Hello and welcome to the final session of Restructuring Enlightenment from Carnap's Outbound to Conceptual Engineering. I'll hand it over to Reza. Thank you everyone. My apologies for canceling last session. So today we have, I will talk for like 20 minutes, and then we just open it to the discussions and we let it go for 10 to I mean one hour to one hour to one hour 15 minutes after that however I have to attend to something so we can go overboard with this so
So we have been talking about Carnap from Aufbau to Explication to what Quine and Van Van Frazen attributed to Carnap the construction or the design or the blueprint of an idealized robot or what is usually called robot epistemology. According to Carnap himself, if you remember, a robot is an idealized agent, meaning that it should deviate from as best as possible
from reality of the human person, right? Meaning that two things, it is being thought as perfectly rational in the in the canon of rational decision theory. It has a complete perfect memory, right, unlike us. But the rest is kind of us in the sense that it needs to be endowed with a sensory processing, you know, structure, a sensory perceptual structure. It needs to have a basic knowledge of mathematical logic most importantly it should be endowed with a
first order formal language or logic of some sort and it absolutely does not require any acquaintance with the knowledge of empirical facts that's what the robot is so this robot what you might call to be can be understood in Carnap when he introduces it as as both this kind of idealized model, which can plausibly be constructed, plausibly be
constructed. And what would be the purpose of this? Well, no robot scientist, but also something that can advise humans down the road. But ultimately, Carnap's kind of put aside these kinds of cheesy concerns with what the fucking robot can do for humans with something actually much more serious and much more philosophically interesting. that constructions of such robots would be tantamount for us to understand the rules
of rationality in any sense across the different grades of reason or rationality, right? But provided, provided that there is a certain degree of translatability between robots functioning, a certain kind of, what you might say, a compiler, a certain compiler that can, that can translate what the robot does in comparison to what we do
in our normal everyday life, basically in the area of normative decision theory. So in a sense, in terms of the induction, you remember we had Hume, then we have Kant, then we have Karna. Each of these can be attributed to three different forms of what you might call to be rational decision theory. First one, Hume, empirical decision theory. Second, Kant, I don't know, Brando, normative decision theory.
Carnap, inductive decision theory. Right? So Carnap thinks that essentially what we are to, Carnap doesn't want to get rid of the idea of normativity in this, what do I call this framework? Precisely, he always thinks that normativity, normative decision theory is important in so far as it acts as a buffer zone between empirical and logically inductive decision theory. So robots, in that sense, the inductive robot,
is going to kind of like does something of a Brandomian, Socrates, what you might call it to be dark expressive rationalism here. By dark expressive rationalism, this is a phrase that Brando uses, basically, attributes to Socrates, where basically, you are responsible to, as a rational agent, to make explicit what is already implicit within your argument. That's what he calls the dark core, the dark core of which rational expressivism is pregnant.
It's in making it explicit. I think it's a footnote. Oh, I'm going to laugh. So, so yes, so in that sense, you see, so the inductive logic, as I mentioned, that it's allow us to basically understand the rules, the system of rules behind whatever we might mean by rationality, by a different grade of rationality. That's basically what you might call to be explicitation and explication of what we have already been practicing.
But in a very kind of clunky way, nevertheless, what you might call to be respectable and pragmatic kind of way, you know, normative, normative rationality, normative decision theory, normative rationality. both in theory and practice, right? So we have been moving from all of this to this, to the idea of the robot. What appeared, so we started with early full-fledged old enlightenment
Garde Karna, where basically one of his essays is like, from chaos, the world, the order of the world, right? And sort of a title that if you post it on Twitter, people accuse you of fascism these days. But that sort of enlightenment becomes extremely complex. as he matures. This is a maturation. I have a story here. This is a maturation that coincides with him being at once an engineer and a philosopher. In fact, he is both and none of those.
He goes to Chicago University, right, teaches with Yahub Shua Bar-Hilal. I mean, he was one of the greatest philosophers and linguists and cyberneticians in the 50s and 60s. So he's teaching at the Department of Philosophy, Karna. People from all sorts of disciplines come to seminars. It's Raymond Solongan of Yahushua Bar-Yené. Who's that guy who wrote the real thing,
subjective probability, the real thing? Richard Jeffery, Richard Jeffery. So they're all coming and he gets less and less philosophy of students, right? And at some point, Richard Jeffrey, who is his students, it was actually his philosophy as students, goes to the, basically to the department, and he hears a gossip behind Carnap's back. Carnap is a mere technician. And if you are studying art under Carnap, he shouldn't even apply for philosophy.
So basically, he goes, after getting his master philosophy, he goes to study in MIT computer lab. Of course, he later on, you know, goes, gets his PhD in philosophy. But yes, he actually thinks that those people basically belittling Carnarv's being mere technician shows the the limits of their philosophies. He wants to actually do philosophy just like Carnap does.
And Carnap and Joshua Bar-Hillel also tell Carnap that Carnap, you need to come to teach at this school. I think this department, I've forgotten which one is that. Is it either Caltech or another department in Chicago, which basically is the hot spot of cybernetics. Connock refuses. It says that you read the gospel of my teaching, but I don't think that I should actually ever go to an engineering department or cybernetics, because that's the sort of philosophy that I do. And people who can't understand the coincidence between engineering and philosophy,
don't obviously don't understand what I am trying to do. So this is that sort of man, uh, as he matures, he gets both of them. And we tell what it actually means here. I mean, the sort of engineering, uh, and philosophy, their ethos co- um, coalisi. Um, but nevertheless, that sort of being an engineer and philosopher in one, fully unrecognizable from one another, changed his idea of enlightenment from earlier kind of what you might call to be classical conservative philosophical enlightenment
of that had been basically put forward by Newroth and earlier on by Noah Kantian, such as Heinrich McCurt in the book System, is somehow being subdued. For him, enlightenment is actually a little bit more of a rebellion, what he might call to be a normal rebellion. So there are actually people who label him at this point a social democrat of some sort. But I don't think so. But I mean, he might be. He might be. But nevertheless, his idea of enlightenment begins with the idea that, OK, we have to take control.
