Integral Review

Zachary Stein

Abstract: Modernity is based on a critique and abandonment of premodern forms of metaphysics, while postmodernity has only deepened critiques of metaphysical truth claims further. This has created a novel historical situation in which a planetary society revolves around the absence of a shared metaphysics. The vacuum of meaning at the core of postmodern societies has resulted in a sense of exhaustion and alienation, a state uncomfortable enough to initiate a metamodern “return” to metaphysical speculation. I argue in favor of adopting metamodern metaphysical characterizations of the human based on an understanding of love as a transpersonal universal force akin to gravity. Philosophers have long called this force Eros and have placed it at the center of the human experience. Charles Sanders Peirce marks the beginning of a new method for practicing metaphysics, while at the same time offering profound insights into the cosmic dynamics of evolutionary love, or Eros. A century later, the ideas and practices of metamodern metaphysics remain in flux and on the margins. I explore how computer technologies and hyper-capitalist dynamics have inspired dark transhumanist speculations such as those of Nick Land. To counter the regressive and dystopian possibilities entailed by a “return” to metaphysics, I propose a form of cosmo-erotic humanism and discuss its implications through an exploration of the newly released book, A Return to Eros (Gafni & Kincaid, 2017).

Tags: political praxis, integral theory, post-modernity, tantra, post-truth culture, Stein, sexuality and relationships, Charles Sanders Peirce, Eros, Marc Gafni, metaphysics, metamodernism, Nick Land