Johannes A. Niederhauser

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...

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 intolerabl...

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

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.com

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...

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

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 t...

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.com

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

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.com

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

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

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 co...

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?...

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....

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 Ideal...

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.com

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

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 acce...

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 Unna...

In this video lecture I’m reading from my book on Eudaimonia in Aristotle. If y You can purchase my book here . You may also be interested in our new course on “Health & Virtue: A Journey to Well-Being with Plato and Aristotle”. You find the course enrolment page here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit halkyon....

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that university administrators and their 19th century social-Darwinian ideology are to blame for the destruction of Humanities degrees at American colleges. I present here a critical reading of the article and outline what I see is really the driving force behind the destruction of the Humanities and why the Planetary University is a los...

Thank you for listening! Here is a link to join Thomas’ unique course on Health and Virtue: https://halkyonacademy.teachable.com/p/philosophy-of-health-ancient-wisdom Use the coupon code HEALTH at the checkout to take 20% off any tier. May you flourish. 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 book is available via Amazon: USA UK Germany I taly France 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

Save your soul: https://halkyonacademy.teachable.com/p/goethe-faust 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