Becoming Human Project
Becoming Human is born from a new story of the human that I am seeking to live and share with others. The project brings my original research, lectures, and conversations with scientists, artists, thinkers, and writers to the widest possible audience through my YouTube, Substack, and podcast, Becoming Human: A Show for a Species in Transition.
The Becoming Human Project offers three annual memberships:
Wayfinder
$10/month
Epicurean Delights
$100/month
Friends of Philosophy
$500/month
Human nature is under construction.
Existence is a work of art we have to fashion for ourselves.
Please handle your humanity with care.
Contents are valuable.
Thank you for taking agency over your existence.
Wayfinder Membership
$10/month
paid Substack Subcription ($84 value)
immediate access to three audio courses ($2,250 value)
member-only pricing on all live courses at the Becoming Human Academy
$2,334 value
The World, the Soul, and the Gods: Introduction to Philosophy
This is a rich and concise introduction to the world (cosmology), the soul (philosophical psychology), and the gods (theology).
The series gives a clear overview of the history of our idea of the world, our concept of life and how it evolved from the idea of the soul in antiquity into the modern self, and of the gods as crucial aspects of human psychology, history, and myth.
It explores how the soul is part of a cosmology we have largely forgotten, a world where humans were connected to the earth, Gaia, as a living intelligence. Our conception of the universe shapes how we think about and care for the Earth and other humans, and this forgotten cosmology has profound wisdom for our ecological crisis. The course as a whole provides a scientifically informed and mythologically sensitive vision of the Life in its individual, earthly, and cosmic dimensions.
Course value: $375
We Are Earth’s Children: A Philosophy of Food and Life’s Interdependence
“The world begins at a kitchen table,” writes Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo, “no matter what, we must eat to live.” Eating is more than nourishment; it is a shared act that links every living being in the cycle of life on Earth.
This course reveals how our meals reflect the intimate relationship between the land and the flourishing of all creatures. As children of the Earth, we hold both the privilege and responsibility to care for the home that sustains us.
Inspired by a live Q and A, this course explores in three episodes the power of the everyday act of eating to reveal and transform the meaning of life. You will learn how eating a meal is a source of ethical insight, why eating and ecology are intimately linked, and how a philosophy of food as communion with all living beings can deepen your understanding and joy.
Course value: $375
Becoming Human: Origins
Becoming Human: Origins tells the story of how an atheistic revolution in philosophy, beginning with Socrates and Jesus, remade religion and science, and set the stage for our post-human age. It argues that the dominant story of reason, science, and religion is a modern myth, and must be replaced if we are to make real progress.
This 10-episode (10 hour) series begins by presenting Socrates as a revolutionary religious martyr and ends with the death of God and Reason, revealing the common connection between Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, Marxism, and Science. These movements are perceived as radically contradictory, but the source of their conflict is their common ancestry: they are all part of a single atheistic narrative—one that has never been told.
That story, recounted here, explains why atheists are religious, why antisemitism persists through all these movements, and why we have a current crisis around the question: What does it mean to be human?
Becoming Human: Origins is based on a decade of research at Yale on science and religion. It was the first public form of my book, Philosophy as Science and Religion from Plato to Posthumanism (appearing with Columbia University Press), and it launched the Becoming Human Project: a multimedia project that brings philosophy as a way of life to everyone and seeks to build a community of creators pursuing a more meaningful life.
Course value: $1,500
Epicurean Delights Membership
$100/month
paid Substack Subcription ($84 value)
immediate access to five Becoming Human Academy audio courses ($3,000 value)
attend 3 live courses per membership year ($1,050 value)
member-only pricing on all subsequent courses
invitations to In Vino Veritas
$5,634 value
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Becoming Human: Origins
Becoming Human: Origins tells the story of how an atheistic revolution in philosophy, beginning with Socrates and Jesus, remade religion and science, and set the stage for our post-human age. It argues that the dominant story of reason, science, and religion is a modern myth, and must be replaced if we are to make real progress.
This 10-episode (10 hour) series begins by presenting Socrates as a revolutionary religious martyr and ends with the death of God and Reason, revealing the common connection between Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, Marxism, and Science. These movements are perceived as radically contradictory, but the source of their conflict is their common ancestry: they are all part of a single atheistic narrative—one that has never been told.
