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Reza Negarestani
e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
The Labor of the
Inhuman, Part
II: The Inhuman
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Continued from ÒThe Labor of the Inhuman, Part I:
HumanÓ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEnlightened humanism as a project of
commitment to humanity, in the entangled sense
of what it means to be human and what it means
to make a commitment, is a rational project. It is
rational not only because it locates the meaning
of human1 in the space of reasons as a specific
horizon of practices, but also and more
importantly, because the concept of
commitment it adheres to cannot be thought or
practiced as a voluntaristic impulse free of
ramifications and growing obligations. Instead,
this is commitment as a rational system for
navigating collateral commitments Ð their
ramifications as well as their specific
entitlements Ð that result from making an initial
commitment.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊInteraction with the rational system of
commitments follows a navigational paradigm in
which the ramifications of an initial commitment
must be compulsively elaborated and navigated
in order for this commitment to make sense as
an undertaking. It is the examination of the
rational fallout of making a commitment, the
unpacking of its far-reaching consequences, and
the treating of these ramifications as paths to be
explored that shapes commitment to humanity
as a navigational project. Here, navigation is not
only a survey of a landscape whose full scope is
not given; it is also an exercise in the nonmonotonic procedures of steering, plotting out
routes, suspending navigational preconceptions,
rejecting or resolving incompatible
commitments, exploring the space of
possibilities, and understanding each path as a
hypothesis leading to new paths or a lack thereof
Ð transits as well as obstructions.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFrom a rational perspective, a commitment
is seen as a cascade of ramifying paths that is in
the process of expanding its frontiers,
developing into an evolving landscape,
unmooring its fixed perspectives, deracinating
any form of rootedness associated with a fixed
commitment or immutable responsibilities,
revising links and addresses between its old and
new commitments, and finally, erasing any image
of itself as Òwhat it was supposed to be.Ó
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo place the meaning of human in the
rational system of commitments is to submit the
presumed stability of this meaning to the
perturbing and transformative power of a
landscape undergoing comprehensive changes
under the revisionary thrust of its ramifying
destinations. By situating itself in the rational
system of commitments, humanism posits itself
as an initial condition for what already
retroactively bears a minimal resemblance, if any
at all, to what originally set it in motion.
Sufficiently elaborated, humanism Ð it shall be
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God Told Me To, a 1976 Larry Cohen film, follows a detective trying to solve a series of murders whose perpetrators claim to have been ordered by God. This
still is from the opening sequence of the movie.
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03.06.14 / 19:33:30 EST
e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
1. The Picture of ÒUsÓ Drawn in Sand
The practical elaboration of making a
commitment to humanity is inhumanism. If
making a commitment means fully elaborating
the content of such a commitment (the
consequent Òwhat else?Ó of what it means to be
human), and if to be human means being able to
enter the space of reason, then a commitment to
humanity must fully elaborate how the abilities
of reason functionally convert sentience to
sapience.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBut insofar as reason enjoys a functional
autonomy Ð which enables it to prevent the
collapse of sapience back into sentience Ð the
full elaboration of the abilities of reason entails
unpacking the consequences of the autonomy of
reason for human. Humanism is by definition a
project to amplify the space of reason through
elaborating what the autonomy of reason entails
and what demands it makes upon us. But the
autonomy of reason implies its autonomy to
assess and construct itself, and by extension, to
renegotiate and construct that which
distinguishes itself by entering the space of
reason. In other words, the self-cultivation of
reason, which is the emblem of its functional
autonomy, materializes as staggering
consequences for humanity. What reason does to
itself inevitably takes effect as what it does to
human.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSince the functional autonomy of reason
implies the self-determination of reason with
regard to its own conduct Ð insofar as reason
cannot be assessed or revised by anything other
than itself (to avoid equivocation or superstition)
Ð commitment to such autonomy effectively
exposes what it means to be human to the
sweeping revisionary effect of reason. In a sense,
the autonomy of reason is the autonomy of its
power to revise, and commitment to the
autonomy of reason (via the project of
humanism) is a commitment to the autonomy of
reasonÕs revisionary program over which human
has no hold.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊInhumanism is exactly the activation of the
revisionary program of reason against the selfportrait of humanity. Once the structure and the
function of commitment are genuinely
understood, we see that a commitment works its
way back from the future, from the collateral
commitments of oneÕs current commitment, like
a corrosive revisionary acid that rushes
backward in time. By eroding the anchoring link
between present commitments and their past,
and by seeing present commitments from the
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argued Ð is the initial condition of inhumanism
as a force that travels back from the future to
alter, if not to completely discontinue, the
command of its origin.
