The Talos Principle
Philosophical and Religious Anthropology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.35899Keywords:
philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, artificial intelligence, Talos PrincipleAbstract
For phenomenology the questions “What is man?” and “Who are Others?” are one and the same. While these might seem questions of decisive importance to either social science, more broadly, or religious studies, specifically, the purpose of this paper is to consider that how these questions are answered determines the “world” we live in. And depending on how “we” constitute this “world” determines what does or does not get counted as “religion”. From this arises the question whether AI and robots are included in this “we”. In this paper I will explore how robots and AI would be included in this consensus by looking at the way the video game The Talos Principle (2014) explores questions of philosophical anthropology.
References
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Redfield, R. 1952. “The Primitive World View.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96: 30–36.
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———. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. Translated by M. Frings and R. Funk. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
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———. 1980. Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge.Translated by M. Frings, Introduction by K. Stikkers. London: Routledge.
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———. 2015b. “Levels of Intersubjectivity: Scheler’s ‘Idea of Man’ and Schutz’s Human Prejudice.” Schutzian Research 7: 105–128. https://doi.org/10.5840/schutz201577
———. 2016. “Kendo: Between ‘religion’ and ‘nationalism’.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 15(44): 178–204.
———. 2017. “Prolegomena to a Philosophical Phenomenology of Religion: a critique of sociological phenomenology.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341420
Waldenfels, B. 2004. “Homeworld and Alienworld.” In Phenomenology Vol. IV: Expanding Horizons of Phenomenology, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree, 280–291. London: Routledge.
———. 2011. Phenomenology of the Alien. Translated by A. Kozin and T. Staehler. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. 2004. “Beyond Empathy: phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity.” In Phenomenology Vol.II, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree, 179–200. London: Routledge.
Berger, P. 1990. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books.
Berger, P. and T. Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin Books.
Boyer, P. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Cox, J. 2010. An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion. London: Continuum.
Croteam. 2014. The Talos Principle. Video game, Devolver Digital.
Guthrie, S. 1980. “A Cognitive Theory of Religion.” Current Anthropology 21: 184–191. https://doi.org/10.1086/202429
———. 1993. Faces in the Clouds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hallowell, A. 1960. “Ojibwa Ontology, Behaviour, and World View.” In Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, edited by S. Diamond, 19–52. New York: Columbia University Press.
Heidegger, M. 2010. Being and Time. Translated by J. Stambaugh. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Husserl, E. 1970. The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Phenomenology. Translated by D. Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1981. Husserl: Shorter Works. Translated by Q. Lauer, edited by P. McCormick and F. Elliston. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Kelly, E. 1977. Max Scheler. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers.
Koyré, A. 1943. “Galileo and the Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century.” The Philosophical Review 52: 333–348. https://doi.org/10.2307/2180668
Levi-Strauss, C. 1969. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Translated by James Harle Bell, John Richard von Sturmer and Rodney Needham. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
McCutcheon, R. 2001. Critics not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Padgen, A. 1982. The Fall of Natural Man. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Penner, H. 1989. Impasse and Resolution: A Critique of the Study of Religion. New York: Peter Lang.
Pyysiäinen, I. 2003. “Buddhism, Religion, and the Concept of ‘God’.” In Numen 50: 147–171. https://doi.org/10.1163/156852703321506141
Redfield, R. 1952. “The Primitive World View.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96: 30–36.
Saler, B. 1977. “Supernatural as a Western Category.” Ethos 5: 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040
Sartre, J.P. 2003. Being and Nothingness. Translated by H. Barnes, preface by R. Eyre, Introduction by M. Warnock. London: Routledge.
Scheler, M. 1954. On The Nature of Sympathy. Translated by P. Heath, Introduction by W. Stark. London: Routledge.
———. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. Translated by M. Frings and R. Funk. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
———. 1978. “On the Idea of Man.” Journal for the British Society of Phenomenology 9(3): 184–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.1978.11007883
———. 1980. Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge.Translated by M. Frings, Introduction by K. Stikkers. London: Routledge.
———. 2010. On the Eternal in Man. Translated by B. Noble, Introduction by G. McAleer. London: Transaction Publishers.
Sepp, H.R. 2004. “Homogenization without violence? A phenomenology of interculturality following Husserl.” In Phenomenology IV: Expanding the Horizons of Phenomenology, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree, 292–299. London: Routledge.
Spiro, M. 1966. “Religion: Problems of definition and meaning.” In Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by M. Banton, 85–126. London: Tavistock.
Tuckett, J. 2015a. “The Prejudice of Being Human in the Study of Non-Ordinary Realities.” Diskus 17(2): http://diskus.basr.ac.uk/index.php/DISKUS/article/view/69
———. 2015b. “Levels of Intersubjectivity: Scheler’s ‘Idea of Man’ and Schutz’s Human Prejudice.” Schutzian Research 7: 105–128. https://doi.org/10.5840/schutz201577
———. 2016. “Kendo: Between ‘religion’ and ‘nationalism’.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 15(44): 178–204.
———. 2017. “Prolegomena to a Philosophical Phenomenology of Religion: a critique of sociological phenomenology.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341420
Waldenfels, B. 2004. “Homeworld and Alienworld.” In Phenomenology Vol. IV: Expanding Horizons of Phenomenology, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree, 280–291. London: Routledge.
———. 2011. Phenomenology of the Alien. Translated by A. Kozin and T. Staehler. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. 2004. “Beyond Empathy: phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity.” In Phenomenology Vol.II, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree, 179–200. London: Routledge.
Published
2018-05-22
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Tuckett, J. (2018). The Talos Principle: Philosophical and Religious Anthropology. Implicit Religion, 20(3), 259-277. https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.35899
