So hello all and welcome to the first session of The Man Who Knew Nothing, Between Neurodiversity and Practical Schizophrenia. This eight session seminar presents an overview of the theoretical and practical problems of selfhood and the care for the self. Given today's assimilation of individual experiences by brutal economic forces, the rise of cyber zombies on social media, emotional passivity, and exhibitionism, as well as the ensuing depressions, manias, and personal tragedies which we witness among ourselves. The ethics and politics of the care for the self and the ludic take on madness are now more pertinent than ever. Everyone can be creatively crazy, but who can be playfully mad without being a sociopath? More importantly, what does it mean to commit to a lifelong and perhaps multi-generational project
without becoming despondent or a self-immolating pessimist? These are questions which not only bear ethical significance, but also political consequences. To answer these questions, this seminar provides a view of the self and technologies of self-care from four different perspectives. First, ancient ethics. Second, Middle Eastern philosophy. Third, psychoanalysis. And fourth, neuroscience. Assuming that we know nothing about ourselves, this seminar considers care for the self not as a matter of fantasy, but of disciplined experimental programmatics. And I'll introduce the instructor. Reza Ngarastani 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 towards contemporary philosophies of rationalism, the procedures as well as their demands for special forms of human conduct. He is the author of Cyclonopelia, published by Repress in 2008. And now we'll turn the microphone over to Reza and after that we can do some introductions. Thank you very much. It's so good to be together again. I mean those old friends who have been in my classes And also, it's great to meet new friends. As I mentioned, this class is not going to be that much theoretical.
Yes, of course, we will philosophize, theorize, but I imagine of this class more something of a kind of collective psychotherapy where I do the preaching and then you attack me and then I challenge you and then you also basically converse among yourselves about issues which are most important to us, not global cosmological issues, but issues with regard to ourselves. And we do this rationally, we do it through the history of philosophy,
history of ethics. One of the things that I think philosophy at this point is lacking is good preaching. Good preaching is like good propaganda. And isn't it the task of philosophy to corrupt the youth. Why religion, religious people get to corrupt people and why not us philosophers, if that is really the task of philosophy. So yes, this whole seminar is about corruption. A corruption that allows us to navigate and construct
our own selves for the better, all things considered. So to that extent, you know, as the abstract set for the seminar, we are going to move in various steps. I would say that for first two or three sessions, we are mainly dealing with ancient ethics. And then after that, you know, a session on Middle Eastern idea of madness, delirium.
After that, you know, psychoanalysis and, you know, how we can weld together some insights garnered by psychoanalysis to those garnered by neuroscience. And the most important thing, as I will discuss, is that it would be completely presumptuous be completely presumptuous to take ourselves selves as granted. We are not in the business
of discovering what the self is, but how it can be constructed, even if it didn't exist. Right. So with this very brief remark, I would appreciate if you can introduce yourself, briefly say where you are coming, what your background is, and why you took this course in the first place. Thank you. So perhaps we can begin with Federico. Sure. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay. Well, hi, everybody. I have a background in arts. I have an undergrad in arts, and I eventually got fed up with the artistic world, currently
being fed up with it, and I decided to turn full-time into philosophy. So I'm currently training through a master's degree in La Universidad Nacional in Colombia, and probably planning to take this like my, let's say, road from now on, philosophy full time. And well, I'm here because, well, I admire a lot of Rez's work. I think that he's leading quite a lot of things, a lot of questions about the current world. So I'm excited to be here. So that's why I'm here. Thank you so much, Federico. Yes, excellent choice.
Let's go on next to Jamie. Okay, hi everyone. I'm Jamie. I'm currently a master's student at the New School for Social Research in New York. I've been taking new center seminars for a couple of months, and I'm interested in this course because I think that Reza is probably in a quite erudite position to speak on matters of cynicism. So I'm ready to heckle as well. Superb. Looking forward to this. Okay. Ekin? Ekin Ekin from Turkey but living in New York.
I, when I had an analytic philosophy undergraduate background, then in my master's, more so pursued a continental, through film and media at Columbia University. Now I'm working on PhD applications, interested in this course, for many different reasons, interested in the neo-rationalist application and in general too much of these discourses. But beginning with today, these cynics seem like an interesting political model with their matted hair and public masturbation and general fervor against establishment. Thank you. Absolutely.
Thank you so much. All right. Shall we go on to Shilpi? Is Shilpi there? Great. Yes. So I will not be switching on my video because my band network is low and the video may get cut. So I'll introduce myself like this only. I'm Shilpi. I'm from New Delhi, India. I'm a designer, illustrator and animation film artist. My main interest being here is because I wanted to take a class particularly from Reza because I've been following his work since quite some time. So yeah, that's what brings me here.
Thank you very much. I suppose that it's very late. Yes, it is. It's almost one at night. Oh, God. All right, shall we go on to Max? Is Max there? Yeah, yeah, sorry. I have a background in the arts, undergrad in sculpture and grad and masters of grad in art, where I was corrupted by a visiting teacher. And that's why I'm back here today with Reza. So yeah, I've been not moving away from the arts, but just a little bit in a sort of hangover, trying to figure out what my relationship to it is now. And I've been
much more interested in kind of the tropes of minimalism and I have a background in craft as well. So now I'm kind of in a craft region and it's been focusing on the different identities here and how people identify as craftsmen. So that's where I'm at now. And I think that has a lot of kind of, yeah, construction of the self is a big part of the arts and craft community and I'm excited to see where this goes. It is so great to meet you again Max. It's good to be back. We'll go on to Evrim. I live in Istanbul, Turkey. I'm working as a freelance translator and
and my master thesis on the . I'm doing PhD applications, also I'm working on Negaristan is intelligence for some time. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Is Nikki here? Hello. Hi. My name is Nikki. I studied design or studied typography and programming. I'm based in Detroit, Michigan. My interest for the topics started earlier this year. I think I co-produced an exhibition called Mind Body.
and the thesis was the care of oneself as social practice. I made a publication with some writings and it really changed my world and I started going into a more artistic form of what the description articulates well as disciplined experimental programmatic. Fantastic. I would love to have a copy of that publication if you can share it. Yeah. I wrote a fiction piece for it. Excellent. Let's go on to Jared. Is Jared here? Hello. Hi.
Can you hear it? Yes. Hi. My name is Jared. I have a background in English literature in a department called rhetoric. So I was trained by contemporary sophists, armenutics, community theory, that kind of thing. Established an interest in philosophy toward the end of my term there with an independent project. I have a pre-existing interest in the cynic tradition as continued by Nietzsche and Dulles. I had a special interest in madness and schizophrenia. particularly interested in whether any kind of ludic account would have I guess
diagnostic traction some kind of Jared did you say ludic account ludic ludic yeah that was a course description yeah okay that's what I thought you said to be honest it's something I'm like intensely skeptical about and that's why I'm interested to see whether it would have any kind of a therapeutic efficacy or neurological basis. Like Wilhelm Reich. Yeah. It's fantastic. Okay, let's go on to Karl. Hi, I'm Karl. I'm originally from Sweden. Although I'm working towards
my PhD at Newcastle University in England. I'm in geography, although I've sort of continuously sort of found myself pulled on a kind of conveyor belt, or trying to walk towards philosophy, but I'm on a conveyor belt, so I'm being pulled back. So I'm somewhere in between there. Yeah, and my kind of PhD project is kind of trying to stage the encounter between Heidegger and Artaud that never took place obviously in an interesting way so I have the feeling that the seminar will sort of be interesting Artaud of course being perhaps the one who more than anyone else did not experience his madness very ludically. I also had a lasting interest in some of Ressa's work
So it's nice to meet you all. Have you met Peter Wolff in there? Do you know that he teaches at Newcastle? No, I have not. Well, you should. You should definitely do that. And actually, I would love to look at this dissertation. My version of madness is between Lewis Carroll and Antoine R2. I know that Arthur thought that Lewis Carroll's work was bullshit. Yeah, very much so. Yes. Well, I'm just starting out, but I'll be happy to sort of keep in touch with you on this. Absolutely, absolutely. Let's go on to Joseph here.