First thing first, you have to take control of our mental lives. As the beginning, that's the first stepping stone of the enlightenment. How can we do that by forging and crafting our own system of conceptualization, our own system of linguistic practices? thinks that we should no longer inherit, but construct in accordance to what works best for all of us.
is quite a very staunch anti-traditionalist in a classical sense, Kana. Most importantly, Kana, if you have seen his conversations with other people, absolutely, this is of course, you know, called to be the telltale sign of someone who is into a project of enlightenment, that Descartes' God, particularly Descartes' God, is just a distraction. If anything,
humanity should retake its destiny from whatever is given to it, whether nature or God. But how to go on doing this requires a search, a navigation. What sorts of search and navigation? That's basically where his coalitions of being an engineer, being philosophy comes to the fore. I mean, I basically tweeted on this that, see, people who are actually understand the philosophy of engineering. I'm not talking about engineer,
for say, because engineers don't shit about what they do. Good engineers do. Good engineers really do. I have seen some. But I mean, and many engineers, not the ones who are leading the program of engineering, are not actually just like philosophers. They're actually interested in the big picture of the philosophy, of the thoughts that goes behind it. it. I will actually, I have, after this, I will recommend you to read some really good stuff about philosophy of engineering.
But so, yes, so engineering is not means to end sort of technicianism. Most, I mean, first of all, also, it is not about correctness. People think that engineers have some sort of blueprint of correctness toward which they optimize their product, right, as if it's some sort of teleological process. There is an inverse to this sort, what we might call to be inverse teleology in engineering
that I think that is, that absolutely has been brilliantly pointed out by Michael Pollyani the rubric of operational procedures or operational principles you can check this out it still has that teleological thing but but actually when the more he talks about it it becomes less less teleological in the in the sense that engineering is a means to ends enterprise where basically you have an idea of correctness, a blueprint toward which you can only optimize step by step,
whereas engineering as we understand it, is something just like what philosophy does. us search for truth but what sort of truth it's not obviously a theoretical truth yes actually it is practical truth yes actually it is but it is not about search for truth as if truth was a canonical in the canonical sense. It is a search in a kind of a navigational sense. Essentially, it all engineering questions like good philosophical questions start with define, for example,
The problem of what life is, life, right? Or mind, consciousness, whatever. Define what X is in a well-defined, in a well-defined manner within a set of possibilities, spaces, rational choices, so on and so forth. So essentially the first thing that we try to do was what we've been talking about the task of explication, creating a possibility of space within which
we can formulate a well-defined question. This possibility of space can be couched in terms of possible worlds, like the way that modal realist philosophers do. It can be couched in terms of rational gradations, different theories, so on and so forth. There should be a sort of possible search spaces. Now once you have that possible search space, and think of this also about an algorithm, you know, just don't want to think about this as a purely human enterprise.
Just coming back to our robots, Carnapian robots. You can think about this in fact as an algorithm or some sort of method of searching for new valid arguments. New valid arguments for the meaning of something, I don't know, like mind, life, X, whatever. which is located in precisely in the space of possibilities, right? My apologies. No, no, no, I can't.
I can't. Okay. My apologies. So, Sorry, I got distracted. So yeah, construct. We can construct a valid argument of some sorts we call it I don't know lambda, lambda argument for provisionally for provisionally we don't have any sort of blueprint foundation list standard of correctness for provisionally
correct meaning of something, X life, mind, so on and so forth, which is embedded within this sort of possibility of spaces, or a space of possibilities. In the next step, and again, remember, a space of possibilities here. It can be anything. It just, you need to think about it. It can be a space of reasons. It can be possible rules. It can be concepts or sets of true propositions, so on and so forth.
The second step is what you might call to be check for the soundness of each premises that you have made in London argument. This is what you might call to be constraints of plausibility. What are they? You know, they are provisional, empirical, conceptual, logical, mathematical,
so on and so forth constraints, which we use in order to evaluate sectors of this space of possibilities. Essentially, there are what you might call to be signposts in our navigation. If the space of possibilities is a navigation of the space, right, the plausibility constraints are more like these sort of signposts, instructions,
where, which a captain or a seafarer should use in order to understand, for example, not to hit the ship, the rocks, or basically moving this way rather than other way against that sort of wind as opposed to the other wind, so on and so forth. These are what we call to be, this is the second step, you know, check the soundness of the premises made in our lambda arguments. Again, by introducing plausibility constraints of some sort.
Now, the next step after this, which is the third step, It's more like... If, for example, the meaning of the concept mind by the arguments, by the lambda arguments in our algorithm, does not pick out any concepts
in the space of possibilities which we have been navigating, searching, under thus and so plausibility constraints, then we ought to stop the search. We have to stop the search and repeat a step one. This is usually what you might call to be, uh, if you can't even get close to something
that can be identified as a target within the possibility of space for that sort of meaning of x, then obviously within also for this for the meaning of x within the space of your possibilities, then obviously something is wrong. You have to repeat, you have to go back to step one and repeat it now uh step four is when you encounter uh something like a counter example.
Counter example relative to the current instituted constraints of plausibility or plausibility constraints. In that case then you have to modify that's what that lambda argument. Repair it, if possible, or abandon it and replace it with a new argument, if necessary, right? In such a case, then you have to go to a step two that I talked about, meaning that check the soundness.
Finally, the last step, if there is, if you reach the last step, if you don't encounter any of, meaning that you don't encounter any of the previous dilemmas, would be that the outputs of this algorithm should have converged upon the correct meaning or characterization of the concept of X mind, life, so on and so forth. Now this is this precisely
a sort of search come optimization methodology and procedure that both engineers and philosophers use in but of course there are the way that they are different it's precisely because they are different because they are molded and accustomed to the specificities of these disciplines, right? But the generality of them is quite common, as it's kind of a search space. You know, the figure of engineer, the figure of philosopher is essentially a navigator,
the navigator in the space of possibilities for a given meaning of something, right? A given meaning of something whose meaning for provisionally, provisionally, is well defined within the sort of possibility of spaces that we ourselves have instituted. And in accordance with the plausibility constraints which we have added to our arguments, right? So yes, in that sense, the Karna idea of enlightenment, you know, as a result of this sort of what you might call to be
philosophy as navigation of this search or or or or construction of search space for truth has one leg in philosophy has one leg in engineering and you cannot get rid of one as opposed to the other. They are essentially part of the same ethos that Karnak wants us to do philosophy under this new paradigm, under this new paradigm of, you know,
kind of hierarchical, multi-level search of space for truth. And so what does happen to the idea of enlightenment then at this point? When a philosopher, the figure of the philosopher, the figure of engineer integrate through what is most fundamental about them, right? So my apologies. So think about that question. I have to do something very, very quick. I will come back.