That story, recounted here, explains why atheists are religious, why antisemitism persists through all these movements, and why we have a current crisis around the question: What does it mean to be human?
Becoming Human: Origins is based on a decade of research at Yale on science and religion. It was the first public form of my book, Philosophy as Science and Religion from Plato to Posthumanism (appearing with Columbia University Press), and it launched the Becoming Human Project: a multimedia project that brings philosophy as a way of life to everyone and seeks to build a community of creators pursuing a more meaningful life.
Course value: $1,500
The World, the Soul, and the Gods: Introduction to Philosophy
This is a rich and concise introduction to the world (cosmology), the soul (philosophical psychology), and the gods (theology).
The series gives a clear overview of the history of our idea of the world, our concept of life and how it evolved from the idea of the soul in antiquity into the modern self, and of the gods as crucial aspects of human psychology, history, and myth.
It explores how the soul is part of a cosmology we have largely forgotten, a world where humans were connected to the earth, Gaia, as a living intelligence. Our conception of the universe shapes how we think about and care for the Earth and other humans, and this forgotten cosmology has profound wisdom for our ecological crisis. The course as a whole provides a scientifically informed and mythologically sensitive vision of the Life in its individual, earthly, and cosmic dimensions.
Course value: $375
Plato’s Allegory of The Cave: Introduction to Epistemology
Plato’s "Allegory of The Cave" is the most famous story in Western philosophy. This 3-lecture course shows how Plato’s allegory gives us insight into how the world is an illusion, how it is real, and how to know the difference.
Developing a critical social epistemology, the course connects Plato's teaching to modern marketing, psychological operations, conspiracy theories, and mass deception. It offers a concise introduction to Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology, while revealing the essential spiritual dimension of philosophy as a practice of liberation, presenting the essentials of Loncar's approach to epistemology as a form of applied philosophy.
This course is a prerequisite for the forthcoming live course “Psy Ops: Psychological Warfare as a Global Epistemic Regime.”
Course value: $375
Science, Sex, & Magic: Plato’s Symposium
Science, magic, and immortality all lead back to the same ancient god: Eros.
The history of revolutionary advances in humanity, the Holy Grail, and Ray Kurtweil's Singularity can all be traced back to a single myth, the Myth of Diotima, found in Plato's “Symposium”—the most literarily intricate of all Plato's dialogues.
Diotima, the mysterious wise woman from Mantinea, reveals to Socrates the secret of immortality. Central to that ancient mystery is Eros (Love).
This three episode series on the Symposium and the Myth of Diotima explores Socrates' integrated vision of Eros that unifies the sensuality of the bedroom, the most rarified delights of mathematical epiphany, and the experience of mystical enlightenment.
Course value: $375
We Are Earth’s Children: A Philosophy of Food and Life’s Interdependence
“The world begins at a kitchen table,” writes Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo, “no matter what, we must eat to live.” Eating is more than nourishment; it is a shared act that links every living being in the cycle of life on Earth.
This course reveals how our meals reflect the intimate relationship between the land and the flourishing of all creatures. As children of the Earth, we hold both the privilege and responsibility to care for the home that sustains us.
Inspired by a live Q and A, this course explores in three episodes the power of the everyday act of eating to reveal and transform the meaning of life. You will learn how eating a meal is a source of ethical insight, why eating and ecology are intimately linked, and how a philosophy of food as communion with all living beings can deepen your understanding and joy.
Course value: $375
“I’m a philosopher who teaches in the university, and I have been studying Heidegger for 30 years, and Dr. Loncar’s 12-lecture course has literally transformed my understanding of Sein und Zeit. This course is invaluable.
Thank you so much.”