perspective of their ramifications, revision forces
the updating of present commitments in a
cascading fashion that spreads globally over the
entire system. The rational structure of a
commitment, or more specifically, of
commitment to humanity, constructs the
opportunities of the present by cultivating the
positive trends of the past through the
revisionary forces of the future. Once you commit
to human, you effectively start erasing its
canonical portrait backward from the future. It is,
as Foucault suggests, the unyielding wager on
the fact that the self-portrait of man will be
erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of
the sea.2Every portrait drawn is washed away by
the revisionary power of reason, permitting more
subtle portraits with so few canonical traits that
one should ask whether it is worthwhile or useful
to call what is left behind human at all.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊInhumanism is the labor of rational agency
on human. But there is one caveat here: the
rational agency is not personal, individual, or
necessarily biological. The kernel of inhumanism
is a commitment to humanity via the concurrent
construction and revision of human as oriented
and regulated by the autonomy of reason, i.e., its
self-determination and responsibility for its own
needs. In the space of reason, construction
entails revision, and revision demands
construction. The revision of the alleged portrait
of human implies that the construction of human
in whatever context can be exercised without
recourse to a constitutive foundation, a
fundamental identity, an immaculate nature, a
given meaning, or a prior state. In short, revision
is a license for further construction.
2. When We Lost Contact with ÒWhat Is
Becoming of UsÓ
Whereas, as Michael Ferrer points out,
antihumanism is devoted to the unfeasible task
of deflating the conflation of human significance
with human veneration, inhumanism is a project
that begins by dissociating human significance
from human glory.3 Resolving the content of
conflation and extracting significance from its
honorific residues, inhumanism then takes
humanism to its ultimate conclusions. It does so
by constructing a revisable picture of us that
functionally breaks free from our expectations
and historical biases regarding what this image
should be, look like, or mean. For this reason,
inhumanism, as it will be argued later, prompts a
new phase in the systematic project of
emancipation Ð not as a successor to other
forms of emancipation but a critically urgent and
indispensable addition to the growing chain of
obligations.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMoreover, inhumanism disrupts a future
anticipation built on descriptions and
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prescriptions provided by a conservative
humanism. Conservative humanism places the
consequentiality of human in an overdetermined
meaning or an over-particularized set of
descriptions which is fixed and must at all times
be preserved by any prescription developed by
and for humans. Inhumanism, on the other hand,
finds the consequentiality of commitment to
humanity in its practical elaboration and in the
navigation of its ramifications. For the true
consequentiality of a commitment is a matter of
its power to generate other commitments, to
update itself in accordance with its
ramifications, to open up spaces of possibility,
and to navigate the revisionary and constructive
imports such possibilities may contain.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe consequentiality of commitment to
humanity, accordingly, lies not in how
parameters of this commitment are initially
described or set. Rather, it lies in how the
pragmatic meaning of this commitment (its
meaning through use) and the functionalist
sense of its descriptions (what must we do in
order to count as human?) intertwine to
effectuate broad consequences that are
irreconcilable with what was initially the case. It
is consequentiality in the latter sense that
overshadows consequentially in the former
sense, before it fully proves the formerÕs
descriptive poverty and prescriptive
inconsequentiality through a thoroughgoing
revision.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs Robert Brandom notes, every
Òconsequence is a change in normative statusÓ
that may lead to incompatibilities between
commitments.4 Therefore, in order to maintain
the undertaking, we are obliged to do something
specific to resolve the incompatibilities. From
the perspective of inhumanism, the more
discontinuous the consequences of committing
to humanity, the greater are the demands of
doing something to rectify our undertakings
(ethical, legal, economic, political, technological,
and so forth). Inhumanism highlights the urgency
of action according to a tide of revision that
increasingly registers itself as a discontinuity, a
growing rift with no possibility of restoration.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAny sociopolitical endeavor or
consequential project of change must first
address this rift Ð or discontinuity effect Ð and
then devise a necessary course of action in
accordance with it. But doing something about
the discontinuity effect Ð triggered by
unanticipated consequences and, as a result,
the exponentially growing change in normative
status (that is, the demands of what ought to be
done) Ð is not tantamount to an act of
restoration. On the contrary, the task is to
Food rations transported in an assembly line in Richard Fleischer's 1973 movie, Soylent Green.
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3. The Revisionary Catastrophe
The definition of humanity according to reason is
a minimalist definition whose consequences are
not immediately given, but whose ramifications
are staggering. If there was ever a real crisis, it
would be our inability to cope with the
consequences of committing to the real content
of humanity. The trajectory of reason is that of a
general catastrophe whose pointwise instances
and stepwise courses have no observable effect
or comprehensive discontinuity. Reason is
therefore simultaneously a medium of stability
that reinforces procedurality and a general
catastrophe, a medium of radical change that
administers the discontinuous identity of reason
to an anticipated image of human.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊElaborating humanity according to the
discursive space of reason establishes a
discontinuity between humanÕs anticipation of
itself (what it expects itself to become) and the
image of human modified according to its active
content or significance. It is exactly this
discontinuity that characterizes inhumanism as
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the general catastrophe ordained by activating
the content of humanity, whose functional kernel
is not just autonomous but also compulsive and
transformative.