but yes, engineering defined in that sense precisely what you might call to be that sort of piecemeal, reclaiming our mental lives and against tradition and reconstructing our conceptual schemes as best as we can to serve our own purposes away from tradition engineering in that sense
is simply what you might call to be the engine of Carnap's vision for enlightenment but this is not as I mentioned engineering not in the in the sense that the commonsensical but it is as i mentioned uh the sorts of piecemeal procedure required for those two tasks reclaiming our mental uh lives right taking charge of them responsibly and also making our own conceptual schemes as best as we can for the sort of purposes
we have in mind, all away from the things like distractions like God, given nature, on and so forth. Engineering is really, in that sense, what you would call to be the scaffolding of such a project, right? But this is engineering which is purely philosophical at the end of its, at the end of the day. And the sort of philosophy that it works with it lends itself to basically not simply invention of new philosophical design, but design of
new philosophies. So in a sense that it creates a, it allows for a reimagining of enlightenment through a vision of engineering come philosophy in which the philosophical, the consequences of philosophical design for other sorts of problems, scientific, other sorts of philosophical problems, economic, social, so on and so forth, which is an engineering philosophical task coincide with the invention
or perhaps piecemeal construction of a new philosophy the design of a new philosophy you know a future philosophy or whatever you might call it at this point it doesn't matter it would be out of convention to call such things engineering or philosophy, precisely because we are going through it. We are going through it. So I think I should stop at this point and let you talk. I mean, there is so much stuff that can be talked about,
all of these. I think that it's time for me to be quiet and listen to you. So I think Arman had a question. There's one other thing I mentioned, which is before we wrap up today, it would be good to do some admin stuff around papers. And also because you mentioned some readings. There is no papers. People, I mean, everyone had given a presentation. Unless if you want to make a paper, you want to make a paper in order to publish it. So then, yes, I can give you feedback. OK, great. And the only other thing was, yeah,
you mentioned some readings earlier on in the session for. Oh, yes, engineering. Yes. either i will i would i either i will uh send it as you guys are talking or uh if you can email me and then tomorrow or day after tomorrow i will find it's just i i actually i should just make a list there are some really good stuff particularly a couple of them are considered uh to be excellent thinking about these sorts of stuff Also, really, I mean, I don't know how many of you have read so far. I know that I've mentioned Mark Wilson particularly is not latest book, second book, physics avoidance.
The idea of searching possible space, space of possibilities. I will, I will. Okay, don't worry. I will, I will include some of this stuff too. I think, I think Arman is aching to ask something. Arman is always aching to say something. That's a bad name for myself. I'm regretting this already. Go on, Arman. I want to say something about piecemeal. At the piecemeal approach. So piecemeal approach. So I understand the problem, not problem.
As I understand the whole structure in a very lay manner, layman manner. kind of what Carnap or this version of Carnap's project that we have been talking about, or you have been talking about, which applies the normative attitude of language users as the criterion of language choice. choice. Okay, something like that, not normatic, maybe practical, language uses for choosing a language would become subject to a skepticism of this kind, that to try to rebuild the tradition
and take our mental mental world for ourselves take the control of mental world for ourselves for example know what we are talking about in the very least when we talk about them the the problem becomes that there is no possibility of halt or there is no possibility of what? Of halt. Or there's no possibility of complete stop. Because it seems to be the Neurath, what Neurath talked about was constructivist attitudes in his, basically that analogy of the ship.
doesn't what what doesn't seem to be account for in this project is that then we for example when we try to input it explicate the meaning of probability we come to the process that in understanding the probability we understand that property is not what we used to be used to use in our idioms, we are using it wrongly. So kind of kind of try to try to show this that what we use is not just one thing. This is two things that we are using. And these two things is not real things are just constructivist conceptions of the idea of public is wonderful. When you talk about when you
think about it, because then the reference is not just something in the world that we make sure that we are referring to. We are already talking about sense because we are already talking in the level of normativity of choosing and explicating other language. But the question is how we can, is, is, are we allowed, this is a fantastic, in my now understanding of it, it's a fantastic project for really any revolution. But are we allowed any revolution? You know what I'm saying? You said social democrat and I'm talking about- No, no. The thing is that, okay, if you want me to talk about this, I would say that what Carl Graber once said
with regard to the source of engineering method, no revolution is necessary. But that is the revolutionary one. You see that the entire, it's not reformism, it's not reformism because the amounts of what you might call to be toppling down the oldest structure, it makes it quite critical. But it's not also revolutionary precisely because It does not have really the features of a typical revolution, right? This is, no, absolutely. This, I, as, as I am, whether I'm considered to be a social democrat or not, no, I don't think, I always thought myself that I think of myself as a communist in the German ideology, Marx and Engels, and I hate leftists.
I don't think that leftists are communists. We have actually seen it more and more. The ones who betrayed that idea of a revolution, communist revolution or communist hypothesis, were none other than leftists. So yes, I would say no revolution necessary. In fact, Karnak for that would be crucified if he was alive today. I think I should stop now, but definitely read this essay. It's called No Revolution Necessary, as beautiful as that. Who's by Carl Craver? Carl Craver. Okay, thank you.
But yes, I mean, there are certain things that came in your question that I want to correct, but no. We can always talk about it in the chat. But the main thing that no, absolutely no revolution is necessary. And that's, you see, that's what it is. you notice that always leftists hate engineers, bunch of engineers doing the stuff there, you know, kill them, put them against the wall, you know, that sort of naive, really brash and crass understanding of what actually the ethics of engineering is, right? And the
thing is that engineering also goes through revolutions and has been has been through Many revolutions actually. Yes. In fact, look, no revolution has ever sustained itself without engineering, right? Without engineers working behind their back. I mean, think about Spain and Italy during the Civil War in Italy, like people like Malatesta or the Spanish Civil War, where anarchists used to basically kill engineers for fun, right? They're saying that we are going to basically take revolution. I mean, and then look, what the fuck happened to them? You see, that's, I mean, that's sort
of, you see, engineer, killing engineer is one thing, killing the engineer ethos is one thing, but they usually come hand in hand, right? You can't do that. Once you lose that engineering efforts and engineering. What is engineering really? Control, stability, trust. If you don't have a stability and control, and control by that I mean a dynamic way, like the way that an engineer manipulates something and then understand the constraints of real world, on the dynamics of the system, right? You can't just have trust, a thrust forward or a stability.
