Christian Atheism (w/ Slavoj Žižek)
Discussion with philosopher Slavoj Žižek focused on his latest book Christian Atheism.
Episodes
Philosophy Portal
This is a podcast that seeks to bring philosophy into the Real qua Impossible, that is: the little piece of the present moment that resists our desire.
Episodes
Singularities (03) ft. Javier Rivera
Singularities is a new series aiming for a more narrative investigation into the personal dimension of religion. The third episode hosts Javier Rivera, philosopher and writer attempting to think.
Negativity in Psychoanalysis (w/ Duane Rousselle, Mark Gerard Murphy)
This discussion features psychoanalyst Duane Rousselle and theologian Mark Gerard Murphy to discuss their new edited volume Negativity in Psychoanalysis.
Singularities (02) ft. Peter Robinson
Singularities is a new series aiming for a more narrative investigation into the personal dimensions of religion. The second episode features Peter Robinson, the CTO of an Australian tech start-up, Tribees, but finds time to explore his philosophical interests in the relationship between reason and intuition, and between the intellectual and the existential.
What Do Men Want? (w/ Nina Power)
Nina Power and I discuss her book What Do Men Want? (2023) which focuses on some of the contemporary issues that specifically center around masculinity and male identity.
Singularities (01) ft. Jacob Kishere
Singularities is a new series aiming for a more narrative investigation into the personal dimension of religion. The first episode hosts Jacob Kishere, creator of Sensespace, a project that focuses on unfolding dialogues related to Insight, Wisdom & Healing. https://philosophyportal.online/
Reading Lacan's Ecrits (Part 2)
This conversation with Samuel McCormick is the second in a series titled "Reading Lacan's Ecrits". The first conversation prepared Philosophy Portal for teaching Lacan's Ecrits, and this second conversation opens up a post-course reflection and a deeper ritual conversation inspired by Lacan's writings.
The Idea of the University (w/ David McKerracher, Ann Snelgrove of Theory Underground)
In this discussion, David, Ann and I discuss the importance of thinking The Idea of the University in the contemporary neoliberal and digitised political-economic landscape. The Idea of the University is a book by existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers, and written to serve an educational reconstruction project in post-World War II Germany. Now we discuss this book in our historical context, but with the aim the same: to think the Idea of the University as such. Theory Underground's...
Death and World Grounding (w/ Johannes A. Niederhauser)
Johannes A. Niederhauser argues that death is a central notion in Martin Heidegger’s work on the questions being and time, and even takes us to the core of Heidegger's entire thinking path. Thus, Heidegger is not merely approaching death as an existentialist problem, of how to become authentically mortal. Heidegger is suggesting that the abstract concealment and exploitation of death is how the modern project attempts to bring in and enforce a different way of being human, an inhuman...
What is the "Phenomenology of Spirit"? (w/ Mika Leinonen, Eric Jobe, Chetan Anand)
G.W.F Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is often conceived as Hegel's classic work, and one of the most important texts in the history of philosophy. How are we to conceive of this work? This question can be framed in many ways: How are we to understand the procedure or methods by which it was written? What are the main concepts that define this work and how are we to think of these concepts today? Finally, can we say there is an overall project for this work, and if so, do...
Thinking the Commons: Tribe in the Internet Age (w/ Michel Bauwens & Alexander Bard)
The commons is an ancient social structure of allowing for the exchange of value. The act of commoning can be defined as the act of exchanging with the ‘whole’ (i.e. doing something for the self as part of a larger tribe, clan, family, rather than for the self itself). Throughout the history of human civilization more complex structural layers for exchanging value have been built on top of commoning, e.g. including equality matching value (gift economy), distributing value according ...
Philosophy of Lack (#3) (w/ O.G. Rose, Tim Adalin, Alexander Ebert): Excess
There is an excess which repeats most easily when not observed (it does not want to be observed?). This excess is its own knowledge as the center of enjoyment and truth of identity. Of relevance to our on-going discussion, the excess seems to appear most deeply at the site of lack. Being in touch with this experiential knowing seems primal, and brings one to sites or drives of the body, whether oral, genital, anal, nasal, visionary or vocal. Does it make sense to say this...
