Johannes A. Niederhauser
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Philomythical musings
Folgen 98
“Byung-Chul Han is a B***h”
Han has amassed an impressive cult following in the Western World telling people to remain inactive and unfree. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access …
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Han has amassed an impressive cult following in the Western World telling people to remain inactive and unfree.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comWhat Baudrillard actually means by Simulacra & Simulation: On The Egyptian Symbolic Order and God
With the ever refreshing mind of Carla Berenice This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
The Question of Being. An Introduction to Martin Heidegger’s “Being and Time”
I am going a ten week course on Being and Time next year in honour of its centenary publication. Download the syllabus today and be the first to hear when enrolment opens in early December. This is a public …
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I am going a ten week course on Being and Time next year in honour of its centenary publication. Download the syllabus today and be the first to hear when enrolment opens in early December.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comWho or What is Nietzsche’s Übermensch?
Take your understanding of Nietzsche to the next level. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
Why You Should Learn German to Read Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche
Michael has been teaching German to people from all walks of life for more than a quarter century. And as more and more people have been asking me how best to learn German to read German philosophers in the …
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Michael has been teaching German to people from all walks of life for more than a quarter century. And as more and more people have been asking me how best to learn German to read German philosophers in the original I thought I’d invite him on to talk about the best techniques and approaches. Michael also runs his own German language school “Smarter German”. Michael’s courses will help you learn German to the level you need to read the great German poets and thinkers.
I highly recommend Michael’s school.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comHegel's "Aesthetics": Spirit Begins in Ancient Egypt
Trace the beginnings of the human Spirit in Egypt with my colleague Carla Berenice’s course The Egyptian Mind«Egypt is the Land of the Symbol» Hegel In his lectures on the «Philosophy of Art», or rather on how …
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Trace the beginnings of the human Spirit in Egypt with my colleague Carla Berenice’s course The Egyptian Mind
«Egypt is the Land of the Symbol» Hegel
In his lectures on the «Philosophy of Art», or rather on how Spirit fulfils itself and comes to itself in and through art and how we can trace this coming-to-be in artworks, Hegel writes that Ancient «Egypt is the land of the symbol.» Egypt is where human spirit truly marks its beginning. We shall see why and how and it has everything to do with a magic power of the human spirit, which the Egyptians first developed.
We know Hegel’s lecture series today rather unfortunately under the title «Aesthetics» suggesting his thought here addresses issues of contemporary aesthetic theory to do with perception or standards of tase and superficial beauty. The public title of Hegel’s lectures are a deflection from their true scope. For what Hegel is here after is how spirit unfolds, yonder of ordinary consciousness, historically and how it comes to itself precisely through Kunst, through art, through that which is artifice, not of nature but dirempted from it, self-split from nature.
Before we turn to Egypt’s symbolism and what Hegel sees in it, a very brief detour through Geist, through spirit as Hegel outlines its unfolding in the Preface to his Phenomenology of Spirit, should help us understand better how spirit begins to come into its in Egypt. Vice versa Hegel’s thoughts on Egypt should help elucidate his perhaps more abstract passages in the Preface.
At the risk of oversimplifying matters spirit comes into itself, and you can observe this with yourself, with your own self-consciousness and self-awareness, precisely in moments of negation, or negativity. It is when you say «no» to a situation that you begin to take yourself out of the immediately given. This need not be but may very well be a moment of freedom, of earning for yourself your own existence.
Consider the following passage on death from the Preface which already leads us deep into Egypt’s unique accomplishment:
«Beauty, powerless and helpless, hates understanding, because the latter exacts from it what it cannot perform. But the life of spirit is not one that shuns death, and keeps clear of destruction; it endures death and in death maintains its being. It only wins to its truth when it finds itself utterly torn asunder. It is this mighty power, not by being a positive which turns away from the negative, as when we say of anything it is nothing or it is false, and, being then done with it, pass off to something else: on the contrary, spirit, Geist, is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and dwelling with it. This dwelling beside it is the magic power that converts the negative into being.»