You need all of this triple. Otherwise, there is no goddamn revolution, no sustainable revolution whatsoever. I mean, I'm of course, I'm not talking about the sort of of stuff we were talking about. Simply talking about what are basically the three characteristics of any sort of engineering discipline. Control, stability, trust. I have a quick question and it's true and gentle to this. But at the beginning of the seminar, we were talking about it's like dualism in Carnap
between the Laban and Geist kind of like spheres of, yeah, like inquiry, I guess, or just life and like as kind of an isolated domain from the project of like kind of philosophical enlightenment as a logical project. And I guess I'm wondering like whether this stuff that we have talked about today, you know um like philosophy is kind of re-engineering or engineering concepts if that collapses that distinction or whether it remains within the space of geist but that is just um you know not taken to be a completely isolated domain either from the kind of practical questions that we might have in a political sense because you know i've read that it um that this is a
distinction that karnap maintains throughout his work but maybe that's wrong maybe i think that that's questionable, that sort of distinction. Because look, Carnap, maybe I should actually, my apologies, my apologies. I can't use this hand. Actually, Carnap actually has a quote about this. More. It might have one second, it should be better to just type it here.
early Karnik project, which is basically there to the end, is to overcome the early polarity between living life and Geist, right, to basically create harmonious dynamic relation between one another rather than an adversarial one right which which was the time uh the case um i mean uh has this um and you know the car was influenced by cazier
he has this uh thing he says that again it has become evident how strong our our modern and most modern philosophical thoughts are rooted in romanticism and how they that how they uh depend consciously or unconsciously on romanticist patterns again the great antithesis of nature or guys the polarity of liben or urquinsis uh cognition mind occupy counter-staging philosophical consideration. And still, the conceptual tools forged by Romanticism and the categories created by this period determine the problem and its solution. Against this sort of background, Karnak
absolutely believes that, you know, the task ahead is to create a sort of harmony between the so-called rivalry between life and guys, living and guys. The thing is that it does not really become obvious
what is exactly the need in the early in the early corner what is exactly the need for uh overcoming uh the polarity between the two because a lot because life at that point simply is kind of like the the realm of uh what you might call to be pure experience uh experiential epistemology so on super experiential judgments which basically they no longer become uh uh Carnap's main concerns right after after writing about wow so it seems that uh the connection between
Levin and Geist later in his work is not really the connection between life in Levin's philosophy way, philosophy of life of early German philosophy, Romanticist, Calagas, Schelling, so on and so forth, but rather it is what you might call to be intersubjective and objective understanding of life, meaning the intersubjectivity of life is far more important to Karnap in formulating the question of life in a well-defined space of possibilities to search what it means than taking for granted that there is some something called
life. In the in the sense of the construction of well-founded arguments in that sort of algorithm that I mentioned what life is, what is life, then the question of life diverges more and more from that sort of romantic life experience of the early German romanticists and natural philosophers, but more and more become something of a politically conscious idea of life. life, philosophically and politically conscious of life. So I would exercise a little bit
of a caution to understand, for us to understand what Karna, early Karna versus late Karna, or late Karna versus early Karna mean by Geist and life. Life at that point in its maturity has nothing to do with experiential concerns of power or epistemological. It is more about the intersubjective, objective realm of what we might call life within a possibility of spaces under some plausibility constraints. And within that, the idea of life
is absolutely has more to do with the kind of political concerns, social concern, economic concern, than basically individual person experiences. hence then the highlighting of the role of engineer at that point. I think Philippe has a question if there's still time to continue this question. If there's still time, because I think my question involves some exposition.
So interrupt me if it gets too much of a library. Thanks. So at the beginning, I was going to formulate a question which I think was answered, which was how sturdy is the rational expressivity against two main problems, in my opinion, day-to-day epistemology, which are the genealogical and the bayesian moves would you answer that i guess can you elaborate on this question uh i will so um um i was uh because right right at the end a few minutes ago uh i think you were um
establishing if I if I remember well stability dynamism and thrust stability and thrust trust trust meaning progress sorry yeah yeah well I was because I was thinking that you know explication allows for induction, which creates a structure of possibilities for what I believe is practical universal decisions. And my approach is universalist moves are kind of transform
time into the good life, whereas genealogical moves distrust any kind of transition and Bayesian moves by decisions on credit. So I was thinking that trust is something that I would like to place in this philosophy, which lends itself to re-engineering itself. Because on a day-to-day philosophical stance,
it's this trust in the possibilities that this is the only thing that allows us to test something. we don't need to have trust in anything really. To suspend. We don't need to trust, no. Because I think there is a, I think we need a suspension of this, a suspension of disbelief in order to take action of some sort. You see, suspension of belief, that I mean disbelief as well. I mean, disbelief is already a paleonism in my idea. Suspension of belief, meaning a dogma, already means that, yes,
you have certain sorts of options freed up on your table, which you can use. That's possibility and spaces, yes. And that comes with suspension of dogma. suspensions of dogma in any sort. I don't mean it in a rigid sense, but dogma in a kind of a very ordinary sense of dogma. But that does not require you to trust anything, right? You're not essentially what you are trusting. You are actually not trusting. you are going to do is you are going to be creating a methodology which is tractable
along that along the path of that algorithm that i mentioned such that you can say what what sort of plausibility constraint you put forward according to what criteria uh what sorts of uh uh you know what sorts of possibilities spaces are using currently, you know, a space of reasons, you know, possible rules, so on and so forth, you know, how exactly the counter example impinged on the arguments, or how actually your search failed, that's you need to put trust in. Trust in the sense that trust probably too, not trust one, not a blind trust, I'm not talking about faith here.
You don't need to have faith in any of this stuff. Trust meaning that you need to trust it precisely because you are systematically navigating this, following this, and hence you need to trust the outcomes of this in order to see at which point the system fails or succeeds. That's a different sort of trust that we are talking about. And hence, this is what Carnap is not really a Bayesian. He's not also a universalist in the sense that you were talking about. precisely because this sort of procedure is only universal in the abstract sense,
not in the concrete sense. He does not believe that we can basically get into some sort of uh, uh, foundational agreement. No, he, he's kind of a very, uh, as I mentioned, well, think about this, that this, he has read Kant, he has read, no Kantians. So he, he thinks that the only sort of universalism that we can ever have would be a concrete universalism. And a concrete universalism is precisely the task of engineering, piecemeal, piecemeal way that our universal shared repertoires of methods, search spaces, so on and so forth,
address the needs of our particular experiences and problems. Remember Hegel's critique of Kant's idea of universalism. That Kant, Hegel says that Kant's idea of universalism, which is encapsulated in categories of pure understanding, is an undetermined abstract and dangerous form of universalism because it always leaves something off of this concrete specificities
of the particulars under which they range. So you have elephants, you have elephants. So you have humans, you have baboon, you have bonobo, you have chimpanzee. Let's call them primates, right? This is a reductive example, of course. So that would be a sort of abstract universalism. The abstract universalism according to, but of course this is a taxonomic universalism, but nonetheless I'm going to use this as a kind of a very naive example.
