A short exchange on the philosophy of Quentin Meillassoux

RB: Hello, I just finished reading After Finitude. I think its a very exciting book as it attempts to access and come into direct contact with the ”thing in itself”, escaping the Kantian prison. Meillassoux claims to achieve this by saying that contingency is the absolute principle behind everything, the very thing itself. My problem is that Meillassoux does not explain why contingency is the the thing itself. If this is so there must be some evidence or some logical argument to prove this. Why can the laws governing the universe change at any moment? Perhaps I missed something.

Me: His argument is that the so called laws are not enforced by anyone. If one says that there is some condition that keep those stable then he can ask the previous question on the new 'law enforcement agency'. This becomes an infinite regression which discards the existence of any such entity. So he resorts to the eternal danger faced by all laws of sudden collapse.

RB: Ok, so he discards that the universe is governed by reason and necessity due to the fallacy of infinite regression. I guess its just really hard to get used to and understand the idea that there is no reason why things exist at all, that the universe emerged “from nothing, for nothing” as Meillassoux writes. It goes against the very deep human desire for purpose and meaning. He are wired to detects reasons, patterns, causes, etc. I would say that Meillassouxs idea of radical contingency and unreason is impossible for us to truly understand. Perhaps there is a contradiction, is not the fact that there is no reason behind the universe a type of reason? If the universe was truly random then it would not be random, since 100% has a consistency about it. If the things in the universe are always random, they have a consistency about them, therefor there are not random. The law is governed by the law of contingency. For the universe to truly be continent it would need to octillate between chaos and order, continent and necessitate, and perhaps Meillassoux makes this argument. Our world of stability and laws is just a random oscillation between two chaoses.

Me: Yet he arrives this conclusion via reason. Therefore the reason has become a double edged sword in Meillassoux's philosophy. i.e.: An algorithmic approach is unavoidable to establish the metaphysical reality as he does. In other words the reasoning precedes the establishment of the futility of 'the ultimate reason'.

What is important to note in the process of establishing the metaphysical-reality in speculative realism is the use of reason as a tool. For an example one could not immediately see the meta-physical reality from the world itself. Therefore it is necessary follow few steps i.e.: Computations. What is the reasons/conditions for A? It is B and C. What are the reasons or conditions for B and C ? Recurrent nature of the problem is established by following two (or more) such steps. Once the recurrence is established it is argued that the 'reason search' has no terminating point. Now if there is no reason for anything at the first establishment of reasons or conditions for A as B and C is an invalid construct. Therefore the computation and establishing the recurrence become invalid constructs.