John Whitney, Permutations, 1966.
e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
construct points of liaison Ð cognitive and
practical channels Ð so as to enable
communication between what we think of
ourselves and what is becoming of us.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe ability to recognize the latter is not a
given right or an inherent natural aptitude; it is,
in fact, a labor, a program, that is fundamentally
lacking in current political projects. Being human
does not by any means entail the ability to
connect with the consequences of what it means
to be human. In the same vein, identifying
ourselves as human is neither a sufficient
condition for understanding what is becoming of
us, nor a sufficient condition for recognizing
what we are becoming, or more accurately, what
is being born out of us.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA political endeavor aligned with
antihumanism cannot forestall its descent into a
grotesque form of activism. But any
sociopolitical project that pledges its allegiance
to conservative humanism Ð whether through a
quasi-instrumentalist and preservationist
account of reason (such as Habermasian
rationality) or a theologically charged meaning of
human Ð enforces the tyranny of here and now
under the aegis of a foundational past or a root.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAntihumanism and conservative humanism
represent two pathologies of history frequently
appearing under the rubrics of conservation and
progression Ð one an account of the present that
must preserve the traits of the past, and the
other an account of the present that must
approach the future while remaining anchored in
the past. But the catastrophe of revision erases
them from the future by modifying the link
between the past and the present.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe discernment of humanity requires the
activation of the autonomous space of reason.
But since this space Ð qua the content of
humanity Ð is functionally autonomous even
though its genesis is historical, its activation
implies the deactivation of historical
anticipations of what humanity can be or become
at a descriptive level. Since antihumanism
mostly draws its critical power from this
descriptive level either situated in nature
(allegedly immune to revision) or in a restricted
scope of history (based on a particular
anticipation), the realization of the autonomy of
reason would restore the nontheological
significance of human as an initial necessary
condition, thus nullifying the antihumanist
critique. What is important to understand here is
that one cannot defend or even speak of
inhumanism without first committing to the
humanist project through the front door of the
Enlightenment.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRationalism as the compulsive navigation of
the space of reason turns commitment to
humanity into a revisionary catastrophe, by
converting its initial commitment into a ramified
cascade of collateral commitments which must
be navigated in order for it to be counted as
commitment. But it is precisely this conversion,
instigated and guided by reason, that transforms
a commitment into a revisionary catastrophe
that travels backward in time from the future,
from its revisionary ramifications, in order to
interfere with the past and rewrite the present.
In this sense, reason establishes a link in history
hitherto unimaginable from the perspective of a
present that preserves an origin or is anchored in
4. Autonomy of Reason
But what exactly is the functional autonomy of
reason? It is the expression of the selfactualizing propensity of reason Ð a scenario
wherein reason liberates its own spaces despite
what naturally appears to be necessary or
happens to be the case. Here ÒnecessaryÓ refers
to an alleged natural necessity and should be
distinguished from a normative necessity.
Whereas the given status of natural causes is
defined by ÒisÓ (something that is purportedly the
case because it has been contingently posited,
such as the atmospheric condition of the planet),
the normative of the rational is defined by Òought
to.Ó The former communicates a supposedly
necessary impulsion while the latter is not given,
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the past.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo act in tandem with the revisionary vector
of the future is not to redeem but to update and
revise, to reconstitute and modify. As an activist
impulse, redemption operates as a voluntaristic
mode of action informed by a preservationist or
conserved account of the present. Revision, on
the other hand, is an obligation or a rational
compulsion to conform to the revisionary waves
of the future stirred by the functional autonomy
of reason.
but instead generated by explicitly
acknowledging a law or a norm implicit in a
collective practice, thereby turning it into a
binding status, a conceptual compulsion, an
ought.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is the acknowledging, error-tolerant,
revisionary dimension of ought Ð as opposed to
the impulsive diktat of a natural law Ð that
presents ought as a vector of construction
capable of turning contingently posited natural
necessities into the manipulable variables
required for construction. In addition, the order
of ought is capable of composing a functional
organization, a chain or dynasty of oughts, that
procedurally effectuates a cumulative escape
from the allegedly necessary is crystalized in the
order of here and now.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe functional autonomy of reason consists
in connecting simple oughts to complex oughts
or normative necessities or abilities by way of
inferential links or processes. A commitment to
humanity, and, consequently, the autonomy of
reason, requires not only specifying what oughts
or commitment-abilities we are entitled to, but
also developing new functional links and
inferences that connect existing oughts to new
oughts or obligations.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhether Marxist agenda, humanist creed,
Magnified grains of sand are shown in the opening sequence of Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes, 1964.