Hegel would say that such a, any source of this sort of, that particularities range under a universal under a universal, and then we call it universalism. It's not really universalism, it's abstract universalism. Universalism in its true sense, it ought to be concrete precisely because it should be dynamic enough that over a historical span, epochs, piecemeal construction, it should be capable of addressing the very concrete specificities which had made those particulars the particulars they are
and not others, such as, I am different from a bonobo. For what reasons though, right? A universal should actually, a concrete universal should address those specificities that make particulars particulars. Whereas the abstract universality of Kant talks about, and is usually being paralleled around, always leaves something of the particular behind. And by virtue of which, it becomes a dominating force, a force of domination, counter enlightenment, so to speak.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm afraid maybe I didn't explain myself very well. I was trying to convey the sense that, for example, it is precisely the genealogical and the Bayesian moves which tend to universalize the particulars. Sure. Thus appealing to inaction. Yes. Yes. Excessive traction. Right. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. My apologies. Yes. Yes. No, that's that I agree. But what about the first one, the one that you were talking about that universal the first
there was three one. So what was universal the Bayesian one and the genealogical one. So I was countering that against those two genealogical and Bayesians. A practical universalism would be the one that would enable decision making that would, that wouldn't be abstract, that would affect all the particular modes of existence. uh um i think what they can't what they can't do it uh but but that's the whole point that they can't do it abstractly by by virtue of being applied to those particulars they cannot do it they can
only do it through a process through a process of explication which which or what hayon called concretization concretization that process of concretization the deter determinable concretization yes absolutely yes you you might kind of would say the explanation hegel because of you know has that kind of social um embedding of the guys would say that uh a process toward determinable concrete concretization yes absolutely yes so Absolutely, this is the whole point that if there is a universalism, that universalism cannot be instituted in a flash by simply applying certain kind of categories or universals
particulars. But it needs to be established through a kind of dynamic back and forth dialectical between these between between basically the involved parties, the particulars of different, you know, classes, families, and the abstract universals that's abstractly are being shared among them. Right? Think about it. I use language, you use language, right? Does this mean that we
can be friends or make a consensus building? No, that's the whole point. But nevertheless, always try to use this sort of argument to the other extreme. No one actually who is universalist would say that just because me and Armin have a nice beard are going to be friends or because we have certain kind of cognitive conditions of possibility we are in the business of universalism. No, universalists never do that. It's the enemies of universalism. Use this kinds of this as a spear attack against universalism by saying that, look, even the commonalities,
abstract commonalities, won't save you and your universalists, which is utterly, which is utterly completely uh um yes a decrepit philosophical position fully i would say had been germinated in the most pitiful recesses of continental philosophy post-structuralism mainly Can I ask a question as usual? Well, let's see if Felipe has something.
Sure, just a minimal related question. Okay. When you talk about the impossibility of constructing a universal practical universalism or something like that. I wanted to ask, is it a global impossibility? Because it seems that you can construct a base universalism, not a universalism as a religion for all human beings. But there is something as, let's say, sorry to be an ultimate maybe outdated logic, logic, but what I want to say is you can have an axiom of universal values that are scientifically
that can make a core for any community that wants to want to have a autonomous, let's say governing over itself in a world that it tries to look at the trust to seem universal in the in the meantime that it is absolutely not. And the universalism of language even is under quote unquote threat. All that matters is just expressions and attitude and teams and stuff like that. So people are just attributes of their kind of decision making or whatever you want
to name it. It doesn't matter what you name it. But it seems like it's not a global impossibility of having a set of universal values not like a human the human rights I was I promised that I'll be short sorry I'm going so I said yes no no I know I understand no I completely understand yes no I agree I mean I don't know I I don't have that much to add to this, but yes, I mean, I just thought, I mean, I really just want to emphasize that, for example, the sort of universalism that enlightenment, once it got matured, started to
to propose. And of course, look, maturation of a human being takes time. Renaissance has some ideas. 19th century, 17th century, 18th century have some ideas. Then 20th century, we are in a better position. But people were always saying that, well, where are you actually to get the job done? Well, who are these people, really? You know, people who are, call them critical theorists
and so on and so forth, not understanding that's essentially to, as Karnab would have said that essentially to formulate what the problem is, is ultimately an engineering task. An engineering task. And to the fact that we have in fact recognize certain sort of problems that did not hit us early on as problems within human society means that there is that our methods more or less clunky maybe at this point
are still working. Like, people always say this, I mean, my apologies for saying this, I mean, people who think that the question of race or the question of gender were on the table, or should have always been on the table, don't understand the meaning of history, the critical understanding of history. That the critical understanding of history is precisely a Carnapian Hegelian problem in the sense that certain sort of methodology, well formulation of questions, of real questions go on into certain sort of possibility space. And then
we start to historically determine them, make the specificities concrete, make these concepts concrete as Egel would have said it. And you think that it just come out of the blue, right? Thinking about the question of race, gender, exploitation, oppression, so on and so forth. No. People have been oppressed. Yes, people have been oppressed. People have been enslaved for for millennials, for thousands of years. But the consciousness of this fact, the collective consciousness of this fact, and the sorts of solutions for that
are not really that old. They are quite actually recent with regard to the human history, right? So first and foremost, there is no such a thing as an emancipative enlightenment outside of history. and by history I mean the history of history the critical take on what history is for us what sorts of conceptions we have
here and now transforms to how we are transformed or to what we are transformed here and now and what source of difference we make in our system of conceptualizations or conceptual schemes might translate to future transformations to what to something else or another uh basically idea of human person or collectivity. That's short-circuiting, bypassing that idea of the history of history, which
is which Hegel calls critical history, absolutely is just a recipe for disaster. This also, you can think about this with regard to Karna. If you try to bypass the great task of philosophical engineering in order to simply answer a philosophical question, because you feel you can do that, that's also just a recipe for tragedy.
