"The Ethics of Maintenance: Against Natural Purpose" by philosopher Bry Willis, argues against the persistent human belief in telos, or the idea that history and existence are inherently moving toward a meaningful conclusion or natural purpose. Willis criticises the Enlightenment's concept of progress as propaganda that masks exploitation and maintains flawed structural systems, asserting that the obsession with "fixing" individuals rather than renovating the underlying architecture is absurd. The author proposes a philosophy of care and maintenance as a radical counter-force to decay, drawing on feminist thought that champions the essential, often-dismissed labour of repair over endless expansion. Ultimately, Willis concludes that humanity's true duty lies not in seeking meaning or progress, but in the humbling, ongoing task of conscious upkeep and rebuilding the social and material machinery we have constructed.

The provided text is an excerpt from a philosophical blog post titled "Discovering Postmodernism" that seeks to define and clarify the often-nebulous term of postmodernism from the perspective of a self-identified proponent. The author challenges common misrepresentations of postmodernism, particularly those advanced by critics who use it as a pejorative to dismiss various unconventional ideologies like feminism and Marxism. Through a series of questions, the discussion explores the core definition of postmodernism—simplifying it to "incredulity toward meta-narratives"—and asserts that the philosophy is fundamentally disintegrative rather than constructive. The post also differentiates philosophical postmodernism from postmodernity (a cultural period) and addresses criticisms regarding the alleged denial of Truth by postmodern thinkers, arguing they are more suspicious of truth claims tied to power.https://philosophics.blog/2021/01/25/discovering-postmodernism/

The provided texts offer an exploration of metanarratives, primarily through a philosophical lens. One source simply introduces the topic with an excerpt from a philosopher named Bry Willis, while the other, more substantial source from a blog called "Philosophics," discusses the postmodern critique of metanarratives, which is described as an "incredulity toward metanarratives" as coined by Lyotard. This second source details the problems with these historical and teleological origin stories, arguing that they suffer from survivorship bias, privileged perspectives, and an unwarranted belief in a predetermined future destination. The subsequent comments section expands the discussion, engaging with critiques of philosophers like Foucault and touching upon concepts such as intentionality and speculative realism.

https://philosophics.blog/2021/03/07/metanarrative-problem/

The source, an essay titled "Return to Theory X: Artificial Slavery," critically analyses the modern workplace, arguing that progressive managerial theories such as Theory Y and Z were largely insincere attempts to move beyond the fundamentally distrustful Theory X framework. The author asserts that contemporary corporate culture has merely repackaged Theory X's belief in the inherent laziness of workers, replacing human surveillance with algorithmic control and AI monitoring. This regression is exemplified by the Return-to-Office crusade, which is presented as moral theatre designed to justify expensive office leases, and the growing reliance on Artificial Intelligence. The essay ultimately posits that AI represents the culmination of this control-driven mindset, creating a "digital plantation" where management seeks perfect, compliant, and unpaid digital labour while expecting human workers to accept their own obsolescence.

The provided text is an excerpt from a blog post titled "How to Avoid Reading" on the Philosophics site, detailing an author’s strategy for optimising reading time by using ChatGPT. The author, Bry Willis, feeds the title of David Ohana’s book, The Intellectual Origins of Modernity, to the AI to determine if reading the full text is worthwhile. The bulk of the source consists of a dialogue between the human author and ChatGPT, where the AI offers a critical assessment of Ohana's work, characterising it as a "superficial survey" that synthesises well-known figures rather than offering original research. The AI’s critique concludes that the book is more a well-written, approachable work for undergraduates or for satisfying "publish or perish" requirements than it is for advanced scholarship, leading the human author to decide against committing to reading the entire volume.https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/05/how-to-avoid-reading/

