to the meat of the text itself: Meillassoux does something here that completely blows my fucking mind. I've had my brain prepared for this a bit by R. Scott Bakker's blog, since his Blind Brain Theory actually fits very nicely inside the shifted paradigm offered in After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Which is to say, the idea that there are informatic constraints on our brains is a little nested doll inside the overarching sweep of Meillassoux's confrontation with what he calls the Ptolemaic counter-revolution epitomized and championed by Kant in response to the Galilean-Copernican revolution in science. Where science began slowly removing centrality of the human mind from knowledge, philosophy (or at least Kant) reacted by trying to enthrone the human mind. Decentralization is the arrow of progress, and philosophy broke with that arrow for reasons that, as Meillassoux outlines, were themselves pretty egregious errors, prime examples of an assumption making an ass out of u and...mption. It is also clear which scientists you've heard championing certain philosophical stances as underpinnings of their own understanding of the philosophy of science (especially metaphysical stances) as you make your way through this book. A couple years ago or less, I read Chomsky and His Critics , and man oh man do I ever want to know how many essayists in that volume have read After Finitude by now.

For anyone interested in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, or anyone who finds Kant insufferable, this is the book for you. Also, for anyone who wants to know what the most massive and radical intervention in philosophy since Descartes dreamed his wacky dreams is. Because it's this. I am going to read Brassier now, and then the collection of critical essays on François Laruelle. Then maybe I'll return to my rudely interrupted Gene Wolfe-fest (these books came in the mail and I couldn't say no). Although honestly, I might just read this book again. And again. And again. I have such a contemporary philosophy boner right now. I LOVE YOU QUENTIN! I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABIES!(less)

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May 12, 2010 Eric Phetteplace rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

An essential work for understanding where contemporary philosophy is--or could be--heading. Meillassoux's style of argumentation is unique and refreshing: far from pitting texts against one another as if trying to win the prize for most citations per page, he pits theorems against one another and thoroughly investigates their underlying presumptions. It's clear that concepts are what's at stake and not personae. He anticipates counterarguments and, what's more, explicitly uses them as opportunit...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Razi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Whether you agree with the younger Meillassoux's philosophy or not, you must agree that he is an excellent writer. As far as the philosophy is concerned, based on the problems of the knowledge of the 'ancestral events' and Hume's problems with causation, Meillassoux gives the ground to science intending a death-blow to metaphysics, a going back to Descartes and his mathematical certainty, away from the "Kantian catastrophe" of transcendentalism. The final chapter is reminiscent of the classical...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Jonathan Norton rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is mainly interesting for what it reveals about the state of French philosophy at the time it was written, rather than breaking any new ground for philosophy in general. Apparently the author and his colleagues are completely unaware of any analytic philosophy since about 1950, and think that it can be covered with brief references to "positivism" and a short discussion of one remark from the Tractatus.

Meillasoux starts with 2 key propositions: first, that "modern philosophy" is commit...more This book is mainly interesting for what it reveals about the state of French philosophy at the time it was written, rather than breaking any new ground for philosophy in general. Apparently the author and his colleagues are completely unaware of any analytic philosophy since about 1950, and think that it can be covered with brief references to "positivism" and a short discussion of one remark from the Tractatus.

Meillasoux starts with 2 key propositions: first, that "modern philosophy" is committed to varying forms of what he calls "correlationism". Secondly, he says that correlationism cannot accommodate "ancestrality", which is the problem that modern science posits events and entities that existed before any sentient beings existed to observe them. With regard to "correlationism", the first thing to note is that it is simply not true that modern Anglophone philosophy is in any way committed to it, in fact plenty of its practitioners would find nothing problematic about ancestrality. Only on the assumption that some form of logical positivism still reigns would that be the case.

