It sounds like a normal philosophical argument to me. I like it

I believe the argument is that science references a time where we didn't exist which gave rise to our correlated existence in which the world appears a certain way to us. And a time after us. So science gives us a link to the absolute, which is the world without us. And that world is understood mathematically.

Gave an "arche-fossil for dummies" here. Dunno if that's the argument you mean.

That's a good summary of the arche-fossil argument. What I take from all this is correlation is limited by the fact that we're born and die into this world, as individuals and a species. Yet we know a lot about the world without us thanks to science, which means we're not entirely trapped within a correlationist circle, or we wouldn't have such knowledge. Unless we're willing to deny the world without us and relagate it to mere appearance.

Thus evolution happened [Not Really].

The thing that makes it very convincing to me is "where" that "limit" is located; within a presupposition of the correlationist circle. I go into why I find it persuasive here.

Thanks guys for your inputs. I can't see an up-vote button to give my thumbs up. :meh:

I am reading the stuff you pointed out. Will get back when I understand it.

Thanks again..

I thought of asking this question. If you say that "Unless we're willing to deny the world without us and relagate it to mere appearance." about correlationism, how is it different from SOLIPSISM???

Isn't solipsism saying something similar like "the world is generated by our mind and disappear when I die"???

Isn't solipsism saying something similar like "the world is generated by our mind and disappear when I die"??? — francis20520

I think the line is:

Solipsism says that worldly objects are existentially dependent upon the solipsist's mind. As in, if there wasn't that mind, there would be no objects.

Correlationisms says that worldly objects are not existentially dependent upon a correlationist's mind, but their forms of worldly manifestations are dependent in some sense upon the action of minds/subjects/humans in general.

They both share a certain "anthropocentrism" - putting the human at the centre of metaphysics -, which Meillassoux is also explicitly criticising in After Finitude.

Kant is the archetypal correlationist (of Meillassoux' weak form), you might find keeping his transcendental idealism + empirical realism in mind as the doctrine Meillassoux is reacting against.

Hi Drake, really nice and simple definitions of the two.

But I am wondering this question. For the solipsist it's quite clear that when the mind does not exist objects don't exist.

But what about the correlationist??? What is his view on objects when no minds exist??? Do objects still exist but in a different form than what we measure them to be?? Or do they not exist? But then this is solipsism.

But what about the correlationist??? What is his view on objects when no minds exist??? Do objects still exist but in a different form than what we measure them to be?? Or do they not exist? But then this is solipsism. — francis20520

That place of ambiguity is where the arche-fossil argument works.

Yes, that's a brilliant yet simple argument. I am flabbergasted as to why nobody raised it long time ago. Why did take over 200 years to be raised??

But what about the correlationist??? What is his view on objects when no minds exist??? Do objects still exist but in a different form than what we measure them to be?? Or do they not exist? But then this is solipsism. — francis20520

I believe they take basically an anti-realist stance regarding ontology. Yeah, the world exists without us, but no, we can't say anything about that world independent of how we're correlated with it. What I've been told in the past concerning dinosaurs and what not is that if you could time travel back then, you would see that the world was full of dinosaurs, because that's how it would looks to us. That still doesn't tell us what the world is like independent of human observers.

So they take science to be a correlational exercise based on the empirical world, which is the world as it appears to human beings. It's not a realist enterprise.

It also seems to me that most of the Witty fans also think something like the above. I agree with correlationism when it comes to everyday experience, but I do think science takes us beyond that. We can know something about the real world, it just takes a lot of work. Which does mean that not everything in experience is merely correlational. Like dinosaur bones.

However, at first we didn't know they were dinosaur bones from ancestors living millions of years ago before a massive extinction event. People thought those bones belonged to dragons.