Return to Metaphysics: How to Think Our Being? (w/ Alexander Bard, O.G. Rose, Alexander Elung)
Metaphysics concerns the study of first principles of being (e.g. identity, change, space, time, causality, necessity, possibility). In other words, whereas physics studies the physical world, metaphysics is the study of the fundamental categories we use to make sense of the world in the first place. For example, Isaac Newton structured much of modern physics with his system of categories; Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophy by attempting to think of these categories as structure...
Modern Dating and Romantic Relationships (w/ Javier Rivera)
The dating landscape used to be generally regulated by a traditional-normative symbolic structure which organized society towards a more-or-less clear value-form: marriage/pair-bonding. The modern dating landscape has largely lost this symbolic structure, and consequently, it has become extremely complex and confusing: a disorienting digital marketplace of wild drives and images disconnected from long-term value-forms. Javier Rivera and I attempt to philosophize about this complexity...
Philosophy of Lack (#2.5) (w/ Alexander Ebert): Prelude to Perfection
We feel the lack of an absolute being, and reality itself seems to lack as a split between atom/void. Here we play with the imaginary of the mind which exists in this split between nothing and everything: what would it look like if we could “subtract lack” or “become lack" and “connect to the absolute”? Would we be “fucking everything”? Would we exist in a “giant social orgy”? To start this dialogue, I give the personal example of a psychedelic experience which "connected...
Philosophy of Lack (#2) (w/ O.G. Rose, Tim Adalin, Alexander Ebert): Materialism
We started our first discourse on lack in the context of the origin of philosophy in the Parmenidean presupposition of absolute being banishing the void; and its relationship to the emergence of psychoanalysis as a discipline that operates by necessity in the void of subjectivity. In our second discourse, I propose to shift our context to Democritus, and his atomist ontology, which we may say is the spontaneous unofficial metaphysics of scientific materialism (i.e. the universe at base is ...
Absolute Knowledge (w/ O.G. Rose)
Absolute Knowledge is a notoriously difficult and confusing concept in Hegel’s philosophy (and yet represents the name of the last chapter of his masterwork Phenomenology of Spirit). Here I attempt to frame the discourse by discussing the experiences I had in my maturation as an intellect in relation to evolutionary and religious philosophies about “absolute knowing”. Evolutionary thinkers tend to view absolute knowing as an anachronistic and unnecessary concept, a relic of pre-m...
Philosophy of Lack (#1) (w/ O.G. Rose, Tim Adalin, Alexander Ebert): Foundations
Philosophy is a discipline classically concerned with "Being", or the presence of Something. Why is there Something rather than Nothing? However, after more than a century of psychoanalysis, we may say that the human subject is an entity of Lack, or that Lacks. Thus, the human subject is a Being constituted by a contradictory identity, constantly attempting to fill in the persistent feeling that there is "Something missing". In this conversation series, we seek to enquire...
Sex, Masculinity, God (1.5): Masculinity & Masculine Movements
The second discourse on masculinity and masculine movements shifts exploration from the red pill community and the connection between masculinity and religion, towards an ethics of action, or general principles, that would possibly help ground real masculine movements in the 21st century. We speculate that a key to these ethics and principles can be found in the coincidence between men who have transcended pathological attachment to feminine identity, asserting themselves with a purpose and miss...
Sex, Masculinity, God (1.4): Gender Theory/Trouble
In the second trialogue on gender trouble/theory we attempt to shift focus from alternatives to binary classification schemes (i.e. triadic, quadratic, or complexified categorization schemes) to the impossibility or the problem at the core of gender itself (i.e. that no categorization scheme "works", as it were, to solve the human relation to sexuality). Thus, an idea is explored that what we call gender is in fact a historical-navigation tool or construct that we use to ultimately transce...
Sex, Masculinity, God (1.3): Evolutionary versus Religious Worldviews
In the second trialogue on the evolutionary versus religious worldview we attempt to build on our original notions that a synthesis between evolutionary and religious worldviews can be found in the fact that religions themselves evolve. In order to build on this notion we explore the possibility that not only do religions evolve, but that religions lead to their own form of transcendental evolution in and through becoming its own emergent location of virtual causation. Buy the book: https...