But never mind about that. Meillasoux does not seem to have a consistent characterisation of what "correlationism" is, at least not one that has a *specific* problem with ancestrality. If we are to read it as a form of what Kant dubbed "empirical idealism", then it has to declare ancestral statements meaningless; but it has to do the same for objects that lack present observers. QM portrays the correlationist as rejecting such a view, and instead claiming something more like Kant's transcendental idealism, capable of appealing to counterfactuals about possible-but-not-actual observers. In which case the correlationist has no problem with ancestrality, and they would also be quite correct to rebut QM as mistaking transcendental conditions for physical ones, which is the next reply he considers. But QM thinks this strategy fails due to the requirement for *actual observers* to exist at a time. In that case correlationism fails, but it fails because it is in fact empirical idealism over again (a charge QM also suggests against it, at various places), and again, there is no *special* problem about ancestrality.

It strikes me the author simply doesn't have a consistent target in "correlationism" and is conflating together quite distinct positions; in any case the question he doesn't ask (which a genuine positivist like Ayer would do) is in what sense "correlationism" differs from realism, if it can avail itself about counterfactuals about unobserved things. What makes those counterfactuals true?

But never mind: if it were true that science and correlationism conflict, what of it? Who has the higher authority? Why not take the stand of philosophy against mere "scientism"? The accusation usually made against post-Quinean naturalist Anglophone philosophy is that it cedes all to the scientists and leaves out all the human-centred insights that only the continentals still care about. Meillasoux seems quite uncritical with regard to statements about "arche-fossils", and the nearest we get to an argument for their acceptance is that rejecting ancestrality would be tantamount to agreeing with Young Earth Creationists. I suppose YECism is a genuine case of correlationism (God, being eternal, always observes all that exists), but merely agreeing about that detail doesn't make one a reactionary. It seems that QM is drawing his metaphysics to suit his politically-charged outlook, and being quite "scientistic" about it.

He also has a line that correlationism has encouraged attitudes of cultural relativism in the West and prevents intellectuals challenging the rise of new religious attitudes; all that sounds jolly good but it is simply recapping the anti-postmodernist polemics of the 90s. This is all right, but it isn't new.

The middle section of the book is taken up with the attempt to break "the correlationist circle", by demonstrating that the law of non-contradiction applies to statements about the noumenal world. The trouble with this demonstration is that it depends on treating the "contradictory object" as if it were contradictory in ALL respects; but only 1 aspect would be needed for a contradictory object. Surprisingly, QM immediately acknowledges to problem, and that his demonstration is treating of *inconsistent* rather than contradictory objects. Unfortunately he simply brackets the problem for later resolution, which means the book doesn't exactly live up to the billing Alain Badiou gives it in the introduction.

The final section of the book is QM's attempt to sketch how he relates science at the phenomenal level to the "absolutist" basis he tried to establish earlier. The argument depended on the denial of any necessary beings or connections in the universe; so we need an explanation of how science could be possible in such a realm. It's here that QM really could do with having read some analytic metaphysics from the past 40 years, since the view he is trying to ground seems not very far away from the one David Lewis worked on and published so much about. Non-necessitarian theories of laws are not new, they were the prevailing view in Anglo departments, at least up to the 90s.

Altogether none of this seems to me as wrong or definitely misguided, though the central argument about contradiction and necessity is inadequate (as admitted), and I am not convinced about exactly what "correlationism" is, or whether it has a crucial problem with ancestrality. I think Meillasoux and the rest of the "speculative realists" could gain a lot from engaging with Theodore Sider and at least a dozen other writers writing about metaphyics and epistemology in English; I'm not sure they have anything startlingly different to offer in exchange. This seems to mark the end of "continental philosophy" as an antithetical project to the analytical one.(less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

The best review I can give a philosophy book is that it ripped a few of my assumptions about the universe to shreds - and I enjoyed every second of it. Even if one doesn't accept every conclusion in Quentin Meillassoux's After Finitude, the beauty of his arguments still stand out as a remarkable achievement in a time when philosophy feels a bit tapped out in the originality department.

