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7:36

(In »Intensities and phenomena in a relationalist universe«)

Correlationism’s critics often return to the question of ancestrality, where they focus on the subject and the object not being historically equal, if they even exist as entities of their own. Human consciousness or the mind has only existed for a few seconds of planet Earth’s 24-hour history. Existence evidently needs no subjects or consciousnesses in order to exist as a complete existence, and might well be thought to exist without any present subject even in the future. But if correlationism is to be criticised in the right way, it must be from inside its philosophical advances and not from the outside, so that we do not relapse into classical realism. It is then clear that the fundamental problem with correlationism is that Kant does not seem to understand why the thing in itself is unattainable for the human being. Kant imagines that the thing is out of reach of human perception and consciousness since our senses are not sufficiently expanded and flexible to be able to assimilate the thing in its entirety. The senses therefore create a world of representations only.