Pathological Evolution (#2) (w/ Raven Connolly): Biological Reproduction and Religious Belief
The most advanced pre-modern civilizations (historical societies) were built on metaphysical presuppositions that we call “religious”. Modern secular society questioned these presuppositions on scientific (and often evolutionary) grounds. The main difference between the religious and scientific presupposition is the belief that a higher power regulates moral behaviour, and that such regulation is necessary for society to function. The religious subject presupposes that God is a...
Tribal Singularity (#2) (w/ Alexander Bard & Elung): Digging into Transcendental Emergentism
In this conversation I host Alexander Bard and Alexander Elung to discuss the philosophy of "transcendental emergentism" and its relation to the future of philosophy, science and community. Transcendental emergentism is a notion that attempts to escape both simplistic reductions to scientific materialism, and also overly-naive holistic interpretations of supernatural ideality. This is possible because what is "transcendent" (beyond or above normal human experience) is something that ...
Noopolitik (#1) (w/ Daniel Fraga & Owen Cox): Mental Warfare in the Global Economy
In this trialogue we attempt to introduce the notion of "Noopolitik" or "politics of the noosphere". In the 20th century, the birth of our global world was mediated by two mega powers and their economic methods (i.e. United States and capitalism (first world); Soviet Union and communism (second world)). The rest of the world was merely a battleground for these two major powers (third world). Today, after the fall of the second world and the establishment of capitalist hegemony ...
Emancipation After Hegel (w/ Todd McGowan)
In this discussion we are going to be diving into the notion of freedom after the introduction of Hegelian philosophy. We will be probing into the consequence of Hegel's philosophy for contradiction, motion, identity, and religion. This discourse will be based on and inspired by McGowan's own philosophical text "Emancipation After Hegel" which seeks to revive the relevance of Hegel's philosophy of the 21st century.
Sex, Masculinity, God (1.2): Historical Emergence of Traditional Archetypes
In the second trialogue on the Historical Emergence of Traditional Archetypes we shift attention from the historical conditions for the emergence of archetypes, and move more towards attempting to understand the source of the virtual potential that could shape other identities in new historical conditions. From this focus on virtual potential we theorize the possibility for future identities that our contemporary consciousness would relate to as alien otherness. Sex, Masculinity, God (the...
Tribal Singularity (#1) (w/ Alexander Bard): Mapping Patriarchy and Matriarchy in the Internet Age
The "map is not the territory" is a common mantra in the deconstructive post-modern age. However, without maps, we lose all our capacity to orient and organize our social lives. For example, the traditional world had clear maps of man, woman and their possible relations, which allowed for the development of civilization. However, these maps were increasingly seen as oppressive and constraining in the 20th century world; out of touch with the present moment of our experience. &n...
Pathological Evolution (#1) (w/ Raven Connolly): Unconscious Desire, Social Tensions
The idea of evolution transformed science (Darwin); the idea of pathos transformed psychology (Freud). Discussing "pathological evolution" is necessary today because our global society is changing faster than ever, and this change is going to involve a deep confrontation with our self: what do we really want? What do we see in the "pathos" of modern global society? Can we analyze this "evolving pathos" as a complex "hyper-object" (entities that escape traditional temporal-spati...
Last and Guner (#1): Why Microdose?
In this episode (originally streamed in the 21-Day Meditation Challenge Facebook group ), we set the foundation covering the concept of psychedelics in history and present day. There is a new emerging bio-science that uses psychedelics in sub-perceptible doses to improve basic cognitive functioning. Here we outline how we want to do our part to become mature and responsible participants in this new psychedelic revolution.
The Enlightenment Gap (#2) (w/ Gregg Henriques): Modern Philosophy of Psychology
This conversation is attempting to build on our notion of an "Enlightenment Gap" emergent in the scientific universe between matter/mind (i.e. mind/body problem), science/society (i.e. social construction). Here we attempt to dive deeper into the foundations of modern philosophy as it relates to psychology and psychoanalysis.