Do we not understand Egypt symbolically the land of death? With its mortuary practices and cult surrounding the mummy, that sacred vessel that binds afterlife and this life? For Hegel, the life of spirit, the life in which spirit begins to come into itself, from simple consciousness, i.e., awareness of oneself as separate from the world, as subject as opposed to object, is the life that through dwelling with the most radical negativity, which we know in the form of death, comes to see the world not as alien but as product of itself. Subject and object are one. Society, history, culture are the products of spirit and mind, of Geist. Consciousness is a more immediate step, a part. Spirit comprises the whole. And Hegel sees precisely in Ancient Egypt and its art the significant first step on the trajectory of spirit’s totality.
What, then, is it that Egypt accomplished? And how is Egypt the land of the symbol? We think of the pyramid and of course the hieroglyphs. What does Hegel see in Egypt? Hegel sees in it the culture that gave itself «the geistige, the spiritual task or the task of the mind, of the self-deciphering of spirit without however actually ever arriving at that deciphering.» Thus, spirit here awakens to itself, gives itself the task to decipher itself, but does not yet, given the monumental task this is, fully arrive at self-decoding, at making itself transparent to itself, as recognising the world as a product of itself. According to Hegel we today have the historical task, we as humans of spirit, of intellect, or mind if you prefer, to decipher that which has remained un-deciphered by spirit in Egyptian art and symbolism.
But how does spirit arrive at that moment here in the first place? By negating the immediacy of everyday existence. The task for the men of intellect, or for the humans of the age of Spirit, hence is to follow the negativity of Spirit itself which already in Ancient Egypt concretised for itself the absolute in its freedom as negativity. In doing so, Spirit recognises itself and completes itself further and finds in Ancient Egypt’s art and symbolism an expression of itself. The notion of Egypt as the land of the symbol means that here art is not yet fully objective. Objectivity for Hegel means independence from the elements that make up an object. The stone used for a statue or temple is sublated. The marble used for a statue of Athena or the Veiled Christ in Sansevero disappears in the statue. It also means that inner spiritual idea and outer physical form match, which is not the case in Egypt. Its art remains symbolic as spirit tries to emerge from nature but remains to itself a riddle or enigma.
Even though Spirit here begins to come into its own, it does not yet express itself with clarity, remains to some extent concealed from itself, which is why the symbolism of Egypt is an eternal riddle, and remained so even to the Ancient Egyptians themselves. By symbol Hegel means a sign that has as its meaning not what it immediately depicts but that portrays a generality related to it. A symbol however remains somewhat confused, as just outlined. There remains a distinction between visible image and intellectual content. A symbol always points at some more concrete meaning but as it remains external it strives beyond itself. As we shall see, the Sphinx is emblematic of this. The contents of the divine and the human are still conceived abstractly and thus no ideal human form can be made visible in their artworks and indeed gods are not depicted in ideal human form, as are Greek gods and Jesus Christ. Another form of beauty for Hegel is the depiction of free human life, also lacking in Ancient Egypt. Thus, Egypt is not a case of ideal beauty or indeed beauty in the first place. Egypt remains even to itself an enigma, because spirit is still confused about itself despite its achievements.
Hence, there is a kind of unclarity in the language, as Hegel attests, which is in turn an expression of their unclarity about themselves. We look at them through a mirror brightly, for Hegel, through the mirror of fully self-recognised Spirit, and thus we are in the position to decipher how Spirit here begins.
The Egyptians are, argues Hegel, the first true artistic people. In all senses of the word. They produce artworks and they also negate nature, sublate nature, in doing so, hence erect an artificial landscape. The Egyptian Spirit, or rather Spirit in Egypt, produces for visual intuition or perception, for Anschauung, for that which can be looked at. But not for thought.
Even though Spirit here sets in, its own true inner life remains concealed for it. Instead, Spirit looks for clarification about itself in expressions of art, in the visual and sensual, but fails to do so in thought. Which, of course, the Greeks will accomplish first in philosophy, the thinking of thinking. The monuments we are familiar with, the pyramids, temples, statues, the artificial channels of the Nile, the artificial lakes even, are for Hegel ultimately a product of a creating spirit that does not becomes fully transparent to itself. Yet, through its violent erection of monuments and through its «infinite variety» this spirit attempted to advance to itself and reach itsel…
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comJean Baudrillard on Simulated History
In his lectures on Aesthetics Hegel famously states that Ancient «Egypt is the land of the symbol.» In our age, the land of the symbol has been reduced to a repository of signs, of empty signifiers like the …
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In his lectures on Aesthetics Hegel famously states that Ancient «Egypt is the land of the symbol.» In our age, the land of the symbol has been reduced to a repository of signs, of empty signifiers like the Mummy that must serve as some sort of simulated past that guarantees us that we indeed have history, serve as an anchor for some sort of imagined mythic origin and past. Hence the mummy, a sacred anchor between this world and the afterlife, intricately interwoven into the fabric of cosmic meaning, of Ma’at, can also be reduced to a pop-cultural signifier in horror movies, entirely bereft of its sacred symbolic significance.