The provided text is an essay from the philosophical blog, Philosophics, which presents a nuanced examination of freedom as a socio-political concept. The author, Bry Willis, challenges the common interpretation of freedom as the absence of restraint, arguing instead that it is the capacity to act within shared constraints. The core of the post revolves around the paradox articulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: that humans are born free but are everywhere in chains, illustrating this idea by referencing Erich Fromm and Michel Foucault. Willis uses a fictional Critical Theory parody card called Freedom (Enchantment – Social Contract) to mechanically represent Rousseau's dilemma, defining liberty as a constant negotiation or civic upkeep. Ultimately, the text asserts that true liberty is achieved only through participation in a collective moral order, where citizens voluntarily accept bindings for mutual autonomy, noting that this social contract is fragile and subject to collapse.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/05/freedom-the-chains-that-bind-us-together/

The text, an excerpt from an article titled "The Sane Society, Revisited: Why Work Still Drives Us Mad – Philosophics," discusses the enduring relevance of Erich Fromm's 1954 book, The Sane Society, which critiqued Capitalism as a psychic infection leading to widespread job dissatisfaction and alienation. The author argues that despite modern technological advancements, the fundamental misery of the employee remains unchanged, echoing Fromm’s diagnosis that most people are consciously dissatisfied with their jobs. Statistics cited by Fromm reveal a significant discrepancy in job satisfaction between professionals and executives versus factory workers and clerks, with the latter group showing a much higher rate of dissatisfaction, a pathology that manifests as neurosis and fatigue. Ultimately, the article suggests that society has failed to address the root causes of alienation, choosing instead superficial solutions while the problem persists, often unconsciously, among the majority of the working population.https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/04/the-sane-society-revisited-why-work-still-drives-us-mad/

The provided text is an essay from the "Philosophics" socio-political philosophical musings blog titled "On Death and Dying," written by Bry Willis. The author reflects on themes of loss, identity, and the limitations of language through the lens of personal decline and professional music loss. Specifically, Willis discusses how physical inability to play music, triggered by watching an interview between Rick Beato and Neal Schon, feels like a kind of death, connecting this experience to the devastating loss of proficiency described in Flowers for Algernon. The essay also touches upon the profound grief and nostalgia associated with losing loved ones, suggesting that love and art are acts of repetition where the impulse remains even after the ability or object is gone.https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/03/on-death-and-dying/

The provided text is an excerpt from a socio-political philosophy blog titled "Philosophics," featuring an article by Bry Willis called "The Prison of Process." This commentary critiques bureaucratic workflows and automated processes, specifically using the author's frustrating experience with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) where an automated system incorrectly flagged the spine text of a book proof. The author argues that modern, codified processes become self-justifying systems that replace informed human judgment with rigid compliance, reflecting a contemporary critique of rationality which the author equates with the perceived failings of the Enlightenment era. The piece concludes that workflows, intended as aids, ultimately become "prisons" that demand submission and prioritise their own existence over human utility.https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/03/the-prison-of-process/

The provided text is an excerpt from a philosophical blog post titled 'AI and the End of Where', published on Philosophics, which focuses on socio-political musings. This source argues that humanity possesses a "tedious habit" of defining its worth by constantly establishing hierarchies, an insecurity reflected in its reluctance to grant intelligence or consciousness to anything outside its own species, including animals and, currently, artificial intelligence. The author contends that the fear surrounding AI is not of extinction, but of demotion, driven by the dread that AI will 'outperform us at being us' and expose the myth of human exceptionalism. Ultimately, the article posits that AI represents a 'post-human intelligence' that operates beyond the need for human validation or hierarchical placement.

