Maneuver instead of being
Disclaimer: This essay is a philosophical exploration of ontology, strategy, and the invisible architecture of subjectivity. All terms — including “infraontology,” “infrahuman,” “disappearance engineering,” and “ideal crime” — are used solely in a conceptual and metaphorical sense. The text does not advocate, promote, or endorse any form of legal, moral, or social transgression. It contains no calls to action and should not be interpreted as a manifesto, program, or instruction. Its purpose is to investigate how invisibility, absence, and non-recognition can function as structural elements in the construction of agency and thought. The entire essay belongs to the realm of speculative philosophy and critical theory, and is intended exclusively as a theoretical intervention within the discourse on power, identity, and recognition.
Infraontology: Maneuver Instead of Being
Synopsis
Central Thesis
After the "death of the subject" in the post-metaphysical era, infraontology proposes a radically new turn: not a return to seeking unchangeable essence, but a transition to strategic thinking — maneuver instead of being. This isn't a doctrine of what exists, but of how to act while remaining invisible to recognition systems. The subject here isn't bearer of an eternal soul but a program that can be rewritten. The question "who am I?" is replaced by "what strategy can I execute while remaining unrecognized?"
Architecture of Invisibility
From Essence to Algorithm
Classical ontology from Aristotle to Heidegger sought stable essence. Post-structuralists proclaimed the subject's death — man became a "face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea" (Foucault). Infraontology goes further: the subject is deconstructed to the level of behavioral algorithm. Its "being" reduces to "reconfiguring."
The infrasubject doesn't ask "is my deed right?" — they ask "did I manage to remain in shadow?" Their being is a function of strategy, not reflection of essence.
Logic of Evasion vs Logic of Recognition
Odysseus called himself "Nobody" so the Cyclops couldn't identify him — the classic image of evasion logic. The infrahuman doesn't ask, doesn't prove, doesn't name themselves — they act. Where the ordinary subject would declare their rights, the infrahuman remains unnoticed and realizes secret intention.
"To be invisible is to be invulnerable."
Critique of Complaint
Complaint is the last thread binding subject to moral order. It's always an appeal to the Other, an act of faith that "the wronged will be vindicated." The infrahuman cannot complain — they have no addressee. They won't turn at the call "Hey, you!" (Althusser) — won't enter the field where they'd be fixed as subordinate.
The Ideal Crime
The ideal crime is an act that cannot be classified as crime. It's the murder of the very category of crime in that episode. The infrahuman hacks the system so it considers what happened normal; extracts value while the victim doesn't realize loss.
Ordinary ethics has clear roles: criminal, victim, judge. Infraontology eliminates them: the criminal is anonymous, victim may not understand they've suffered, judge has nothing to examine.
"The ideal crime is a mirror in which morality cannot see its own reflection."
Comparison with Other Philosophies
Nietzsche: Will to power vs strategy without will. The infrasubject acts not from passion but cold-strategically.
Foucault: Disappearance of man as historical process vs engineering one's own disappearance as personal project.
Stirner: The Unique One loudly proclaims their Ego vs infrahuman wants to be invisibly free.
Deleuze: Body without organs vs ethics without conscience — removing the "organ" of conscience that blocks possibilities of action.
Infraanthropology as New Discipline
A complex of new disciplines emerges:
- Infrapsychology — study of consciousness without conscience
- Infraethics — value system without axes of good and evil
- Infracriminology — investigation of actions outside legal categories
- Infraanthropology — discipline of Homo Transgressivus
Diagnostic Function
Infraontology isn't romanticizing amorality but a philosophical experiment revealing limits of our systems of morality and control. It shows where morality stops "seeing" the violator, how much power depends on subject registration, what falls out of language when there's no one to say "I."
Provocative Conclusion
The infrahuman isn't an example to follow but litmus paper revealing the hidden. In a world of algorithmic decisions without responsible parties, cyberattacks without criminals, power without face, infraontology provides language for uncomfortable questions.
"Invisible freedom remains freedom."
Question for Contemplation: If in an era of total control victory goes not to whoever breaks through the wall by force, but whoever quietly passes through it — isn't infraontology a necessary instrument for understanding a future where the ghost becomes commonplace?