Hello, can you hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear. Yes, I'm Joseph Murphy or Joe. I recently completed a MA in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick. I'm mostly interested in the course because I recently completed a dissertation on Peter Slaughterdyke. Peter Slaughterdyke? Peter Slaughter- Yes. Peter Slaughter- Yes. Peter Slaughter- And coming freshly out of his notion of anthropotechnics, I think this is a very interesting subject. There's a lot of things that can be done with this. This is the first new center course that I've taken. So I'm very excited to see this go. Peter Slaughter- Excellent.
I know Peter Slaughter- Personally, he's quite a funny man and he is a modern day cynic. David. He once told me a joke over lunch. He made me chicken. And my apologies to our artist friends, if this is in a corporate joke. He said that to me, just because Hitler said modern art is bad doesn't make it good. It's completely Peter Slaughter Dyke. All right. Shall we go on to Geronimo or Geronimo? Yeah. Yeah. My name is Geronimo. I'm from Mexico City. Currently, I'm living in Austin, Texas,
where I'm going through my second year of an MFA program. I work mainly with sound installation. And the reason I'm here is because last summer I was a residency program in Mexico City, Materia Abierta, and we had a seminar with Reza. I remember you. Yeah. From the audience. Yeah, I was there. A lurker. And that was like my first encounter with philosophy in academia, so to speak. And it triggered like very useful and meaningful thoughts that I could apply to my, on my practice. And I also been thinking about the notion of apophenia to create a multiple track installations.
That's it. Really great to have you here. And thank you for taking this class. Yeah. Thank you. Now is Mariel present? Yes. Hi. Well, I'm Mariel. I'm from Peru. Do you hear me or something? Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. I have an undergrade on communications, which is like nothing. But I also have studied psychology by myself. So I wish to have a more philosophical view on my worldview, and that's why I'm here. I wish to learn from Reza's work. I haven't read anything of you, Reza, I'm sorry, but I will because it's really fun and fascinating.
and I wish to play with the concept of self, which is something that I found fascinating. And that's all. Thank you. You should know that Peru, for some reason, thanks to, you know, of course, you know, we shouldn't fool ourselves. Those people who are coming from developing countries like in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia, in Africa, in Latin America steadily have been rising in the philosophical circles. And you would be actually quite surprised that there are
so many great philosopher friends that I have are coming from. Yes, I didn't know that. Like who you know? Do you know Daniel Sassilato? Yes, I think it's like Giancarlo's friend. Yes, Giancarlo's friend. Daniel, right now, is at CalArts. In fact, there is a lecture that is going to deliver tonight. I think it would be online. I mean, you can, of course, go and watch it on CalArts' channel. It's called The Construction of Possible Worlds.
Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. Okay. Can we go on to Lorde? Is Lorde present? On mute. Yeah. Can you hear me now? Yes. So, hello. I'm Lorde. based in London background art filmmaking with moments in philosophy I must say I three years ago I took a seminar with you Reza but you probably don't know I completely remember I was super shy I know that exactly I think three years
later I'm back like yeah Madness after math. And yeah, my interest in this seminar comes with yes, his dissertation I finished a few months ago that was looking at Abiva Warburg's work in relation to aspects of his work that were regarded as pathological and in relation to the methodology of his work. And yes, I think. So the question that now I have for you. Yeah. You said that you were shy, which I know that was true. But now you are taking a class about being a shameless
dog. So that's quite a leap of faith, I would say. Big jump. Waf waf. Okay, is Yasemin present? Oh yes, can you hear me? Hi there, yes. Hi, I'm Yasemin from Iran. Right now I'm doing my MFA in London. And yeah, I was interested in taking this class because of its title mostly, like who's on math. And then I'm also like, I'm doing my master's in art and I'm working and like thinking about the capacities within the art field and like things that could come out of it. And yeah, I kind of like can't concentrate right now. So that was really over all the places. But yeah.
Yossamin, how much are you familiar with Iranian ways of madness? I think everyone in Iran is mad in one way or another. In a creative sense, I would say, yes. Like for example, the ancient tradition, do you know any of those people? like would that be something like Zoll or are you going like way back? I would say that you know for example you know Attar was quite a mad figure. People usually talk about Masuda Ha-Laj being the mad figure but Attar was even more insane than Ha-Laj.
So there are all these, you know, really fantastic anecdotes about Persian madness. I don't say, I don't like the word Persian. Let's say Iranian. Though that is just like also a bad word. It means being the nest of the Aryans. But what can we do? Have you read Jason Bobak's book, Omnicide? I mean, I've just read like a brief text, but I haven't read the book. It is magnificent. It is magnificent. Sorry? Sorry, didn't hear you. No, I said it's magnificent. It's a fantastic book.
I quite liked it too. I'm publishing an article on it. This week it will be printed in Philosophy East and West, which looks at Iranian, Turkish, etc. Like philosophical traditions in the Middle East. It's a journal that's a little odd in comparison to all the other continentals. Mad people of the world unite. Exactly. Okay, let's go on to Sophie. Hi. Hi, I'm Sophie. I'm from Germany. I finished my bachelor in May. and now I'm painting and working with tiles and I'm pretty removed from any outside world so I'm
always enjoying once a week an online course especially of course with Reza and yeah I took the class because I'm because I'm also like thinking when thinking about the world anything else I always have the feeling and thinking about the self becomes also quite important and also the issues of madness and all of the above. Sophie, my apologies. You don't need this course to go mad in Germany. Yes, not go mad. Naturally in Germany. Yeah, I'm trying not to, so I'm taking the course, you know. Thank you so much Sophie.
Thank you. Is Aladdin here? Yeah, I'm here. My name is Aladdin. Hi, my name is Aladdin. I'm Switzerland right now. I'm coming from Switzerland. I did a BA in photography and MA in visual anthropology and I came to the new center because I needed more philosophical background for my research and to this class, because I guess I felt the need of it because of doing research. Probably everybody's doing research needs to do a class like this one, I think. Very well. So are you interested in philosophy?
Yeah, yeah, I am. I mean, I did anthropology and I always used a lot of philosophy in it, but never with any type of background or any type of real use of it. And it's why I Just class more as is on the side of anthropology than, you know, I would say philosophy proper. Pure authorization. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's go on to Alejandro. Hi. Hi. Hello. How are you? Hi. I'm Alejandra. I'm from Mexico and I live in Mexico City. And I also took the course in the summer program Materia Abierta, like Geronimo. And also
that was my first time in an academic class of philosophy. And I wanted to know more about dressers work and especially because I just kept thinking in the design frame concept that we work in that class and especially the question what does it mean to deserve something and what does it mean to belong to a design frame but that gives me to another question that is especially what does it mean to not belong to the design frame and I think that that's why I'm super interested in stories in stories that in having there in the margins, and I think madness and all the things that I read in the in this class and has to be with that now.
Yeah, it's connected to that. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, definitely the question of frame of reference is always the most important when you're approaching the question of ethics and self. So ego, obviously, is frame of reference. But ego is not merely the only frame of reference. You can, in fact, construct other frames of reference, just like science, like how we see the Earth from different frames of reference. OK, is Stefano present? Stefano Croninziata- Yes. Can you hear me. Yes. Hi everyone. I'm Stefano. I'm based in Milan and my background is in philosophy. I've just taken a master's degree in Continental Philosophy, the University of Warwick.
Stefano Croninziata- I'm now working on my PhD applications and I'm taking this class because of I'm interested in in Reza's work and because they want to know more about the different perspectives on the concept of the self selfhood and so on. So yes, thank you. Superb, Fauna. Thank you so much. And nice to meet you again, by the way. Nice to meet you again. Let's go on to John. Is John here? We can't hear you. Can others hear John? I know you are but other people want to know who you are. Okay, well, we'll return to john when he gets his microphone. Let's go on now to Andrew.
