Johannes A. Niederhauser

Frictionless design is everywhere around us, drawing us into its interfaces, silently habituating us into relinquishing our attention for optimal user engagement. Not only the digital spaces we inhabit also the analogue is increasingly subjected to be frictionless. This denial of being, of the negativity inherent in being obliterates memory, history, time. How can we think and act to escape this?Philosophy of Health CoursePlato on Beauty Course This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

Houlgate’s scholarly approach to Hegel can be described as a “revised-metaphysical” interpretation of Hegel, which underscores the immanent, presuppositionless development of speculative thought in Hegel’s system. This reading challenges influential critiques by thinkers like Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze, who accuse Hegel of adhering to a predetermined conception of being. Houlgate argues instead that Hegel’s logic unfolds dynamically, free from foundational assumptions, and he extends this analysis to connections between Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida on the deconstruction of “essence” or “ground.”At his new online course at my Halkyon Academy across two lecture seminars Professor Stephen Houlgate will provide a profound introduction into the opening of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Where thought begins with pure being, passes through nothing, and unfolds into becoming. We shall see why this “presuppositionless” start matters, how the “dialectical method” really works, and what follows from this for ontology, logic, and metaphysics. Along the way, you’ll also be able to situate the passages within the legacies of Kant, Parmenides, and Heraclitus while practicing line-by-line interpretation.Follow this link to enrol in the course. Live seminar lectures will take place on November 25 & December 9. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

In a letter to his mother from October 1798 Friedrich Hölderlin explains his reasons for having left his position as a private tutor with a wealthy family in Frankfurt. According to the young poet the degradation of tutors to mere servants and the transactional relationship that results from this view diminishes severely the possibility of genuine Bildung. Learn more about Hölderlin’s Poetic Idealism and his idea of leisurely being at my German Idealism course. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian political theorist known for the Fourth Political Theory, and Nick Land, a British philosopher linked to accelerationism, engage in a robust debate on modernity and philosophy. They touch on the implications of Dugin's anti-Western stance and Land's accelerationism. Topics such as Heidegger's ontological structures, the tensions between freedom and necessity, and the critique of liberalism are dissected. The discourse even delves into eschatology, concluding with a witty exchange on the moral weight of end-times narratives.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

In light of the advent of “AI” slop taking over the virtual space, hyperfinancialisation driving the simulacrum, and all out schizophrenic ideologised insanity it is high time we begin to grasp what technology really is. Download the syllabus for my new course on Heidegger’s philosophy of technology here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

In this video I read from John Gray’s “The Immortalisation Commission”. The book is an important document to help us trace the transhumanist worldview which seems as old as modernity itself. As old as modern science and modernity. Beginning with Francis Bacon's fever dream of building a new temple of Salomon in The New Atlantis, to Victorian England, Marxism, and Bolshevism — The order of the Unnatural goes back centuries. This worldview stems from latent Christianity and its promise of salvation as well as from revealed Abrahamic religion more generally, the apocalypse as a necessary event to establish the New Jerusalem (utopia) must also occur. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

In this video lecture I’m reading from my book on Eudaimonia in Aristotle. If yYou can purchase my book here. You may also be interested in our new course on “Health & Virtue: A Journey to Well-Being with Plato and Aristotle”. You find the course enrolment page here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that university administrators and their 19th century social-Darwinian ideology are to blame for the destruction of Humanities degrees at American colleges. I present here a critical reading of the article and outline what I see is really the driving force behind the destruction of the Humanities and why the Planetary University is a lost cause anyways. While universities are slashing philosophy and literature degrees, philosophia is alive and well at my Halkyon Academy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you for listening! Here is a link to join Thomas’ unique course on Health and Virtue: https://halkyonacademy.teachable.com/p/philosophy-of-health-ancient-wisdom Use the coupon code HEALTH at the checkout to take 20% off any tier.May you flourish. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com/subscribe