Tiempo en fuga

Nos despedimos, de entrada, de la quimera del Único Tiempo. La desechamos porque ha caído por su propio peso, porque el mundo que ella describía y que pretendía configurar como plano fundamental se ha rebelado utilizando los propios términos que, bajo su abrigo, se hacían pasar por legítimos. Sin embargo el tiempo homogéneo, el Único, se queja. Afirma haber sido contaminado, vejado, de haber encontrado sus dominios invadidos por sospechas infundadas. Todavía lucha por restituirse como Verdadero, pretensión que se desvanece ante nuestras superficies menos receptivas, afortunadamente.

El Único Tiempo es hermano del Único Espacio. Ambos planos de referencia absoluta, sustancias finitas y bien separadas que ofrecen a los demás entes un suelo cerrado y seguro donde ubicarse y donde desplegarse. Hicieron de su hábitat La Naturalidad, se apresuraron a primarse sobre todo, afirmándose como originarios. Pero Tiempo y Espacio, en estado puro, son Vacío, y desde luego hubo aquellos que sospecharon, que negaron en ellos la razón de su existencia y, primando su materia, hicieron de ellos simples residuos. A fin de cuentas da lo mismo: estos residuos seguían siendo reconocidos como condición de posibilidad y único hogar posible. Las cualidades deseables del tiempo y espacio absolutos: superficies de referencialidad precisa, cuyos límites son bien determinables y absolutamente mesurables, Espacio-Geometría, Tiempo-Aritmética, y lo más importante: garantía de las ocurrencias de los hombres, de la loca razón que se cree poseedora de la realidad, de las divinas

leyes universales. De esta manera Tiempo-Espacio y hombre se vuelven cómplices.

Cronos, sin embargo, no está despojado de toda fuerza: se aferra profundamente entre las creencias del sentido común, de un consenso que necesita organizar y ser organizado, de masas que han de ser movidas para el trabajo, la diversión, la interacción y el progreso. Es por eso que Cronos siempre parece tirar hacia adelante, hacia un horizonte bien determinado: la mejora continua de la realidad, una evolución donde el hombre ha resultado el ser cuasi perfecto que sólo logrará su  realización con el avance de las sociedades y la sincronización total de los individuos en pro de los ideales de La Humanidad: Orden, Progreso, Eficiencia, Productividad y una Felicidad acabada que puede y habrá de consumirse van íntimamente ligados con la cronometrización del devenir, con su segmentarización y con la selección tiránica de los cortes. Cronos es un Señor del Orden Planetario, otra quimera tan engañosa como su gobernante.

Hemos desenmascarado al farsante, pero ahora, sin un locus en el tiempo, perdidos entre fugacidades de encuentros, seguimos moviéndonos y siendo movidos. ¿Dónde cortar el vértigo, cómo saber en qué coordenadas precisas nos movemos? En la Esquizofrenia que se vuelve subversiva, esta pregunta ni siquiera llega a plantearse.

Naive Realism

Speculative Realism is a very interesting philosophical movement, not a homogeneuos "school" characterized by any common method or thinking sphere. Despite there is a full emergence of philosophical enthusiasm spread through many different concerns, we must be careful with a new pan-scientific obsession flaunted by some of its supporters. Those like Ray Brassier whose thesis we will discuss more specifically.

The article by Ray Brassier Concepts and Objects is a wide fertile field for those seeking fun with scientificist metaphysical arguments, helping us to remember the ghosts of the golden era of positivism at the early twentieth century when the claims to unify Science knowledge seemed to be probable and the reduction/elimination of philosophy seemed a great project. This text won't be a punctual critique of the article, I think it is not necessary when its main assumptions are expossed. Finding the formal error in a formula is useless when you can previously perceive that it is made with superficiality.

Many believe that all the problems of realism lie into the 'word-thing' relationship. This is the classic impasse of Representation that moves the problem to the 'subject-object' domain. But contemporary philosophy is starting to forget this old querelles. In other words, the consideration that the only obstacle to successfully construct one theory about reality is the ever annoying concreteness –which implies restriction to a defined position in the world which escape would be the most desirable– vanishes together with the claim of only one single theory.