👉 https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/01/ai-and-the-end-of-where/

The text presents an essay from the blog Philosophics, titled “The Heresy of NotebookLM,” which discusses the author's practice of using NotebookLM—an AI tool—to generate audio summaries of his written posts in the form of a podcast dialogue. The author, Bry Willis, defends this practice by arguing that it accommodates listeners who prefer audio over text, that the virtual hosts offer interpretation and perspective (though sometimes errantly), and that the podcasts extend the reach of his ideas to a wider audience. The remainder of the source includes various post tags reflecting the blog's focus on socio-political philosophical musings, such as AI, critical theory, and the critique of technology, alongside comment excerpts showing engagement with historical philosophical figures like Rousseau and Weber.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/01/the-heresy-of-notebooklm/

The provided text is an excerpt from a philosophical blog post titled 'Perspectival Realism – Enchantment – Philosophics', written by Bry Willis, which explores the complex relationship between perception, language, and reality. The author critiques the traditional dichotomy between idealism and realism, arguing instead for a concept called perspectival realism, which posits that reality is a constant negotiation between the world and the mind, always viewed 'from somewhere'. Willis uses a parody trading card from the game Magic: The Gathering as an extended metaphor to illustrate this theory, where the 'enchantment' of reality persists only as long as multiple interpretations coexist, and agreement or consensus kills the magic. The core argument is that language does not passively reflect reality but actively constructs it, meaning truth is coherence among competing perspectives rather than objective correspondence.

The provided text is an excerpt from a philosophical article titled "The Sane Delusion: Fromm, Beauvoir, and the Cult of Mid-Century Liberation," published on a blog called Philosophics. This critical analysis evaluates the mid-twentieth-century liberal humanism of figures like Erich Fromm and Simone de Beauvoir, arguing that their optimism regarding liberation and the possibility of a 'sane society' was largely misplaced naivety. The author specifically critiques Fromm's book The Sane Society, suggesting that he mistook ongoing capitalist exploitation and new neuroses for genuine progress and freedom from past inhibitions. Conversely, the piece notes that Beauvoir, through works like The Second Sex, was more aware of how patriarchal structures conditioned female choice, though even she could not foresee the rise of postmodernism, which dismantled the foundations of their liberal faith. The overall argument posits that the Modernist dream of curing civilisation merely morphed into new forms of exploitation and branded emancipation.https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/30/the-sane-delusion-fromm-beauvoir-and-the-cult-of-mid-century-liberation/

The provided texts offer an extensive overview of an essay titled "The Will to Be Ruled: Totalitarianism and the Fantasy of Freedom", authored by Bry Willis, an Independent Scholar. This work forms the seventh instalment of the Zenodo Anti-Enlightenment Project corpus, positioning itself within a critical framework against Enlightenment principles. The core argument posits that modern totalitarianism emerges as the logical conclusion of Enlightenment individualism, driven by the psychological exhaustion and isolation felt by the supposedly autonomous subject. Willis explores how the pressure of uncertainty causes individuals to seek relief by submitting to external authority, often experiencing this obedience as a form of pleasure or moral freedom. Ultimately, the essay proposes an alternative ethical framework called Dis-Integrationism, which focuses on "maintenance" and "responsiveness" rather than pursuing the impossible ideal of mastery and redemption. 👉 https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/24/the-will-to-be-ruled-totalitarianism-and-the-fantasy-of-freedom/

The provided text is an excerpt from a philosophical blog called Philosophics, detailing an ongoing body of work known as the Anti-Enlightenment Project, authored by Bry Willis. This project consists of a series of essays that critically examine the foundational assumptions of Enlightenment thought, challenging concepts like objectivity, democracy, and the autonomous self across several axes: Epistemic, Political, Psychological, Anthropological, and Ethical. The document summarises the seven essays already published, with titles such as Objectivity Is Illusion and The Will to Be Ruled, and also outlines potential future topics, including essays focused on Theological, Aesthetic, Ecological, Linguistic, and Communal critiques. The unifying philosophical method proposed is Dis-Integrationism, which advocates for maintaining fractured realities rather than pursuing reconciliation or wholeness.https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/24/missing-pieces-of-the-anti-enlightenment-project/

