This is the first of two installments. Philosophy in a Newer Key: Outside the Professional Academy and Inside the Real World, #1. 0. Introduction If one feels the need to philosophize, how should one finance it? This is the real question for many postgraduate and PhD students who leave the university without a paid job. … [continue reading]
Author Archives: Otto Paans
Where are the System-Builders? Recovering the Lost Art of Connective Thinking.
Where are the System-Builders? Recovering the Lost Art of Connective Thinking I. Introduction: Philosophy and Universal Free Sharing Originally, I intended to submit this short piece to Academia Letters. Its scope and content may be familiar to regular readers of APP, since it deals with the consequences of (hyper)specialization in the sciences and philosophy. However, … [continue reading]
Expressive Organicism: Twenty-One Aphorisms.
1. Nature is Vitality itself. This Vitality is not the same as the entelekeia of Aristotle, or the entelechy of Hans Driesch. Both of these notions denote a purposive, teleological development. Instead, Vitality is manifestly real as a ceaseless differentiation in the spatiotemporal, physical order of things. Another word for Vitality is Life (with a … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #6–Mechanisms of the State Apparatus.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order 6. Aphorisms 62-83: Mechanisms of the State Apparatus This is the sixth installment in the series. Mechanisms of the State Apparatus 62. Rituals … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #5–The Myth of Order.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order This is the fifth installment in the series. The Myth of Order 53. Appearance of eternity. The State must appear as the natural … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #4–Confusion and Control.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order Confusion and Control 39. The State as the false prophet. The State is nothing but an ordered collection of coercive authoritarian institutions, that … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #3: Guilt and Exculpation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order Guilt and Exculpation 25. Guilt and destabilization. The staging of a conflict that the State will always win reinforces feelings of guilt and … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #2: State Power.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order State Power 12. How State power works. First, give people some goodies (say, money, property, social status, adult toys, etc.) and let them … [continue reading]
Aphorisms Toward A Cultural Philosophy For The Present Time, #1: Social Dictatorship.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Aphorisms 1-11: Social Dictatorship 2. Aphorisms 12-24: State Power 3. Aphorisms 25-38: Guilt and Exculpation 4. Aphorisms 39-52: Confusion and Control 5. Aphorisms 53-61: The Myth of Order Social Dictatorship 1. Ideology. By allowing our intellectuals only to quote others who—no doubt—a are also intellectuals, we create an echo-culture, a circular … [continue reading]
A Science of Singulars: On the Nature of Architectural Science, #4: Singularization and Architectural Science, & Conclusion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Why Singulars? III. The Singular and the Particular IV. Singularization and Architectural Science V. Conclusion BIBLIOGRAPHY This is the fourth and final installment, and contains sections IV, V, and the BIBLIOGRAPHY. IV. Singularization and Architectural Science If my reasoning in the previous sections is correct, we should revise our … [continue reading]