The main problem of this kind of realism is the one that faces modern “correlationism”. According to this theory -with difference of what is defended in Antique Ontology- men are not pre-equipped with the ability to represent themselves the world like a mirror, they have no access to absolute truth by the mere exercise of reflective and rational scrutiny. It is man who puts the necessary conditions for the world to emerge, “contaminating” it with his categories. It seems, however, that concern against correlationism in speculative realism is excessive when the ideal objective of scientistic pretensions in making philosophy are removed. Is the mere consideration about the intercession of cognitive-perceptual apparatus of subjectivity in knowledge -almost unavoidable- so dangerous when it comes to asserting the existence of a reality independent of the human mind?

Following the logic of some philosophers when we are accepting that there is a condition of possibility for the emergence of things and that this condition lies in the subjectivity, we're implying that there are not such things. Correlationism would unite man and reality in the origins of knowledge being these inseparable. However acceptance of trascendental subjectivity never leads -by any necessary deduction- to the elimination of what we see nor denies its existence. To Brassier and many philosophers of his ilk who attempt to justify science before any critical inquiry, correlationism presents such an annoying problem because only one side of a dual relationship is considered, this is trascendental subjectivity forgetting transcendental worldliness as the very condition for the constitution of any subjectivity.

Experimental realisms can be perfectly correlationist, but the disturbing paradoxes appear when such theories are advocated to impose one single unilateral mode of representation fueled by the dreams of Reason that feels itself capable of a reliable objective analysis. This kind of proccedures, I'm afraid, are condemned to old false problems.

Philosophers like Brassier pretend to support exo-subjective reality in terms of contemporary science with a metaphysical of dubious genetics. Honorable claim, no doubt, given the failure of science to substantiate itself whether this philosophical requirement is necessary or not. Anyway, talking about science today has become highly relevant as we are imbued by its swings. It would be expected to accept its processes as accurate knowledge machines, demonstrating that the progressive approach to what always exceed us is possible. However sometimes philosophy -or rather metatheoretical reflection made by many scholars of philosophy- tends to rush into the alleged achievements of scientific activity without stopping to look at the machine before. That is, the science meta-theoricist believes he is before a unified field, ruled by a single model, purified of the everyday world with absolute control of the experience. But today more than ever it is impossible to talk about Science without considering the disparity between each fields studied, between each discipline, its strategies and worldview (Weltanschauung). Today more than ever the scientific field is cracked with allmost no consensus beyond those that occur within the same institutions.

Let us emphasize that neurosciences are the last referred model of progress, but what isn't taken into account is that according to hard scientistic criteria and its project of epistemological unification / normativization, there are no completely supported proccedures on this science. Furthermore, no too exhausting examination is needed to realize that its conceptualization is rather weak. But it is even worse that some philosophers based on this supposed progress become obssesed with radically differentiating knowledge in order to exalt one kind over the other. Such is the case of Brassier when protected by Sellars denounce the proliferation of so-called "folk metaphysics" in philosophy, in contrast to the "legitimate" theoretical thinking of "true metaphysics" that characterize science.

The most absurd comes when Brassier brings correlationism to contemporary philosophies, applying a rather poor formula that is intended to cover all the plurality of philo-correlationist philosophical 'trickeries' (which only common point is to be cautious about Representation). Many speeches come into direct contention with what has been named "Continental Philosophy" located straight from the trench of reason and clarity of Anglo-philosophy whose torch is redemptive Science -or rather, the illusion of a Science. Old arguments like those against Heidegger hold by Carnap resonate -and I do not feel special admiration for the latter- where the dialogue becomes a rather sterile monologue, when the objective is converting the other, disqualifying any argument that breaks with the position defended. Brassier behaves in a roughly similar way, crudely missunderstanding -yes, missunderstanding- not only some statements, but the whole philosophy of great thinkers like Deleuze and Latour, calling them directly as "postmodern" without any regard. His rude “critical” observation allow us to see his lectures only as crude and superficial readings that eventually turn Deleuze into a naive panpsychist and Latour in a exacerbated sociologist.

For Brassier caution with representation -an attitude that has characterized the contemporary philosophy- implies a retreat to the advances of science, a cognofobia fashion set by an extreme and naive humanization of philosophy. Not only is enough for him to mix and reduce all the criticisms coming from this supposed idealistic anthropomorphism (position also widely criticized from these so-called postmodern "pseudo-philosophers"), there's also an exaltation of knowledge and thought measured only in terms of ratio ant its derivative illusions about Science. If questioning the top hierarchy of technocratic rationality implies fear to knowledge, it is not surprising that many look to other places. It is not surprising that some scholars of philosophy appear like mere preachers of science or its faithful servants using their efforts to fill the metaphysic gaps that science produces in its proceedings.