Meillassoux performs the seemingly impossible task of resurrecting the stance of science and the absolute in ph...more

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Sep 13, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: continental, philosophy, favorites

This brief book by Quentin Meillassoux is a must read for anyone interested in the contemporary juncture between philosophy, science, and religion. In a compelling and persuasive argument, delivered in clear and lucid prose, Meillassoux examines the conceptual and philosophical links between religious fundamentalism and sceptical atheism. In doing so, he draws out this link and its consequences in a fashion that is tighter and more precise than even Slavoj Zizek's recent forays into this territo...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Phillip rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

I totally agree as with many who have gone before me that this book is very well written, clearly argued, and quite an engaging read.
Having said that there were a lot of the arguments in it that I didn't really agree with. This is kinda quick and schematic and probably not that clear tried to work through some of my doubts about the book. Probably the first question arose in relation to the principle claim of the first chapter around the supposed novelty of the problem which the ancestral fossi...more I totally agree as with many who have gone before me that this book is very well written, clearly argued, and quite an engaging read.
Having said that there were a lot of the arguments in it that I didn't really agree with. This is kinda quick and schematic and probably not that clear tried to work through some of my doubts about the book. Probably the first question arose in relation to the principle claim of the first chapter around the supposed novelty of the problem which the ancestral fossil poses to the perspective which Meillasoux labels as correlationism. The ancestral fossil is one which predates the existence of the given of human consciousness, as such it acts as a profound threat to a position founded in the necessity of this consciousness. And this is because rather than simply being an absence in the given (the given, given by consciousness) the ancestral fossil presupposes an absence of the given. This difference which characterizes the fundamental novelty of the threat to correlationism by the ancestral fossil however is arguably based in a mischaracterization of correlationism. The difference between an absence of the given and an absence in the given could only be determined, on the basis of those lacuna which constitute the condition of finitude for correlationism, on the basis of any absence in the given already having been reified by the given such that these lacuna would not be understood as an absence of the given. That’s to say, how can we describe the lacuna which the correlation necessarily presupposes, given that any correlation would be finite, as not being an absence of the given. True the given may be present at some point or place in the manifest, but this is not to say that it would be present at those points where it is not correlated with the manifest. To argue otherwise would be precisely not what correlationism should be, that is that it is predicated on a relation inherently finite in nature. To say that there is a difference between an absence of the given and an absence in the given is to say that in the case of the absence in the given the given is presupposed as being where it is not, such that an absence in the given could not be an absence of the given, such that it correlates the manifest even in those places where it does not give it. Or to put it more simply I don't buy Meillasoux's argument that these lacuna are not an instance of an absence of the given. A self consistent correlationist could not commit themselves to such a proposition and remain a correlationist given that this would necessitate contravening precisely that quality of the correlation which is characteristic of it, that is its inherent finitude. The finitude of the correlation would always presuppose at least its absence which its finitude would necessarily condition. For me this seems to be a semantic difference at best and I find it hard from the outset to accept this distinction which Meillasoux wants to argue for.
Secondly is a certain equivocation which Meillasoux seems to engage in, in respect to the categories of necessity and reason. He uses Hume’s example of the billiard table to argue in favour of the contingency of the laws of nature. Putting it in a nutshell we can say that everywhere owing to the necessary finitude of our perspective we see things the reason for which we have no idea, this is not to say however that there is no necessity in the manner of the appearance of that which appears, it is just that the reason is internal to the auto consistency of being, to which our finite perspective will never give us access. In this way the thrust of Meillasoux’s analysis works from a very strategic deployment of Hume’s example, that is that the reason for the visible is not present in the visible, however, and as we have argued, this absence of reason in the visible is precisely the product of the necessary finitude of our perspective. A good example of this is a fascinating one used by Bergson, that is, to see the colour red as such, to register it as the flowing of a series of light waves, would require 25, 000 years, (I'm not sure what to time frame of the initial exposure was) but if we saw red as a series of light waves, then we would cease to see red as the colour red, but then we would also be faced with the question of what these light waves are exactly anyway. Therefore, light waves could be taken as the reason behind the appearance of red, and red appears precisely to the extent that perception is insensible to the reason for its appearance.