Hi. Hello. Your mic is also off. Yeah, no, it works. Okay. I'm from Australia, currently living in London. My background's in architecture, but I always use studying architecture as a way to actually look at kind of philosophy and social studies. So that's always been more of an interest to me than design. And the reason I like I was interested in this class is because it seemed to have because of this, let's say practical element to it that there seems to be an immediate
practical applicability. And that's particularly interesting to me. Of course, and practical repercussions. So that practical precautions precautions, Pranjian Rupakarajan, yes. You cannot just have a self without basically dealing with its consequences. Yes, of course, this is something that I always thought that, to be honest with you. I always found architecture theories quite subpar, you know, precisely because,
you know, from, I don't know, like the greatest architect theories of the 20th century, they just talk about what you might call to be a watered down philosophy and social sciences. But what they don't realize is that architecture is philosophy in flesh. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, let's go on to, is John's mic working now? I think so, can you hear me? Okay, let's go back to John. Hi, I'm John. I have a background in art. I'm not really making much art right now.
I'm not really doing anything terribly interesting. It's kind of painting a little bit, stay active. Bicycle there though. Yeah. Yeah, it's part of my day-to-day commute. But yeah, I'm working as a machinist mostly right now, a stone cutter. Not really doing anything art-wise too interesting, just reading a lot for these classes and trying to maintain my connection to art and not give up on it. But yeah, I'm here because I think I'm just exploring, trying to get weird with you guys. So that's it. Fantastic. All right, let's go on to Sebastian.
Yeah, I'm Sebastian. I'm from Slovenia and I have background in art history and visual communication. And currently I'm doing my MA in Frankfurt in Germany in Curatorial and Critical Studies. And I guess I signed up for this class because I'm interested in the notions of subjectivity and the self, but maybe from a broader social scale, especially in regards to the concept of self-abolition of different political groups. And also some paradoxes that come to thinking of how people can gather around the notions of the self and the we and the kind of like presumably shared identity and stuff like that.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Can we go on to Lenka? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. I can't turn the video on. I have a weak connection. And I started my PhD in London. recently it's on the last and scientific pluralism and becoming a phd student i started to think what does it mean to be academic philosopher new days and about commodification of concepts and hypocrisy of academic left and strategies of resistance so that's why i'm taking this curve Okay, then you are in the right kind of class.
Hypocrisy of Academy class. I like it. I don't, but... Okay, let's go on to Nikita. Yeah, hello there. My name is Nikita. I'm based in Moscow, Russia, I work at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. That's by the way where Euphorisa recently had a presentation of the Russian translation of Cyclonopedia, which I've sadly missed. And that's why I do the course. But not really. I'm just doing a program on immersion technology and newest media in artistic work and research at the museum. So together with that, I've never
had a formal education in arts of philosophy so i guess i'm here to mostly broaden my perspectives on the understanding of current situation and yeah well i'm kind of following your work as well so i'm pretty much interested thank you very much thank you thank you i suppose that you too are are in a late time zone right now yeah i guess it's getting late yes yes well the thing is that I don't know. We can, if people feel everyone thinks that this is just too late, we can bring it an hour back if everyone votes for it. You know, I am free today. Basically, I'm only doing this course and that's it. So I'm flexible to every suggestion. Thank you.
Let's go on to Sean. Is Sean here? Sean, your microphone is not working. John, we aren't able to hear you right now. Maybe we'll go on to Juliet and then come back to Sean. John is always mysterious, not only on Facebook, but also in these panels.
Hi, I'm Juliet. I'm from New Zealand, but I'm based here in Frankfurt in Germany. I'm studying in the film class at the Stedelfilm. Yeah, and I wanted to take this class because the thesis was really interesting and exciting to me in relation to my own work. I'm interested in characterization and maybe archetypes or constructions of the South that are more hysterical or mad. Yeah, I also, you know, shadowed a friend back in New Zealand when he was taking a class with Rizan, enjoyed a lot of the takes, so I was quite keen to participate in a class
myself. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you. Let's go back and see if Sean's microphone is working. Still can't hear you. No, no, still no. Okay, well, you're welcome to write in the chat an introduction to yourself or we can come back to you at a later point. Now, is there anybody else who has not yet been introduced? If not, we can go on to Reza's course.
Maybe we should have, after the introduction, have like five minutes break. And then we will go straight to 4.30. Sure, sounds good. Okay, see you soon. Okay. Back inside. I walk into your video.
Oh. Hey, Reza, sorry, I'm going to have to leave a little early today. I got to get back to work. I'm worried. Absolutely no apologies. Okay. Who is the, someone said they were a stonecutter?
No? A stonecutter? John. That's me. John? Yeah, I'm working at a stonecutter right now. Where are you based? In Portland, Oregon. Yeah, it's kind of cool. I'm from Portland, by the way. I'm coming to Portland soon. Oh, are you? Cool. What's the occasion? Some talk and stuff. Oh, cool. I'll look it up. I'll be sure to attend if it's public. Yeah, it's public. It's absolutely. I would love to meet you. Mikey Wells. Do you know Mikey Wells? I don't think so. He's the editor for Triple Appersand.
Oh. He has a bookie store. He has one of the good bookie stores in Portland. You should definitely go there and talk to him. Is that aleatory? Yes. I could never find the physical location of that place. I always thought that, you know, I actually once clicked on the Google map and it looked like in a residential area. You have to be aleatory to find it. It's like the zone. That's funny. Interzone, interzone. No, not interzone. You have to get the, what is it? What do they do in the zone? You have to get like a cloth and you have to throw it in an aleatory manner. I need a stalker. Yes, in stalker. Exactly. You can only find it by way of tossing a coin.
yes yes yes i'm a stonecutter i was gonna ask if you guys have a union no we do not um because my stonecutter friends always are like saying that in the west particularly that they're not unionized yeah yeah um i'd like to work at a union shop but right might uh might mean i have to wear respirators so I don't get silicosis and dialect Spinoza. No. Yes, yes. If I can't at least grasp Spinoza, I can get silicosis. Spinoza got cancer precisely because he used hands, hand
techniques to cut lenses. Not machines. I imagine he was Jens Jens did the same thing but with machines he never got cancer anything before we start any remarks, heckling, swear? Yeah. You have to begin first before we can heckle you. Okay. Well, no, you can always preemptively swear at someone.
That's true. Okay, let's return. Reza, are you ready to start now? We can come back. Thank you very much. So just a very brief comment on how we move forward. Every week, of course, we have eight sessions and seven sessions, in fact, for presentations.
And I would say that if you guys can rain down your ambitions and only talk for 10 minutes, not more than that, then we will have two volunteers each session for presentation. If there is no volunteer, then I have unfortunately used the tyrannical powers as my path to choose one of you. And essentially the presentation, you know, can be quite flexible. You can talk about like the materials we have talked about in previous sessions, or you can ask questions
that prospective about the future sessions, such that they can basically glue back together what we have already learned and studied and what we might learn or should explore. So two presentations each session, no more than 10 minutes. And that's about it. Of course, those of you who want to write an essay, I will give you feedback. So let's begin. The story, the origin of the story is quite trite.
We have already heard about it numerous times. The Oracle of Delphi. know thy self. But how can I know myself? As if self was a thing. No, self is not a thing. It does not have a metaphysical status. It is not really a thing. So, what does it mean to know oneself? Well, where Socrates' genius unfolds, to know oneself, one must hypothesize about the
existence of self, even if it didn't exist to begin with. Or what does it mean to hypothesize about oneself or one's self? Well, that is the meaning of hypothesis, the original meaning of hypothesis, to construct Something that even if doesn't exist can gain a reality, attraction on reality. Right?
So the construction of the self, also known as self-cultivation. Self-cultivation has, of course, in today's vocabulary means that you know, you already have a self and you try to cultivate it, which is usually a kind of a lifestyle of sorts. But in the original sense, self-cultivation absolutely didn't mean something like a lifestyle, you know, how I can curate myself. No, it's not something there that you can create it. cultivation meaning meant to construct a self first and foremost such that the construction
always leads to a flux of selves better selves better in a very modest sense In a sense that we can adapt to reality, whatever comes at us. Whatever comes at us. It was essentially a gesture against the whims of time, right?
