The Specter of Signification: Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus on the Empty Sign and Its Iteration

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F26482789%3A_____%2F25%3A10152893" target="_blank" >RIV/26482789:_____/25:10152893 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.revue-klesis.org/index.html#d59" target="_blank" >https://www.revue-klesis.org/index.html#d59</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Specter of Signification: Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus on the Empty Sign and Its Iteration

Original language description

While defending his speculative materialism, Quentin Meillassoux has accused many thinkers of a « correlationism » in which the cognizing subject is incapable of reaching the reality indifferent to human thought. The prime instances he gives of strong correlationism are Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. In this article, I argue that Meillassoux’s speculative materialism closely resembles Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. They share a fundamental belief in the contingency of all entities. Wittgenstein advances the picture theory of meaning, in which language and reality are correlated. However, on closer inspection, the picture theory operates on two levels: the level of names referring to objects and the level of propositions referring to facts. I argue that the former level is very close to Meillassoux’s theory of the empty sign that is devoid of meaning and capable of identical iteration. This is, he claims, the distinguishing feature of mathematical discourse, which is capable of accessing mind-independent reality. If this is so, then either some correlations are capable of accessing that reality or, more importantly, the notion of correlation must be specified more precisely. At the same time, I wish to argue that Meillassoux’s derivation of the empty sign can be taken as complementing the Tractatus, because Meillassoux argues that a sign is thinkable without any signification. In the final part of the paper, I evaluate Meillassoux’s argument for, the facticity of every correlation, and argue that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, under certain interpretations, can escape this critique.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA23-06827S" target="_blank" >GA23-06827S: The Ornament: Aesthetics, Politics and Metaphysics of Repetition</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Klēsis - Revue de philosophie

ISSN

1954-3050

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

59

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2025

Country of publishing house

FR - FRANCE

Number of pages

20

Pages from-to

1-19

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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