SPIRIT IN THE SHELL OF LANGUAGE: AN OUTLINE OF NEGARESTANI’S DEEP FUNCTIONALISM
Oleg Alexandrovich Lunev-Korobskii
Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: Negarestani, Hegel, Spirit, functionalism, artificial intelligence, the Good, Prometheanism, neorationalism
Abstract
The article is a review reconstruction of Reza Negarestani’s book “Intellect and Spirit” in relation to the issue of the instrumentality of modern mind. It argues that Negarestani develops an ambitious philosophical program that rethinks intellect (Spirit) through a synthesis of the speculative radicalization of transcendental critique with Hegelian logic of recognition and functionalism grounded in Wilfrid Sellars. The book’s primary achievement is the model of “deep functionalism”, in which mind appears as an abstrаcted and historically developing function that is being realized in the social space of language. The review traces the author’s line of reasoning from the aforementioned foundations to culmination in an ethics of non-conventional nihilism aimed at the Good, which is to be viewed as a variant of a neo-rationalistic redefinition of the instrumentality. In conclusion, the main vectors of critical reflection are outlined; those are the focus on atemporality, the problem of the transition from program to practice, and the ultimate implications of intellectual self-abolition.
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