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Ideas of Quentin Meillassoux, by Text

[French, fl. 2006, Teaches at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.]

2006 After Finitude; the necessity of contingency
1 p.3 19647 The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties
1 p.5 19648 Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being
1 p.15 19649 Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality
1 p.23 19650 The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible
1 p.25 19651 Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied
1 p.26 19652 How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans?
2 p.28 19654 We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being
2 p.29 19653 The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind
2 p.41 19656 Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality?
2 p.44 19657 In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable
2 p.46 19658 Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist)
3 p.60 19659 The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent
3 p.62 19660 Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be
3 p.76 19662 It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist
3 p.77 19663 We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency
3 p.78 19664 Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts
3 p.79 19665 Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality
4 p.83 19666 If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us
4 p.84 19667 If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it?
4 p.86 19668 Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow
4 p.91 19670 Why are contingent laws of nature stable?
4 p.99 19671 The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws
5 p.115 19674 The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality
5 p.119 19675 Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do
5 p.126 19677 What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible