Aesthetic Materialism

 AI isn't just stealing our jobs, it's stealing our skills.

    Perhaps the most common definition of existentialism is the one given by Sartre- the idea that, as he puts it, “existence precedes essence” or, in other words, that there is no given meaning for experience, and therefore you have a responsibility to create meaning for your own experience. There is a long tradition that this comes from - most notably Kierkegaard - or you could go further back and look at Schelling’s call for a “philosophy of existence”.  Arguably one can find similar sentiments expressed throughout history.   Briefly, I don’t think this definition fits Nietzsche very well. In fact I think he would have seen some unexamined Kantian vestiges in Sartre’s definition. Sartre was an avowed humanist, and Nietzsche was contemptuous of humanism. He thought that the death of God also implied the end of humanism. And I think Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are as different as night and day. Sartre famously opined that we are all "doomed to be free" - ...

    To translate into language these people can understand: capitalism, especially in its later phases, by marketizing everything, results in a low-trust society, which in turn undermines the conditions that make capitalism possible.    

  Quite often, Nietzsche and Heidegger are put in the same breath, as though they were "on the same side," so to speak, and this "side" is often referred to as "existentialism" or some other silly name. I think this is a completely wrongheaded way of thinking about things. Not only does this kind of categorical thinking misunderstand Nietzsche, as I have argued before, but it also causes one to completely misunderstand Heidegger. Because Heidegger, by my reckoning, is not at all "on the same side" as Nietzsche - on the contrary, his entire philosophical project is an attempt to overcome Nietzsche. Heidegger, by my reckoning, is a person who was brought up Catholic, and seriously considered joining the priesthood, and was even attended a Jesuit seminary, but then converted to Protestantism around the time he married Elfride (nee Petri), who was Protestant (apparently, they had two ceremonies, one Catholic, one Protestant, to appease both families....

  Heidegger's entire argument can be effectively summarized: I know you are, but what am I? Heidegger spent his career thinking about Being, attempting to ask - or even formulate - the question of Being.  Most people would call this work metaphysics, and would call a person who spends most of their lives thinking about such things a metaphysician.  But Heidegger rejects the label, and flips it back on his (supposed) accusers.    "You're the metaphysicians!" he shouts.  "You're doing metaphysics - not me!  I'm the only one around here who's trying to think non-metaphysically!"  Heidegger attempts to evade the "metaphysician" label by redefining metaphysics such that metaphysicians are those people who, for instance, (1) only conceive of beings and never question Being itself, (2) think Being in terms of a highest being (onto-theology), (3) fail to maintain the ontological difference between beings and Being, and so on.   Do not fall for ...

The central insight of Christian theology - which is shared by many sufficiently deep religious traditions - is that "revealed preference" is not to be trusted.  "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." The behaviorist model of humanity - any behaviorist model - is incomplete.  As depth psychologists will tell you, humans have depth.  There is an inward dimension to humans.  Many religious traditions refer to this stubborn remainder that cannot be easily assimilated to behaviorist models as the "soul".  The flattening of humanity, the reduction of humanity to its outward actions, should be considered the gravest injury.  The reduction of humans to their "revealed preferences" is, in a word, evil .  And it is the root of many other evils.