Future, Present, & Past:



Speculative
~~ Giving itself latitude and leisure to take any premise or inquiry to its furthest associative conclusion.
Critical~~ Ready to apply, to itself and its object, the canons of reason, evidence, style, and ethics, up to their limits.
Traditional~~ At home and at large in the ecosystem of practice and memory that radically nourishes the whole person.

Oυδεὶς άμουσος εἰσίτω

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

On post-humanism


It is easy to conceive of an animal more intelligent than man, that is to say, capable of more ingenious inventions in order to achieve its final conditions, to act according to valences in its vital domain -- but remaining, nonetheless, in a vital domain without acceding to the world of values and meanings, i.e., to the human level.
--Raymond Ruyer, "The Vital Domain of Animals and the Religious World of Man."
And, one might add, it is sometimes easy to imagine the human species creating, or indeed even becoming, such an animal.

Ruyer is not much known in English, it seems; I've been able to find only a few essays. There's a case to be made that he was a strong influence on Deleuze. You can find some other pointers about him at Neofinalism and courtesy of the apparently indefatigable Taylor Atkins, here and here.