Kali Tribune

Category: Knowledge

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Knowledge / Podcast

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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Knowledge / Podcast

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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Knowledge / Podcast

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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Knowledge / Podcast / Politics

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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Knowledge / Podcast

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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Essay / Knowledge

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.  

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Knowledge / Podcast

Remarks on Eric Voeglin’s Notion of Gnosticism: Yugoslavia as an example of Gnostic Neverland

In this podcast we comment upon some remarkable passages from Eric Voegelin's New Science of Politics explaining his understanding of what he calls Gnostic "dreamworld", carried over from the Ancient world to modernity. In the first half, after providing some preliminary explanations of Voegelin's terminology, we discuss the theoretical, or rather anti-theoretical, assumption that is a calling card of a Gnostic: a prohibition of questions; we talk about this strange attempt to constrain the intellect while simultaneously advocating for unbridled progress, especially in the paradigmatic example of Karl Marx and communist movement. Also, we point out the genuine anti-theist character of Gnostic intellectuals and the way how modern philosophy for the most part assimilated it. In the second part we talk about the very instructive, yet not so very well known, example of the one specific Gnostic neverland: Yugoslavia. We provide the main features of Yugoslav ideology, the mentality of its adherents, both past and present, and put the phenomenon in the context of our day and age. In conclusion we discuss the hypothesis of the prevalence of Gnostic ideologies in the global politics of today.

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Knowledge / Podcast

Beyondbound

Metaphysics is due to be resurrected! Or zombified? In this podcast we compare the Traditional understanding of Being with its inverted counterpart, we might, for the lack of the better term, call infraphysics, exemplified by its contemporary philosophical proponents. We proceed from somewhat simple framing of Traditional understanding of knowledge as a three phase process of Being-Logos/Intentio-name to its exemplary inversion in materialism and Kant's transcendental philosophy, ending up with fruits of modern inversion of metaphysics in contemporary "object oriented ontology".

We touch upon Rene Guenon's analysis of the main discrepancy of materialism and how this analysis is being reiterated by some contemporary thinkers bound to reach beyond and below the materialism; we expound on transformation of thinking into computation and the centrality of self referential systems for subphysics; also we explain why we will soon see the drive to liberate inanimate things and individual bodily organs from human tyranny and throw in some insights on various contemporary issues along the way.