In his seminal work Simulacra & Simulation Jean Baudrillard sees in the rotting mummy of Ramses II several layers of hyperreality at work. Before I address these, let me mention for context that in 1975 French researchers at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo noticed that the mummy had begun to decay from making it available to the public in a museum. Hence in September 1976 the mummy was flown to Paris to save it from parasitic fungal infection. Only by advanced technology, beginning with the aeroplane, continuing with specific simulations, could the mummy be saved. In fact, because of its delicate condition the French scientists could not not risk experimenting on the Ramses’ actual body. To ensure the treatment would be safe, they used material simulations, microbiological models, and diagnostic mock-ups. To save the «real» king, to save the object, science had to create clones, mock-ups, and statistical models of Ramses’ skin, hair and pathogens making entirely transparent the condition of the mummy as a mere specimen. But this removes the mummy, the actual mummification of the body of the Pharaoh. «In order for ethnology to live, its object must die», Baudrillard writes. The publicly displayed mummy now is prey to worms and science alike.
To stress this again as Baudrillard does, the mummy of Ramses II started decaying because it was presented in a museum. Hence, what we can witness here is something peculiar about our age: We are stockpiling the past and history because we sense that both truth and the past are disappearing for us. In our relentless effort to make accessible all past events, through science and its various methods, to make visible and transparent, hence to enwrap in our order of the sign, that which is hidden, enigmatic and mysterious, reserved only for a few mortals and for the gods, a desertification of the truth of the symbolic order sets in. «The West is seized with panic,» writes Baudrillard, and it is significant that the West seems more concerned with this than the Egyptians at the time, «at the thought of not being able to save what the symbolic order had been able to conserve for forty centuries, but out of sight and far from the light of day.» The irony is that the mummy of Ramses II begins to rot precisely only when it is torn from its secretive hidden order, an order that we cannot grasp with our scientific methods, the mummy which should not rot at all, because our way of preserving is a different kind of preserving, a clinical preserving for the sake of maintaining not the mystery of the cosmos, but our order of empty signifiers. What we see in the museum, even though the ‘real’ mummy of Ramses II, is in fact a simulation of history.
By frantically trying to make visible the invisible, our age tries to hide the fact that we have lost any genuine relationship with the past. We go to the museum to reassure us that we have a past. But the mummy removed from its symbolic order loses its essence, it loses its sacredness and is transmuted into a mere biological specimen, to be preserved as such, hence transmuted into a signifier for a past that never was but that is purely an imaginary anchor for us.
«When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning», and so does a sort of longing for authenticity, as Baudrillard says. A nostalgia for an origin that never was. But in our crazed not mummification of the past, but its musealisation, we kill the very objects we want to preserve by preserving them. We are like Orpheus forever killing what we long for the most.
Ramses II means nothing for us, he cannot mean anything for us, because his world is not our world. «Only the mummy is of an inestimable worth because it is what guarantees that accumulation has meaning», Baudrillard continues. The mummy must be preserved not as a sacred vessel binding together different spheres of the cosmos, but to guarantee continued access to the past as a sort of warehouse that soothes our anxiety over our lost access to history. Making available the mummy for the general public and for science secures its decay. It decays even without the scientific definition thereof. Its public display is its decay. «Only absolute secrecy assured [the mummy] this millennial power», as Baudrillard sees with incredible clarity.
He continues to point out that the Egyptian had «mastery over putrefaction that signified the mastery of the complete cycle of exchanges with death», which is to say, the Ancient Egyptians upheld a symbolic order in which the intense negativity of death was pulled into being completely, mastered to such a degree that the Egyptians could maintain sacred permanence for millennia, upholding in this way the cosmos.