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5. Functional Autonomy
The claim about the functional autonomy of
reason is not a claim about the genetic
spontaneity of reason, since reason is historical
and revisable, social and rooted in practice. It is
really a claim about the autonomy of discursive
practices and the autonomy of inferential links
between oughts, that is to say, links between
constructive abilities and revisionary obligations.
Reason has its roots in social construction, in
communal assessment, and in the manipulability
of conditionals embedded in modes of inference.
It is social partly because it is deeply connected
to the origin and function of language as a deprivatizing, communal, and stabilizing space of
organization. But we should be careful to extract
a ÒrobustÓ conception of the social, because a
generic appeal to social construction risks not
only relativism and equivocation but also, as Paul
Boghossian points out, a fear of knowledge.6 The
first movement in the direction of extracting this
robust conception of the social is making a
necessary distinction between the ÒimplicitlyÓ
normative aspect of the social (the area of the
consumption and production of norms through
practices) and the dimension of the social
inhabited by conventions, between norms as
intervening attitudes and normalizing norms as
conformist dispositions.
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e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
or future-oriented perspective, any political
philosophy that boasts of commitments without
working out inferential problems and without
constructing inferential and functional links
suffers from an internal contradiction and an
absence of connectivity between commitments.
Without inferential links, there is no real
updating of commitments. Without a global
program of updating, it becomes increasingly
difficult, if not impossible, to prevent humanism
from stagnating as an organ of conservatism,
and Marxism from sliding into a burlesque of
critique, a grab bag of cautionary tales and
revolutionary bravado. No matter how
sociopolitically adept or determined a political
project appears, without a global updating
system, such an enterprise is blocked by its own
internal contradictions from prescribing any
obligation or duty.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIndeed, in its commendable attempt to
outline Òwhat ought to be doneÓ in terms of
functional organizations, complex hierarchies,
and positive feedback loops of autonomy, the
recent Ò#Accelerate ManifestoÓ signifies a
Marxian project that is in the process of updating
its commitments.5 It should come as no surprise
that such an endeavor receives the most derision
and scorn from those strains of Marxism which
have long since given up on updating their
cognitive and practical commitments.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊReason begins with an intervening attitude
toward norms implicit in social practices. It is
neither separated from nature nor isolated from
social construction. However, reason has
irreducible needs of its own (Kant) and a
constitutive self-determination (Hegel), and it
can be assessed only by itself (Sellars). In fact,
the first task or question of rationalism is to
come up with a conception of nature and the
social that allows for the autonomy of reason.
This question revolves around a causal regime of
nature that allows for the autonomous
performance of reason in ÒacknowledgingÓ laws,
whether natural or social. Therefore, it is
important to note that rationality is not conduct
in accordance with a law, but rather the
acknowledging of a law. Rationality is the
Òconception of lawÓ as a portal to the realm of
revisable and navigable rules.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWe only become rational agents once we
acknowledge or develop a certain intervening
attitude toward norms that renders them
binding. We do not embrace the normative status
of things outright. We do not have access to the
explicit Ð that is, logically codified Ð status of
norms. It is through such intervening attitudes
toward the revision and construction of norms
through social practices that we make the status
of norms explicit.7 Contra Hegel, rationality is not
codified by explicit norms from the bottom up. To
confuse implicit norms accessible through
intervening practices with explicit norms is
common and risks logicism or intellectualism,
i.e., an account of normativity in which explicit
norms constitute an initial condition with rules
all the way down Ð a claim already debunked by
WittgensteinÕs regress argument.8
6. Functional Bootstrapping and Practical
Decomposability
The autonomy of reason is a claim about the
autonomy of its normative, inferential, and
revisionary function in the face of the chain of
causes that condition it. Ultimately, this is a
(neo)functionalist claim, in the sense of a
pragmatic or rationalist functionalism.
