Human Conditions

In our final episode, we will discuss the relevance of the ‘human’ in light of the current historical period, which is sometimes called the Anthropocene. Through the work of Isabelle Stengers we want to investigate some of the most pertinent questions facing the “human” today?Allons-y!

Our philosophical search for the human condition has been a relatively provincial undertaking considered solely from the perspective of Europe and European philosophy. Yet what about philosophical anthropology — that is, what does the confrontation with different cultures mean for this Enlightenment subject? Today, we will discuss this confrontation based on the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the most central figures of structuralism, and we will discuss both criticisms and continuations of this tradition through the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.Allons-y

In our search for human conditions, we continue our zig-zag journey through philosophical history.Today we are slightly deviating from the format in discussing three thinkers: Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault. Sartre wrote a play in 1944 called Huis clos which depicted hell as a house with three people in it, who constantly interrupt one another — that’s hell, for him. So let us enter this hell: we begin with the two existentialists in the first half and go on to Foucault in the second. Allons-y!

In our search for human conditions, we continue our zig-zag journey through philosophical history.After Heidegger's contemplations on being, Hannah Arendt turned away from endless reflections on ontology in response to the rise of tyranny. For Arendt, to be human is to begin anew, to start something fresh.It’s still another story with Anders. He observes that the human condition seems to involve that we increasingly start to think of ourselves as defective pieces of equipment. And offers a critical theory of technology.Allons-y!

Helmut Plessner - Excentric Positionality - Vital CategoriesThe human,” Helmuth Plessner tells us, “lives only insofar as he leads a life”, our way of life isn't given in advance. It isn't determined by nature. No answers are given in advance, there is no underlying model, no all determining blue-print. Today we talk about Helmut Plessner, a lesser-known philosopher, but not less important.  Allons-y!

Friedrich Nietzsche - Dyonysian/Appollonian- The Death of God "Be aware that when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster. For when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."Welcome to this week's podcast episode. We, David, Julien, and Rolf will discuss human conditions. What is philosophical anthropology? Why is it important? Is it important? What is the human? Today we will discuss the incomparable Friedrich Nietzsche.Allons-y!

Edmund Husserl - Phenomenology - Intentionality - Sein und Zeit - Martin Heidegger In these podcasts, we zig-zag through space and time, traveling through philosophical history, attempting to address a condition that affects us all: the human condition. We will see that there might not be a single condition but many ways of being a human, multiple conditions. And are we even human?Today we talk about the founder of Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and his most famous disciple Martin Heidgger. Lets go! 

Immanuel Kant - What can I know? - What should I do? - What may I hope? - What is the human?In these podcasts, we zig-zag through space and time, traveling through philosophical history, attempting to address a condition that affects us all: the human condition. We will see that there might not be a single condition but many ways of being a human, multiple conditions. And are we even human?Immanuel Kant, the most influential Enlightenment philosopher, summarizes his project as follows:“All interest of my reason, the speculative as well as the practical, is united in the following three questions” (A 804/B 832)“What can I know?” What are the limits of knowledge? Knowing these limits brings us to the second question, “What should I do?” And “If I do what I should do,” Kant says, there follows a third question: “What may I then hope?” (ibid.)In his lectures on Logik, Kants adds a fourth question. For him, the fourth question is the most fundamental one, as the previous three are rooted in this question: what is the human?