My aim in this paper is to show how the functionalist standards assumed in the AI debate are, in fact, the assumptions of a capitalist, ableist society writ large. The already established argument against the proposed humanity of AI systems implies a wider critique of the entire ideology of functionalism under which the notion of intelligent machines has taken root.

Heidegger develops his reading of a-lētheia as privative un-concealment (Unverborgenheit) in tandem with his early phenomenological theory of truth. He is not simply reinterpreting a word, but rather reading Greek philosophy as having a primordial understanding of truth which has itself been concealed in interpretation. After shedding medieval and modern presuppositions of truth as correspondence, the existential truth-experience shows itself, no longer left puzzlingly implicit in unsatisfactory conventional readings of Greek philosophy. In Sein und Zeit §44, Heidegger resolves interpretive difficulties (...) in Parmenides through his interpretation of alētheia and philologically grounds this reading in Heraclitus’s description of the unconcealing logos. Although this primordial sense of the word has already been obscured in Plato and Aristotle, the structural gradation of their theories of truth conserves the primordial pre-Socratic sense of truth as the experience of unconcealment. (shrink)

In _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_, Julian Jaynes presents a philosophy of mind with radical implications for contemporary discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). The ability of AI to replicate the cognitive functions of human consciousness has led to widespread speculation that AI is itself conscious (or will eventually become so). Against this functionalist theory of mind, Jaynes argues that consciousness only arises through the mythopoetic inspiration of metaphorical language. Consciousness develops and enacts new forms (...) of self-understanding, continually evolving new "metaphors of mind," metaphors which must now account for the emergence of AI. (shrink)

Cicero’s "Academica" offers a particularly rich demonstration of how the unhappy dialectic between stoicism and skepticism engages Roman historical self-consciousness. The Hegelian thesis of philosophy as mediated through historical development is given a clear articulation in the “derivative” Romans, precisely through their reception of a tradition, their experience of philosophy as inseparable from the self-consciousness of historical relation. The dispute happening in the "Academica" between a dogmatic stoicism and academic skepticism thus directly echoes the problems of contemporary 21st century philosophy (...) insofar as the structures of the unhappy consciousness endure in the “academic” give and take between the authority of received doctrine (say, of mainstream post-classical analytic philosophy) and their subversion in skeptical critique. (shrink)

Reflections and projections upon the history of ontology and its meaning for the future of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Limb-Loosening and the Care of History: Tracing a Motif in Vergil GEORGE SAAD the counter-voice of eros in epic While the Homeric world clearly underlies Vergil’s Aeneid, this Roman appropriation of Greek epic is not without complications. Vergil, taking the whole of history as his theme, develops a world subject to cosmic forces beyond the might and craft of Homeric heroes. To overcome enemies is no mean feat, but (...) how is the world itself overcome? How does the hero move history? Prior to writing the Aeneid, Vergil had already found this world-conquering power in amor and labor improbus,1 which conquer all things. Love and unrelenting toil always step beyond their limits. Unlike Achilles, they rage on after the bodies are buried. Always unsatisfied, they cut deeper than the superficial, personal manipulations of sword and stratagem. These forces reach beyond the satisfaction of any finite objective, encompassing and reshaping the entire world. As Vergil is more than an epic poet, the Aeneid transcends the presuppositions of Homeric epic. Against the wider horizon of world history, the epic form becomes the contingent expression of an outmoded worldview, one now seen from outside itself and suspended in comparison with other possible alternatives. And so, though Vergil sings of arms and the man, it is not at all clear that he means to exult the armed man. The ambiguity of Vergil’s commitments has been expressed in Adam Parry’s reading of Vergil as counterposing “two voices” in the Aeneid, 2 a main voice of Roman triumph and a counter -voice questioning the Roman imperial project. This counter -voice ties Vergil to genres outside of epic, genres with their arion 28.2 fall 2020 44 limb-loosening and the care of history own often opposing views of the human condition. Sappho offers one such critique of epic from the erotic perspective of lyric when she asks if any military pageantry could really be more beautiful than the object of her desire (Sappho LP 16). Though the sentiment comes from Greek lyric, it perfectly applies to the crisis of value-commitments Aeneas faces across his journey, most obviously (but not exclusively) in abandoning Dido for Roman glory. The conflicting voices Parry found within the Aeneid are thus analogous to the contrast between epic and lyric, between a view of the world as violence redeemed by public renown and a view of the world as love contained within personal intimacy. Even in Vergil’s most quintessentially epic moments, the deaths of great heroes, an echo of the lyrical voice is present. A formula repeated at the beginning and end of the epic—solvuntur frigore membra—describes the introductory surrender of Aeneas during the storm (Aen 1.92) as well as the concluding death of Turnus at Aeneas’ own hands (Aen 12.951). The hero and his rival both fall with their “limbs slack in a chill,”3 one in desperate supplication, the other in death. What exactly does this mean? Do the limbs seize up in a kind of terror, stiffening in rigor mortis as frigore would suggest? Or is the stress on the solvuntur, as the limbs loosen with a free sensuality evocative of lyrical eroticism? On the most basic physical level, solvere describes the body as somehow coming apart and losing its unified form, yet in these uses it also suggests the opposite, a rigid stiffening of the body. There is clearly more than a physical account intended in each of these expressions. Some deeper semantic sense unites the physical descriptions. Vergil is not entirely innovating with this expression, as Homer uses a similar phrase to describe the deaths of Patroclus and Hector (Il. 16.856–57; 22.68). I aim to demonstrate how this epic formula draws upon a literary tradition which supplies the wider semantic sense necessary to contextualize these passages in Vergil. The epic poets are relying upon a George Saad 45 long-standing motif to describe the loosening of boundaries between individual and world in a moment of bittersweet release. While this motif arises throughout Greek literature, it is especially characteristic of lyric. The loosening of the limbs becomes especially conspicuous in Vergil because this... (shrink)

While it is widely agreed that Hegel’s philosophy is a philosophy of freedom, the significance and scope of Hegel’s theory of freedom is disputed. Most scholarly work on this topic has been devoted to the socio-political philosophy of the Philosophy of Right. But Hegel also speaks of freedom in a way which extends beyond the concerns of his socio-political thought. This dissertation demonstrates how Hegel’s theory of freedom is more fully grasped when it is understood as a comprehensive philosophy which (...) also involves an ontology (a logic of being) and a phenomenology (a direct experience of this logic). The free state which Hegel outlines in the Philosophy of Right is still only a limited manifestation of a freedom which also pervades other aspects of human experience. A way of thinking which is “free” (in the sense that it does not restrict itself by assuming false methodological limitations) is itself essential to our capacity for rational self-determination. Moreover, this “speculative” perspective has only been achieved through the gradual cultivation (Bildung) of the free personality throughout history. -/- This dissertation therefore investigates why Hegel thinks that freedom is at issue in abstract philosophical thought (in his logical works) as well as in concrete historical phenomena (in the Phenomenology of Spirit). This logic and appearance of freedom explicates Hegel’s statement in the Preface of the Phenomenology that the absolute is not only substance, but also subject. Having shown that both the ancient freedom of the “social substance” and the modern freedom of the “pure I” are untenable on their own terms, Hegel advances a logical and phenomenological theory of freedom in which these one-sided truths are reconciled with each other. The “substantial subject” of Hegelian freedom more fully actualizes the purely subjective freedom of the Enlightenment, enabling true individual self-determination. Freedom appears not just as the right to make arbitrary choices, but as substantial thought and conviction. (shrink)