Concepts and objects

Abstract

This article presents in a series of numbered propositions a critical outline of the correlationist epistemological/metaphysical program. It traces the genealogy of correlationism up to the postmodernist projects, Latour's irreductionism, and Harman's Object-oriented philosophy. Correlationsim serves as the basis for widespread attempts to translate traditional metaphysical and epistemological problems into symptoms of other, non-philosophical (political, social, cultural, psychological etc.) factors. The basic form of correlationism is presented in the form of the Gem argument, as exemplified by Berkeley's skepticism. Upon thorough critical examination, this argument is exposed as logically inconsistent. Therefore, the reason behind Western dedication to correlationism seems to be of emotional, ethical, and/or political stock, rather than based on rational superiority of an argument. A rejection of correlationism and the re-establishing of the epistemology-metaphysics connection does not mean, however, a regression to the reactionary philosophical purism which would argue that philosophy is unaffected by politics or history. The main claim of the article is that the key problems of epistemology and metaphysics should be treated as irreducible if we want to keep relying on science as the prime means of cognitive access to reality. The rejection of correlationism entails the rehabilitation of a critical link between epistemology and metaphysics and of related differences: sapience/sentience, notion/object. The correlationist attempts to get rid of them stem from the rejection of the cognitive privilege of rational explanation per se, which leads to irrationalism and fideism. These problems are valuable instruments we require in order to keep scientific results meaningful without turning a blind eye to the epistemological and ontological problems they produce.