Pragmatic functionalism must be distinguished
from both traditional AI-functionalism, which
revolves around the symbolic nature of thought,
and behavioral variants of functionalism, which
rely on behaviors as sets of regularities. While
the latter two risk various myths of
pancomputationalism (the unconditional
omnipresence of computation, the idea that
every physical system can implement every
computation) or behavioralism, it is important to
note that a complete rejection of functionalism
in its pragmatic or Kantian rationalist sense will
inevitably usher in vitalism and ineffabilism, the
mystical dogma according to which there is
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The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
something essentially special and nonconstructible about thought.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPragmatic functionalism is concerned with
the pragmatic nature of human discursive
practices, that is, the ability to reason, to go
back and forth between saying and doing
stepwise. Here, ÒstepwiseÓ defines the
constitution of saying and doing, claims and
performances, as a condition of neardecomposability. For this reason, pragmatic
functionalism focuses on the decomposability of
discursive practices into nondiscursive
practices. (What ought one to do in order to count
as reasoning or even thinking?). Unlike symbolic
or classic AI, pragmatic functionalism does not
decompose implicit practices into explicit Ð that
is, logically codifiable Ð norms. Instead, it
decomposes explicit norms into implicit
practices, knowing-that into knowing-how (which
is the domain of abilities endowed with
bootstrapping capacities Ð what must be done in
order to count as performing something
specific?).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAccording to pragmatic or rationalist
functionalism, the autonomy of reason implies
the automation of reason, since the autonomy of
practices, which is the marker of sapience,
suggests the automation of discursive practices
by virtue of their algorithmic decomposability
into nondiscursive practices. The automation of
discursive practices, or the feedback loop
between saying and doing, is the veritable
expression of reasonÕs functional autonomy and
the telos of the disenchantment project. If
thought is able to carry out the disenchanting of
nature, it is only the automation of discursive
practices that is able to disenchant thought.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHere, automation does not imply an
identical iteration of processes aimed at
effective optimization or strict forms of
entailment (monotonicity). It is a register of the
functional analysis or practical decomposability
of a set of special performances that permits the
autonomous bootstrapping of one set of abilities
out of another set. Accordingly, automation here
amounts to practical enablement or the ability to
maintain and enhance the functional autonomy
or freedom. The pragmatic procedures involved
in this mode of automation perpetually diversify
the spaces of action and understanding insofar
as the non-monotonic character of practices
opens up new trajectories of practical
organization and, correspondingly, expands the
realm of practical freedom.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOnce the game of reason as a domain of
rule-based practices is set in motion, reason is
able to bootstrap complex abilities out of its
primitive abilities. This is nothing but the selfactualization of reason. Reason liberates its own
spaces and its own demands, and in the process
fundamentally revises not only what we
understand as thinking, but also what we
recognize as Òus.Ó Wherever there is functional
autonomy, there is a possibility of selfactualization or self-realization as an epochal
development in history. Wherever self-realization
is underway, a closed positive feedback loop
between freedom and intelligence, selftransformation and self-consciousness, has
been established. The functional autonomy of
reason is then a precursor to the self-realization
of an intelligence that assembles itself, piece by
piece, from the constellation of a discursively
elaborative ÒusÓ qua an open-source self.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRationalist functionalism, therefore,
delineates a nonsymbolic Ð that is, philosophical
Ð project of general intelligence in which
intelligence is fully apprehended as a vector of
self-realization through the maintaining and
enhancing of functional autonomy. Automation of
discursive practices Ð the pragmatic unbinding
of artificial general intelligence and the
triggering of new modes of collectivizing
practices via linking to autonomous discursive
practices Ð exemplifies the revisionary and
constructive edge of reason as sharpened
against the canonical self-portrait of human.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo be free one must be a slave to reason.
But to be a slave to reason (the very condition of
freedom) exposes one to both the revisionary
power and the constructive compulsion of
reason. This susceptibility is terminally amplified
once the commitment to the autonomy of reason
and autonomous engagement with discursive
practices are sufficiently elaborated. That is to
say, when the autonomy of reason is understood
as the automation of reason and discursive
practices Ð the philosophical rather than
classically symbolic thesis regarding artificial
general intelligence.9
7. Augmented Rationality
The automation of reason suggests a new phase
in the enablement of reasonÕs revisionary edge
and constructive vector. This new phase in the
enablement of reason signals the exacerbation
of the difference between rational compulsion
and natural impulsion, between Òought toÓ as an
intervening obligation and ÒisÓ as conformity to
what is supposedly or naturally the case
(contingency of nature, necessity of foundation,
dispositions, conventions, and allegedly
necessary limits).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe dynamic sharpening of the difference
between ÒisÓ and ÒoughtÓ heralds the advent of
what should be called an augmented rationality.
