Thursday 3 November 2011

Facing the Object

"Correlationism affirms the indissoluble primacy [emphasis added] of the relation between thought and its correlate over the metaphysical hypostatization or representationalist reification of either term of the relation." - Brassier, The Enigma of Realism.
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Facing the object:

So, the object exists? Contentious! They say: "Ah, but you could be wrong, naïfs!"; we say: "Ah, but who cares, waifs?!".

Am I so certain of my own existence that I might haughtily dismiss the 'object' as a mere - yes, the merest! - figment of my imagination? - And scoff, mouth full, spittle flecking, chops flapping, snorting like an engorged drainpipe, an inch from choking?

Am I so confident of the existence of my language that I could - with a salivated sneer of the lips and a righteous roll of the eyes - wryly denounce 'the object' as a therefrom generated fiction? ('A convenience, at best'; seminar fodder; grad-bait.)

What a spectacle: With my sly, glinting, dying slither of selfhood self-absorbed in gloaming I would prance (then hobble!) - face pallid and ashen, casting askance glances -, lurching wretchedly, shimmying limpingly, all to convince all - really: all! - that my being is so bearably light. - Impaled on my own pretensions. A tragicomic parade of crushing inadequacies. Put this dog down!

In short: Why would I be so willing to ground my skepticism in the obvious fact that I could be wrong and yet not equally willful in grounding my realism in the equally obvious fact that I could be right? Why does one variant of the obvious obviate the other?

Calling all previous claimants to the radix!:
Dwellers of the subject.
Incumbents of the object.
Cosmopolites of the inbetween.
The radix is a fatty root: purple-faced belly-belchers, the lot of you!
Wheretofore, denizens of the obvious? - Majestic citizens of the commonplace; living; braving a fresh air that nourishes.

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That most grumpy of disgruntled, growling 'realist' grumblers - our dear friend and valued colleague, Ray B. (rhymes with baby; if there were more than one it'd rhyme with rabies [easy now, ed.]) - is a little too enamoured with only allegedly forgotten 'realities' (not to mention: his own intellect). And his enthusiasm for everything bifurcating is grating at first glance and and galling last. But he's definitely got a point there, innum?

We can all agree: it is a question of primacy (emphasis added?).