We today however, to quote Baudrillard, «only know how to place our science in service of repairing the mummy, that is to say restoring a visible order, whereas embalming was a mythical effort that strove to immortalise a hidden dimension.» This hidden dimension remains hidden and must remain so. It is its hiddenness. It may very well be that the mummy has for us deteriorated into an object of horror because there still lingers about it that sacred forever hidden dimension that entirely withdraws from any access or availability and it is that very hiddenness of which the mummy is testimony that scares us so fundamentally because all we know is «a visible continuum». And even though all we seem to able to do is pull into visibility the result is a sort of simulated visibility. The truly hidden cannot become visible. Hence science makes visible what is not the mummy: measurements about its state, its composition, its precise age, etc. We desire this faux visibility not for the sake of the mummy, the object has already been killed; but for our own sake, to imagine an origin that never was. We dream, says Baudrillard, of an order that is not ours and of which we cannot make sense. By exhuming the symbolic order of Egypt, by trying to make it accessible to us but on our terms and as our own past we deny this symbolic order its rightful place.
Museumification ensure extermination. «Because mummies don’t die from worms: they die,» writes Baudrillard, «from being transplanted from a slow order of the symbolic, master over putrefaction and death, to an order of history, science, and museums, our oder which no longer masters anything, which only knows how to condemn what preceded it to decay and death and subsequently to try to revive it with science.» Ancient Egypt was the land of the symbol, of a symbolic order that incorporated death to such a degree that this most terrifying immediate negativity became its core so that a sacred permanence could uphold itself. Our order, an order of disarray, searches for a kind of permanence, but as it does not master death, our order brings with it decay and death. By placing death at the core, the Egyptians mastered death and produced stability. Ours, as we deny death and the hidden as that which cannot be made available and transparent, bring forth decay and corruption, without sacredness. «Irreparable violence toward all secrets, the violence of a civilisation without secrets, hatred of a whole civilisation for its own foundation,» as Baudrillard concludes his musings about the mummy of Ramses II. Our hatred for mystery, for that which cannot be explained…
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Cultural Significance of the Mummy
Why does our culture turn to the mummy into an object of fear and horror? Carla Berenice enlightens us in her fascinating lecture. Her course on the Egyptian Mind is now open for enrolment. We start Sunday …
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Why does our culture turn to the mummy into an object of fear and horror? Carla Berenice enlightens us in her fascinating lecture. Her course on the Egyptian Mind is now open for enrolment. We start Sunday, August 16th. More details on the enrolment page. Use the coupon code PYRAMID for 20% off the live cohort tier.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comNolan’s Odyssey True Subversion: The Christianisation of Homer
My final verdict on the worst adaptation of Homer ever made. No wonder Ben Shapiro and Pageau love it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus …
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My final verdict on the worst adaptation of Homer ever made. No wonder Ben Shapiro and Pageau love it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Egyptian Mind: From Egypt to Baudrillard to Hegel
Another wonderful conversation with Carla. Her course on The Egyptian Mind will be an absolute gem. You can join her course here. Live seminars begin Sunday, August 16 This is a public episode. If you would …
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Another wonderful conversation with Carla. Her course on The Egyptian Mind will be an absolute gem. You can join her course here. Live seminars begin Sunday, August 16
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comWhy Odysseus Matters in Plato's Republic
Even though Plato apparently bans Homer alongside other poets from his Ideal City, he still heralds Odysseus as an ideal hero. Plato even ends his Republic with a continuation of the myth of Odysseus. Plato …
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Even though Plato apparently bans Homer alongside other poets from his Ideal City, he still heralds Odysseus as an ideal hero. Plato even ends his Republic with a continuation of the myth of Odysseus. Plato lets the soul of Odysseus choose new life-pattern before it is reborn. And its choice is remarkable:
After having gone through the heroic life Odysseus chooses the life-pattern of a layman. No one will know him except for his family and he will return into obscurity after his death.
Furthermore, Socrates earlier in the book praises Odysseus as a good man, because he shows to have a good and just order of his soul-parts in place.
Why is Odysseus so important to Plato?
What do you make of Plato’s continuation of his story in the Myth of Er?
Let me know in the comments.
And if you’re ready to read Homer’s Odyssey, feel free to take my course on it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comHomer vs. Adorno: You Can Return Home!
