Diseases of the Head

"Diseases of the Head is an anthology of essays from contemporary philosophers, artists, and writers working at the crossroads of speculative philosophy and speculative horror. At once a compendium of multivocal endeavors, a breviary of supposedly illicit ponderings, and a travelogue of philosophical exploration, this collection centers itself on the place at which philosophy and horror meet. Employing rigorous analysis, incisive experimentation, and novel invention, this anthology asks about the use that speculation can make of horror and horror of speculation, about whether philosophy is fictional or fiction philosophical, and about the relationship between horror, the exigencies of our world and time, and the future developments that may await us in philosophy itself. From philosophers working on horrific themes, to horror writers influenced by heresies in the wake of post-Kantianism, to artists engaged in projects that address monstrosity and alienation, Diseases of the Head aims at nothing less than a speculative coup d'état. Refusing both total negation and absolute affirmation, refusing to deny everything or account for everything, refusing the posture of critique and the posture of all-encompassing unification, this collection of essays aims at exposition and construction, analysis and creation – it desires to fight for some thing, but not everything, and not nothing. And it desires, most of all, to speak from the position of its own insufficiency, its own partiality, its own under-determinacy, which is always indicative of the practice of thinking, of speculation. Considering themes of anonymity, otherness and alterity, the gothic, extinction and the world without us, the end times, the apocalypse, the ancient and the world before us, and the uncanny or unheimlich, among other motifs, this anthology seeks to articulate the cutting edge which can be found at the intersection of speculative philosophy and speculative horror.

What is Philosophy?

What is philosophy? That’s a good question—not because there’s no answer, but because what’s involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. ¶ In the *Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect,* Spinoza sets out what’s required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. The problem with this definition, what makes it merely verbal, is that it defines a circle by way of one of its properties, not by way of its essence. Definition, for Spinoza, gets at the essence (from which all properties follow): A complete definition demonstrates how what it defines comes about. The definition of a circle as a figure that is described by any line of which one end is fixed and the other movable, as one commentator has pointed out, “literally generates the circle by providing a procedure whereby we ‘make’ the thing to be defined.” ¶ Philosophy is defined by what takes place in the question of philosophy itself. What Auden said of poetry could also be said of philosophy: it makes nothing happen. *Nothing* happens, or nothing *happens*—and in the space of the same few words both *can.* Philosophy operates that displacement and is defined by it: “what is *philosophy*?” become “*what is* philosophy?”—the question persists, but everything has changed

Diseases of the Head

"Diseases of the Head is an anthology of essays from contemporary philosophers, artists, and writers working at the crossroads of speculative philosophy and speculative horror. At once a compendium of multivocal endeavors, a breviary of supposedly illicit ponderings, and a travelogue of philosophical exploration, this collection centers itself on the place at which philosophy and horror meet. Employing rigorous analysis, incisive experimentation, and novel invention, this anthology asks about the use that speculation can make of horror and horror of speculation, about whether philosophy is fictional or fiction philosophical, and about the relationship between horror, the exigencies of our world and time, and the future developments that may await us in philosophy itself. From philosophers working on horrific themes, to horror writers influenced by heresies in the wake of post-Kantianism, to artists engaged in projects that address monstrosity and alienation, Diseases of the Head aims at nothing less than a speculative coup d'état. Refusing both total negation and absolute affirmation, refusing to deny everything or account for everything, refusing the posture of critique and the posture of all-encompassing unification, this collection of essays aims at exposition and construction, analysis and creation – it desires to fight for some thing, but not everything, and not nothing. And it desires, most of all, to speak from the position of its own insufficiency, its own partiality, its own under-determinacy, which is always indicative of the practice of thinking, of speculation. Considering themes of anonymity, otherness and alterity, the gothic, extinction and the world without us, the end times, the apocalypse, the ancient and the world before us, and the uncanny or unheimlich, among other motifs, this anthology seeks to articulate the cutting edge which can be found at the intersection of speculative philosophy and speculative horror.

Ethics Beyond the Limits: New Essays on Bernard Williams’ Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

Bernard Williams’ books demand an unusual amount of work from readers. This is particularly true of his 1985 magnum opus, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy—a work so charged with ideas that there seems to be nothing more to say, and yet at the same time so pared-down and tersely argued that there seems to be nothing left to take away. Reflecting on the book five years after its publication, Williams writes that it is centrally concerned with a Nietzschean question: the question of philosophy’s authority, in particular when it comes to telling us how to live. Some ethical theories seem implicitly committed to the idea that philosophy has everything to tell us about how to live. This Williams rejects. But the question then is how much philosophy has to tell us, and as critical as Williams may be of philosophy’s ambitions in this regard, his answer is certainly not nothing. The book even suggests some things that philosophy might say. But what Williams emphatically insists on, both in the book and in his later reflection on it, is that the question needs to be taken more seriously than it has been

