ABSTRACT
In After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux proposes a speculative overcoming of "correlationism"- his term for all those variants of post-Hegelian philosophy rejecting the absolute. After Finitude has been much criticized for disregarding the complexities of philosophy's history since Hegel. Meillassoux sets out a critical diagnosis of philosophy's present by constructing a dialectical narrative leading from Kant's 'weak' correlationism to Hegel's speculative idealism, and from speculative idealism to 'strong' correlationism, exemplified by contemporary 'post-metaphysical' philosophy. Wilfrid Sellars maintains a Kantian account of modality that situates it squarely within us rather than within things-in-themselves. Like Kant, Sellars rejects modal realism, i.e., the metaphysical claim that necessity and contingency exist in things. Meillassoux's overcoming of correlationism reasserts reason's a priori grip on being conceived as pure potentiality rather than as actual substance. The crucial move in Meillassoux's speculative deduction of absolute contingency is his conversion of epistemic contingency into alethic contingency.