Reading Adorno again on Odysseus I was struck by the simplistic and all too obvious subversion. Adorno understands Odysseus, who would have thought it, as a bourgeois, or rather as the burgeois archetype. While …
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Reading Adorno again on Odysseus I was struck by the simplistic and all too obvious subversion. Adorno understands Odysseus, who would have thought it, as a bourgeois, or rather as the burgeois archetype. While this can be easily wiped away as a case of extreme presentism, and, dare I say, of rather bourgeois presentism on the part of Theodor himself, Adorno’s more dangerous but equally intolerable claim is that Odysseus loses his identity entirely. Odysseus becomes and remains nobody, insinuates Adorno, and returns as nobody to Ithaca. This entirely corrupts the entire project of nostos that leads to the restoration of the order of the household and kingdom.
How we read the Odyssey determines how we understand ourselves as Europeans or as of European descent. We should be aware of Adorno’s misreading but at the same time also be able to show why it is such a profound misreading.
Learn how to read the Odyssey with the attention and respect it deserves at my summmer seminar on the text. Begins July 11. Enrolment closing soon.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comPeterson's "Nietzsche" Course: The Last Man Speaks and Flattens
This course is a lot better. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
Nietzsche Predicted the Death of Academiy Philosophy. I Built the Answer
Some musings on the state of Academic philosophy and how to read philosophy today. Also, an invitation to join my Halkyon Philosophy Academy. And just this weekend 25% off all our courses. Use coupon HALKYON at …
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Some musings on the state of Academic philosophy and how to read philosophy today.
Also, an invitation to join my Halkyon Philosophy Academy. And just this weekend 25% off all our courses. Use coupon HALKYON at the checkout.
I see you in Arcadia.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Meaning of Life in Ancient Egypt
In this dialogue Carla and Johannes explore ancient Egyptian civilisation and their profound answers to the human condition. Our discussion focuses on how their conceptualisation of life, deeply tied to …
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In this dialogue Carla and Johannes explore ancient Egyptian civilisation and their profound answers to the human condition. Our discussion focuses on how their conceptualisation of life, deeply tied to afterlife beliefs, provided coherence for thousands of years. The connection between their religion and civilisation is evident in how they addressed fundamental questions about existence.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comGoethe's Faust: The Founding Myth of Modernity
And when you’re ready to understand your time, join this course. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
Why You Must Read Goethe's Faust
If you happen to be one of the truly inquisitive minds who long to understand themselves and this age, this wondrous period we thoughtlessly refer to as modernity, then you must by all means read Goethe's …
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If you happen to be one of the truly inquisitive minds who long to understand themselves and this age, this wondrous period we thoughtlessly refer to as modernity, then you must by all means read Goethe's second Faust. It is this is his true Faust, for here the Faustian spirit interwoven with Mephisto comes into its own and births modernity. This is a text not for the faint of heart and only the true aristocrat of the mind will be able to appreciate this allegorical masterpiece.It is in the second part of the Tragedy of Modernity that Goethe no longer holds back. All pretence at residue Christianity is out the window. Mephistopheles now is the entirely released principle of negation, while Faust cleansed of his scholasticism seeks beauty in the newly emerging world.
The second Faust thus tells of the birth of modernity, a process through which we are still living, and which is by far not yet decided. It is an open occurrence, not a deterministic doom-loop as reactionary readings like Spengler's suggest. Faust and Mephisto, as two principles, invent the abstraction of paper money, by which the greatest land developments become possible; Faust's disciple produces an artificial human being who by the help of the first philosopher Thales aims to become fully human; Faust finds within his soul the profound memory of the Ancient world buried underneath the confusion of the Christian dream and seeks to reconnect and appropriate its beauty in the form of Helen; Faust ultimately becomes the first full man of planetary organisation, falling for the siren call of triumph over nature, an allegory for his denial of memory and all-too worldly pursuits. This, however, is by no means a deterministic view of history, but one possibility of technological modernity. So I'd like to invite you to join my course on this masterpiece of world literature, where we shall trace the explosion that is modernity.The course begins Saturday, April 4, 2026 (6-8pm CET/12-2pm EST).I will personally teach this course. And just by way of introduction my name is Johannes A. Niederhauser, I have a PhD in philosophy on Heidegger from Warwick, and my areas of thought are in Ancient and post-Kantian German philosophy. I am also the founder and spiritus rector of Halkyon Academy. I look forward to leading this 11-week live course and learn with you. Through close, act-by-act reading and discussion, we'll explore:* The birth of paper/fiat money and the political economy of modernity (Act I)* Alchemy, the creation of the homunculus, and the Classical Walpurgis Night (Act II)* Faust's encounter with Helen and the fusion of classical antiquity with modern consciousness (Act III)* Visionary land-reclamation projects, environmental engineering, the dark side of progress (Act IV–V)* How court politics connects to modern monetary policy, seductive bargains