The whims of time or the whims of nature. Because a person who presumes that he or she has a self is so under-equipped when it comes to the winds of time, the tempests of reality. So how can you bypass this quandary? Well Seneca in his epistos to Lucius has this, of course I will read it when we get into
the Stoic section, had this idea that, you see, the problem is quite simple. So there are men, by men I mean humans, that's how, you know, they were basically worded back then. There are men who are supposed to be executed tomorrow. There are men who are confronted with a massive fire in their house. There are men who think that tomorrow won't exist, the world ends. And Seneca says that, you know, I have seen examples that
even if you think something is certain in terms of the whims of reality and how it can annihilates you, you should understand that there is no such certainty, unless and until you actually believe in a self as a stable thing. But if you put this aside and see self as a construction in time rather than as a some stable fixed thing which is always deteriorated
by the whims of time, then you can see that there have been so many men who have been condemned to death. They bring them to the scene of execution and the executioner dies, the king dies. The fire, miraculously, by the whim of nature, is snuffed through raining or a storm subsides all of a sudden. And then he says, even bad fortune is a pickle.
Bad fortune is pickle. There is no such a thing as bad fortune. Bad fortune is only for those people who believe in a stable or fixed self. Those people whose cynics call are incapable of adapting to any sort of opportunity. And this is where cynicism starts. to any sort of opportunity. To live in any place as a home. To, in the words of Diogenes,
to use any place for any purpose. To use any place for any purpose. The whole point here is that you cannot do that unless you suspend your belief in the self. Obviously, we see people today who say that, oh well, we don't have a self, right? As if miraculously, the egotism of the self goes away simply by proclaiming or claiming
that there is that I don't have a self. No, in fact, we have seen quite often that those people who say that they don't have a self are the most egotistic bastards of all. This is not a matter of simply believing or claiming that I don't have a self, but a matter of exercising the suspension of the self as a way of life. And this is the very doctrine, the core doctrine of cynicism. Questions, before I move forward.
It seems like maybe this null hypothesis on the ontology of the self, it doesn't even seem necessarily that this is something that the cynic proposes from their own standpoint, but rather as a kind of hypothesis that is offered by transpirations and by the environment itself. In other words, the actual kind of harsh conditions in which one lives is offering a hypothesis that one will not survive it. Absolutely. Absolutely. But then the counter hypothesis by the cynics is actually that one will subsist. So it seems like there are two hypotheses. There's some sort of a null hypothesis that's offered by the unforgiving conditions of the environment,
but also some sort of counter hypothesis that one would be able to subsist. The second hypothesis I would say is a little bit different for cynics. It's not that we are going to subsist. Because that is not the case for them. What is the case for them is absolutely indifference. You can only master death by becoming indifferent to it. But you can be indifferent to it, but still hypothesize that you will continue. Yes, or not.
Or not, or not, yes. And that's the whole point. The indifference is a kind of like a generative vector. You can either say, yes, you can continue, or no, you cannot continue. It just doesn't matter, really. But if you do continue, there is this presupposition that you will accrue a certain amount of virtue by doing so. So it's not entirely indifferent. There is a kind of selection effect that's kind of presumed within this vector. Virtue is the indifference itself. You see, because it's the virtue of indifference to life and death that allows you for happiness, for eudaimonia. Rez, I have a question now that you bring this up, this indifference.
This indifference seems to be the guiding ethos to Diogenes who wanders, he wanders through the, you know, what does this say, almost as if he were homeless. He was homeless. He absolutely had no home. Yeah, but it's this carteria. endurance as self-control uh that so it's like the lines of error are the only lines for this for diogenes he's walking barefoot and embracing these marble statues in the winter never tracing back over his steps uh eating once a day like an athlete uh never really stopping his journey
this endurance makes nature bend through self endurance nature bends too no no no no no no no that nature is not bent this does this doesn't imply that nature is bent to one's will no no does one bend i mean is it a cyclic is my question. No, the thing is something more devious and more cunning, in the sense that, you know, OK, one of the theses of cynicism is to live by nature. Of course, I mentioned earlier that this thesis
has been misinterpreted over the course of history of philosophy. It's not as if, first of all, cynics are not really those kinds of what you might call to be the nihilists or naturalists who would say that there is no such a thing as norm or law. No they agree there are such things as norms or laws but some of them are illusory. Okay So they do stick to the distinction between nomus and physis, norm and nature.
It's just that they think that the best way that we can rediscover the best norms of ethics, of virtue, of self-mastery, of freedom, emancipation from the winds of time, is to actually use nature in the right kind of way. In the sense, you know, the famous example of Diogenes, so he's a vagabond, right?
He has recently been exiled from Sinope, his birthplace. He has no problem with it. He embraces this whole exile. He says that, I don't have a home. I don't have a state. I don't have a city. I'm not citizen of any sort of state. I'm a cosmopolitan. This is actually what he says. The word cosmopolitan comes from the cynics. and he's carrying a knapsack
it contains so basically all of his properties a stick so we can walk over a a long duration of time, long distances, a bowl, and the knapsack itself. Then he sees a child that drinks water from his hands, eats foods and soups from his hands. And he says that the bowl was unnecessary.
He discards it. It is lighter now. This lightness of being in Melanchondra's sense is the very idea of how you can be more rational. be more rational, be more critical, be more subversive than any other person. So Reza, if I hear you correctly, just to make sure, you're saying that this very indifference and the kind of apostasy with respect to many different regimes of nomos, If you commit to that, then only the most kind of compelling and architecturally sound forces
will kind of remain as those that you consider when you're making your philosophical judgments. The kind of metal of these variables will make themselves really forcefully apparent to you if you're indifferent to all of them and you kind of invite them to impress upon you. Yes, yes, yes, completely, completely. But this is not making it still artifacts out of, you know, making nomos out of nature. There does seem to be what I called earlier banding. Perhaps that's not the clearest way to describe making nature artifactual. There is this description of Diogenes washing lettuces in the river.
And it is Plato who comes up to him and says, if you had paid your respects to Dionysus, you would not be washing lettuces in the river. And he replies, I think his reply is something akin to, if you washed lettuces, you would not need to flatter Dionysus. This, to me, the washing of lettuce recalls this artifactual relationship, making artifacts of nature, finding a sort of relationship of give-take. Yes, in a sense, this is true. You see, when they say, as I mentioned, when they say that live according to nature, they
They are not naturalists, they are not Noah Luddites, they are not some cultish communal people, right? It's just that they are rational at the core. They think that the best way to change nature is by freeing yourself from those what I call natural whims of times, sensations, sexuality, desires that are exogenous. They have no problem whatsoever with endogenous desires and impulses.