The next step in Meillasoux’s argumentation is again another strategic use of a historical example, this time, Kant’s probabilistic rejoinder to Hume’s hypothetical billiard table, which is that, if the laws of nature were contingent, that is to say, if there were no necessity to the manner in which beings appear, then we would have noticed by now because the irregularities in the manner of being’s appearance would have notified us of this condition. We see however that Meillsoux at this point will exploit a loophole in Kant’s rejoinder so as to make the problem one of probabilistic calculation, and this is where the previous strategic use of Hume’s example to posit the non existence of reason behind the visible as it is for us is useful. Here again we notice another question in relation to Meillasoux’s use of the billiard table example, that is, that it is understood in this context precisely as an unprecedented state of affairs, or an exceptional starting point. That is we calculate probability starting from a given state of affairs conceived of as possessing a singular or momentary character; a kind of floating “evental” moment rather than an element of an onotological totality. This is where Deleuze’s thesis of the univocity of being as a totality repeating itself throughout its ontologically differentiated singularities could pose a real counter argument to Meillasoux. Meillasoux argues that because we cannot calculate the totality of possible outcomes which could be derived by taking the billiard table as the initial state from which we calculate probabilities we are unable to argue that we would have already noticed the contingency of the law's of nature because, quite simply because if it is impossible to calculate the total number of possible outcomes then it is also impossible to say that it simply hasn't happened yet. We haven't noticed because nature has never demonstrated its truly contingent nature to us yet.
Probability however does not necessarily require the presupposition of the absence of ontological consistency behind that which is being calculated probabilistically. To the contrary, probabilistic calculation only has value to the extent that the known factors located within a given system can pinned onto an ontologically consistent background facilitating the appearance of that particular system. If there were no such consistency then the value of calculating probabilistically from a set of given factors would be nonexistent because we would have to admit that any possible outcome was equally as likely as any other. We would never think to calculate in that manner. Internal ontological necessity could be said to be at least an implicit metaphysical presumption of probabilism. If we calculated the probability of the outcome of a horse race this would be done on the basis of the totality of the known factors. Of course unknown factors, or strange atrractors could determine the outcome, but there is no reason to think that these unknown factors would take the form of ontologically unprecedented events which would radically break with the consistency of that which appears, and that which furnishes the conditions of possibility for the appearance of the system in question.
That is if we understood the isolated instance of the billiard table as a part of an ontological totality and not as an appearance behind which resided no sort of necessity in depth, that is if we understood it not being as an isolated instance at all, we would not even follow Kant with his probabilistic refutation because it would not be a question of probabilism, we would propose, instead of this refutation, the idea that that which appears, does so only on the basis of appearing in an “internally” (the sense of the term internal is really only a function of finite perspective; it is for finite perspective that this reason would be internal to the visible which is its ‘surface’) consistent fashion. Meillasoux having freed appearance from any such claims of consistency by having first extrapolated from the necessary absence of the reason in the visible itself, (but then the reason for the visible as we have argued precisely cannot appear within the visible owing to its being the product of finite perspective) is able to argue that we should accept that literally any possibility is equally feasible because we cannot see any reason. It is precisely this chain of reasoning which leads us to the moment of the proposition of a “hyper chaos” as the ultimate foundation of everything. The problem for me is that at several points along the way of this chain of reasoning Meillasoux engages in some conceptual conflations which are pretty hard to accept. Meillasoux does say at one point that philosophy is a strange discourse which by its very nature will rely on quasi sophistical arguments, I gues it feels like some of these arguments are genuinely sophistical. But this really leaves us with a profound problem which would be, how do we determine the relationship between this foundational hyper chaos and appearance. Meillasoux would be committed to arguing that there is no determinate relationship between the two fields but that somehow they do relate in some way. Another problem I have with this is the idea that this is all new. Lyotard was probably the most radical materialist of his generation and this was well before After Finitude. Already in The Inhuman Lyotard was considering precisely these question of the radical contingency not only of all anthropological perspective in a manner equally as radical as what Meillasoux does here. Probably because Lyotard framed his ideas in the context of occasional essays which do not seem to have anywhere near the same level of argumentational development they were not received or have not had the same impact as a book like After Finitude, even if their conceptual implications are equally as far reaching. Lyotard didn't create systems of thought which had an outwardly imposing appearance but rather lose reflections which belied their real scope. having said all of that I actually really liked the book, it gives the reader the sense of going on a far reaching intellectual journey with some beautiful imagery along the way and fascinating insights, I gives I just didn't agree with the overall path. (less)

