The name for the object in my vitalist ontology. It is a complex of forces organized according to a morphogen, which is the force or forces responsible for the object’s genesis. It is not static, but a growth, a becoming—or, rather, many growths, many becomings participating in a collective vitality.

Logos, as I said before, is the force that gives birth to the object. The logos-force is therefore the morphogenic principle—the ontic chemical responsible for the origination and arrangement of the object’s structure. As a being-in-process, the object is always evolving, such that its structure is best described as a growing-form. The growth-object is always-forming according to the capacity for creation of the logos. The logos, then, is a formal cause without a target form, without an end of formation. It is the compass pointing north, not the destination that determines and demands arrival.

Telos, on the other hand, is this destination. It is Aristotle’s final cause, the termination of movement. It is also, therefore, the total cessation of life—purpose become nihilism. After all—when all is finished—being would lurch to a halt, the point of absolute zero, and succumb to nonexistence. Dead and buried, dirt in the ground.

Yet, life is creative, generative of further life. It does not limit itself, but constantly flows beyond its extremities. It is only possible, then, that a limit be imposed through the violent usurpation, and transmutation into telos, of logos. But because it naturally destroys itself upon consummation (ah! la petite mort!), telos is virtual, as fleeting as the power that established it.

Based on the above, I cannot embrace humanism. As Michael writes in the comments to The Horror of Humanism, humanism can be one or both of the following: (a) “that which emphasizes the magnificence of humanity” and/or (b) “that which claims ‘there is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity.” As a telos-assigning species, humanity introduces death—or the collapse of being—into its morphology. This is far from magnificent, rendering humanity ineligible to fulfill the condition of humanism a. Luckily, as Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, “Life will find a way.” Were human being to reach extinction, as it is so desperately endeavoring to do, life would carry on, and the universe would hardly know the difference. Thus, humanism b also fails to obtain on my view, thereby demonstrating fidelity to anti-humanism.