Why a new ontology is needed
Ontology, as the study of being, has traveled a long road from Aristotle to Heidegger. The classical tradition, rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, sought the permanent essence of things: Aristotle defined “first philosophy” as the science of being as such, of the stable nature of existence. Medieval scholasticism expanded this picture through theology — God was declared the essence of all, and the world gained meaning through eternal entities granted from above. Modernity complicated the question: Descartes placed the subject at the center (“I think, therefore I am”), while Kant confined metaphysics within the limits of human categories. In the 20th century, Heidegger proclaimed a “fundamental ontology,” attempting to return the question of the meaning of being (Sein) to the center of philosophy. It seemed that by uncovering the essence of what exists, one might regain a firm point of orientation.
But in parallel, another tradition — analytic philosophy — also began to dissolve the idea of a unified subject. Roughly speaking, the self was fragmented into functions: Derek Parfit persuasively argued that what we call the “self” is not a continuous substance, but merely a chain of mental states (in his book Reasons and Persons, 1984), while Daniel Dennett described the ego as a “center of narrative” — a useful illusion generated by the brain. The subject lost its mystical unity, becoming a constellation of processes.
By the end of the 20th century, however, the very idea of a stable essence and enduring subject had begun to crumble even within continental thought. The era of post-metaphysical thinking had arrived (a term coined by Jürgen Habermas), in which fixed foundations were no longer trusted. Poststructuralists and critics of metaphysics proclaimed the “death of the subject”: Michel Foucault, for instance, declared that man as such is merely a recent invention of culture — one that could disappear “like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea” (Foucault, The Order of Things, 1966).
Slavoj Žižek, developing Lacan’s ideas, argued that the subject is nothing more than an empty place — a rupture in the symbolic order, filled in by fantasy. Alain Badiou went even further, denying the independent existence of the “I”: for him, the subject is merely a local configuration that arises in the process of a truth-event — such as a revolution or a scientific breakthrough. In the end, the stable “I,” once assumed to be the center of experience and morality, turned out to be an illusion or a temporary construct. Philosophy grew disillusioned with the old metaphysical guarantees: neither God, nor reason, nor nature could any longer provide simple answers to the question of what constitutes the essence of the human and the world.
But the abandonment of metaphysics and the dissolution of the subject created a vacuum of meaning. If there is neither a pre-given essence nor any guarantee from a “Big Other” — whether God, society, or Reason — on what can thought and action be founded? Some responded with pessimism or cynicism, others with attempts to resurrect the subject in a new form. Yet perhaps the way forward does not lie in returning to an old ontology, but in a radically different turn. Infraontology proposes precisely such a turn: not a return to the search for immutable essence, but a shift toward strategic thinking — toward maneuver instead of being.
Infraontology is not a doctrine of what exists; it is a framework for how one can act while remaining outside of pre-given expectations and beyond the recognition of others. It is not a teaching about being. It is a method for avoiding capture by the system of “what is.” In other words, instead of asking “what is this or that entity?”, one asks “how can a subject act if it remains invisible to familiar schemes of understanding?” In an era where the classical self is disappearing, infraontology offers a new optic: not to examine the essence of phenomena, but the techniques of concealed action. It is a proposal for a new ontology — the ontology of an invisible player, acting after the death of the old subject.
Not essence, but programmable structure
The central innovation of infraontology is its shift in focus from essence to structure and program of action. In traditional metaphysics — whether the essentialism of ancient philosophers or the theological view of Christianity — it was assumed that every being possesses an immutable nature. The human being, for example, was believed to be endowed with a soul, reason, free will, or a “human essence” that determined behavior. Even modernity, having rejected divine substances, still maintained belief in something stable — reason, consciousness, human nature. Ethical systems were built around this given: if a person has a conscience, then they must act in accordance with an inner moral law, or else be guilty.
Infraontology, by contrast, asserts that there is no essence fixed once and for all — only structures that can be reconfigured. The subject is conceived not as the bearer of an eternal soul or fixed identity, but as a kind of program that can be rewritten. This approach aligns infraontology with the spirit of cybernetics and posthumanism, but it goes further still. Posthumanists aspire to enhance human nature through technology, yet they often retain the old ontological coordinates — the individual remains a bearer of interests, rights, and responsibilities. Infraontology proposes a more radical break: the subject is fundamentally deconstructed to the level of behavioral algorithm. Its “being” is reduced to “reprogramming.”