to leadership ethics, and technology to nation-building* Faust's ascension to HeavenBy the end, you'll gain fluency in reading a difficult, multi-layered text like this, as well as a keen eye for how the modern world actually operates. AndStudy options include:Seminars (standard active/live participation tier) Full access to 11 live lectures + seminars (weekly on Saturdays). All recordings available afterward. Submit 3 short writing assignments (due in weeks 3, 6, and 9). Eligible to present your final work at the Symposium on June 20, 2026. Core option for those wanting live discussion, feedback on writing, and the chance to present.Private Tutorials (premium/most intensive tier) Includes everything in Seminars (live sessions, recordings, Symposium eligibility). Additional private 1-on-1 meetings with Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser in weeks 3, 6, and 9 for in-depth discussion of your thoughts and work. Submit up to 6 writing assignments (more extensive feedback and guidance). Best for those seeking personalized, deeper engagement.Self-Study (flexible/recordings-only tier) Access to all course materials (recorded lectures/seminars + readings). No live session attendance required. Submit only 1 essay during the course period. Ideal if you prefer to go at your own pace without live commitment.There are payment plans available for all study tiers. And if you are a currently enrolled university student you may submit proof of enrolment to this email to get a student discount.All live sessions (lectures + seminars) are recorded and available to participants. You'll receive links to the core text and relevant further readings.This is a rare opportunity for patient, dialogical thinking in the classical spirit of Bildung—forming soul, spirit, and character.Follow this link to enrol now.Again, spaces are limited for the live cohort—don't miss the chance to witness what Goethe saw as our destiny.See you inside!Johannes
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com"Thinking is a Way of Life": On Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities"
Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities“Without doubt the greatest writing, ranking with the finest our epoch has to offer.” — Thomas Mann This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other …
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Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities
“Without doubt the greatest writing, ranking with the finest our epoch has to offer.” — Thomas Mann
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comGoethe's Scathing Critique of Neoplatonism
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
The Greeks on Chronological and Kairological Time
I’m reading again from Onians’ excellent work “The Origins of European Thought.”Also, for a limited time Offer (pun intended!) you may use coupon KAIROS for 25% off all my philosophy courses here. This is a …
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I’m reading again from Onians’ excellent work “The Origins of European Thought.”
Also, for a limited time Offer (pun intended!) you may use coupon KAIROS for 25% off all my philosophy courses here.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comYou're Killing Your Inner Voice!
Cultivate your attention this year This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
Goethe’s Hostility toward the Imagination | Faust, Elective Affinities, Italian Journey
Here is a link to my Faust course. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
The Monetary Logic of Analytic Philosophy and its Eternal Divide from Continental Philosophy
Analytic philosopher Peter Unger in 2014 declared that analytic philosophy is mostly if not entirely devoted to empty ideas that have no bearing on reality whatsoever. Not only are they empty in this regard …
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Analytic philosopher Peter Unger in 2014 declared that analytic philosophy is mostly if not entirely devoted to empty ideas that have no bearing on reality whatsoever. Not only are they empty in this regard however. They are also empty in themselves. This, in turn, makes them sort of monetary. Like money, analytic formal logic can randomly be applied to any given context (thereby destroying the context and content).
Here is the piece by Ellie referred to in the video.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Ideology of Frictionless Design and the Obliteration of Memory
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 …
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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 would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Opening of Hegel's "Science of Logic", with Stephen Houlgate
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 …
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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 would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comHölderin "What is Bildung?"
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 …
Shownotes
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 would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comNick Land vs. Aleksandr Dugin Debate | Philosophical Commentary
Are they still trying to philosophise or are they just shilling their overlords ideologies? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes …
Shownotes
Are they still trying to philosophise or are they just shilling their overlords ideologies?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comCourse on Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
Heidegger: Enframing as The "Essence" of Technology
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 …
Shownotes
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 would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.comThe Immortalisation Commission: Tracing Transhumanism
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 …
Shownotes
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 would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon.substack.com
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