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NUI Galway
oÉ Gaillimh
The Irish Philosophical
Society
Cumann Fealsünacbta na bÉireann
British Society for
Phenomenology

The  Disappearing  of Future: Utopia in Post-Human Era Sandro Gorgone ( University  of Messina,  Italy )

Wednesday 1 -  Friday  3  September  2021

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Anthropo de zentrism process of conjugation and hybridization of humans with animals and technological alterity fall of the exclusivity of human intelligence; the infiltration of technology; the crash of identity;  the operative autonomy of machines;  the redefinition of bodies as cyborgs; the hermeneutic slip of the concepts of procreation and death Death of man

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End of  Humanism disjunctive relationship with the world;  exploitation and reification of all non-human entities;  self-foundation of man as autonomous demiurge of his predicates;  subsuming role of man referring to each entity in the external world;  virtuality  as total lack of limits and undefined opening of possibilities  Man =   ápeiron

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Utopia “ Another  world  is   possible ” Ernst Bloch,  The  Principle  of  Hope 	 Utopia  is   prefiguration  ( Vorschein ) of an alternative world Utopia (future)  is  an  immanent   purpose  of the  present   “ tendency ” and “ latency ”

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Hope is comprehensible and realistic leaning to concrete possibilities ( docta   spes )  “Concrete utopia” Anticipation  of  not-yet-being  and  not-yet-present   “Radical utopia”  Prefiguration  of a radical new, positive, and  fulfilling  world  “ not-yet-conscious ”  Disclosing  and  anticipatory   consciousness

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“ Being  men  means   really : to  have  a utopia” Utopia:  Daydream  of a  better   integral  life “ Present  Future”

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Belief in progress  Decline of the idea of utopia Sunset of political ideologies    Future of Progress    Future of Utopia The  historical   process   is   guided  from the  utopian   aim ,  since  in the  present  are  scattered   seeds  and  tracks  of the  utopian   final  world.  Tracks  of Utopia

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Paradoxical mixture of presence and absence of utopia in reality Sparks of an immanent utopian difference Kairos : intensive, critic and decisive instant, in which unconceivable and revolutionary possibilities disclose themselves and the present appears pregnant of future   “Immense Instant” (F. Nietzsche)

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“Temporalization of metaphysics” Definitive surrender to each eternal and timeless fundament and to each metahistorical aim ( telos ).     Opacity  and  darkness  of  lived  moment  We  must  strongly  and  deeply   hope  in  order  to  understand  the  present

4. Farewell to Presence: Ontology of Not-Yet

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We don’t possess our present Ecstasy of the Self  “I am. But I don’t possess myself. Therefore, we are nothing else as becoming beings”  Operative idea of progress in the technical totalitarian systems

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The progress reveals itself as the essence of the technique in our time: the technique is incessant transformation and metamorphosis. The technique produces the future

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Process of absolutizing progress: technical means assume more and more value in regard to their purpose  Availability  of more and more  means ,  able  to  increase  the  power  of  technique   What we can do is our task and our goal!   Modern   technique   is  control and  organisation  of time ( gear  clock)

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We live in a world of means without real goals ‘Future’ as radical, utopian and expected new time has disappeared Post-humanism: time is another essential “raw material”, necessary for the good operation of the technical System     Chronos   tearing  to  pieces   his   own   children

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Future seems to be only the extreme figure of the technical acceleration Increasing acceleration (H. Rosa) Faustian  Sehnsucht  (E.  Jünger ): nostalgic search of lost origins and Edenic happiness  technical inebriation of speed and increasing acceleration, idolatry of innovation

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Hidden and disquieting nostalgia lurking behind the triumph of technique and  the disappearance of future Anguish degrades the passion for the future  The technological world is a disenchanted world (M. Weber) It has lost the vital reference to the disclosing future, to which only we can direct our hope and waiting

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Phantasmagoria of technique (W. Benjamin) Enchantment :  something   that  “ germinates  in the  present  and  blooms  in the future” (V.  Jankelevitch )  “ Farewell  to the  presence ” Metaphysical   presence :  Everything   participates  to  being .  It   is   present ,  available ,  usable  and  manipulable  by the  technical   means .

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Free space –  Lichtung   (M. Heidegger) in which originates every presence and the future reveals its abyssal power of “let-happen”, “let-be” Future: inscrutable and inexhaustible spring of possibilities and events  Symbolic   value  of the time: to  wait  in the time the  advent  of  something   outside  the time  Artistic   approach  to the  transparence  of time

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Nostalgia for the present   At that precise moment he said to himself: What would I not give for the joy of being at your side in Iceland in the great immobile day and partake of now as one partakes of music or the taste of fruit. At that precise moment he was together with her in Iceland.    J.L. Borges

The Disappearing of Future - S. GORGONE

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