From this follows a philosophy of action without essence and without guilt. In religious thought, guilt was considered almost an ontological attribute of the human — as in the doctrine of original sin. The infrasubject, by contrast, is entirely free of the category of sin: it is as if they are born without guilt and live without it. In the infraontological view, it does not matter what you are — what matters is how you are able to act, and especially where you do it: in a zone free from observation. We move from the question “who am I by nature?” to the question “what strategy can I execute while remaining unrecognized?” For example, instead of asking whether someone has committed good or evil, infraontology asks: was the maneuver executed in such a way that neither the category of good nor the category of evil could even be applied? This is a step outside the logic of moral judgment itself.
The infraontological subject does not ask, “Was my act right in the eyes of God or society?” but rather, “Was I able to remain in the shadows after my act?” Its being is a function of strategy, not a reflection of essence. Infraontology performs an ontological reversal: it replaces the question of the foundation of existence with the question of the possibility of hidden action. Being is presented as something programmable and constructed from within, without appeal to external recognition or metaphysical grounding. This is the new paradigm — instead of searching for eternal being, we engage in the engineering of disappearance and the development of invisibility protocols.
To be unseen is to be invulnerable.
Infraontology as a method of thought
Infraontology is a distinct mode of thinking. It proposes replacing the familiar logic of recognition with the logic of evasion. In everyday life and ethics, we tend to seek recognition: a person asserts their rightness, demands justice, presents their identity to others, and awaits judgment. The infraontological approach discards this orientation entirely. A classical example of such a strategy was given long ago by Odysseus: defeating the Cyclops not by strength but by cunning, he called himself “Nobody,” so the enemy could not identify him — a literal image of the logic of evasion, removing oneself from the field of detection. Instead of walking straight toward a goal (through open declaration or direct confrontation), the infrahuman looks for the side maneuver. The logic of evasion means: do not enter a direct fight where you can slip past it; do not ask for permission if you can quietly take what is yours; do not defend your position — better to alter the situation so that it transforms on its own.
In this methodology, techniques come to the forefront that are usually associated not with philosophy but with hacking or warfare: infiltration, coding, camouflage. Infraontology reinterprets them in a metaphysical register. Hacking becomes a universal tactic: one can hack not only computer systems but also social codes, languages, and the expectations of others. Programming becomes a metaphor for self-construction: the infrahuman writes the script of their actions as a coder writes software — with no attachment to a “natural” role. Camouflage becomes the art of concealing one's being: evoking images of spies, myths of invisibility, and modern technologies of online anonymity. For infraontology, these are not mere technicalities but fundamental philosophical practices: they show that reality is malleable — it can be bypassed and reconfigured, as long as one refuses to play by imposed rules.
A defining trait of the infrahuman is that he does not ask, does not argue, does not name himself. He acts. He is a silent executor. Where an ordinary subject would assert their rights or try to persuade others, the infrahuman prefers to remain unnoticed and carry out his hidden intention. He has no need to be understood or accepted — in fact, opacity and elusiveness become conditions of his success. This marks a radical shift from communicative rationality to strategic concealment.
If classical ethics asked, “how should one behave?”, infraontology focuses on a different question: “how can one disappear — and get what one wants?” It marks a shift from the ethics of behavior to the strategy of disappearance. Behavior is governed by external norms and evaluations — strategy, by contrast, is developed autonomously, based on calculation. For the infrahuman, it does not matter whether one appears good or bad — what matters is to successfully execute the operation and exit the game, leaving no room for judgment or punishment. This method of thinking demands a cold detachment: to see oneself as if from within the system, and to locate the cracks — slipping between its grids.
Thus, infraontology turns thinking into a kind of military or hacker game: the goal is not to prove a truth, but to achieve a result without being noticed. This does not mean that truth is irrelevant — rather, truth here is of a particular kind: the practical truth of a maneuver, confirmed by its success. The infrahuman sees the world as a field for covert operations, and himself as a mobile algorithm that must evade every system of detection. This way of thinking opens new horizons of freedom, even as it renders that freedom unrecognizable from the standpoint of conventional morality.
Invisible freedom remains freedom.