and how to act on them. It's just that they think that we should explore the idea that how many of our desires to be natural, to be ourselves, might be an illusion, a fabrication, and which of them are true. Essentially, they are, in a sense, early pragmatists, precisely because they think truth as what works in a practical sense. Reza, I would like to ask if the concept of autarchia that they manage,
let's say, as a non, I see it, let's say, as this method of being non-dependent of the whims, of the whims of the external contingencies that might be presented to the rational human. Would you think that this autarkia would be like a sort of key piece or engine to the self-construction or the construction of the self? Yes. You see, many commentators in the history of philosophy accused of cynics, including Hegel himself, and Hegel is the god of philosophy, philosophy, one of the gods of philosophy, second to Plato, I would say, of cynics as
examples of pure individualistic idea of freedom. essentially it seems on the surface though on the surface only on the surface that their idea of freedom is something that I see at Berlin called negative freedom freedom from something. So they accuse cynics as being always on the side of freedom from something, freedom from nature, freedom from social conventions, so on and so forth. But no, that is not absolutely
correct. You see, it is very much more in line with Foucault's idea of freedom, that in order for you to construct a proper freedom, which is positive freedom, freedom to do something, to rather than freedom from, you have to start from negative freedom, freedom from something. So the shortcut to virtue, to happiness, in cynics terms, all it means is that in order
for us to achieve, to do something with our lives that other people couldn't otherwise do, we have to relinquish some of illusory freedoms that we had, or limitations for that matter and only then we can move on and do something good with our lives because otherwise as long as we are entangled in this web of illusory ideas of freedom, social conventions and realities, we can never achieve anything. We are merely,
as Diogenes Latricius would have said it, we are merely just a step in the ladder of beings. So this is one of the greatest ideas of cynics, that they subverted the chain of beings before even Aristotle invented the chain of beings. So you know that in the metaphysical idea of what is man, what is human. As a metaphysical question, ala Aristotle, you have animals,
men and gods. Cynics did a complete subversion of this whole paradigm by saying that humans animal, man, and God, all at the same time. Essentially they revealed both the constraints, the negative constraints, and the positive possibilities of what
Okay, I'll have a go. So, you say that in making... I suppose it's a question about Aristotle, as I'm slightly unfamiliar with him. Is this idea of animality only negative? Otherwise it would seem to me that in this sort of move that's of course pre-Aristorial, that the human becomes in a sense more than either god or animal, in the sense of having attributes from both. Yes, yes. This doesn't, however, inferiorize, for the cynics, it doesn't inferiorize the animal,
because they are obviously not interested in that kind of Aristotelian chain of beings. As I mentioned, to them, human self-construction is something more like a strategy. You have to first be animal in order to be a god. You see, the whole idea of a shortcuts to nature. Be first. Act like an animal. Only go for what you need. Not at the expense of others, but at the expense of yourself. And only then you can adapt
to the opportunities of something becoming better. Reza? Yes. So then, I don't know, when you say free from, which also gives the possibility to, I'm thinking about fear and not having the fear to lose anything and regard then to do the free too, you know what I mean? Yes. But the animal also has fear, you know? I mean, there is this... That is the whole point.
There is, you see, so there are different, what you might call, regimens for a scenic philosopher to be born, to be mature. One is physical endurance. One is eudaimonia, happiness as a telus, as the end goal of all life. And there are so many others. And one is assesses or excesses. Esses used to be a term for athletes before philosophers adopted it.
It's simply, for example, as it is on moi, we exercise, we exercise, just like athletes, we exercise. So obviously you can't just shed yourself of fears. This is not something that you can theorize about it. You have to go through a discipline, a discipline, an exercise, just like athletes, to overcome the fear. And that's the whole point of cynics. It's not that they think that you can simply
get rid of yourself of fear. No. That is the whole procedure that lasts a long life. To To master death, one has to learn death, the meaning of it, and the meaning of life. Otherwise, there is no way out. So this idea of exercise or ascesis can be both bodily and mental.
You cannot have one without the other in the Cynic Thesis. You absolutely have to put yourself at risk sometimes. You have to exercise every day like Diogenes, like when it's hot summer I roll in sand, hot sand. When it is cold I embrace a marble statue. all for this purpose that I can slowly shed the fears because what is fear if not losing
what you didn't have to begin with? You see that's the whole point of cynicism. So if self is just a construct and regular people think that they have a self and they are entitled to this and that and they should be treated such and such, then if you suspend this belief and you try to reconstruct or construct the self, then of course you shouldn't be afraid of anything because only an ego is afraid of things, not a self as a construct.
I do have a kind of overall question just for the kind of scope of this course, a question that I'm hoping to answer is how much of cynicism is strategy and praxis based on negotiation or agonism? And to what extent are certain aspects of cynicism not strategic, not negotiable, specifically like values or axiologies. It seems as though it's not entirely
exchangeable, adaptable, malleable. There has to be some sort of vertebrate to it. Yes, obviously the only reason that we are looking at cynicism is because of of a chronological constraint. But obviously, as we move forward, we see holes and cracks in the cynic doctrine. Not because of the regular, basically, critiques which are levied against cynicism such as pure individualists, so on and so forth, but because, yes, as you
said, the question of tactics and strategy is being elided, being confounded in cynicism, such that, for example, cynics have this kind of heroic—and who doesn't want to be a hero these days, have this heroic soul to think that simply by exposing the hypocrisy of values and social conventions, they can overthrow social conventions. old sale. So yes, these are all the questions that we will get to these by the end of the
seminar. Yes. Any more question? I guess it's just a comment, but like on that note, I've been thinking it's interesting that the cynics seem so like needing to be embedded in the culture and not just to be running off into the woods that they need they do have some sort of need to try and overthrow um if not just for themselves but it doesn't really seem like it's only for themselves um or they could be yes yes absolutely this is what i mentioned earlier on yes you know people usually who misunderstand cynics, they think that cynics are just like, you know, are all on the
side of negative freedom, freedom from this or that. But no, actually their goal is freedom to do something. And to do something is to subvert all illusory norms of social convention. So, So they have to settle in a society in order to reclaim their idea of positive freedom. Because if they were just, as you said, they were only in the business of negative freedom, they could run wild into the forest foraging and so on and so forth. But no, they want to be in the city, in the palace.
make sure everyone knows and feels when I am going to shit on your social conventions. Could it be then like disenchantment of what is enchanted? Yes, of course, this is like, basically, you can think about it as Nietzschean transvaluation of all values. It's simply a cynic doctrine, nothing more.
Any remarks, any questions? I have a question. Sure. I'm trying to understand the definition of nature you have in your mind. You said that nature is used in order to construct itself. So would you say that nature is a pre-given entity or is it a tool? I'm trying to understand the status of nature. Sorry, you got cut off for one single moment.
Would you repeat it? uh we just nature uh is is a pre-given entity uh or a uh because you said that nature can yes in order to construct a self yes i'm trying to understand um how we encounter with nature. I mean, is it, do we encounter with it as if it's a pre-given thing and then we use it to construct the self out of it, as if it's a raw material? You see, this is a very tricky question. Different cynics at different times glimped in different ideas of nature.
So, for example, you get something like this, that anything that is not practical and observable is not nature, right? In early cynics. Then you get a far more broader idea of nature, that nature is simply a field of possibilities given by time. So, depending on these stages of cynicism, you can get different consequences, obviously. But for the most part, I would say that all cynics believe that nature both is a limitation
and also a field of possibilities. And hence, the idea of thinking according to nature was in the sense that we do a shortcut and this shortcut takes a long time, even probably longer than a long way of theorization about nature. It's about this to understand the negative and positive constraints of nature such that we shed those negative constraints by becoming minimal or minimalistic such that we can espouse
the possibilities of nature. Because for them, nature was always a kind of a vague idea. There are rationalists at the end of the day. You know, it's just like, you know, I'm a human animal. So I need to have sex, I need to eat, I need to pee and poop and so on and so forth. All great and good. But the thing is that how can I make this so more minimal such that I can realize the possibilities, other possibilities that nature can give me as a human being.
I have a question that is related to Abrams. And this is more of a comparative question that you, I'd just like to sort of hear your comparison. Bad cigarettes. They're so bad. Probably I won't be able to continue this session. Why? Because I only have one cigarette. this is um can you do a little bit of a comparison between the cynics's nature and then perhaps nature as a you know i mean and i think of in spinoza where god is sort of reduced to nature thereby losing its transcendence and then in a you know in kant where nature cannot be judged
from a particular point of view and shelling where nature starts to take on a whole organism. These ideas of nature, especially those developed in natural philosophy and idealist, post-German idealist, idealist thought, can you do a bit of a comparison? Any of these ideas is influences and rejection in nature as it's conceived of not just in Schelling but you know perhaps Schelling is the person most explicitly talks about but just in philosophy of that moment and in you know in general perhaps I will be brief at this point precisely because I would
and please do remind me of this question in the next few sessions I want us to look at the problems quite accurately before I answer your question. But for now, all I can say is that, you see, cynics understood the constraints of nature, like good engineers, right? You just simply cannot put or cannot nail any sort of nail into a stone. You know, it should be a different nail to go through a stone. They were pragmatists of some sort
as I mentioned earlier. So, they think of nature as both a field of possibilities free in itself. Right. But also, they don't think that humans or men can embrace the freedom of nature haphazardly, out of blue. No. To embrace the field of possibilities, which is nature, one ought to have certain kinds
of practices, ways of life, performances, improvisational philosophy, so on and so forth. to just simply take for granted the idea of a free nature for them is a dogma, is a philosophical dogma. You cannot postulate or even talk about it unless and until you are in the battlefield, which is called nature.
