Category: Knowledge

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Basic Notions of Metaphysics: Univocal Concept of Being

In this episode of our ongoing series "Basic Notions of Metaphysics", we talk about univocal concept of being as explicated by John Duns Scotus. It is hard to overestimate the influence of the idea that being is an univocal concept, that is: the simple, indivisible and, above all, indifferent notion present in all other concepts - from the spec of dust to God Himself. We argue that univocity represents the point of departure from traditional metaphysics towards modernity and postmodernity; whereas, traditionally, being was understood as reality or act/ἐνέργειᾰ, with univocity it becomes a concept and hence opens the horizon of modern metaphysics with its conceptual systems and reliance on subjectivity. Naturally, we on KT have few objections about that.

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Basic Notions of Metaphysics: Analogia Entis

In this episode of our regular podcast Basic Notions of Metaphysics we provide an account on principle of analogy - a veritable sacred bond of the universe, according to Medieval scientia transcendens. We follow the genesis of this genuinely Christian transformation of the principle already partly known in the ancient world, its relevance in the context of the problem of mediation between equivocal and univocal predication of being, its roots in the doctrine of transcendentals and, ultimately, its nature as the form of the revelation of the presence of God in His creatures.

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Kant and the Problem of Posthumanism: An Outline, pt. I

When talking about posthumanism and its intellectual dependencies the philosophical groundwork that made it possible often tends to be neglected. In this series we'll provide an incentive to reflect upon these presuppositions by outlining the implications present in the work of premiere philosopher of modernity, Immanuel Kant, that opened up the intellectual horizon for posthumanism. In the first part we focus on Kant's groundbreaking intuitions about the nature of consciousness and its constitutive role at the heart of reality itself as both irrevocable departure from pre-modern intellectuality and necessary condition for assumptions of contemporary posthumanism. We do this by giving a broad outline of Kant's arguments from the central part of his Critique of Pure Reason - "the transcendental deduction of the categories of pure reason". In the second part we'll sketch how posthumanists rely on Kantian understanding of subject/object split for building their utopian quasi metaphysics.

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Basic Notions of Metaphysics: Nature

Our regular podcast spreading dark medieval lore, formerly known as wisdom, across the interwebs is back: in this episode of Basic Notions of Metaphysics we analyze classical Aristotle's notion of nature. As definition goes like this: "Nature is intrinsic principle of movement", we talk about what it means for something to be "intrinsic", "principle" and in "movement". We advertise one thing, provide you with three things and charge you with no-thing. Only on KT.

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What Is Not Metaphysics?

We usually point out how modern philosophy tends to invert traditional philosophical questions. So why not do it the other way around? In this podcast we examine the supposedly fundamental metaphysical question, as proposed by Martin Heidegger in his 1929 Freiburg lecture "Was ist Metaphysik?" and come to conclusion that it is not as "fundamental" as it seems.

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Dinaric-Carpathian Analysis

To make up for the pain suffered by KT junkies because of the longest withdrawal in the history of this Europe spanning intellectual behemoth, KT Ministry of Non-Current Events and Putting Current Events out of Focus invited the head of our Carpathi-Black Sea division, Mihai Marinescu to join the General Secretary for the high level talks. Topis covered are Covid19 crisis and how we on the outskirts on Europe deal with it, peculiar developments in Western Europe, why the most progressive societies appear to be at the same the most progressive in limiting civil freedoms, why ideologies are in fact an attempt at political metaphysics, sexual politics as the crucial denkverbot for genuinely dissident minds, liberalism classical or otherwise, Aristotle's understanding of primordial duality of human being and Christian application of this fact, symbolism, Communism and much more.

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To Sow the Dragon’s Teeth: Hegel’s Invocation of the Spirit of Modernity, pt.1

KT presents new series of podcasts on Hegel’s speculation as a prototype of modern metaphysics. It will include reflections on some remarkable spiritual forms of modernity and their disturbing congeniality with its “dark side” of totalitarian ideologies, mass warfare and nihilism. The podcast is partially inspired by Glenn Maggee’s book “Hegel and Hermetic Tradition” although with reservations due to author’s superficial understanding of some thinkers he considers Hegel’s predecesors, as we will point out in this episode. Hegel is unique in that he wanted to build the bridge between Tradition and modernity and not simply make a radical, yet superficial, cut more characteristic of Enlightenment and scientism, that are more in vogue nowadays mostly due to dominance of modern Anglo-Saxon culture and mass appeal it still holds. This is the common trait he shares with the greatest minds and artistic talents of past 200 hundred years, especially his German contemporaries and their late 19th and pre WWII successors. However, we’ll attempt to show that his unequivocal choice of modernity and its promise of ultimate resolution of the past in the ascension of man to identity with the creative “Spirit of the world” is precisely the “mark of Cain” that cannot be erased and is a taint shared by such diverse figures as Thomas Mann and Alfred Rosenberg; moreover, we’ll suggest that this is were the true spirit of modernity should be sought because, after all, the deviation is always primarily inner and only secondarily an external reality – in a word: it is a form of metaphysics. And not all of its fruits are bitter. Its only that they all seem to be poisonous. read more

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A Touch of Reality: Life as ἐνέργειᾰ, pt.1

“You don’t have to be religious … it’s just common sense” – one often sees this kind of preface to arguments against practices sometimes branded as fruits of what is sometimes called “culture of death”. But is this so? Compromise is unavoidable in political struggle, but can there be a compromise between mind and reality? In this two parts essay we’ll argue in favor of the negative answer. We take an example of the most consequent form of advocating for equality of death and life – the advocacy for the institutionalized euthanasia – and attempt to show how it runs directly contrary to primary act of knowledge – that most obvious, yet rarely examined, state of mind we call “being in touch with reality”. In the first part we examine the notion of reality and life as forms of ἐνέργειᾰ and why modern system based thinking, which is the presupposition of most modern and postmodern political debates about religious and metaphysical issues, runs counter to it and can never touch, let alone grasp, it.