The term correlationism is not something [[Immanuel Kant]] or [[David Hume]] explicitly used, but it is associated with their ideas due to later philosophical interpretations. The term was coined by philosopher Quentin Meillassoux in the context of critiquing modern [[Philosophy]], especially Kant’s and Hume’s, for what he saw as a limitation in their thinking about the relationship between mind and world. [[David Hume]]: Hume’s work centers on empiricism, arguing that we can only know the world through our sense perceptions and experiences. He was skeptical about our ability to know the true nature of reality beyond these perceptions. For Hume, the relationship between cause and effect, for example, is something we infer from repeated experiences, not something we can know with certainty about the world itself. This means there’s always a gap between the world as it is and how we experience it. [[Immanuel Kant]]: Kant responded to Hume by developing what is known as transcendental idealism. He agreed that we cannot know the world as it is in itself (the noumenon), but argued that the mind actively structures our experience of the world. What we perceive is a correlation between our cognitive faculties and the external world, rather than a direct access to the world itself. He believed we could only know things as they appear to us (the phenomenon), not as they are independently of our perception. Correlationism: Meillassoux, when coining the term, was critiquing the idea that we can only understand the world as a correlation between mind and world, between subject and object, as seen in the philosophies of Kant and Hume. According to Meillassoux, correlationism limits philosophy by suggesting that we cannot think about the world independently of our human perspective. In summary, while Kant and Hume did not use the term “correlationism,” their works contributed to the idea that there is a relationship, or correlation, between our minds and the world, and this correlation shapes how we can know or understand reality. # Dualism & Correlationism Correlationism and [[Dualism]] are both philosophical concepts, but they focus on different aspects of thought. Their relationship can be understood by examining how each addresses the problem of reality, subjectivity, and knowledge. Correlationism is a term coined by philosopher Quentin Meillassoux to describe a certain stance in modern philosophy that asserts we can only know the correlation between thought and being, but never being in itself (i.e., the world as it is independent of human thought). In this view, we cannot escape the correlation between the subject (human thought) and object (the world), as all our knowledge is shaped by this relationship. This leaves reality itself inaccessible, except as it appears to us through human perception and cognition. [[Dualism]], on the other hand, is a broader concept often associated with metaphysical distinctions, most notably the mind-body dualism attributed to Descartes. Dualism refers to the division of reality into two fundamentally distinct substances or principles, such as mind and matter, or subject and object. In dualist systems, these two categories are seen as independent and irreducible. The Relationship: • Common Ground: Both correlationism and dualism engage with the question of how the subject relates to the object (or mind to body, thought to world). Dualism does this by positing a fundamental separation between the two realms, while correlationism argues that we cannot know one independently of the other—our knowledge is always a knowledge of their correlation. • Difference: Dualism generally assumes that both realms (mind and body, or subject and object) have an independent existence, even if they interact or are related. Correlationism, however, denies that we can know anything about the object (or reality) as it exists independently of the subject, emphasizing that our understanding is always tied to the correlation between the two. In summary, correlationism questions the very possibility of knowing reality independent of human thought, while dualism presupposes that two distinct substances (mind and matter, for example) exist but are independent of one another. Where dualism focuses on explaining the relationship or separation between two types of reality, correlationism is more concerned with the limits of our access to reality, given that all knowledge is mediated through human perception and thought. `Concepts:` [[Philosophy]] `Knowledge Base:`