Aliman Sears, Becoming Human Project Member
Friends of Philosophy Membership
$500/month
paid Substack Subcription ($84 value)
immediate access to ALL five Epicurean Delights audio courses plus five more Becoming Human Academy audio courses ($17,777 value)
pays for three Becoming Human Academy live courses ($1,050 value)
eligible for BioPoetics Coaching
$18,827 value
The Mystery of Existence
Haunted by Hamlet’s question, “To be or not to be,” humans wander the world oblivious to the meaning of their own existence. A century ago, in a period of global turmoil, crisis, and despair, Martin Heidegger published a revolutionary response to the question, what does it mean to be, creating the foundations of Existentialism and reshaping philosophy, atheism, and religion across the world. His book, Sein und Zeit, was first translated into English in 1962 as Being and Time.
Based on a decade of research at Yale University by the philosopher Samuel Loncar, Ph.D., this original interpretation of Sein und Zeit, using only the German text and his own translations, reveals for the first time that Heidegger’s work has been mistranslated and therefore misunderstood as Being and Time.
Heidegger’s essential idea of what it means to be was obscured by his own fraught employment of ideas from the history of theology, the immense intellectual challenge of explaining Heidegger’s ideas, whose origins he sought to conceal, and the difficulty of rendering them in English. From Being to Time to Existence and Time: An Interpretation of Sein und Zeit presents a fundamental reevaluation of Heidegger’s major work by returning to the original German and integrating the hidden frameworks that shaped Heidegger.
Drawing on recent scholarship and his own work in the history of philosophy, science, and religion, Samuel Loncar provides a clear analysis of the central ideas of the book, giving any engaged listener the tools to understand the text for themselves and gain deeper insight into their own existence.
At the heart of his argument is his solution to the book’s central, but rarely discussed, mystery: Why did Martin Heidegger define the human being in the same terms Thomas Aquinas used to describe God? In the end, we are led to a new vision of Heidegger, philosophy, theology, atheism, and our own existence.
Course value: $6,600
This course is the continuation of the free public lecture series, Heidegger and the Crisis of Modernity.
The Modern Crisis of Choice & How to Find Personal Freedom
Choices are stressful because choice is not freedom. Yet their subtle difference eludes us, leaving us stressed and confused.
In this 3-lecture series, I share my understanding of the problem of freedom and offer you transformative insights, drawing on Aristotle, the Tao Te Ching, and Kierkegaard, that will help you move from choice to personal freedom, learning how to practice philosophy as a way of life.
Course value: $375
Søren Kierkegaard: The Poet of Existence
Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and religious thinker, created one of the most consequential bodies of writing in human history.
One of the greatest literary writers, he is also widely regarded as the most important philosophers and theologians to create much of the 20th century: movements like existentialism, modern theology, and even forms of modern nihilism can be traced back to the work of Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard is known as a delightful and difficult figure; like Socrates, he is ironic and hard to understand.
In this 8-episode series, Soren Kierkegaard: The Poet of Existence, asks why Kierkegaard matters and explains his historical, philosophical, and spiritual importance today. You can watch episode 1, “Why Does Kierkegaard Matter?” on YouTube.
Course value: $1,500
The Existential Englightenment
From the rationalism of the Enlightenment to the dark freedom of Existentialism, there is a hidden path, passing through the abyss of human depravity into a new, scientifically rigorous psychology of the human self.
Often attacked or celebrated for his supposed irrationalism and attack on the Enlightenment, Kierkegaard is in fact the truest inheritor of the Enlightenment’s core values, for he shows how a commitment to rigorous rationality and human progress must confront the paradoxical essence of human existence.
The struggle of Enlightenment humanism to face the problem of evil, particularly after the Lisbon Earthquake, led to the immense yet unstable achievements of Immanuel Kant, who recognized a defect in human’s relationship to their own rationality. Seeking to uphold the sovereignty of Reason while preserving the insights of religion and morality, the contested inheritance of the Kantian legacy gave birth to German Idealism.
Situating Kierkegaard in the context of the Enlightenment, German Idealism, and the abyssal anthropology of Martin Luther, this course offers a detailed historical and philosophical introduction to Kierkegaard’s core ideas. Combining historical rigor with a strong focus on the existential and contemporary relevance of Kierkegaard, it is an ideal introduction for new and experienced students of Kierkegaard. The Existential Enlightenment offers insight into the meaning of history, the fate of religion, and the role of despair in human liberation, showing how the project of Existentialism and the Enlightenment meet in the path of Søren Kierkegaard.
Course value: $5,575
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