Contingency without unreason: Speculation after meillassoux

Angelaki 19 (1):31-46 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this essay I critique the identification of contingency with sheer arbitrary possibility in Quentin Meillassoux's After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. After offering logical and metaphysical reasons for why such an identification is a limitation on the speculative potential of reason, I draw upon Charles S. Peirce, Gilles Deleuze, and Giambattista Vico to articulate the outlines of a view of contingency which can underwrite a different speculative position to one that is grounded upon an absolute of unreason. This form of speculation, a realism of contingency without an axiom of unreason, is indicated in outline by the structure of divination practices. I thus propose, without defending its actuality, at least the possibility of a divinatory form of speculation that is adequate to the absolute status of contingency.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,634

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-06-14

Downloads
92 (#239,664)

6 months
9 (#404,265)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

The Logic of Relatives.Charles S. Peirce - 1897 - The Monist 7 (2):161-217.
Avicenna and Essentialism.Nader El-Bizri - 2001 - Review of Metaphysics 54 (4):753 - 778.

Add more references