Blog Posts by Subject: Modern Western Philosophy

"All profound life is heavy with the impossible."
                                                  —Georges Bataille

If you're anything like me, you'll be walking down the street thinking about science fiction and think to yourself, "Say, what is the Ur-phenomenon of humanity's Utopian drive(s)?" Let's explore this in the best para-academic fashion possible.

Jurgen Habermas famously addressed the controversial subject of post-secularity  in his "Notes on a Post-Secular Society." Therein, Habermas concludes to think and understand the post-secular concludes with a Kantian limit, "So, if all is to go well both sides, each from its own viewpoint, must accept an interpretation of the relation between faith and knowledge that enables them to live together in a self-reflective manner." This is all well and good.

Consciousness studies is at the forefront of science's last great investigative projects. While neglected for many years by mainstream academia as a result of dominance by behaviorist psychology, interest in the science of consciousness has exploded in the last decade, with new activity in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and other areas.

How exactly does a material brain... give rise to immaterial thoughts, or "consciousness"?

Many don’t know it, but New York Public Library has a substantial collection of books by influential French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, as well as his multitudinous acolytes.