Combining Texts

Ideas for 'After Finitude', 'Personal Identity' and 'Beauty: a very short introduction'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4)
     A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No!
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2)
     A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature.