Eugene Thacker’s Conception of Negative Correlation Regarding Quentin Meillassoux’s Speculative Materialism

Abstract

The current article deals with the analysis of the recently proposed ontological possibility to think the thing-in-itself. Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism is explained in relation with Eugene Thacker’s critique of vitalistic correlation which is assumed as a broader attempt of thinking to transcend itself. The latter analysis manifests the limit of Meillassoux’s project optimism, concerning the ordering of necessity of contingency, situated through the epistemological conditioning of possibilities. In this part, contingent logic requires the full apprehension of the possibility to be otherwise despite the determination of logical probabilism. The article ends with the explanation of Thacker’s suggestion of the new mediation theory based on the excommunication (the negative communication act) as the primal condition of every speculative approach.