It is augmented not in the sense of being more
rational (just like augmented reality that is not
more real than reality), but in the sense of further
radicalizing the distinction between what has
8. A Cultivating Project of Construction and
Revision
The automation of reason and discursive
practices unlocks new vistas for exercising
revision and construction, which is to say,
engaging in a systematic project of practical
freedom. This is freedom as both the
systematicity of knowledge, and as knowledge of
the system as a prerequisite for acting on the
system. In order to act on the system, it is
necessary to know the system. But insofar as the
system is nothing but a global integration of
tendencies and functions, and insofar as it has
neither an intrinsic architecture, nor an ultimate
foundation, nor an extrinsic limit, it is imperative
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been done or has taken place (or is supposedly
the case) and what ought to be done. It is only
the sharpening of this distinction that is able to
augment the demands of reason and,
correspondingly, propel rational agency towards
new frontiers of action and understanding.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAugmented rationality is the radical
exacerbation of the difference between ought
and is. It thereby, from a certain perspective,
annuls the myth of restoration and erases any
hope for reconciliation between being and
thinking. Augmented rationality inhabits what
Howard Barker calls the Òarea of maximum riskÓ
Ð not risk to humanity per se, but to
commitments which have not yet been updated,
because they conform to a portrait of human that
has not been revised.10 Understood as the labor
of the inhuman, augmented rationality produces
a generalized catastrophe for unupdated
commitments to human through the
amplification of the revisionary and constructive
dimensions of Òought.Ó If reason has a functional
evolution of its own, cognitive contumacy against
adaptation to the space of reason (the evolution
of ought rather than the natural evolution of is)
ends in cataclysm.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAdaptation to the evolution of reason Ð
which is the actualization of reason according to
its own functional needs Ð is a matter of
updating commitments to the autonomy of
reason by way of updating commitments to
human. The updating of commitments is
impossible without translating the revisionary
and constructive dimensions of reason into
systematic projects for the revision and
construction of human through communal
assessment and methodological collectivism.
Even though rationalism represents the
systematicity of revision and construction, it
cannot by itself institute such systematicity. To
rephrase, rationalism is not a substitute for a
political project, even though it remains the
necessary platform that simultaneously informs
and orients any consequential political project.
to treat the system as a constructible hypothesis
in order to know it. In other words, the system
should be understood by way of abductive
synthesis and deductive analysis, methodic
construction as well as inferential manipulation
of its variables distributed at different levels.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊKnowledge of the system is not a general
epistemology, but rather, as William Wimsatt
emphasizes, an Òengineering epistemology.Ó11
Engineering epistemology Ð a form of
understanding that involves the designated
manipulation of causal fabric and the
organization of functional hierarchies Ð is an
upgradable armamentarium of heuristics that is
particularly attentive to the distinct roles and
requirements of different levels and hierarchies.
It employs lower-level entities and mechanisms
to guide and enhance construction on upper
levels. It also utilizes upper-level variables and
robust processes to correct lower-level
structural and functional hierarchies,12 but also
to renormalize their space of possibilities so as
to actualize their constructive potentials,
yielding the observables and manipulation
conditionals necessary for further
construction.13
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAny political project aimed at genuine
change must understand and adapt to the logic
of nested hierarchies that is the distinctive
feature of complex systems.14 This is because
change cannot be effected except through both
structural modifications and functional
transformations across different structural
layers and functional levels. Numerous
intricacies arise from the distribution of nested
structural and functional hierarchies.
Sometimes, in order to make change at one level,
a structural or functional change at a different,
seemingly unrelated level must be made.
Moreover, what is important is to change
functions (whether at economic, social, or
political levels). But not every structural change
necessarily leads to a functional change, while
every functional change Ð by virtue of functions
playing the role of purpose-attainment and
dynamic stabilization for the system Ð results in
a structural change (although such an alteration
in structure might not take place in the specific
structure whose function has just changed).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe significance of nested hierarchies for
the implementation of any form of change on any
stratum of our life makes the knowledge of
different explanatory levels and cross-level
manipulation a necessity of utmost importance.
Such knowledge is yet to be fully incorporated
within political projects. Without the knowledge
of structural and functional hierarchies, ambition
for change Ð whether through modification,
reorganization or disruption Ð is misguided by
the conflation between different strata of
03.06.14 / 19:33:30 EST
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e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
structure and function on the levels of economy,
society, and politics. Therefore, only explanatory
differentiation of levels and cross-level
manipulations (complex heuristics) are able to
transform dreams of change into reality.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn a hierarchical scenario, lower-level
dimensions open upper levels to possibility
spaces, which simultaneously expand the
possibility of construction and bring about the
possibility of revision. At the same time,
descriptive plasticity and stabilized mechanisms
of upper-level dimensions adjust and mobilize
lower-level constructions and manipulations.
Combined together, the abilities of lower-levels
and upper-levels form the revisionaryconstructive loop of engineering.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe engineering loop is a perspectival
schema and a map of synthesis. As a map, it
distributes both across different levels and as a
multitude of covering maps with different
descriptive-prescriptive valences over individual
levels. The patchwork structure ensures a form
of descriptive plasticity and prescriptive
versatility, it reduces incoherencies and
explanatory conflations and renders the search
for problems and opportunities of construction
effective by tailoring descriptive and prescriptive
covering maps to specificities. As a perspectival
compass, it passes through manifest and
scientific images (stereoscopic coherence),
assumes a view from above and a view from
below (telescopic deepening), and integrates
various mesoscales which have their own
specific and nonextendable explanatory,
descriptive, structural, and functional orders
(nontrivial synthesis). The revisionaryconstructive loop always institutes engineering
as re-engineering, a process of re-modification,
re-evaluation, re-orientation and re-constitution.
