Kant, God and metaphysics: the secret thorn

Transhumanism, metaphysics, and the posthuman god.

After describing Heidegger's critique of metaphysics as ontotheology, I unpack the metaphysical assumptions of several transhumanist philosophers. I claim that they deploy an ontology of power and that they also deploy a kind of theology, as Heidegger meant it. I also describe the way in which this metaphysics begets its own politics and ethics. In order to transcend the human condition, they m...

Why God Cannot Think: Kant, Omnipresence, & Consciousness

It has been argued that God is omnipresent, that is, present in all places and in all times. Omnipresence is also implied by God's knowledge, power, and perfection. A Kantian argument shows that in order to be self-aware, apply concepts, and form judgments, in short, to have a mind, there must be objects that are external to a being that it can become aware of and grasp itself in relationship t...

2 The Secret Joke of Kant ’ s Soul

That such an unnatural use (and so misuse) of one’s sexual attributes is a violation of one’s duty to himself and is certainly in the highest degree opposed to morality strikes everyone upon his thinking of it . . . However, it is not so easy to produce a rational demonstration of the inadmissibility of that unnatural use, and even the mere unpurposive use, of one’s sexual attributes as being a...

Overcoming of Metaphysics: Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant's Thought and the Problem of Metaphysics

The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY Ever since the time of Pascal men have feared that the 'God' worshipped by believers and the 'God' contemplated by philosophers were somehow different. The former was personal, historically active, slow to anger and plentiful in mercy: the latter was dubiously able to be described in personal terms at all, and infinite in such a way as to baffle the imagination. The 'God' of the form...