SPECULATIVE NIHILISM: A CRITIQUE OF MEILLASSOUX'S PROJECT AS A RADICAL FORM OF PHILOSOPHICAL DESPAIR

Abstract

A Critique of Meillassoux’s Project as a Radical Form of Philosophical Despair The article is devoted to a critical analysis of Quentin Meillassoux’s philosophical project as presented in his foundational work After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. The core thesis demonstrated is that this project, despite its declared anti-nihilistic and anti-fideistic intentions, ultimately fails to overcome nihilism, instead constituting its most radical ontological expression, which is termed «speculative nihilism». The introductory part of the article outlines the context of correlationism a dominant «postkantian» paradigm which Meillassoux seeks to dismantle. The analysis focuses on his famous argument of the arche-fossil and the problem of fideism, which serve as the primary drivers for his critique of the philosophy of finitude. Meillassoux’s proposed solution is meticulously examined: the rational demonstration of a new Absolute, the principle of factiality, which asserts that the only necessary truth is the absolute contingency of being itself. This ultimate Absolute is identified as Hyper Chaos, representing the infinite, ungovernable potential for existence to arise and vanish without any cause. A clear demarcation line is drawn between the classical nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche, understood as a cultural and axiological crisis stemming from the «death of God» and Meillassoux’s speculative nihilism. It is argued that Meillassoux’s approach is fundamentally more radical because it devalues not only transcendent values but also the very platform for any axiological project, such as the assumed stability and universality of physical laws. Consequently, existential rebellion or creative will are rendered ontologically futile. Thus, the article demonstrates that Meillassoux’s ontology paralyzes the very possibility of an ethical or axiological project, fundamentally depriving it of any stable foundation. Special attention is given to analyzing the fundamental contradiction within Meillassoux’s speculative realism. The research examines two attempts by the author to rescue his project from its own destructive nihilistic conclusions: the appeal to the non-contingency of mathematics and the notion of «speculative hope» for a future God. The concept of speculative hope is deconstructed, revealing it to be the weakest form of fideism–a belief in belief itself or a hopeful dependence on a cosmic lottery. In conclusion, it is argued that Meillassoux’s project collapses into its own opposite: the rigorously rational speculative project terminates in an act of blind faith, and the anti-nihilistic one results in the rational affirmation of nihilism as the fundamental, inescapable law of being. This self-contradiction, or the logical suicide of rationalism, is identified as the highest and most profound form of philosophical despair in contemporary thought.