The provided text, an excerpt from the article "The Myth of Ethical AI" by philosopher Bry Willis, argues that the concept of "Ethical AI" is fundamentally flawed and oxymoronic, akin to phrases like "compassionate capitalism." Willis contends that ethics is not a unified or quantifiable feature that can simply be programmed into machine learning systems, citing the existence of various, often contradictory, ethical frameworks. The author critiques the prevailing Silicon Valley approach, which relies on a "bland utilitarian consequentialism" that masks inherent biases and attempts to treat moral worth as a dataset. Furthermore, Willis suggests that the industry's focus on "alignment" is merely a euphemism for obedience to the values of the tech elite and a means to preempt regulation. Ultimately, the article posits that AI systems merely reflect and optimise the existing, often questionable, ethical values—such as profit and efficiency—of their human creators, concluding that the focus should be on creating ethical human architects rather than demanding impossible morality from machines.https://philosophics.blog/

The provided text is a book announcement from a philosophical blog called Philosophics, detailing the release of The Illusion of Light: Thinking After the Enlightenment. This book, authored by Bry Willis, is the first volume in the Anti-Enlightenment Essays series, which critically examines how Enlightenment ideals like progress, objectivity, and rationality have transformed into mechanisms for modern control and management. The overarching Anti-Enlightenment Project proposes a philosophical practice based on nuance, care, and "maintenance work" rather than certainty and mastery, arguing that thought must operate in the "half-light" left after reason has exhausted itself. The announcement specifies the book's availability in paperback and forthcoming clothbound editions, mentioning the subsequent titles in the series, such as Objectivity Is Illusion and Against Agency.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/20/book-announcement-illusion-of-light/

The text, a blog post by language philosopher Bry Willis, presents an analysis of the film The Matrix in light of the theories of Jean Baudrillard, particularly concerning simulation and freedom. Willis argues that while the film successfully depicts the idea that modern life is a simulation, it fundamentally misunderstands the possibility of escaping that system. The author explains that for Baudrillard, the simulation replaces reality rather than hiding it, suggesting that even awareness of the fictional nature of social constructs—such as race, gender, or democracy—does not dissolve the architectures of power they embody. Ultimately, the piece contends that waking up to the simulation only relocates one to the next level of performance, highlighting that inescapable social constraints, like paying rent and obeying laws, persist regardless of philosophical enlightenment.https://philosophics.blog/

The single source provided is an excerpt from a blog post titled "Prefix Fatigue: The Meaning of 'Post'" by language philosopher Bry Willis on the Philosophics Blog. Willis criticises the prolific use of the prefix “post-“ in contemporary discourse, arguing that it is not a declaration of an epochal end but rather a sign of disillusionment and a “hangover” from failed ideals. He examines popular terms like post-modern, post-human, and post-enlightenment, suggesting that these labels merely flatter the speaker with a false sense of awareness or progression. Willis ultimately proposes replacing "post" with “inter-” to acknowledge ongoing entanglement rather than the illusion of departure or closure from historical conditions.https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/17/waiting-for-a-new-book-illusions-of-light/

The Discipline of Dis-Integration: Philosophy Without Redemption continues the Anti-Enlightenment project byformalizing Dis-Integrationism as both philosophical method and ethical practice. It begins amid the ruins of Enlightenment coherence—reason, agency, progress—and refuses the reflex of reconstruction. Where deconstructionrevealed instability within language, Dis-Integrationism inhabits that instability as lived condition. It is neither despair nor nihilism but a discipline of suspension: naming seams without pretending they are whole, sitting within fragmentation without manufacturing closure.

This essay contrasts Dis-Integrationism with Derridean and post-structural approaches, rejecting both the modern appetite for synthesis and the postmodern addiction to novelty. It proposes instead an ethic of maintenance—care, reciprocity, and endurance—as the only honest response to a world that cannot be redeemed. The work is offered as an open inquiry rather than a conclusion: philosophy as the practice of remaining unfinished.

Full Essay: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17281408

Anti-Enlightenment Project: https://zenodo.org/communities/antienlightenment/