Month of Futures

How are we to engage our current world from a future-oriented perspective when many contemporaries ideologies suggest the future is beyond human? ​ How can we become more human in this age?

This month in The Portal we will orbit these questions in our "Month of Futures". ​ The Month of Futures will start with a Concept Cave analysing the philosophical meaning of the concept of Transhumanism. ​ Throughout the month as a whole we will invite design theorist Daniel Fraga to The Edge exploring his latest work on Ontological Design (inspired by his book and on-going project of the same name); philosopher Dr. Clement Vidal to Thought Lab for a lecture and discussion on the history and contemporary understanding of the Noosphere; and general creative Arran Rogerson for a Real Talk about his concept of The Torch (a metaphor meant to convey the importance of intergenerational life and cognition). ​

Throughout the month we aim to not only deconstruct and contextualise the ideology of Transhumanism, but also seek to find ways to creatively interface with our hyper-technological-digital world in a way that is true to a species-level project that involves our personal life-long engagement and participation. ​

Finally, every 3 months at The Portal we also host a Book Club. ​ For our third Book Club of the year we host political scientist Benjamin Studebaker, for an event designed around his latest book “The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy”. ​ For Studebaker the (democratic) "Way is Shut” but we find in his work the importance of thinking the real of our political moment in a way that sobers us enough that way may be able to rise to the challenge of what emancipation looks like for today. ​

To find out more, to get involved for the entire month, or to register for individual events, see:

Reminder: the next Philosophy Portal course focuses on the concept of Christian Atheism and starts October 20th. ​ Throughout the course we will investigate how the core of modern philosophy, including German Idealism, Hegelo-Marxism, Nietzsche and Psychoanalysis, Žižek's philosophy and more, may express a Christian Atheist project. ​ To learn more or to sign up, see:

Reminder: the latest Philosophy Portal anthology, titled Logic for the Global Brain, was released last month. ​ You can check out a free preview, or pick up a copy here:

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