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!