In “The New Conflict of the Faculties: Kant, Radical Enlightenment, The Hyper-State, and How to Philosophize During a Pandemic,” Robert Hanna applies a Kant-inspired interpretation of enlightenment as radical enlightenment to the enterprise of philosophy within the context of our contemporary world-situation, and try to answer this very hard question: “As radically enlightened Kantian philosophers … [continue reading]

(FreePik, 2025) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Intractability in Cognitive Science: Further Problems for Mechanism 1. Introduction In an earlier essay, we explored and critically exposed the inherent … [continue reading]

In his essay, “Thinking Inside and Outside the Fly-Bottle: The New Poverty of Philosophy and Its Second Copernican Revolution,” Robert Hanna formulates and defend two metaphilosophical theses. The first thesis is what he calls The New Poverty of Philosophy, which says this: I. So-called “hard” problems in philosophy are actually institutional artifacts of Anglo-American professional academic … [continue reading]

“Homo Machina (Machine Man),” by Fritz Kahn (Redbubble, 2025) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. The Present Limits of AI: Empirical Considerations 3. Philosophical Arguments Against Artificial General Intelligence 4. Robert Hanna’s Systematic Challenge to Computational Mechanism 5. Neuroscientific Evidence Against Digital Computationism 6. Leading Theories of Consciousness: A Critical Analysis of Their Limitations 7. … [continue reading]

(Travis212, 2011)[i] PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS #1: Introduction #2: From Astrology to “Artificial Intelligence” #3: Patterns and Algorithms #4: Extending Algorithms #5: Enumeration and Incompleteness You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. … [continue reading]

One of the exceptionally attractive qualities of Nietzsche’s brilliantly original style of philosophical writing, for better or worse, is that it’s the Rorschach blot of philosophy: everyone who takes it seriously finds their own philosophical obsessions written there. And this is true, with a bang!, of the subtitle of Twilight of the Idols: “How To … [continue reading]

“Homo Machina (Machine Man),” by Fritz Kahn (Redbubble, 2025) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. The Present Limits of AI: Empirical Considerations 3. Philosophical Arguments Against Artificial General Intelligence 4. Robert Hanna’s Systematic Challenge to Computational Mechanism 5. Neuroscientific Evidence Against Digital Computationism 6. Leading Theories of Consciousness: A Critical Analysis of Their Limitations 7. … [continue reading]

In every cry of every Man,In every Infants cry of fear,In every voice: in every ban,The mind-forg’d manacles I hear (Blake, 1794: lines 5-8) [P]hilosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of [humanity]. … [continue reading]

“Homo Machina (Machine Man),” by Fritz Kahn (Redbubble, 2025) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. The Present Limits of AI: Empirical Considerations 3. Philosophical Arguments Against Artificial General Intelligence 4. Robert Hanna’s Systematic Challenge to Computational Mechanism 5. Neuroscientific Evidence Against Digital Computationism 6. Leading Theories of Consciousness: A Critical Analysis of Their Limitations 7. … [continue reading]

In Robert Hanna’s “Preface and General Introduction to The Rational Human Condition,” which forms the principal part of The Rational Human Condition, Vol. 1 (Hanna, 2018), Hanna outlines his synoptic five-volume philosophical project of rational anthropology. Hanna argues that all philosophical inquiry ultimately centers on the question, “What is the human being?,” suggesting that metaphysics, morals, and religion are … [continue reading]