I have previously argued, in this blog, that our universe is derivatively anthropocentric. That is, firstly, that the universe is theocentric in being directly and unqualifiedly determined by the divine will. Secondly, that this divine determination favours the developing flourishing and knowledge of humanity, despite there being nothing in the physical constitution, structure and laws… Continue reading The Derivatively Anthropocentric Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity
Category: Philosophy
Interstellar, Tenet and Nolan’s Secular Faith
*****WARNING – SPOILERS FOR INTERSTELLAR AND TENET****** *****WARNING – SPOILERS FOR INTERSTELLAR AND TENET****** *****WARNING – SPOILERS FOR INTERSTELLAR AND TENET****** *****WARNING – SPOILERS FOR INTERSTELLAR AND TENET****** Apart from showcasing Christopher Nolan’s impressive vision and exacting execution when bringing a science fiction premise to fruition, his latest offering in Tenet confirms a secular conviction… Continue reading Interstellar, Tenet and Nolan’s Secular Faith
Posthumanism and Ockham’s Razor
Ockham’s Razor is the principle that we should not multiply entities beyond necessity. What that means has various weaker and stronger versions. One on the weaker side merely advises us, when coming up with a theory of the fundamental kinds of things (or stuff or structures) in the universe, or in any smaller domain, to… Continue reading Posthumanism and Ockham’s Razor
A Draft Introduction for a Possible Article on the Philosophy of Religion
The history of Western modernity has been the history of humanism, and more particularly, the history of a shifting of the universal centre of potential progress and value, from God to humanity, theocentrism to anthropocentrism. Without initially diminishing an entrenched commitment to theism, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment witnessed the gradual displacement of the external… Continue reading A Draft Introduction for a Possible Article on the Philosophy of Religion
Against Telos Regarded as Intrinsic Proper Function or Similar
I am an anti-essentialist in many respects, though there are some ideas denoted by some senses of the term to which I would not give assent. For example, I believe in a primitive kind of individual essence that explains the persistence of identity through change. However, I certainly do not believe in robust generic essences… Continue reading Against Telos Regarded as Intrinsic Proper Function or Similar
Divine Omnipotence and Narrative Explanation
My working definition of explanation is the provision of new facts to bring the world back to expectation. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I expect to see my car sitting in the driveway. If, one morning, I were to wake up and see that my care is absent from the driveway,… Continue reading Divine Omnipotence and Narrative Explanation
Bearing the Divine Image and Harmonising with the Universe
The exclusive humanist’s exceptionalist dogma of humanity’s peculiar importance, our central place in the universe, is defeated by realisations grasped in our posthumanist age concerning the contingency of the species’ essential or conceptual boundaries, the functional similarity between us and actual or possible non-human life forms, and the ultimate indifference of physical and chemical laws… Continue reading Bearing the Divine Image and Harmonising with the Universe
Staying with the Trouble
Having recently read Donna Haraway’s text, Staying with the Trouble (Duke University Press, 2016), I now offer some thoughts in response. Haraway is best known for her seminal essay, ‘The Cyborg Manifesto’, first published in 1985, in which she explores the idea that humanity has always been constituted as a process of species becoming that… Continue reading Staying with the Trouble
Naturalness Talk
The anti-essentialism motivating the posthumanist turn tacitly rejects realism about two distinct forms of essence: descriptive and prescriptive. The first relates to the absence of any objective correctness or naturalness as to the boundaries of the concepts we apply in language and thought, let alone the essence concepts (sortals) that denote the primary kind to… Continue reading Naturalness Talk
The Performance of Gender Oppression
In my last post, here, I pointed out a way in which one futurist suppresses a tacit commitment to objective morality. This suppression is a common theme of posthumanist discourse, because anti-essentialist ethics often tries to have its cake and eat it, too, by declaring all essences to be socially constructed, and yet trying to… Continue reading The Performance of Gender Oppression
Theocentric Posthumanism 
You must be logged in to post a comment.