It is really important to mention that for cynics, Philosophy was not the organon of theorization, like Plato. It was more like the way of life. But what kind of way of life? It was the idea that if we are going to have a philosophy, this philosophy should be the
organ of adaptation, attunation, acclimatization to the possible scenarios that nature can brought can bring about upon us so in that sense for them nature was both a tyrant and the angel of historical emancipation of mankind
I don't know if I'm sorry. Then this like the idea of a free nature. I'm thinking about like an imposition that could be seen maybe in the philosophies of desire, for example, let's say, and how, let's say that this French conception of desire might turn into a sort of automatism, like this sort of irreflexive automatism that puts nature into an enclosure. I don't know if it could be said that that's the case.
Yes. Many actually commentators, you know, in the Middle Ages and onwards, who were influenced by the Aristotelian reading of cynicism believed in this. But I would say that cynicism is not automatism or don't lead to that kind of automatism that you have in mind. Why? Because if the case is adaptation of reason to nature and not simply subordination
of reason to nature, then obviously the whole idea of automatism is out of window. Adaptation is what cynicism is all about. And to adapt, you don't always need to perform your primary task as a human animal. You can also perform tasks which are human got. Something like this that, you know, of course, as I mentioned earlier, these people were
skillful in the art of rhetoric. They were coming from a lineage from Gorgias himself, the ultimate sophist. But for them, rhetoric was not a means of saying who is true and who is not. Rhetoric for them was to literally make a political joke, a sociopolitical joke. Almost like a rite. Not a ritual, a rite. a right that you can do it here and now, and you expose the sheer inconsistency of what we believe about ourselves, about nature, social conventions.
Let me read some of these jokes that Diogenes came up with. My apologies. And please, if you have any more questions, just shoot it at me while I'm trying to search my notes. My apologies. I'm a very unorganized kind of person. Oh my God, what is this?
Okay. Before I get embarrassed, maybe someone should shoot a question. Okay, I found it, I found it, I found it, okay. So this is, okay, so here. So cynics were basically You know, just imagine that the abaginist comes at your party. First of all, he embarrasses you in front of all of your elite friends by peeing on the carpet. it, if you think it is not bad, then he starts to actually steal the whole pot of a stew
in front of your eyes. And this was not because they were hypocrites. They were actually believed in assessives and being ascetic people, right? But for them, jokes as rights, as subversions against social conventions was more important than really friendship. Because a friend who doesn't appreciate this joke then most probably is a dumb friend. You don't want that kind of person on your band. So this is what he says, all things belong to the gods.
The wise are friends of the gods. Friends hold things in common. So then all things belong to the wise, namely himself. It's a justification for thievery. Then he says, people say that, okay, so the agonists, you know that Agora. Agora is essentially the place where basically serious matters are being discussed about the police, about the city, and the social environment, and so on and so forth. It's really the most serious. It's just like, for example, you go to, I don't know, Congress, United States Congress. You just cannot bring a whole plate of food and
eat it in front of everyone. He says, if to breakfast is not absurd, it is not out of place in the Agora. Breakfast is not absorbed. It is not out of place in the Agora. You see, these are pure Gorgias riddled forms of rhetoric. If you have seen how Gorgias actually works in his rhetorics as a sophist, but they were not really interested in sophism. They were
interested in jokes, jokes in the precise sense that basically contemporary anthropology understands it. Let me read. So, of course, this is a kind of fallacy. And Aristotle, being this kind of, you know, really rigid person, says that, well, these sophists are all sophists. These cynics are all sophists. He just doesn't understand the recontextualization
of rhetoric as a means of subversion, as a joke, as an insensual right. So, you know, Mary Douglas, in her The Social Control of Cognition, Some Factors in Joke Perception, develops this argument that the peculiar expressive character of the joke stands in contrast to ritual as such. It's right, but it's not ritualistic, right?
For if we consider the joke as a symbol of social, physical, or mental experience, we are already treating it as a kind of right. But what kind? As a spontaneous symbol, she says, a joke expresses something that is happening, but that's all. It stands in contrast, therefore, to the standardized rite or ritual, which expresses what ought to happen, and thus, unlike spontaneous joking, is not morally natural. Douglas spells out the opposition between joking and ritual as follows.
She says, a joke has in common with a rhyme that both connect widely different concepts. But the kind of connection of pattern A with pattern B in a rhyme is such that A and B support each other in a unified system. The right imposes order and harmony, while the joke disorganizes. From the physical to the personal to the social to the cosmic, great rituals create unity in experience. They assert hierarchy and order. In doing so, they affirm the value of the
the symbolic patterning of the universe. Each level of patterning is validated and enriched by association with the rest. But jokes have the opposite effect. They connect widely differing fields, but the connection destroys hierarchy and order. They do not affirm the dominant value but denigrate and devalue or trans value. Essentially a joke is an anti-right. The message of a standard right is that the ordained patterns of social life are inescapable.
The message of a joke is that they are escapable for a joke implies that anything can be possible. Now I have a question here about you were speaking earlier about the program or project of changing nature and someone might be inclined to say that this kind of ludic exercise reflects or takes up this kind of a project. But for me, it seems as though it's more, again, of a kind of apostasy against nomos as a gesture of vulnerability towards fuses or physics.
And that seems to me not to be changing nature for the cynics, but simply a kind of jettisoning of any kind of hindrance to a rationalist engagement with it. So I don't feel like we're actually changing nature here. Yes, you see. But, Jamie, you never believed that we can change nature. This is your worldview. No, the formula goes almost like this. I think James is right here. Of course, I have to say change nature because of the Zen of the Mitz manifesto, but really is right. You see, The thing is that the cynic doctrine thinks that the idea of a fixed nature that ought
to be changed is a byproduct of a fixed and egotistic self. So if reality is a projection of the cell, a fixed cell, a fixed reality is a projection of the fixed cell, then if we treat cell as a constructible hypothesis, the nature reveals itself as the field of possibilities where no change can occur. You are merely navigating the field of its possibilities. But can we give it form? I mean this is the
platonic question per excellence. Well the thing is that... And it's a different question than changing. Yes. Cynics think that you can't really give form by simply speculating or theorizing about nature. You have to become nature. You have to confront its opportunities and constraints before you learn something. Everything before that is merely philosophical organism. So then does the self emerge as the form, as the byproduct?
Is that the form? Can we consider it that way? I wouldn't call self as a form. Self would be co-constitutive with nature. The more you construct the self, the more you enrich the reality of what there is. So the Hegelian advantage would be this is how nature reveals itself, but not changes but reveals itself through our not co-option but becoming nature thus geists you know asymptotic historical trajectory this revealing this grand revealing it's like a cosmic phenomena
Yes, but for Hegel, it's less matter of way of life as a praxis, whereas for cynics, it is absolutely a way of life. But Marxists have done this with Hegel, you know, Marx does this with Hegel, he almost does what the cynics are doing, I guess. Yes, well, the whole idea is that... So philosophy always bifuricates between what to think and what to do. The greatest philosophers are those who say that what to think is not a matter of pure theorization, it's a matter of what kinds of doing we can do in order to think.
And what to do, correspondingly, is a matter of what to think when we do something. My apologies. I have this too. I have to check it. Two minutes, please. We'll take a two-minute break now. Alex, I really enjoyed the way that you're actually guiding the breaks. It's quite good.
