Autonomies

The issue of artificial intelligence, which is debated today not always with natural intelligence, has had a precursor in the history of Western philosophy — as we have already had occasion to demonstrate here —: the single, separate intellect of Latin Averroism. The analogy is so close — a single, separate intellect that thinks independently of individual human beings — that it may even coincide in the acronym used to express it: Artificial Intelligence – Agent Intellect (as the Averroists called the separate intellect). For medieval philosophers, who were more cautious in this regard than our contemporaries, the crucial problem was that of the manner in which the single, separate intellect unites (copulatur) with individual human beings, so that thought may be acquired (adeptus) by the individual and it may be said “hic homo intelligit“—”this man thinks”. The means by which this union is achieved was, for Averroes, the imagination, of which our contemporaries, by contrast, seem to be utterly deprived. In artificial intelligence, in fact, “hic homo non intellegit“—the individual renounces thinking and delegates the most precious of his faculties to a machine, which is supposed to think in his stead and better than he does. To follow the instructions of this inescapable master, the imagination is of no use whatsoever (although even to apply a rule, some form of imagination might be necessary). Perhaps the real problem with artificial intelligence is that it has been made possible by a general loss of the faculty of imagination, almost as if its advent had been preceded by the establishment of an omnipresent artificial imagination. A humanity that had lost its imagination was ready to deprive itself of thought as well (which, moreover, as Aristotle already taught, is simply not possible without imagination).

The first thing we must do to combat the dominance of AI is, therefore, a patient, meticulous and methodical search for our lost imagination. And since thought is nothing other than the fulfilled form of imagination, there will then no longer be any need for artificial intelligence.

Quodlibet, August 3, 2026

On Kojin Karatani’s 85th birthday, publisher Maikel da Silveira reflects on his writings on and the current US imperial project.

Maikel da Silveira, Verso Books Blog, 06/08/2026

The philosopher and literary critic Kojin Karatani turns 85 today. His latest book, The End of Modern Literature: On Permanent Revolution, publishes later this month. Meanwhile, his most ambitious work, The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange – which I had the privilege of editing for Editora Machado – has been translated into Portuguese and should reach Brazilian readers in the coming months.