The chapter deals with the birth of metaphysics and eternal damnation, the emergence of that peculiar attitude of mind called Gnosis in the science of religion. That the Earth becomes transformed into a vale of tears is, in this sense, a dialectical necessity. That culture becomes the angel maker. If the pure sign represents the appearance of eternity, the question arises why we still concern ourselves with the decrepitude of the earthly. Why not live eternally right away? Speaker: Hopkins Stanl...
Aug 08, 2023•40 min
The idea of another world arises with the pure, animate signs: Pure spirit, eternity, Platonic bodies. In contrast, the real world is a cave, an underworld realm of shadows, in which illusory existences see only reflections of their destiny: the reflection of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The chapter tells of philosophy's birth - and of how thinking thus begins to run in circles: That which philosophy considers as being or essence is the art of running in the circle of the universal mac...
Jul 04, 2023•52 min
Occasionally, we must admit we belong to an older generation with worldviews shaped by our specific generational experiences. This, at least, was what crossed my mind while reading the text of a young Swedish writer considering the question of whether our present-day culture wars could be the result of an elite overproduction in the form of an educational glut from a flawed educational system; often leading its actors into the fiercest battles, not infrequently unfairly waged, for the remaining ...
Jun 24, 2023•1 hr 14 min
The chapter deals with the birth of Pythagorean mathematics - or, more precisely, the way with which mathematicians fall into the delirium of Infinity. Carnival . In that old-fashioned sense, every mathematical calculus has a strange carnivalesque side because you extract the flesh from life. Just as the tones of the music are abstracted from the body of sound, the formula dissolves an experience from reality, imposing on it a system of rules in which the highest is at the bottom, the lowest is ...
May 16, 2023•31 min
The chapter tells of how the Machine, as socioplasty, inscribes itself on antiquity - how it becomes an ideal of personality and, as imprinted freedom, ultimately determines social relations. From then on, sacrifices were no longer made to the gods but to the Polis. It is no coincidence that taxation is the only area in which we still talk about having to make sacrifices today. Speaker: Hopkins Stanley Sound-Design: Martin Burckhardt Music: Hopkins Stanley & Martin Burckhardt From: The Philo...
Apr 05, 2023•43 min
The sixth chapter tells how the phallic sign of the bull deity turns into an alphabetic type. But where does this story begin? There, where the god in bull form abducts Europa to Crete? Or in the labyrinth of Daedalus, where the Alpha-beast and mythical figure awaits its extinction? With the Alphabet, the twilight of the gods begins…we do not meet the riddle of creation here, but rather a nature that is spun into the type wheel of an already given understanding of the world. Speaker: Hopkins Sta...
Mar 15, 2023•32 min
The fifth chapter deals with the paradox that the art of memory ( ars memoria ) is joined by the art of forgetting ( ars oblivionis ) - which may explain why the beginnings of Western culture are obscure or, as the case may be, declared as “the Greek miracle.” The realization that the alphabetic sign isn’t only what it notates but also what it makes us forget. From: The Philosophy of the Machine, translated by Hopkins Stanley and Martin Burckhardt. (to be published) To listen to previous chapter...
Feb 14, 2023•31 min
The serial killer is a figure of pop culture. This may be one reason why one of the strangest cases in this field is little known to this day: the case of the French doctor Marcel Petiot, who spread the rumor in occupied Paris that he was helping people escape to South America, but then murdered his victims, most of them Jews, himself. The American author Thomas Maeder has written an excellent book that captures the figure of the psychopath in all its complexity while at the same time allowing t...
Jan 31, 2023•48 min
This chapter tells of the origin of the god Zeus, who was originally Zeus metallon , a metallurgical godhead reflecting the social practices of mining and metal extraction. Underpinning Jacques Lacan's beautiful remark: the gods are from the field of the real. Vertigo of the Proteus. Swindle of Art. That behind every realization, a universe of discarded possibilities opens up: all the possible worlds that have not been realized. From: The Philosophy of the Machine, translated by Hopkins Stanley ...
Jan 18, 2023•30 min
Sam Vaknin is an Israeli author who’s written extensively on the question of borderline and narcissism - and this with an unparalleled clarity. Above all, he, who has wonderfully declared himself a contemporary of Shakespeare, is someone whose gaze looks far beyond the narrow confines of the psychological discipline. This is due not least to the fact that he can look back on an eventful life in which he has held a wide variety of positions: startup founder, head of an investment fund, and adviso...
Jan 05, 2023•1 hr 15 min
This chapter goes back to the beginning of the machine concept, or more precisely: it makes clear that the Greek deus ex machina is based on an even older understanding of the machine, deeply interwoven with magical ideas. Could it be in the stage production of the godhead that the numinous passes over to the Machine? And the other way around: Is it possible that the godhead originates from the Machine? But then the godhead would be a product of the Machine. Basically, both are absurdities: the ...
Dec 18, 2022•27 min
This chapter continues uncovering the obscurations of what a Machine is by examining the Phenomenology of what it is or isn’t. What lies behind and beyond the phenomena of its skeuomorphic medially of a technological system? The closer you get to the Machine, the stranger it looks back. Speaking of a system of interacting elements functioning great than their sum is simply a tautology that leaves the question unanswered. From: The Philosophy of the Machine, translated by Hopkins Stanley and Mart...
Dec 03, 2022•36 min
Martin Burckhardts Philosophy of the Machine, Introdction. Translation & Music: Hopkins Stanley Get full access to Ex nihilo - Martin Burckhardt at martinburckhardt.substack.com/subscribe
Nov 17, 2022•30 min