So I would say that in that sense, if you really think about it, enlightenment more than being this macho-Promethean martyr sacrificed by the gods beyond with a fatty liver being torn apart by an eagle every morning, actually is more like a very cautious engineer friend of you that would say that, look, if you do this, most probably this will happen to you. Cautiousness is absolutely,
I would say, the most prominent characteristics of enlightenment. Cautiousness in the sense that cautiousness is not conservatism. Most importantly, you should understand cautiousness in the sense that I am cautious that such and such conceptual schemes, such and such practical decisions have not only consequences for the kind of problem that is at hand, but also has far-reaching consequences for every other practical problem that might be related to this. This has been actually always been on the top mind of Karna.
I will find the citation for you where he says, the ultimate point here is to exercise a certain amount of caution. to the extent that's what we are trying to do with regard to the task of philosopher engineer given its universal scope methodologically speaking always has consequences for other sorts of problems but the thing is that are you really ready to solve those problems here and now while you are basically uh have set foot on just these two small planks and trying to get rid of
basically the rotten one you need to be actually be worried or create yourself worried at this very moment for basically a naval, another hostile boat coming, or the rocks beyond? No. First thing first, this is absolutely, I think, really we should understand this carefully, this engineering philosophy paradigm is not only piecewise, but one task at a time. Unpack concepts one at a time. Unpack tasks one at a time.
Otherwise, you would soon reach what Mark Wilson would have called the hazard of navigation. What is the hazard of navigation or search spaces? Search a space for truth. Sure, go on. Thank you. Something about this last comment would enlighten me, at least, if you can explain a little bit more. No, no, no. I asked a question. You raised your hand as if you knew the answer. Okay, I'm the question. What was the question?
Sorry, this is why you shouldn't raise your hand from now on. Sorry, I lower my hand. What was the question? I was saying that the whole point of the Carnap's engineering philosophy is not only piecemeal approximation, what one task at a time. We only unpack one concept, one set of problem at a time, one argument at a time. Otherwise soon we find ourselves in what Mark Wilson had called hazardous navigation. And then I said that does anyone know what hazardous navigation mean? Hazardous navigation is simply a computational hazard, a mess, meaning that given the nature,
you are not a robot, right? You are not an idealized robot. Carnot knows that, right? And he absolutely once talked about the robot that's like guys this is an idealized it's so far deviated from what you might call to be a from reality of person human person for you however precisely because you are limited beings you have computational constraints you have cognitive constraints you have cognitive resources that you can you need to be aware of so on and so forth With that stuff, if you try to violate those two things, piecemeal approximation and unpacking one concept at a time,
or unpacking one task at a time, you will basically, as a wayfarer, as a sailor, see what Mark Wilson calls a ramifying path, a structure. meaning that soon you will see yourself in a possible world replete with so many possibilities that if you were going to attend them you wouldn't even make one single move in your tiny plastic boat which is trapped in a tub and let's not talk about the ocean of infinite intellect here.
My apologies, dear friends. One last question, I have to go. But look, these are the kind of stuff that I think are really good, utterly, because of, I mean, this source of glass is never actually becoming too satisfying. In fact, if they become too satisfying, then I would say that, oh shit, there is someone is manipulating the psychology of the young people. I don't want to manipulate your psychology, really. But nevertheless, they are never going to be satisfied in terms of telling you everything.
But that's basically what you have to do. You have to go and read. But I would say that we have a little bit more problem spaces than we had in the previous session, in the previous seminar, right? And I will, of course, I will be happy to send you some text. But as I mentioned, given the fact that Carnap is not your canonical Orthodox philosopher, you need to be very, very careful to not really read him in accordance to a canonical Orthodox philosopher.
you can you can but then you have to account for the subtleties that goes into connor's philosophy that connor okay any any anything Cassia? Something I was thinking was about the relation between empirical and inductive decision theory.
You said that the normative decision theory... As a buffer zone we've been there too. Yeah, I was curious about the technical details about this conception of buffer zone. Okay, let me just send you, let me give you a... I have actually an essay, a very good essay on this source of stuff, but... um okay uh write it down carnaps robots and inductive logic
uh written by stefan spielman Now, this is a very technical argument about these kinds of stuff, but look, Cassia, any time you want to talk about, email me, we will talk about this. Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting. I mean, look, the part that is kind of clear is normativity to inductive logic, inductive decision theory, right? Normative decision theory to inductive between the human and the robot. What is not really clear is between the empirical and the normative, and hence its relation with
the third one, namely the inductive decision theory, right? But as I said, a way, a philosophical way to think about it in terms of history of philosophy think of the empirical Hume, normative Kantor Brandum, inductive Shalomanov-Kakarnam. See how normativity can be a buffer zone between these two in the sense that empirical is always what you might call to be phenomenal at some point right it's a bundle it's a bundle
it's a bundle perspective of the personhood the first so so we have think about this so what we are talking about in terms of three philosophers three ideas think about that these are also can be encapsulated within three philosophies of agency or what counts as a person right so the first one the empirical one what is that it's a bundle theory of person bundle theory. So the first one is bundle theory. Second one is basically a perceptive agency.
Right? A perceptive agency. Third one, we probably don't have Any sort of really establishing a historical canon name for it. For now, let's call it robot personhood. Something like Ray-Brazier view from nowhere. Mao meets Metzinger. okay my dear friend
is there any last word confession heckling nothing can i quickly do one really annoying question. Of course you can. Yeah, I guess, okay, so it's something that goes back to this universalism question, and I mean, obviously, you know, I feel very sympathetic to the idea of universalism as, you know, either in Carnap's sense, explication, or in Hegel's sense, this kind of concretization process. Nonetheless, I kind of, I always worry whether that in concrete
political terms would be too thin on the ground to actually motivate, you know, and I guess, I mean, what I'm looking for really is more clarification on how it avoids these problems, because I feel like it does, but it's not apparent to me that it can avoid problems of, say, for example, you know, like, like interpretation in a way where you have, I mean, like, what I would call, you know, false or quasi kind of universalisms like Universal Declaration of Human Rights or whatever that are subjectively interpreted and overcoded by, you know, very parochial forms of life, ultimately, in many cases, in order to like legislate all kinds of, you know, pretty, pretty pernicious things. And, you know, philosophy can't really like what, like what,
pernicious things like what, like, you know, invading countries for oil on the on the pretext of safeguarding human rights and things like this, right? Or, I don't know, I mean, I think- No, no, they don't actually, no, no, no, no, no, no, come on now. No one has ever actually invaded another country to defend human rights. They have basically defended, they have attacked other countries to defend the idea of democracy. Two different things. No, but they've used the human rights as a justification, right? Like the UNDHR. Yes, but no one, when you're looking at all the things, yeah, there are human rights abuses in
those countries, right? It's just like a bunch of fucking Middle Easterners buffooning around over their rights and their rights, the human rights are being impinged on. But that is not actually they invaded. They say that the reason that their human rights is being violated is because they don't have fucking democracy. We need to give them fucking democracy. But this is exactly my point, no? Like if our conception of universalism is so thin on the ground that one can simply interpret it as being, you know, like as as requiring that a certain kind of form of life conception in a parochial sense can impose itself, then, you know, isn't that a serious threat to the
conception of universalism put forward by these by this kind of idea in the first place? No, no. I mean, look, you don't need you don't even need universalism to combat a stupidity. All you need, like literally, do you need actually universalism to say that the slavery is bad or wrong? No. Through simple reasoning, you would say that on all these accounts, slavery is wrong and ought to be abolished. Right? I think that people, people sometimes confuse at some junctures the difference between
rationality and universalism, or rational justification and universalism. First of all, as we have seen, Carnap's idea of universalism is quite humble. It actually doesn't even wants to deal with, I mean this is what totally reflective in Carnap's life, that his philosophy is always politically free, nothing of that sort, but his actual life is anti-segregation, so on and so forth. For him, he really thinks that we are just children at this point, children of universalism.