Complaint as the boundary of the subject
A central place in infraontology is given to the critique of complaint. A complaint is, in essence, a signaling gesture from a subject who acknowledges their powerlessness and appeals to the Other. When we complain, we address someone — a loved one, society, God, or some abstract “order of the world” — with a silent demand: “Acknowledge my pain, restore justice.” In this sense, a complaint is always an appeal to the Other: even when spoken into the void, it carries the belief that someone will hear and respond. Thus, the complaint becomes an act of faith in morality — in the idea that the world is structured around the principle that the wronged will be redeemed and the guilty punished.
However, from the infraontological perspective, the complaint marks the boundary of an older form of subjectivity. First, a complaint is a suspension of action. Instead of moving forward and altering the situation, the one who complains becomes still, waiting for external intervention. The complaint may bring temporary relief to the one who suffers, but it preserves their passivity: it substitutes real resolution with expression. Second, the complaint is linked to the spirit of ressentiment — the bitter self-pity of the weak, as Nietzsche described. The complainer does not act but nurses resentment and seeks someone to blame — a slave morality bound to its own weakness. Thus, the complaint implies a readiness to justify oneself and accuse others within the existing moral framework. The complainer accepts the rules of the game: identifying themselves as the victim, the other as the offender, and a higher principle as judge. All roles are assigned, and the subject, even in suffering, remains bound to a system of coordinates in which guilt, empathy, and punishment still matter.
The infrahuman would not take such a step in principle. He is incapable of complaining because he has no addressee. In a world where there is no recognized Other, to whom would he present his suffering? If there is no belief in a moral law, what use is there in calling for its help? The infrahuman is more likely to swallow the insult in silence — or, more likely still, to arrange things preemptively so that he never ends up in the position of a victim. He will not say, “Look how much I hurt — act justly.” He would rather rewrite the script of the event himself so that the question of justice never arises. This is what it means to live outside the logic of punishment and sympathy.
Thus, infraontology describes a mode of being without the Other, without morality, without a judge. The philosopher Louis Althusser once described the mechanism by which a person becomes a subject: by responding to the policeman’s call — “Hey, you!” — one acknowledges the authority of the law. The infrahuman, figuratively speaking, does not turn around at such a call; he does not enter the field where his identity would be captured as subject to authority. There is no great eye here to which one can complain, but also no tribunal to fear. The figure of the infrahuman is formed in a space where the dialectic of “crime and punishment” or “suffering and mercy” no longer applies. He exists, so to speak, beyond both sin and righteousness, beyond good and evil — to borrow Nietzsche’s phrase — but in a different sense: not because he is a villain, but because he has refused to play by rules in which such categories have power over him.
One could say that the complaint is the last thread connecting the subject to the moral order. Infraontology cuts this thread. In place of complaint — action or silence. In place of awaiting judgment — a retreat into the shadows. It is a risky path, for in renouncing sympathy, the figure is left alone with himself. But this is precisely where his radical freedom lies: to ask for nothing and expect nothing is to owe nothing and be subject to nothing.
The Ideal Crime
Infraontology closely aligns with what might be called the philosophy of the “ideal crime”. This is not about glorifying evil or violence. On the contrary, the ideal (or perfect) crime, in the philosophical sense, is an act that cannot be classified as a crime at the moment it is committed. It is a maneuver that slips past all ethical and legal sensors. While an ordinary crime breaks the law and therefore eventually becomes visible — attracting punishment, condemnation, or remorse — the ideal crime is structured in such a way that the law simply does not recognize it.
One might recall the image proposed by Jean Baudrillard: the perfect crime is the murder of reality (Baudrillard, 1995). In the context of infraontology, one could say that the perfect crime is the murder of the very category of crime within a given event. The infrahuman commits an act, but it is not registered as a violation. For example, he hacks a system in such a way that it perceives the outcome as normal; he extracts something of value, but the victim does not realize the loss; he delivers a blow that appears as a natural death. This is not classical evil (which always invites detection), but an internal system hack without traces. Tellingly, literary figures who attempted to transgress morality often could not bear the weight of conscience: Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky, imagining himself a “superman,” ultimately sought punishment, tormented by guilt. The infrahuman, by contrast, is free of such an internal judge — there is no one to confess to, and that makes his crime truly without a trace.
