In the future humankind will make of the mind, of thought, sentiment, intent, memory, Being, a serious object of inquiry. Not the study of cells and neurons and biochemistry, which is merely study of the body, but of the geometry of thought, concepts and belief, how ideas form, intent and desire, perception itself on the level of perception itself - in short, a non-reductivist methodology of the study of Being (of consciousness, subjectivity/subject-hood) itself.
So far, we are not there yet. Some few brave pioneers have begun to point the way. In the future, the Question of Humanness (What is it to be human?) will predominate. This will take philosophy directly into the heart of the average person, all men will become deep thinkers and feelers, self-explorers. The soul recognized as the ultimate horizon of investigation. Yet the methods for such a study are yet to be fully developed. Philosophy in its current, modern form is content with developing and refining the methods of a future science of the human. Those of us who see what is to come, may be more content to work toward this goal not because such work is required of us, but rather because in doing so we participate in a world-to-come, in a reality that we ourselves are fortunate enough to see on the horizon but unfortunately are unable to fully experience and partake in, being confined to these still dark times.
Our pain is the pain of countless who came before us, burdened by a Vision at odds with the reality of the human world. Some see into this world and into (human) nature enough to perceive the seeds of potential contained there, and therein do they place their highest hope and joy, for this purpose alone do they find inspiration to work for the future. To create is one thing, relief of excess, an overflowing of soul, but to will this into a work, to dedicate these under the banner of a singular Purpose, this requires a higher aim and potency of vision… it requires hope. And not just hope, but love. Being will prescribe its limits as a function of its own perceived possibilities. Love is the active state wherein forgiveness and gentleness are projected toward the other, with the intent of Care; in the philosopher, this universalizing of the subject (through conscience) must occur within a higher context unifying past and future. By drawing this future into ourselves now we actualize it, call it forth and unmask what already exists in the human as unrealized possibility (for…).
This is the calling of the philosopher, who works to draw forth and partake of the highest possibilities (future) in the human heart.
i agree…humanism is the only hope we have…we have already had things around to help us humans but we have looked too much to the skies and the emperors…
I would not call it humanism myself, although I get your meaning. Rather, what we need is a transcendence and abandonment of the religious construct entirely, a reinvention of the soul under new images. There is far too much cynicism, hubris and intellectual-moral bankruptcy in humanism generally to make it a suitable platform for the future.
Because man is a curious being who seeks to understand. Because the history of religion, literature and science are a story of attempted self-discovery and self-mastery, or a narrowing of the inquisitive focus in progressively smaller circles upon man itself. Because to be human is to be an entity whose own existence has become an issue for it. Reflexive self-consciousness seeks itself and discloses itself everywhere, like early organic life it is a systematic unitary “gestalt” or non-reducible structural form that starts a chain reaction that spirals out toward increasing potency and power. Because the nature of life is to expand, outward and inward. Because I see seeds of potential and strength in people, even their nihilism and willing away from self are signs of strength.
Before I started coming to philosophy forums I thought that’s what philosophy was.
I definitely agree it should be or at least there should be an area that is, hence my attempts to destroy the subjective divide.
Bulls-eye. Geometry of consciousness, but it only becomes geometry as the mind thinks it.
Darkness prevails, but the first light has already been drawn into the sky above the horizon. This deep red and purple coming out of the black, are we not also privileged to be born to see this most fragile promise, and to see at once (by virtue of seeing it) that it’s fragility is only our still barely nascent means of perception?
When hope is accompanied by love - especially the love of this hope - it becomes something more straightforward, more directive - an aspiration. The goal creates the arrow, where there is a will there appears, illuminated by a supreme joy, a way.
Care, yes - which also means seeing what needs care. What is it about man that still desires to be cared for?
A century ago, philosophies arose to power based on the overpowering love of possibility for a unified kind. Whether this was “the Master Race”, “The Workers of the World” or “The Free”, the notion took hold of a greater Self, driving people to sacrifice their individual selves in the name of their love, or in their love of this name of unity. But this has led us to a broken name, a betrayed hope. We have sacrificed the wrong thing. The self, the purest recognition of the bare face of subjectivity has not taken hold of science - science has not yet turned inward.
One aspect of the future of our perception is a contraction of time-space by a greater “gravity of consciousness”. As our will to know increases, so tighten the orbits of our knowledge - become, from cloudy and instable clusters of half-knowing/half-imagining, clearly structured processes seen in their entirety. As science has done for the outside world, philosophy stands to accomplish the conception of a true inner world, one that is not derived from our interpretation of the outside, but from an absolutely understood knowing.
Only by these harsh criteria can we move forward to a scientific philosophy - what is known must be known absolutely. Which means, besides the full acknowledgment that the subject is the ground of any workable conception of “existence proper”, also the conviction that something can actually be known in this way. This is the hardest part for the true sceptic and the guarantee that only the completely evident shall pass for truth. For example, a completely evident truth is that the term “subject” refers to more than oneself alone. It refers to an object, to a world, and by implication of the very existence of the term to a collection, a procession of subjects through time, amongst whom there has arisen such a notion.
Such accomplishments of notions of being-as-we-do-it are first claimed, in the beginning by scrutinizing them, and implicitly risen above the fortress of what we know for scientifically certain, as a symbol of our meaning-to-know. We mean to know meaning, that is our symbol. Under this banner values may be felt, intuited, known without reason but our acknowledgement of them, and steps taken in a general direction of a actual, absolute improvement, advancement. Details of the path may become known (All eyes open, not just the three we know). The main reason for the furious scepsis toward teleology held by the poststructuralist intellectual demos is that almost nobody wants to think he can be improved upon. But no demos has ever been key to the improvement of man - it is rather the door, and it’s lock is it’s greatest fear. This fear is obscured by those/parts of us that want to keep the door closed. To attain this another object of fear is projected. Chances are that what we are pointed to as the source/reason of our fear stands somehow opposite to the fear of our will.
First we have to take away the harm we do to our neighbor and simply cooperate. It is not something we have to learn and develop as much as it is something we have to subtract. Just subtract the elements that prevent cooperation. Turn down the faucet, that gives appearances of magnificent selves, to a drip. And allow what we inherently know to be conducive to cooperation happen.
First we have to know what our neighbor is, before we know what harms him.
Lenin had some ideas about that that, so did Roosevelt, so did Einstein. Different ideas held in different contexts. Of these three, only Eistein had the idea that the subject is the absolute, and that his state of affairs must be measured with him as a standard.
The problem that has arisen so far is the question whether or not from a subjectivist perspective, subjective perspectives may be unified into a universally correct notion. Eistein did not solve this, he ‘merely’ “created” the problem, made it possible, by discovering the absoluteness of subjectivity.
What if it was an aphorism, designating his position? People have to start somewhere to relate - the only place is deep within themselves. This is not my thread but the new philosophy encourages such primeval regurgitating of the intellectual juices in the newbies drawn to the flame.
If you’re replying to me: I have enough on my plate with those aphorists who express their primal essences through the media of viagra spam and sockpuppet trolling, that I’d kindly request other would-be juice regurgitators to remain what we broken-and-botched philosophers of the mediocre old guard term “on topic”.