we just don't understand what universalism is because we haven't learned its true method. That would be the engineering philosophy and that sort of engineering philosophy, once we initiate that sort of concretization process of universalism, it doesn't land us in any sort of magnumonious great utopia of non-slavery, non-exploitation. No, it's just the beginning. It's just the beginning. And so was Hegel, right? So I would say to all of those people who say that, oh, well, universalism, I, then I would say that probably your idea of universalism is so bloated at this point. Universalism should always be kept lean and dynamic. Mobilization
of the concrete universal, that is the most important thing. But then again, And even in those cases, as I mentioned, there's so much confusion. I mean, it's universalism, it's democracy, democracy is universalism, so on and so forth. I mean, this is, I mean, obviously because of the whole discourse of universalism for past two or three centuries from the West has been dominant and under which has been committed huge amount of crimes. There is a, there is a justifiable level of skepticism, right?
But that level of skepticism needs to be accounted for in terms of justifiable skepticism. Like, what actually do we mean by universalism? Or is it really do, for example, such a thing like democracy, I'm going to give democracy to these poor abused brown people in the Middle East. does this actually justify as a universalism right so we can't we can't uh so we if we are going to be good universalists we need to have the lean version of universalism a kind of mobilizer
ambulatory and then in conjunction with that we need to have a certain kind of what you might say a double sword edge of a skepticism against both bloated universalism and the current skepticism of universalism in any shape and any guises. They are both pathological at this point. So I'm sorry to keep going, I just really, this is really a getting, getting, uh it's a really live question but i guess my my concern is not so much whether those are kind of real universalisms because i i don't necessarily but i like i i don't have any really dispute with what you were saying but more again whether the kind of modest universalism that you're proposing
and uh that you you know are saying is influenced by karnap whether that is too again like thin on the ground to be able to motivate uh you know or to be able to of course Of course, of course, motivation. What does motivation mean? Motivating who? Motivating politicians? Yes, of course you have to motivate politicians and that's why you need to have other sorts of people, not just philosophers, to kind of sell the idea, sell the idea. And yes, it is thin on the ground. Anything that is thick on the ground cannot make one more step forward. You need to be thin on the ground to create this sort of piecemeal work.
Otherwise, if you are thin on the ground, you are probably actually walking in a goddamn swamp. Right? And this is what we are actually doing. Seems like... Yeah, we are basically walking in the swamp. And then we are saying, why can't you actually make a better thing? And then, I mean, our recipe at this point is to make deeper holes for ourselves to get out of the hole. Simple as that. But the problem of motivation, motivating who, like, of course, there but that that's really a dangerous idea look you can't just simply say that oh you know
there is this kind of thing search for certain kind of or methodology that that truly would leave us in a better situation to answer some of the questions not to have solve them but but to well define them in a better way as i mentioned like coming up with problems that never happened to us to be problems like slavery, like oppression, like so on and so forth. That's absolutely the first thing and we have to do that. But the thing is that people want motivation. Motivation like this community needs to be motivated to come, that community. Well if motivation is really the prime motor of political hegemonization toward that sort of universalism, it's never
going to happen. It's absolutely never going to happen. Do you really think that you can actually, I mean, I'm not going to talk about gender, race, and stuff. I'm just simply talk about something that I have firsthand experience of. Do you really think that you can make such a sort of motivation in the Middle East. No, but I don't think this was my question. No, you can't. No, you can't. But nevertheless, you can do something. You can just do like a resourceful navigator, like someone which is Odysseus is a great example of the Matisse, the personification of Matisse, conning intelligence, which is basically the god of navigation, conning, to avert the, basically,
great waves at the ocean and the rocky, basically, patches at the middle of the sea. Yes, you need to be like that. And to do that, you need to do exactly think strategically, to find out the nodes of power that ought to be motivated. And from there, you create new nodes to other kind of community, so on and so forth. Um, I would say that unfortunately given, given the empiristic, uh, configuration of
our world, any sort of bottom down, purely my apologies, any sort of purely bottom up, bottom up form of universalization or consensus building, grassroot, it's failed, miserable. Always will. This is an empire, not a village. I mean, people just don't really understand. They're talking about, oh, well, we are going to do this. I mean, even these goddamn macho right-wingers who did the raiding of the Capitol Hill,
they got this idea that, oh, they can actually create a sort of consensus building among themselves and other people by doing a revolution from bottom up and change the system. Look what the fuck happened to them. They are begging for their keto diet. Arifat Kharagamanu, You're doing the rhetoric magic here sorry, but you're you're comparing two very different principle with each other and many different different do we have time as a Middle Eastern to defend. Arifat Kharagamanu, The idea of not navigating through a leader and some kind of other. Arifat Kharagamanu, I am not saying that navigating to a leader what why why did I say that you you see grammar she has a great idea of hegemonization.
idea of a leader leader i do we don't need leader but look leaders nevertheless need to be taken seriously what i am talking about is a process of hegemonization as formulated by grameshi you know antonio grameshi no that i understanding is that you under you have to identify the nodes of current power i understand yes i understand that you need to you need to influence them I never said that you need to bribe the goddamn leader to find the sympathy, right? No, but a grassroots or bottom-up attitude in a place for that to be impossible, because we are living in an empire. That's what I was talking about. That's what I was saying.
