In the third episode of our Q&A podcast we address the questions about the nature of substance, being, person and soul, while pointing out the pitfalls of confusing the popular Science Fiction narratives with the philosophy proper.
It is often said that dignity of person is in itself the greatest moral "given"; that person is "a purpose unto itself" (Kant); that it is inviolable "given" of humanity. And so on and so forth, from the popular moralizing to the real basis of legislature, this perpetually used, yet rarely pondered upon notion strikes us as something that should be the most comprehensible and closest thing to our minds, but, on closer inspection, it is hard to be sure where it really stems from and how we came to understand it as a self evident "given". In this two parts essay we'll inquire about the origin of this "given" in the singular event in history when, quite literary, the "given" was handed to us, while employing help of our regular assortment of traditional authorities. In the first part we treat metaphysics that can prepare the mind for the approach to the heart of the matter, beyond the subject/object split, but that can nevertheless take us only one part of the way. Also we juxtapose the traditional understanding of the relationship of intellect and being against Immanuel Kant's idea of "transcendental philosophy", which could be understood as an epitome of all attacks on metaphysics, by metaphysics, in modernity.
To understand something "on the level of words" is fairly common phrase used to denote someone's superficiality. However, there's more depth to superficiality than initially meets the eye. In this podcast we'll point out some of the depths of what we previously dubbed, in Plato's phrase, skiagraphia or "shadow-drawing"; a mental equivalent of drawing the shadow of the image on plane surface to add to it the illusion of depth. We'll point out, in our common "metaphysician next door" manner, how this attitude drives people to cut themselves off, not only from the realities of the world, but, more perniciously, of their very selves too.
So, it is a bit obsolete to wail and grumble about the dangers of supposed rise of the robotic Artificial Intelligence, when we are already dealing with the real and present danger of supremacy of the Superficial Intelligence