THE THOUGHT OF HUMAN IN EXISTENTIALISM

When traditional philosophy leaves man to follow everything, which focuses only on the relationship between matter and spirit as well as it engrosses in searching the origin of the world, existentialism puts human upmost. Existentialists think that nothing is more passionate to people than they are, and nothing is easier to understand than human themselves. Although existentialism brings some certain values for human ideologies, the idea about the human-being in existentialism contains some limitations: when discussing the nature of man, existentialism has not seen its nature. However, these limitations do not detract from the values of existentialism. In this article, we will focus on studying the human view of existentialism and making practical assessments about it.  Article visualizations

In Defense of Alain Badiou

In lieu of an abstract, here are the article\u27s first two paragraphs: In Issue 107, Philosophy Now published James Alexander’s ‘A Refutation of Snails by Roast Beef\u27, an article decrying con temporary French philosopher Alain Badiou (b.l937). Alexander’s jumping-off point was Roger Scruton’s unfavorable review of Badiou’s The Adventure of French Philosophy (2012). He acknowledges that Scruton “obviously dislikes everything Badiou stands for” but takes Scruton to task for being too polite; he writes that “Badiou deserves derision.” A few sentences later, he claims that “a lot of Badiou is rubbish. There is nothing to Badiou be done with it except laugh.” Not even Badiou’s students escape Alexander’s comments: he scoffs that instead of taking notes in Badiou’s lectures, surely the students “just stand and cheer.” Although I might get much enjoyment from indulging in a similarly dismissive attitude toward Alexander’s largely ad hominem attacks against Badiou, I have chosen a different path in defending him. I honor the dialectical process of Socrates’ philosophical approach; therefore I offer a counterargument to expose the inaccuracy of Alexander’s underestimation of Badiou. I will not advance uninformed opinions based on insufficient familiarity (Alexander confesses a lack of knowledge of Badiou’s oeuvre). Instead, I offer a perspective based on an engagement with and a deep reverence for Badiou’s philosophy

Wave detected by LIGO is not gravitational wave

General Relativity defines gravity like the metric of a Lorentzian manifold. Einstein formulated spacetime as quality structural of gravity, i.e, circular definition between gravity and spacetime, also Einstein denoted "Space and time are modes by which we think, not conditions under which we live" and “We denote everything but the gravitational field as matter”, therefore, spacetime is nothing and gravity in first approximation an effect of coordinates, and definitely a geometric effect. The mathematical model generates quantitative predictions coincident in high grade with observations without physical meaning. Philosophy intervened: in Substantivalism, spacetime exists in itself while in Relationalism as metrical relations. But, it does not know what spacetime. The outcomes of model have supported during a century, validity of the General Relativity, interpreted arbitrarily. Einstein formulated, from quadrupoles of energy, the formation of ripples in spacetime propagating as gravitational waves abandoned, in 1938, when he said that they do not exist. LIGO announced the first detection of gravitational waves from a pair of merging black holes. They truly are waves of quantum vacuum

What is Philosophy?

What is philosophy? That’s a good question—not because there’s no answer, but because what’s involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza sets out what’s required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. The problem with this definition, what makes it merely verbal, is that it defines a circle by way of one of its properties, not by way of its essence. Definition, for Spinoza, gets at the essence (from which all properties follow): A complete definition demonstrates how what it defines comes about. The definition of a circle as a figure that is described by any line of which one end is fixed and the other movable, as one commentator has pointed out, “literally generates the circle by providing a procedure whereby we ‘make’ the thing to be defined.” Philosophy is defined by what takes place in the question of philosophy itself. What Auden said of poetry could also be said of philosophy: it makes nothing happen. Nothing happens, or nothing happens—and in the space of the same few words both can. Philosophy operates that displacement and is defined by it: “what is philosophy?” become “what is philosophy?”—the question persists, but everything has changed

Educating Engineers for the 21st. Century: and why some Elements of History and Philosophy should be Incorporated into the Curriculum

It has been said that in some respects the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky was a magpie – borrowing styles and ideas from diverse sources for whatever musical project he was working on. The practice of engineering has this same characteristic in that it willingly takes ideas, knowledge and techniques from wherever in pursuit of completing its goal. Further, Engineering is, at least in part, in agreement with Fyodor Dostoevsky – ‘if everything on Earth were rational, nothing would happen’. Against such a background it is proposed that a framework based on both philosophy and the history of engineering, science and technology constitutes a valid footing upon which engineers can be enabled to see and develop their profession in a suitably rounded manner

The Modernist Era: Tang Dynasty 2.0

A person’s mind is nothing more than a bank of memories. Everything that he thinks, imagines, and writes is an improvised rehash of past experiences. Therefore, those with similar backgrounds will inherently produce similar works. Given the plethora of people that have lived on the Earth, it is difficult to find an individual with truly unique recollections. Modernists are no exception. The defining characteristic of modernism is its utter disregard for tradition and regulation. Over a millennium earlier, poets from the late Tang Dynasty had the same philosophy. Thus when modernist poets such as Ezra Pound state that they want to ‘make it new’, they are only dreaming. The writing styles of these two types of bards are strikingly similar. In fact, one could justify that every ‘groundbreaking’ technique utilized by a modernist has already been employed by a Tang poet. This is even the case for William Carlos Williams, one of the most famous poets from the Modernist Era