Deus est etiam mortuus (God is still dead)

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Wednesday January 23, 2008 · 2:03 PM PST

2008/01/23 · 14:03

It seems that the days of the uneasy truce between religion and philosophy may be coming to an end - and despite those who attempt to release the tension with their faith in a negative theology, like Derrida and those others, who have become pious again worshipping around the ass of infinity.

Indeed, such a truce seems to have been constructed on the model of Kant’s admission, in the preface to his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, in which he stated that he was merely speaking as a private individual. Such a confession of course arose due to the crackdown in the previous year on his writings.

However, it would be wrong to think that such a separation of spheres of jurisdiction - the Kantian ’solution’ - created the possibility of an intellectual life characterised by harmony. In fact, the Church still thinks it can ban books, and scientists continue to write pointless books about the ‘God Delusion’.

But, where does philosophy fit into all of this, assuming, with the increasing irrelevancy of Analytic philosophy, that it is not merely the handmaiden of science (or religion), but seeks to articulate a self-interpretation of existence which is perhaps contrary and even critical of the established dogmas of science and religion?

jamesaire

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Saturday September 01, 2007 · 2:49 PM PDT

2007/09/01 · 14:49

Subversive Literature

Juliet or Justine?

Philosophy, Eroticism and (Extreme) Pornography

James Aire

Written in the context of the ongoing Parliamentary Debate in the United Kingdom on the banning of the possession of extreme pornography with a maximum penalty of five years

Many have questioned the relevance of philosophy of late, as the stagnant image they abide, captivates, sours, freezes their minds, and keeps them from what they have been made to believe is the bad side of town.

We are talking about dark, hidden ‘forces’, those underneath Bildung, education, discipline and breeding, the medical doctor, psychiatrist, jailer, surveillance, (too bad for Mill, but maybe not for Bentham) as they orchestrate a situation of archetypes and techniques for the reproduction of the Same.

Yet, in our context, the bad side is the current official establishment, and not the other bad side, the resistance that is the ceaseless spectre of an ever deepening topos of questioning. We must throw our existence into question. We must become bad, and in the right way...

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