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Mar 06, 2013 Michael Ledezma rated it 5 of 5 stars

Read this directly after a Heidegger binge to clear the air, and never has it been clearer.
A wonderful manifesto for the underlying sentiment of our times: contingency must be affirmed, absolutely.

Negating the necessity of contingency leads to a reintegration of the affirmation of the necessity of contingency. Brilliant. Just the chapter 4 critique of Kant's faulty conclusion against Hume is enough to warrant the 5 stars.
Kant: "If the natural laws were not necessarily fixed, then all would be a...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Bryanbannon rated it 3 of 5 stars

He's prone to overgeneralization and setting up straw-men to establish his points. I found it an interesting read with many fine points (he trying to do real philosophy!), but couldn't get over the abrupt dismissals and lack of serious engagement with the philosophers and traditions he caricatures.

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Sep 09, 2012 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars

The absolute is, after all, thinkable. I don't agree with everything in this book, nor with all of its implications, but that it is a truly great work of philosophy is undeniable.

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Jan 18, 2009 Les rated it 5 of 5 stars

Who'd a thunk there'd be anything new to say in continental philosophy? For all you relativists, this'll make you look over your kantian/hegelian shoulder.

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Dec 06, 2010 Roger Whitson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: academia, philosophy

Really great opening salvo in the fight against corellationism, though I'm not as optimistic about mathematics as either Meillassoux or his teacher Badiou.

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Mar 30, 2013 Jazz Salo rated it 3 of 5 stars

A great example of philosophical economy and expression. Arguments demonstrating the exactness of a surgeon with the energy of a monsoon.

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Dec 25, 2012 Egor Sofronov rated it 5 of 5 stars

A mind-bending philosophical manifesto, a virulent attack on the current paralysis of relativism. A flight of sheer, virtuosic intellect.

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Jun 20, 2010 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars

Very ambitious and well-argued, although wrong I think.

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Jan 09, 2013 M. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, theory, with-me-in-ca, 2012

I talk about this book a bit both in my review of MALADY OF THE CENTURY & Meillassoux's THE NUMBER & THE SIREN, but one major thing for me was that I finally actually finished this book, despite being short in length. It's got some astounding & incredibly dense ideas, but still manages to be delivered in understandable language if you put the effort into it.

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Dec 31, 2011 Clare rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

My full review is at http://inputs.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/after-finitude-2008/

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Jun 26, 2008 Marcus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hmmm...Speculative Realism.
More at Collapse/Urbanomic

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May 07, 2013 C. Derick Varn rated it 4 of 5 stars

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“If we look through the aperture which we have opened up onto the absolute, what we see there is a rather menacing power--something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare, of engendering random and frenetic transformations, or conversely, of producing a universe that remains motionless down to its ultimate recesses, like a cloud bearing the fiercest storms, then the eeriest bright spells, if only for an interval of disquieting calm. We see an omnipotence equal to that of the Cartesian God, and capable of anything, even the inconceivable; but an omnipotence that has become autonomous, without norms, blind, devoid of the other divine perfections, a power with neither goodness nor wisdom, ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas. We see something akin to Time, but a Time that is inconceivable for physics, since it is capable of destroying without cause or reason, every physical law, just as it is inconceivable for metaphysics, since it is capable of destroying every determinate entity, even a god, even God. This is not a Heraclitean time, since it is not the eternal law of becoming, but rather the eternal and lawless possible becoming of every law. It is a Time capable of destroying even becoming itself by bringing forth, perhaps forever, fixity, stasis, and death.” — 2 people liked it

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