The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Hi!

I am a finnish librarian in my 30s. I am always looking for more in depth philosophy forums, so ofcourse this caught my attention.

I consider philosophy to be a hobby of mine. I take courses at the local university. At this pace, I might even get a degree in the coming years.

Particularly I am looking for people who can teach me about agnotology, virtue ethics (virtue politics?), cosmism and trans-humanism. I think we should all take up the common task of Fyodorovich, and related to that I have been looking into the philosophy and medicine of immortality of late. Although most of the books I have acquired on the topic are still unread.

If you can nudge me into the right direction with these, I would appreciate it.

Immortality?

That would require getting rid of children.

Welcome to the forum.

Your intellectual interests are quite wide. I do not know anything about agnotology, but when I Googled it just now I read that it is the systematic study of ignorance. Is that right? This sounds very interesting.

I have some familiarity with virtue ethics, and I once had the pleasure of taking tea with Philippa Foot, who was very keen on virtue ethics, as you may know. (Her making tea for me, of course, did not make me into an expert on her ideas! But I do think that she was a really great ethicist.)

I had not heard of Cosmism until I read the article about immortality and Cosmism by Andy Yee in the latest issue of Philosophy Now that was partly about it.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/174/Im ... tic_Future

Welcome to the forum.

I suspect that studying wisdom would be more beneficial than studying ignorance. Not sure what one can learn from ignorance, except perhaps what to avoid in life.

RickLewis wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2026 2:13 pm I do not know anything about agnotology, but when I Googled it just now I read that it is the systematic study of ignorance. Is that right? This sounds very interesting.

I have some familiarity with virtue ethics, and I once had the pleasure of taking tea with Philippa Foot, who was very keen on virtue ethics, as you may know. (Her making tea for me, of course, did not make me into an expert on her ideas! But I do think that she was a really great ethicist.)

I had not heard of Cosmism until I read the article about immortality and Cosmism by Andy Yee in the latest issue of Philosophy Now that was partly about it.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/174/Im ... tic_Future

The article by Andy Yee brought me here actually. It can be a struggle to find serious material on cosmism nowadays, especially in anglosphere.

But oh boy I would have loved to meet Philippa Foot! I am a tad jealous to be honest. We don't have alot of big names here in Finland I could meet. My real hero is Linda Zagzebsgi though. Maybe I get to meet her some day still and ask her a few questions. Her work actually brushes by agnotology, as she is also a key name in virtue epistemology, another genius discipline. I'd also like to meet Hursthouse. Although when it comes to individual texts on virtue ethics my favorite has to be Anscombe's "Modern moral theory".

And yeah, check out agnotology. There is a more modern split there though, and some speak more generally of "ignorance studies". In this genre of speech "agnotology" does not refer to study of any ignorance, but is specialized into the study of intentionally produced ignorance, as opposed to more passive and natural forms of ignorance.

There is actually alot of stuff happening in agnotology of late. And it isn't as radical as it seems. There is intentional ignorance everywhere. We protect passwords, there are state secrets, some people sabotage scientific research (which is kinda radical though) and so one. They have to produce ignorance by some process. Then there is self-induced ignorance. For example I went to the dark web once when young, and now make a point of not going there at all. There is little else except trouble and trauma there, so I keep myself intentionally ignorant of that. There is a field of modern epistemology that does not treat knowledge as a good thing by fiat, and instead studies knowledge and ignorance as a balanced whole. In knowing, we also often make choices on what we choose to ignore and not know, and the two processes are intertwined.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2026 2:09 pm Immortality?

That would require getting rid of children.

Or the colonizing of space. Your reaction is exactly the correct one, but this is basically the impetus behind much of cosmist thought. You are not wrong, but cosmists have entire libraries that go way beyond this line of arguing still.

If you are interested, read Fyodorovich's "Philosophy of the common task". It is just a blast. It's just over the top. Even if you are not interested on the ideas, read it as entertainment.

Curator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 12:12 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2026 2:09 pm Immortality?

That would require getting rid of children.

Or the colonizing of space. Your reaction is exactly the correct one, but this is basically the impetus behind much of cosmist thought. You are not wrong, but cosmists have entire libraries that go way beyond this line of arguing still.

If you are interested, read Fyodorovich's "Philosophy of the common task". It is just a blast. It's just over the top. Even if you are not interested on the ideas, read it as entertainment.

Reality is that we're not going to even have an Earth to live on if we keep going at the rate we're going for very much longer.

How does a human being become "transhuman" and still be a human? And if it's not human beings that we're sending to colonize space, then who is colonizing space? Can a human being become "immortal" if they become "transhuman"? Or do human beings cease to exist when they become "transhuman"?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 1:09 pm

Curator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 12:12 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2026 2:09 pm Immortality?

That would require getting rid of children.

Or the colonizing of space. Your reaction is exactly the correct one, but this is basically the impetus behind much of cosmist thought. You are not wrong, but cosmists have entire libraries that go way beyond this line of arguing still.

If you are interested, read Fyodorovich's "Philosophy of the common task". It is just a blast. It's just over the top. Even if you are not interested on the ideas, read it as entertainment.

Reality is that we're not going to even have an Earth to live on if we keep going at the rate we're going for very much longer.

Which is why we shouldn't go on at the current direction. The great task is, as the name suggests, a task. It's success is not offered as a logical argument, but instead depends on how we humans, undertakers of the task, conduct ourselves.

As to the questions of human identity, I don't really care. I am not emotionally attached to the identity of humanhood. If at some point I should transform beyond some line of human definition, then I will shrug my shoulders (should I have any) and move on. The point of trans-humanism is very much transcending humanity in capacity, ability and virtue. The point is not to define some state of "transcended humanhood" and then seek that post-hoc.

Curator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 1:57 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 1:09 pm

Curator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 12:12 pm

Or the colonizing of space. Your reaction is exactly the correct one, but this is basically the impetus behind much of cosmist thought. You are not wrong, but cosmists have entire libraries that go way beyond this line of arguing still.

If you are interested, read Fyodorovich's "Philosophy of the common task". It is just a blast. It's just over the top. Even if you are not interested on the ideas, read it as entertainment.

Reality is that we're not going to even have an Earth to live on if we keep going at the rate we're going for very much longer.

Which is why we shouldn't go on at the current direction. The great task is, as the name suggests, a task. It's success is not offered as a logical argument, but instead depends on how we humans, undertakers of the task, conduct ourselves.

As to the questions of human identity, I don't really care. I am not emotionally attached to the identity of humanhood. If at some point I should transform beyond some line of human definition, then I will shrug my shoulders (should I have any) and move on. The point of trans-humanism is very much transcending humanity in capacity, ability and virtue. The point is not to define some state of "transcended humanhood" and then seek that post-hoc.

Would "shrugging" your shoulders assume that you still exist to shrug them?