museum of thought collective

Nadim I have become deeply aware that the notion of an intelligible individualism, in which, I think of myself as separate from nature, society, and others, is deeply and profoundly flawed. The consequences are so deeply anti-ecological and destructive of the environment and our social fabric. I am wired into my contexts and my contexts include others, society, and the Earth.

Kurt But there are so many out there who hang on to the claim that it is perfectly intelligible. I can think of myself of a self-contexting individual. I do not need anyone else or anything else.

Nadim I agree. And there are some very prominent people who promote this agenda.

Kurt I think I would say it’s not just that I am wired to my contexts – take ‘breathing’, for example – my internal desire, my drives, and my emotional life are deeply wired into my relation to my context. If I sever my connection to the world I enter a state of profound bad faith –

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL SKETCHBOOK, 2019

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL SKETCHBOOK, 2019

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL SKETCHBOOK, 2019

Professor Frank N Steinisch I was working through the ideas of metaphysical waste and stumbled on the following negation:

Freddy Faust You mean the atom was born of a double negation? A kind of denial of meaning flowing into the world? A denial of the idea that the world is not made of stuff but of movement?

Nadim Can it be that the philosophical concept of substance is nothing more than the waste left over once the forms of the world are severed from their roots?

Professor Frank N Steinisch Hi Jacques. I wondered what you thought of this?

Jacques I think, if we are able to unpack this image, we would find the core of the Kantian legacy and those he attempted to synthesize.

Professor Frank N Steinisch Happy to do that. When are you free?

Jacques Later this month?

Ibn Aflatun Just a note, really. The Collective has been working on transcribing a dialogue on human understanding. It is loosely based on Locke and Hume – but circles around a number of related writers, philosophers, and thinkers. It uses the following:

Ali Yes, I recognize this. This echoes across all our work. You say it is the basis or grammatical principle of understanding?

Ibn Aflatun Yes.

Nadim I find this music really hypnotic.

Karl You work and write to it, don’t you?

Nadim Yes, like Steve Reich, John Adams, and Nik Bartsch – I find it helps me think – repetition & variation – the creative flow in the natural order. From leaves, trees, plants, all species, chemical elements – it is everywhere. And, for me, the human being, is a distinctive growth, including our culture –