I know, I know. I'm objecting exactly to that. I'm saying that that kind of idea about the empire, exactly the kind of idea that sees us as going through concepts as if we are obliged to go through concept traditionally or through a tradition with the observation that if we go here and not there, then we are stepping in a wrong way because, not because it is wrong toward according to that and that and that value or computation or blah blah blah, because we have a compression of data in our history or semantic blah blah blah that's very meant allows us to make a decision here that otherwise would be impossible to make. This is a game that we make to navigate and I understand that.
It has nothing to do with gain. You see, this is about the constraints. You see, I mentioned that engineering and philosophy, search space always requires certain kinds of plausibility constraints. Essentially, you need to have plausibility constraints. Some going to be concrete, some abstracts, and so forth. look most importantly uh if you are going to do make a a change that actually allow you at some point to in fact trigger bottom-up bottom-up consensus building you need to do mixed level manipulations of the system some from the bottom and some from the top but but look hegemony hegemony
hegemony hegemony is that's the most important thing the hegemony of the current world has already been established so you understand that you're that you you are dealing not probably with with bottom constraints, first and foremost, but rather with hard constraints and at the top of the hierarchy here. And this is absolutely, I mean, people who think that they can actually make a revolution or make it some sort of, I don't know, something. People have been talking about this in my classes in America. I mean, you really don't, you don't understand what America is? United States of America, I mean, are you just like blase about this? I mean, do you really think
that this society can be revolutionized or be toppled or... Yes, because in the foundation of it, there is a lot of stupidity. No, it has nothing, no, no, no, no, no, there is not, nothing, no, absolutely has nothing to do with the stupidity. In fact, I would say that United States of America is one of the greatest in terms of evolutionary mechanisms, in terms of robustness, but nevertheless a society like this reaches something we call generative entrenchment. At that point you can't do anything, you can't do anything other than by interacting with the no contemporary nodes of power. It has nothing to do with the idea of stupidity. This is just
stuff are to be honest with you i think that they are kind of like um politically charged and they never actually help anyone to solve the situation um connor i have to go now after you i have to go absolutely i have to go okay hopefully this is good um so we're talking about like uh i don't I don't know, consensus building from like a very humble universalism or Felipe called it a guerrilla universalism. I really liked that. How will we, I saw you've been talking about this a little bit recently. I used to be a very big fan of this notion, but the idea of like the subsumption of,
I mean, there's some thinkers that get really romantic with this notion and like Kamat says what the human being is dead is nothing more than a ritual of capital or whatever. But how would we like, maybe not, maybe you'd be dealing with the critique. How would we deal with the critique from like the sense of like subsumption, like the real subsumption of- Sure, sure, sure. I mean, look, I probably, you know, Rob Lucas, right? I'm actually not familiar with Rob Lucas actually, but- Okay, so Rob is a friend of mine. Actually, I deactivated my Twitter, but Rob is the greatest contemporary theorist of real subsumption, right? He's the chief editor of EndNote, right?
If you want- Oh, I've read all of EndNote, yeah. Okay, so that's Rob. Rob and his wife, Zoe. So the thing is that Rob used to think like this that he was taking the idea of real subsumption very seriously. I mean, probably how many of you know the origin of the concept of subsumption? So subsumption is a very logical philosophical concept in a sense that we have a universal and then some particulars come and range under this universal. As I mentioned, this is kind of a Kantian early, early, early German philosophy. Hegel's,
as I mentioned, Hegel's critique is that such an abstract universal will always leave something over and behind with regard to the specificities of the particulars. Hence, it does a violence to the particulars. Think about particulars as genders, gendered individuals, races, ethnicity, so on, so forth, whatever you can think of. It does a violence to them. And hence, it should be understood to be as a force of domination, right? As a force of domination. Now, of course, there is a difference between formal subsumption and real subsumption.
real subsumption is when this dynamic that happens in the mode of production of the capital infringes upon and creeps into the social relations that hold among the members of these particulars that have been arranged under the universal. The universal here is the capital's model production. That would be the simple formulation of the real subsumption thesis. Another thing is that real subsumption thesis, I mean Jacques
Kamats believes that the real subsumption pieces ultimately does something like a project of terraforming in the sense that it ultimately changes everything, every sort of social relations by virtue of which people think, behave, desire, fight, defend, so on and so forth. So it is what you might call to be the projection of what Marx and Engels had already called the alien will. The alien will of the labor.
The alien will of the labor. Now, when it does that, it creates a totality, a totalized system of affairs where everything that we already know has already been subsumed under mode of production, specific, this epocal mode of production of the capital. that even if you try to criticize system of capitalism, your mode of critique is already instructed and formatted by the mode of subsumption, right? So you are essentially what you might
called to be possessed by an alien will. And in your, and in being possessed, you do not know you are being possessed. Unless and until the system of real subsumption ceases to exist. And once it ceases to exist, you see that you have always been possessed, but you have been so emptied of will, determination, theoretical and practical reason that at this point, you are no longer a revolutionary person. You are not in fact a laborer. You are a zombie ant, so to speak.
So this is the scenario of mode of subsumption, real mode of subsumption, as in the most sinister way as put forward by early theory of communization. The thing is that, however, Rob Lucas made extremely an interesting remark here, that such a simulation or subsumption at a massive scale of everything is always metaphysical. Because if you really think that a system, a totality, has already achieved its complete state, you are no longer talking about the critique. You are talking about metaphysics.
So if communists critique, if communism supposed to give a coherent critique of the mode of production under the capital and the social relations that form by virtue of it, cannot take the mode of production of capital as a totalized state of affairs, as an achieved, completed, totalized state of affairs. Because otherwise, the whole point of critique would be null and void. So why on earth do you need to talk about this? It would be a metaphysical discourse
them. So, Rob Lucas talks about this, that we can only think about real subsumption in accordance to the epochal phases of our history as totalities or total as totalizing forces which have not yet fully totalize the state of affairs meaning that the critique is still possible meaning that not every social aspect of social relations have already been compromised by capitals modes of production saying otherwise you find yourself in a metaphysical quagmire okay i have to go i
really have to go with my friends. Thanks so much Reza. It's been a really good couple seminars. I really enjoyed it and yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I will, any person who wants to ask questions, stuff, chat, you know, you know, I'll know my email. Let's go for it. My apologies, really apologies. I really have to go. Love you all, love you all. Thank you very much for coming for the class. Thanks, Tom. Bye-bye. Thank you very much. Bye, everyone.