Present as a Rosy Cross
Summary/Overview of the Fifth Philosophy Portal Conference
Last weekend Philosophy Portal hosted its fifth conference, titled “Rosy Cross: Questions of Right, Power, Love, Freedom”, and inspired by Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Below you will find the videos from this conference along with short commentary on some of the major themes of the day. The conference as a whole aims to develop Hegel’s political philosophy — and most notably his “Ethical System” in the dialectical links between Family, Community, and State, as well as his World Historical System of Empire, in the quadruplicity of Oriental, Greek, Roman, and Germanic — in order to think how these dimensions may be explicated for our time. One of the central ways in which this was achieved included a discussion with Joris de Kelver on how modern attempts to develop a commons/cooperative organisations, needs to be situated as a reaction to our context of the modern neoliberal state, and the way in which this political order has created a chasm between individual and state, eroding both the family and the community.
The two keynote speakers, Benjamin Studebaker and Daniel Tutt, have both written extensively about aspects of this Ethical System, with Daniel Tutt writing about the importance of the Family for the future politics of Community and State in his book Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family; and with Benjamin Studebaker writing about the importance of the State (or what may need to be a Supranational State) for the future of international regulation of capital capable of stabilising a liveable world for Family and Community in his book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy. In Tutt’s contribution to the event he seeks to point out some challenging political dimensions of the relation between Hegel and Marx; and in Studebaker’s contribution to the event, he creatively explores various bird metaphors, and their relationship to contemporary political positionality.
Other notable speakers include Daniel L. Garner, whose philosophy of belonging points us towards the dimensions expressed in-between Family and Community, and in his talk he reminds us of the disappearance of the Middle between Family and State, which places us in an increasingly precarious situation; and David McKerracher, whose philosophy of timenergy points us towards a first political principle for the future of any Community movement which centres an emancipatory effort on the level of State politics, and in his talk he further develops the relation between timenergy lack and energytime as the condition of possibility for a community of creation and drive.
Throughout both conference days, we also had important contributions from Alex Ebert who is developing a philosophy of the Metapolitical, and the question of becoming Metapolitical, with a speculative reconstruction of political thought that relies on metaphors inspired from thermodynamics; Bram E. Gieben of Strange Exiles podcast and author of The Darkest Timeline, who develops themes from “The Darkest Timeline” about a “world with no future”, where he suggests our faith in the technological singularity functions like a cheap deus ex machina; as well as Cleo Kearns, a scholar, teacher, writer in philosophy, religion and anthropology, who attempts to critically link Hegel’s philosophy to contemporary thought movements in Afro-Pessimism.
Many of the presentations are directly informed by students who have been studying Hegel’s Philosophy of Right with Philosophy Portal over the past year. On Day 1 Dimitri Crooijmans — who helped lead exegetical reading spaces in the Philosophy of Right course this year — focused on the concept of “Freedom” through an investigation of Hegel replacing the traditional final cause of a theistic God with Freedom, and speculates how this final cause relates to first cause. Eliot Rosenstock, a psychotherapist, attempts to think freedom in a modern way by orienting ancient philosophy through themes of freedom alive in his work as a psychotherapist. Sahil Sasidharan, a philosopher of technics, focuses on the Young Marx’s turns to Hegel and how one might think about a return to Hegel through or with Marx in centring political-economy. Max Macken, a philosopher and writer, focuses on Hegel’s critique of liberalism, assessing the rationality of modern right from Hegel’s perspective and its relation to recognition. James Wisdom, an artist and writer, focuses on the “Philosophy of Wrong”, attempts to articulate the dialectical unity of right-wrong, as well as morality-immortality.
On Day 2, Jason Bernstein, an artist and philosopher, focuses on the “Human Perfection of Freedom”, he starts by straw-manning the concept of “perfection” — that it is a “static, stale, dead Platonic ideal” — as well as “freedom” — that we live in a determined universe and free will is only a superstition; and then continues to dialecticise these concepts, recognising that they are interlocked/interdependent in interesting ways. Quinn Whelehan, a philosopher and writer, focuses on the “Dialectics of Negativity”, and attempts to work from the “logic of crisis” to the “logic of contradiction” in recognising the irreducibility of political antagonism as well as an affirmation of negativity animating the movement of the concept or idea, with relevance to the forms of subjectivity that may be mobilised as a response. Kalyani Vaishnavi, a philosopher and writer, analyses the relationship between Reason and Understanding, emphasising that Stephen Houlgate’s interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, suggests that the work is governed by reason towards freedom of the concept, while leaving out its relationship to the understanding.
You can access more information about the course and conference at the links below:
Or you can also find the videos below:
DAY 1:
DAY 2:
The next Philosophy Portal course starts October 20th and focuses on the concept of Christian Atheism. The course will feature an analysis of the history of modern philosophy as an unconscious Christian Atheist project, and feature guest lectures from Slavoj Zizek, Peter Rollins, Barry Taylor, and Mark Gerard Murphy. To learn more or to sign up, see: Christian Atheism.
Turkey vultures Unite. My fellow Indiana homie holding it down Studebaker