It is the cumulative effect of engineering
(Wimsatt) that corresponds to the functional and
structural accumulation of complex systems,15
as that corrosive substance that eats away
myths of foundation and catalyzes a cumulative
escape from contingently posited settings.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe error-tolerant and manipulable
dimensions of treating the system as a
hypothesis and engineering epistemology are
precisely the expressions of revision and
construction as the two pivotal functions of
freedom. Any commitment that prevents revision
and does not maintain Ð or more importantly,
expand Ð the scope of construction ought to be
updated. If it cannot be updated, then it ought to
be discarded. Freedom only grows out of
functional accumulation and refinement, which
are characteristics of hierarchical, nested, and
therefore decentralized and complex systems. A
functional organization consists of functional
hierarchies and correct inferential links between
them that permit nontrivial orientation,
maintenance, calibration, and enhancement,
thereby bringing about opportunities for
procedurally turning supposed necessities and
fundaments associated with natural causes into
manipulable variables of construction.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn a sense, a functional organization can be
interpreted as a complex hierarchical system of
functional links and functional properties related
to both normative and causal functioning. It is
able to convert the given order of ÒisÓ into the
intervening and enabling order of Òought,Ó where
contingently posited natural limits are
substituted by necessary but revisable
normative constraints. It is crucial to note that
construction proceeds under normative
constraints (not natural constraints) and natural
determinations (hence, realism) that cannot be
taken as foundational limits. Functional
hierarchies take on the role of ladders or
bootstraps through which one casual fabric is
appropriated to another, one normative status is
pushed to another level.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis is why it is the figure of the engineer, as
the agent of revision and construction, who is
public enemy number one of the foundation as
that which limits the scope of change and
impedes the prospects of a cumulative escape. It
is not the advocate of transgression or the
militant communitarian who is bent on
subtracting himself from the system or flattening
the system to a state of horizontality. More
importantly, this is also why freedom is not an
overnight delivery, whether in the name of
spontaneity or the will of people, or in the name
of exporting democracy. Liberation is a project,
not an idea or a commodity. Its effect is not the
irruption of novelty, but rather the continuity of a
designated form of labor.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRather than liberation, the condition of
freedom is a piecewise structural and functional
accumulation and refinement that takes shape
as a project of self-cultivation. Structural and
functional accumulation and refinement
constitute the proper environment for updating
commitments, both through the correcting
influence of levels over one another and the
constructive propensity inherent in functional
hierarchies as engines of enablement.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLiberation is neither the initial spark of
freedom nor sufficient as its content. To regard
liberation as the source of freedom is an
eventalist credulity that has been discredited
over and over, insofar as it does not warrant the
maintaining and enhancing of freedom. But to
identify liberation as the sufficient content of
freedom produces a far graver outcome:
irrationalism, and as a result, the precipitation of
various forms of tyranny and fascism.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe sufficient content of freedom can only
03.06.14 / 19:33:30 EST
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e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
be found in reason. One must recognize the
difference between a rational norm and a natural
law Ð between the emancipation intrinsic in the
explicit acknowledgement of the binding status
of complying with reason, and the slavery
associated with the deprivation of such a
capacity to acknowledge, which is the condition
of natural impulsion. In a strict sense, freedom is
not liberation from slavery. It is the continuous
unlearning of slavery.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe compulsion to update commitments as
well as construct cognitive and practical
technologies for exercising such feats of
commitment-updating are two necessary
dimensions of this unlearning procedure. Seen
from a constructive and revisionary perspective,
freedom is intelligence. A commitment to
humanity or freedom that does not practically
elaborate the meaning of this dictum has already
abandoned its commitment and taken humanity
hostage only to trudge through history for a day
or two.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLiberal freedom, be it a social enterprise or
an intuitive idea of being free from normative
constraints (i.e. freedom without purpose and
designed action), is a freedom that does not
translate into intelligence, and for this reason, it
is retroactively obsolete. To reconstitute a
supposed constitution, to draw a functional link
between identifying what is normatively good
and making it true, to maintain and enhance the
good and to endow the pursuit of the better with
its own autonomy Ð such is the course of
freedom. But this is also the definition of
intelligence as the self-realization of practical
freedom and functional autonomy that liberates
itself in spite of its constitution.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAdaptation to an autonomous conception of
reason Ð that is, the updating of commitments
according to the progressive self-actualization of
reason Ð is a struggle that coincides with the
revisionary and constructive project of freedom.