I mean this. I think the stew is guiding the breaks, actually. Well, yes. like nature it reveals itself but you cannot change i mean jamie you you would like insist as i find it difficult to not that any like technical instrument we use is an element is nature right like that's elaborate so my cell phone my iphone is nature like it's it's no less organic than uh you know
whatever tree etc uh oh sure and that's it couldn't it couldn't have been engineered otherwise it has it's subject to certain constraints and certain proclivities like anything else is that what you're saying yeah i'm just like how could anyone counter this because i it just seems like illogical that one could not agree with this well some people will take the standpoint that if it's an instrument it's something that you're using with application with respect to some sort of a nature right and i disagree with that because then you're basically discounting the instrument as just kind of a kind of a virtual interface which i don't agree with right i mean i i understand
why you would do this if you're like an environmentalist or have some ecological project and there's you know you look at like the anthill and say this is formed naturally you look at you know our pollution and apply inorganic or unnatural with some type of like ethical praxis in mind but it's it's like you know yeah but the but the formicary the formicary is also a brutal kind of tyranny but we just don't look at it that way because ants are rather small but if we did that at a human scale we would have completely eviscerated the earth right so i don't You know, I'm definitely not inclined to create these kind of divides between human behavior and some sort of kind of ecological process that somehow we've perverted.
We're part of it. So I'm curious for Jamie, would you make any distinction between instrument and artifact? Because, you know, there's all sorts of animals which use things that they find in their environment for various purposes. But whether they're actually fabricating that in an intentional way, that's more questionable. And so I don't know if artifact use could be an intelligible distinction. Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have an immediate answer to that, actually. I haven't really weighed on the artifact instrument distinction, Alex, but I'll give that some thought. Alex, would you be kind enough to repeat your question? Sure. So, I mean, I was asking because Jamie was talking about this problem of like what constitutes nature.
Can we make some sort of divide between nature as this external realm and the human realm of artifacts and so on? And I was wondering whether there's any sort of intelligible distinction between the notion of instrument and the notion of artifact, where instrument can be anything which is used. Really, something that has kind of, you know, confused commentators of cynicism.
Essentially, many medieval and basically post-Archestotelian readers or commentators of cynicism think that cynicism is all about pitting nature against norms or arguments. artifacts. Precisely because Aristotle is, you know, is of course one of the greatest philosophers, but he's worst reader of previous philosophers, including his own teacher, Plato.
Obviously, the thing is that cynics, this idea of pitting nature against norms to the detriment of norms or gnomus, is the one-on-one sophism, right, Gorgias. The thing is that cynics absolutely hated sophists, including Gorgias. They absolutely did not believe in such things. It's just, as I mentioned, that they thought that, so how can we strategically, in a cunning
matter, so-called short-cut, the virtue, can we come up with a lean system of norms, such that we can navigate the possibilities of nature? So absolutely for cynics, there is a distinction between the artificial, the artifactual, and nature as such. In fact, they would go, like a good ideal is, say that there is no nature. The nature, it itself is an artifact.
It's just that how can you maximize the power of this artifact by virtue of what kind of disciplines, what kinds of exercises? But is that then an instrumentalism of the creation of the self? If nature is a kind of artifact, I mean, I can imagine this idea of, you know, this kind of apostasy with respect to nomos as taking certain artifacts and seeking to decontextualize them so that they can be subject to a greater instrumentality. So perhaps there's something that is regarded as an artifact that's relatively uninterrogated
that could be put to better use or that could be used in order to gain some better understanding of kind of fundamental contingent forces. And so you decouple this from its artifactual status. And it didn't believe in contingency, just like a Stoics. As I said, even bad fortune is fickle. So why do you need to believe in it? Why do you need to put your life as if it was at risk? so what they did to put the whole idea of risk ingrained within reason
this is what they did that risk is actually the engine of reason rather than something opposed to it doesn't matter what happens tomorrow because even the worst thing that might happen tomorrow might not even happen. So, you see, it's kind of like a twistier story. So they also believe in the contingency of nature, but they think that the contingency of nature can be appropriated by the force of reason, by the force of craftsmanship. This is what they believe, just like a stoics.
Is there anybody who would like to ask a question who has not yet at this point? Maybe we should toss a coin and name some unfortunate person. Let me toss a coin. How about Juliette? Yeah, sure. I actually didn't quite follow what you just said about the cynics not believing
in contingency and I wonder if you could go over that again. Yes, you see. Because at the start of the seminar we briefly touched on contingency and it was, yeah, ambiguous to me. You see, Dorr, at the very least, two approaches to contingency. the ontological way, nature is just contingent, right? Things happen at whim. Then there is another form of dealing with contingency, that if things happen at whim,
even if things happen at whim, It does not deprive us from speaking about some laws of universe. It does not deprive us from being people, think agents, practical agents. I would say that sin-season is absolutely on the second territory. That, okay, even if nature was so contingent, we are so powerful as animal, man and God.
to become solely in our way of life such that we can adapt to any sort of possible contingency or whim of nature such that we can become something else. This is the whole doctrine of cynicism. What does it mean and what does it take to adopt the contingency of nature? So there are, in a sense,
realists at heart. Even though they don't believe in a canonical sense of reality, As I mentioned earlier on, the notion of reality as a whole, as a totalized state of affairs, for them is just another dogma, another social convention that should be thrown out into the garbage because they think that if a reality is not neutral as a field of possibilities, then most probably it is dogmatic, essentially contaminated by human dogmas. Either you have
neutral reality as a field of possibilities that you can navigate, or you have reality as contaminated by human dogmas and prejudices and biases. Any other person? Any of my friends? Okay. So, if there's no more question.
Sounds like there's somebody speaking. Who is it who is speaking? I just heard some background noise, but I guess there's nobody who's speaking at the moment. I think I was just speaking to myself. Sean asked the question to throw out like what you mean by throwing out on the chat. I don't know if you want to. Sorry. Shon Gallagher asked a question on the chat about your last remark to throw out. What do you mean by throwing out? Throwing out, like canceling it.
Canceling that very idea of nature. I mean just just to ask one last thing about nature and and tool use that is not entirely unrelated to what you know what we're talking about but also related a bit to uh more contemporary discourses um this seems to open up the idea of tool use which okay this was a question that Alex asks Jamie a bit ago, what is the difference between instrument and artifact? And instrument as tool use, this is something you say intelligence and spirit towards the end, using it as scaffolding.
But using it as a scaffolding for making new cognitive technologies. So as an evolutionary building upon the tools, the prior tools, seems to be the key for apperception. Whereas the monkey may use a walnut for opening a fruit, say, they will not, this will not engage in the type of scaffolding of stabilization and communal establishment that then is developed upon enabling new cognitive technologies and then reformatting homo sapiens? Though so far I say that great apes are merely in the business of this ossified instrument.
No. I mean, look at bonobos, you know, Kanzi, right? They can actually learn how to create a blade, how to make a knot. These are not by any means insignificant achievements. These are achievements beyond any sort of other animal. To tie a knot in order to secure, in order to trap, is one of the greatest tools, you
know, that has ever been invented. I would say that tools and instruments are also different. So we have artifacts which are renegotiable and revisable because they are partly conceptual. Then we have tools. are also somewhat conceptual in the sense that you know when for example you know those of you who have done some homework uh homework not homework uh with for example a screwdriver you you know
that you can use a screwdriver for so many purposes, just like a duct tape. You can put a duct tape on an obnoxious person's mouth to shut them up. You can actually use it around the pipe to get rid of the leak, so on and so forth. So tools also are more on the side of the artifact. And then instruments are more like these systems of nomasis, of what we can do with certain kinds, set of tools or set of artifacts. I would say in this sense,
Artifacts are more on the side of ossification of the possibilities of what we can do with nature, right? Artifacts are more on the side of nature. Tools are intermediary. So we're nearing the end right now. We have about 15 minutes left until the formal end of the session. So if anybody else has final thoughts, now is the time. So I was wondering, we've been talking about nature primarily in terms of fixity and contingency.