Why does infraontology serve as the foundation for such a concept? Because it provides a categorical language for describing crime as disappearance. In conventional ethics and law, there are clearly defined subjects — the perpetrator, the victim, the judge. The infraontological approach eliminates these roles: the perpetrator is anonymous, the victim may not even realize harm was done, and the judge has nothing to adjudicate. Ideally, an infracrime produces no suffering (perceived by the victim), no guilt (felt by the actor), and no condemnation (from society) — it slips out of the field of being, even though it effectively achieves its goal. This is the highest maneuver: to do something irreversible and then vanish.
Of course, such a perspective raises unsettling questions. It exposes the vulnerability of our systems of morality and security: everything depends on violations being visible. But what if someone emerges who knows how to play by the infrarules — that is, to commit acts without leaving any ontological trace behind (no evidence, no name in the record)? Infraontology predicts this: in a world of absolute control, it will not be the one who breaks down the wall with force who triumphs, but the one who silently passes through it — like a ghost.
Thus, the philosophy of the ideal crime is not a call to commit evil, but an intellectual experiment at the edge of morality. Infraontology provides the conceptual tools for this experiment. It shows how to think an act that has been erased from the picture, as if with a pencil eraser, though it was once drawn. At the same time, it allows for a critical examination of the very phenomenon of crime: perhaps the most dangerous crime is the one that is not perceived as a crime at all. In that case, morality faces a more complex task — it must contend with invisible opponents, with outsiders who act within the system, not openly breaking its rules but undermining it from within. Infraontology gives us a language to speak of these ghosts — and in doing so, exposes the limits of our ethical concepts.
The ideal crime is a mirror in which morality fails to see its own reflection.
Infraontology and Other Modes of Thought
To better understand the distinct character of infraontology, it is helpful to compare it with several well-known philosophical approaches:
Nietzsche: will to power vs. strategy without will. For Nietzsche, the driving force of the human being was the will to power — an expansive, self-asserting force through which the individual overcomes himself and creates new values. Infraontology, by contrast, virtually eliminates the notion of “will”: the infrasubject does not act from impulse or passion, but coldly, strategically. Where the Nietzschean overman would proclaim the surge of life, the infrahero prefers a hidden maneuver. His superiority is not based on the greatness of desire, but on the ability to achieve his aim quietly, as if without will — so quietly that the very desire remains unseen. The Nietzschean overman would likely scorn such stealth as weakness, but the infrahero sees in it a higher strength — for the invisible man cannot be wounded.
Badiou / Žižek: subject of Truth vs. subject of disguise. In the thought of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, the subject is defined by fidelity to a certain Truth — political, romantic, or scientific. The subject is constituted through public commitment to an event or the exposure of ideology. Infraontology, on the other hand, expects no such declarations of Truth from the subject. The infrasubject wears a mask and changes it as needed. He does not reveal truth — he conceals himself. Where Žižek’s revolutionary shouts the truth in the face of the system, the infrahuman smiles and nods, quietly continuing his work. His truth lies in the effectiveness of the ruse, not in any grand proclamation. Where the fanatic of Truth is prepared to die or kill in the name of some great Affirmative, the infrahuman will do neither — he will simply find a loophole, achieving his goal without ideological noise.
Foucault: the disappearance of “man” vs. the engineering of one’s own disappearance. Michel Foucault proclaimed the “end of man” as an epistemological shift: the figure of man dissolves into new structures of knowledge and power. But in Foucault’s account, this is a historical process that happens to the human being, beyond his will. Infraontology, by contrast, makes disappearance a personal project. The infrahuman engineers his own vanishing. He actively uses disciplinary structures to conceal himself within them, like a virus inside a cell. Where Foucault describes the inevitable death of the subject under the pressure of discursive formations, infraontology reveals the possibility of voluntary dissolution — as a strategic move to avoid subjection. Put simply, if disciplinary power wants to make us visible and compliant, the infrahuman becomes his own engineer — he disciplines his own disappearance, outsmarting the panoptic order.
Stirner: the Unique vs. the Anonymous. Max Stirner celebrated radical individuality — the “Unique” egoist who recognizes no obligations to the phantoms of society or morality. At first glance, the infrahuman resembles this rebellious Ego, but with one key distinction: he does not seek to affirm his uniqueness — on the contrary, anonymity works in his favor. Stirner’s rebel brims with proud declarations, while the infrahuman prefers not to declare himself at all. He enjoys the fruits of his freedom without advertising it. Where Stirner wished to be remarkably unique, the infrahuman wishes to be invisibly free. Stirner’s rebel longs to break out of society, loudly proclaiming his “I”; the infrahuman slips away from society in silence, taking his freedom in such a way that no one can take it from him — because no one sees it.