The first expression of such freedom is the
establishment of an orientation Ð a hegemonic
pointer Ð that highlights the synthetic and
constructible passage that human ought to
tread. But to tread this path, we must cross the
cognitive Rubicon.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIndeed, the intervening attitude demanded
by adaptation to a functionally autonomous
reason suggests that the cognitive Rubicon has
already been crossed. In order to navigate this
synthetic path, there is no point in staring back
at what once was, but has now been dissipated Ð
like all illusory images Ð by the revisionary winds
of reason.16
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
Reza Negarestani is a philosopher. He has contributed
extensively to journals and anthologies and lectured at
numerous international universities and institutes. His
current philosophical project is focused on rationalist
universalism beginning with the evolution of the
modern system of knowledge and advancing toward
contemporary philosophies of rationalism, their
procedures as well as their demands for special forms
of human conduct.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2
See Michel Foucault,ÊThe Order
of Things: An Archaeology of
Human Sciences (New York:
Vintage Books, 1970), 387.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13
Manipulation conditionals are
specific forms of general
conditionals that express
various causal and explanatory
combinations of antecedents
and consequents (ifÉ thenÉ) in
terms of interventions or
manipulable hypotheses. For
example a simple manipulation
conditional is: IfÊx were to be
manipulated under a set of
parametersÊW, it would behave
in the manner ofÊy. For a theory
of causal and explanatory
intervention, seeÊJames
Woodward, Making Things
Happen: A Theory of Causal
Explanation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3
See Michael Ferrer,ÊHuman
Emancipation and ÔFuture
PhilosophyÕ (UK: Urbanomic,
2015, forthcoming).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4
Robert Brandom,ÊBetween
Saying and Doing: Towards an
Analytic Pragmatism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008),
191.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
See Nick Srnicek and Alex
Williams, Ò#Accelerate:
Manifesto for An Accelerationist
Politics,Ó inÊDark Trajectories:
Politics of the Outside ([Name]
Publications, 2013). Also
available online
atÊhttp://criticallegalthink
ing.com/2013/05/14/accelerat
e-manifesto-for-an-accelerat
ionist-politics/
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6
See Paul A. Boghossian,ÊFear of
Knowledge: Against Relativism
and Constructivism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7
See Robert Brandom, Making It
Explicit: Reasoning,
Representing, and Discursive
Commitment (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2001).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
See Ludwig
Wittgenstein,ÊPhilosophical
Investigations (New York:
Pearson Education, 1973).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9
For an account of the connection
between philosophy and
artificial intelligence, see David
Deutsch, ÒPhilosophy will be the
key that unlocks artificial
intelligence,ÓÊThe Guardian,
October 3,
2012Êhttp://www.theguardian.
com/science/2012/oct/03/phil
osophy-artificial-intelligen ce
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12
For detailed and technical
definitions of processes and
mechanisms, see Johanna Seibt,
ÒForms of emergent interaction
in General Process
Theory,ÓÊSynthese vol. 166, no. 3
(February 2009): 479Ð512; and
Carl F. Craver, ÒRole Functions,
Mechanisms, and
Hierarchy,ÓÊPhilosophy of Science
vol. 68, no. 1 (March 2001):
53Ð74.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14
For a realist take on complexity,
see James Ladyman, James
Lambert, and Karoline Wiesner,
ÒWhat is a complex
system?ÓEuropean Journal for
Philosophy of Science vol. 3, no.
1 (January 2013): 33Ð67. And for
more details, see Remo Badii
and Antonio Politi,ÊComplexity:
Hierarchical Structures and
Scaling in Physics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
1999).
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15
SeeÊWilliam C. Wimsatt,ÊReEngineering Philosophy for
Limited Beings.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16
My thanks to Michael Ferrer,
Brian Kuan Wood, Robin Mackay,
Benedict Singleton, Peter
Wolfendale, and many others
who either through suggestions
or conversations have
contributed to this text.
Whatever merit this essay might
have is due to them, while its
shortcomings on the other hand
are entirely mine.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10
Howard Barker,ÊArguments for a
Theater (Manchester:
Manchester University Press,
1997), 52.
03.06.14 / 19:33:30 EST
14/14
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
William C. Wimsatt,ÊReEngineering Philosophy for
Limited Beings: Piecewise
Approximations to Reality
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2007).
e-flux journal #53 Ñ march 2014 Ê Reza Negarestani
The Labor of the Inhuman, Part II: The Inhuman
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1
Throughout the text, the term
ÒhumanÓ often appears without
a definite article in order to
emphasize its meaning as a
singular universal which makes
sense of its mode of being by
inhabiting collectivizing or
universalizing processes. This is
ÒhumanÓ not by virtue of being a
biological species, but rather by
virtue of being a generic subject
or a commoner before what
brings about its singularity and
universality. Accordingly, human,
as Jean-Paul Sartre points out,
is universal by the singular
universality of human history,
and it is also singular by the
universalizing singularity of the
projects it undertakes.