And it seems like at different points, neither of those seems to be characteristic. Like if nature's fixity would be just a function of the illusion of the fixity of the self. And then contingency is, I'm not really sure why, because I mean, at times it seems like it's just a reversal of the priority, like contingency becomes prior to any kind of fixity. a whole there's like seems like pragmatically speaking um nature is kind of conceived almost as like feel real is that which resist and the whole point is to have a kind of minimum set of
tools and practices to mitigate that resistance so i guess i wonder like is any sense of contingency preserved? Is it reliant on some concept of whether nature has any kind of underlying physical regularity or not? I mean this is probably anachronistic to ask these kinds of questions since they don't really systematize their views even as much as like it said in the in the reading like as much as the Stoics would, but I don't know, does that seem relevant to ask? Sure. You see, at least in the canon of historical philosophy, nature has always been taken as
unbound, not fixed. Even Parmenides, who believes in the fixity, doesn't believe that nature is fixed. So at the very least, from the ancient historical perspective, nature has always been understood as a field of possible premises and consequences, crisscrossing and overlapping. But the thing is that the problem arises at this point. What is
problem. It is a problem that, okay, if you say that nature is contingent, then how can we ever learn from it? You see, this is as much a theoretical challenge as it is practical. So, the Platonistic branch of philosophy tries to theorize about how we can actually stabilize patterns in nature, whereas the practical side of it, such as cynics, they
think that no amount of theorization will lead to what you might call to be a coherent picture of nature. Precisely because if nature is this field of contingencies and possibilities, then the only way to make sense of nature is by basically assuming a self. And a self for them is a
projection onto reality, a self which is not yet fully realized. The task of understanding nature is the very task of understanding the self, to construct it, to pivot against the constraints which are here and now, in front of us.
So before going to the next session, an idea that I shall talk about in details next session is a central slogan of cynicism. deface all coinage. Also translated deface the carnacy. Does any of you know what it means? Anyone?
it's a metaphor in the text at least it's explained as a metaphor for Diogenes's life's mission to alter received values and replace them with ethical standards that are not just different but opposed. In a literal sense what what does it mean to deface a coin? It means to reject, you know, the norms, reject the economic system, and also to reject money in general, to like reject capitalism. So you see, you know, basically a coin has a face on it. That's part of the minting process, right?
So if you deface head or tail, the coin loses its value all of a sudden. And that's exactly what's the strategy of the cynics, to deface the coin, to deface the currency. and how do you and how do you deface the face though which is precisely by rubbing the coin and by actually using it this is what derrida says about uh they don't use the coin no but they do through the joke through jokes and through this kind of subversive exchange they do still participate in a way where they rub those coins down to the extent that they don't have any meaning that's what hyper camouflage is
You see, yes, to a certain extent, but you should also understand that to deface a coin has also a broader connotation in the sense that, okay, I steal your coin and I put a defaced one in your pocket. Right? That's all good and great. What is really important is that how do you go on and deface social norms? Do you need to adopt them first, as you said it,
to steal some social norms or do you need to have something more like this indifferent attitude of a jerk like thief where basically i steal your coin deface them without actually using them and put them in your pocket so then I can laugh at you when you are trying to use it at the market I don't know if I'm gonna say something really stupid from all of the other things that I've said but uh what I'm thinking as well as this
popular saying of what what glitters is not usually gold you know like trying to see things you know like not for their value you know like for the inherent value of oh this is you know a coin that represents gold you know fool's gold or like yeah i don't know i'm seeing it like like trying to get behind the myth of what this value means like why do we take it as something granted you know this this value of the coin and uh try to find other ways of um of uh utilization or as a weapon maybe to to infiltrate and change everything like a sort of virus i don't know yeah well this this actually was this is actually quite a very
cynic idea at heart. You see, I mean, have you guys watched the TV series What We Do in the Shadows? It's based on the New Zealand vampire mockumentary show. So the vampire guy goes to the supermarket and tells his human familiar, you know, I want some of those sparkling dust that makes me like look like twilight when i put them on my face and body and said do you mean glitters and he buys a whole you know shitload of them
so yes that is the whole point but the thing is that you see What does it exactly take to deface a coin? Not, of course, the most important question is that what would be the consequences of defacing a coin? What does it take to deface a coin, to deface a value? Nietzsche is more interested in looking at the consequences of defacing the currency, defacing the value, right?
One-on-one transvaluation of all values. But cynics are more interested in the practical means of defacing a value. What does it take to deface a value? You just cannot go on and deface a value. You need to do something really audacious. So what would that be? I think at this point, I would say that this is a question for the next two presentations next week. Excellent. Thanks, Reza. Thank you so much Alex for moderating.
And those of you who do not know Alex, he's one of the greatest thinkers. I highly basically think of him as someone who is going to be the next star. And it's so good to have you here as our moderator. Great. Thanks. I appreciate it. So is there any sort of, in terms of next week, do we want to arrange presentations? Yes, volunteers. Can I ask Reza, in the syllabus as it stands, unless I have an older version, there are
eight weeks listed out and then reading materials underneath one through eight. Do these reading materials correspond as we go down the list? No, they don't. No, they don't. Okay, so next week, what are the reasons? we're talking about cynicism and then at the end we will move toward stoicism so whether so is the cynic philosophers from Diogenes to Julian and the art of living uh by Salars the two that we'll be reading for next class or yes there is there is this book that is also good uh my apologies one second um it's called
real apologies it's called uh one sec it's called uh cynics by william desmond So it is really, you know, kind of elementary. I don't want you to read, you know, really academic pieces. So Cynics is considered to be one of the best books in introducing, you know, the heritage of cynicism, you know, different philosophers in relation to one another. So are there particular readings that you'd like the participants to focus on? Like
that's a there's two entire books that you've assigned there so I don't know if there's particular sections which are of more interest. Well the one that I suggested the introduction good you know it kind of introduces some of the main concepts with the cynics one that i just mentioned i think you can just skim through it we are not as i mentioned we are not going to be so serious about the reading material at this time we are in the preaching business i mean i'd like to do the art of the living by cellars Yes, of course. John is a great friend and he absolutely knows in and out of the story
system. Unfortunately, the opposition between me and John is that John is more on the side of epic TTS, cosmological indifference, whereas more I am on the side of Seneca, humanistic heroism. So we'll do Ekin for the sellers then. Is there anybody else who would like to present? Not to be confused with Wilfred Sellars. Yeah, John Sellars. John Sellars. This is still alive, thankfully. and someone else if no one is going to say something i'm going to pick someone
lenka Okay. Okay. My apologies. I have to do these, resort to forces. Sometimes. So what will Lenka be presenting on then? What would you like to present on? Anything that she wants. I think I will have a look first and then write it down in chat or something.
Is it alright? Alex? Oh, well, that's fine with me. It's up to you. Yeah, I just posted a link to the William Desmond one, but you know, you can find it on all sorts of websites. Maybe Reza will email it to everyone if they need it, but it's also online a few places too. Okay, excellent. We are all good. Thank you. So, everyone. And I hope, oh, oh, I just realized something.
Unfortunately, I don't think that we can have a class next week. But let me look at my calendar, because I think that I will be traveling right at this very moment. Yeah, it's Thanksgiving on Thursday, right? Yes, yes. We have to do some in-laws. Right, right, right, yeah. Yeah. Now, probably other people will be traveling too. So it might be Yeah, maybe maybe the whole class would be canceled. I'll be flying. What could we reschedule it? Yeah, of course, of course, of course. Do you want to reschedule it for sometime next week? Like earlier, like a Monday? I could do that. I don't know. I mean, if everyone can do that. Okay, let me let me talk to Mo about this. Let me talk to Mo about this.
Okay. So this will be determined before the next session. So there will be an email and a Facebook message that should go out about that. Absolutely. Sweet. So much. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, thanks, Alex. You did great. Thanks. Bye, Alex. Great. Thank you, Reza. Love you. Love you too. Thank you. Much love, everyone. Enjoy the stew.