Journal of Teleological Science

FROM ENHANCEMENT TO CONTINUITY

Andreas Oikonomou — 2026-05-30

The current philosophical discussion on the future of humanity is mainly organized around two main paradigms: transhumanism and posthumanism. The former promotes the idea of human enhancement and transcendence over biological limitations, while the latter challenges anthropocentrism and seeks to redefine the human in terms of its embedded relation in ecological and technological networks. This article seeks to introduce the concept of Metazoic ontology, which differs from the above two paradigms in its emphasis on continuity rather than transcendence or decentering. The article will also introduce an epistemology of relation and care, a model of Metazoë as a multi-dimensional transcription, and a phenomenological-poetic approach, contextualizing these within the Tofflerian concept of acceleration, arguing that the current “future shock” is an epistemological crisis, especially in relation to the role of generative AI, platform memory, and planetary instability. The article will also argue that, in addition to the critique of anthropocentrism or the dream of human enhancement, there is an urgent need for an ontology of continuity that is capable of addressing issues related to digital persistence, ecological duration, and cultural hyper-memory, without falling into either techno-utopianism or dissolution. The concept of Metazoic ontology is an attempt in this direction, an ethics of continuity stewardship in terms of responsibility for the traces we leave behind.

REREADING THE MYTH OF THE STATE

Lucas Neves Justino — 2026-05-30

This article seeks to understand the analysis of political totalitarianism developed by the German philosopher, Ernst Cassirer, in The Myth of the State, not in isolation, but as the result of a broader theoretical trajectory, matured throughout his writings on themes related to those developed in his posthumous work. The book is thus situated within a more comprehensive philosophical project aimed at defending rationality and freedom in the face of the political threats of the twentieth century. The objective is to elucidate the meaning of myth in Cassirer’s thought: its function in primitive societies, the role it plays in human experience, and its place within the broader set of cultural forms; as well as the regressive process undergone by social organization, which, having evolved from a mythical matrix toward rational forms of ordering collective life, was nevertheless able to undergo an abrupt inflection marked by the return of myth to the center of political life. Finally, the article analyzes the three fundamental elements that, according to Cassirer, constitute the sophisticated technique responsible for the return of myth as an instrument of political domination: the systematic manipulation of language; the organization of new rituals; and the selection of a leader who embodies collective desire.

THE COUNTER-MAJORITARIAN FRAMEWORK OF HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH THE LENS OF RENÉ GIRARD'S ANTHROPOLOGY

José Luis Teves de Paiva Grisolia — 2026-05-30

This article investigates the counter-majoritarian structure of human rights and the Judiciary from the perspective of René Girard's mimetic anthropology and contemporary critical theory. It questions the classical rationalist paradigm that interprets the social contract and the state monopoly on violence as pure pacts of reason, suggesting, by contrast, their historical connection to archaic sacrificial mechanisms of violence containment. Stemming from the epistemological rupture inaugurated by the Christian revelation — which unveils the injustice of majority persecution movements and establishes the episteme of the victim —, modernity comes to possess an anti-sacrificial sensitivity that overdetermines its secular institutions. Methodologically supported by bibliographic research and interpretive analysis, this work examines the judgment on same-sex unions by the Supreme Federal Court (ADI 4277 / ADPF 132) as a paradigmatic case of this institutional transmutation. It concludes that human rights act as barriers designed to prevent the closure of democratic consensus into persecutory unanimities.

TÒ DÍKAION

António Campelo Amaral — 2026-05-30

This article proposes a reading of Aristotle as the antecedent from which the capacity to express the just [to dikaion] and the unjust [to adikon] marks the threshold where political experience intertwines with the ethical and juridical dimensions. Through three layers of analysis – just-justice in the ethical field, just-adjusted in the judicative-normative sphere, and just-rightness in the political domain – it seeks to demonstrate how Aristotelian practical philosophy articulates prudence [phronesis], equity [epieikeia], and artisanal skill [kheirotekhne] in the configuration of a justice that harmonizes the ethical, juridical, and political spheres, with the just as proportional, mediational, and equitable rightness as its gravitational center.