correlationism

is the idea that what lies outside the intersection of thinking and being is unknowable to us.

the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other.'[8]

is the philosophical bias that, sure, things exist in some inaccessible sense, but things aren’t strictly real until they’ve been accessed by a correlator.

Correlationism means that there are things in themselves (as Kant would put it), but that they aren’t “realized” until they are correlated by a correlator, in the same way a conductor might “realize” a piece of music by conducting it. The correlatee requires a correlator to make it real: sure, things exist in some inaccessible sense, but things aren’t strictly real until they’ve been accessed by a correlator.

is the disturbing notion that, for example, raindrops are wet and splashy and spherical, but this data is not the actual raindrop— it’s how you access the raindrop when it falls on your human head. Put more technically, it’s the notion that there are things, and there’s thing-data, and a drastic gap between them.

There are things, and there’s thing data. Raindrops are wet and splashy and spherical, but this data is not the actual raindrop—it’s how you access the raindrop when it falls on your human head If you think about it carefully, the idea that there is a correlator and a correlatee, and a drastic, transcendental gap between them (you can’t point to it), is disturbing.

is, in its strong form, a bias in which the subject is the decider of what counts as real and the thing-in-itself is pushed fully to the sides. For Hegel, it is Spirit, for Heidegger, Dasein, and for Foucault, power-knowledge.

The thing in itself is totally foreclosed, thought of only as an artifact of the strong correlationist thought space. Abracadabra! There is no problem, because now the subject is the grand decider of what gets to count as real! The gap isn’t irreducible; at certain moments in the historical progression of thought it might look as if there is a gap, but not forever. This is strong correlationism. Philosophers have volunteered a variety of beings to be the decider. For Hegel, it’s Spirit, the necessarily historical unfolding of its self-knowing. For Heidegger, it’s Dasein, which he irrationally restricts to human beings, and even more irrationally (on his own terms, even) to German human beings most of all. For Foucault, it’s power-knowledge that makes things real.

is like a mixing desk in a music recording studio. It has two faders: the correlator and the correlatee. Strong correlationism turns the correlator fader all the way up and the correlatee fader all the way down.

Correlationism is like a mixing desk in a music recording studio. It has two faders: the correlator and the correlatee. Strong correlationism turns the correlator fader all the way up and the correlatee fader all the way down. Thus arises from strong correlationism the culturalist idea that culture (or discourse or ideology or …) makes things real.

is problematic because by making reality dependent on the subject, leftists are forced to contradict themselves that, in reality race, gender and environmentality are deeply intertwined in more than a discursively produced social space.

Stepping outside the charmed circle of the decider is seen as absurd or dangerous, as louche essentialism, as a whole style, not just as a set of ideas. The person who would do that isn’t the person you want to be if you’re trained in theory class: some kind of hippie. Of course, in reality race, gender and environmentality are deeply intertwined, as the strong correlationist New Leftist will admit when it becomes tactically necessary to talk about the environment as, for instance, a discursively (in the Foucauldian sense) produced feature of social space. But this sidesteps the elephant in the room—the literal elephant in the room. Social space is always already construed as human—the one constructed thing that one can’t interfere with is the level at which we start to turn up the fader on the correlatee.

is the Western philosophical bias that has been telling us for so long that humans, in particular human thought, makes things real, that an ethics or politics based simply on allowing something real to impinge on us sounds absurd or impossible.

Western philosophy has been telling itself that humans, in particular human thought, makes things real for so long that an ethics or politics based simply on allowing something real to impinge on us sounds absurd or impossible.

is a bias toward an agent which, if de-privatized, would lead one to arrive quickly at some idea that everything has agency, everything is “alive,” possibly “conscious”; or that consciousness is just another mode of access among equal others.

If one de-privatizes correlationism, one arrives quickly at some idea that everything has agency, everything is “alive,” possibly “conscious”; or that consciousness is just another mode of access among equal others, and so on. There is no need for surprise.

correlationism, n.All

correlationism