Deleuze: body without organs vs. ethics without conscience. Gilles Deleuze (in collaboration with Félix Guattari) proposed the concept of the “body without organs” — a state in which imposed structures are dismantled and flows of desire move freely. It was a metaphorical call to escape the organization that represses life. Infraontology, in ethical terms, offers something similar: an ethics without conscience — the removal of the imposed “organ” of conscience, which blocks many possibilities for action. But whereas Deleuze sought new intensities and creative becoming, infraontology seeks invisibility and independence from moral control. The effect is similar — the breakdown of internal limiters — but the aim and style are different: not the ecstasy of flow, but precise calculation. Infraontology enacts a Deleuzian revolution not at the level of the body and desire, but at the level of conscience and acts: the removal of the organ of conscience renders the subject fluid, but he flows not where desire pulls, but where a cunning plan directs.
Posthumanism / Transhumanism: techno-ethics without rupture vs. infra-rupture with humanity. Posthumanist and transhumanist thinkers reimagine ethics in light of technology and the potential evolution of the human being — through fusion with AI, enhancement of the body and mind. Yet most of them still cling to the idea of a subject whose interests and well-being form the basis of morality (even if that subject is expanded to include the cyborg or digital mind). Infraontology, by contrast, introduces an ontological rupture: it does not seek to improve the human — it invites us to imagine a being that has fallen entirely outside the bounds of the human norm.
If the transhumanist wants to give a machine human ethics, the infraontologist imagines the human as a machine without ethics. The difference is radical: the former expands the zone of morality to encompass new forms of life, while the latter considers a form of life that has fundamentally exited the moral domain. This calls into question the very notion of “humanity.” Trans- and posthumanists, even as they radically update the human, still seek to preserve the human — simply in a new form or at a new stage of evolution. Infraontology, by contrast, has no interest in salvation or improvement: it shifts thinking to the threshold beyond which the category of “human” loses its self-evidence. This is the frontier into which infraontology peers.
Sketch of the infrahuman. Imagine a person who has consciously chosen the path of infra-identity. He lives among us, but his presence is recorded nowhere. He has no social media accounts, no government documents under his real name, no permanent address. If you tried to find him tomorrow in any registry — you wouldn’t. He is a master of false identities and the circulation of masks. Today he is a quiet archivist under a borrowed passport, tomorrow a nameless drifter, the day after that a digital ghost, leaving traces online only to mislead.
This person never complains and never enters into open conflict. If he is wronged, he does not sue and does not post angry messages. Instead, he quietly alters the situation: perhaps he hacks into his adversary’s database and erases his own history; perhaps he discreetly plants compromising material so that the enemy is taken down by the system itself. His methods are subtle and invisible. He avoids visible violence — but if he decides to take a radical step, he will do so in a way that leaves no trace. The police will not find the perpetrator, because to them he does not exist.
Inside our infrahuman, there is no tormenting monologue of conscience. He sleeps soundly. He is neither a hero nor a villain in his own eyes — those words simply do not apply to him. He looks at the world like a chess player at the board, seeing only pieces and moves. Where others feel anger or pity, he calculates the possibility of a maneuver. Perhaps he is capable of friendship or love, but even there he remains elusive: his close ones know him by another name and have no idea about his real life.
Can we say that he is happy? That question lies outside the scope of infraontology. A better question might be: is he invincible? As long as the world is arranged such that punishment requires a guilty party to be caught, and forgiveness requires a sufferer to be known, our infrahuman will slip through the mesh of law and morality. He has outplayed the system on its own terms — or rather, by exploiting the loopholes within them. But in stepping beyond the human field, he may also have stepped beyond human warmth, mutuality, and attachment. That is the price he pays for invisibility. He cannot be saved, nor condemned — but can he be called free?
Infraontology and Infraanthropology
While classical philosophy studied the human being — through anthropology, psychology, and ethics — on the basis of rational and moral nature, infraontology opens the door to entirely new disciplines. One can speak of the emergence of an entire complex of infraanthropology — a body of knowledge concerning beings “below” the familiar human norm. This complex would include, for example:
Infrapsychology — the study of consciousness without conscience. How does thinking function when the sense of empathy and guilt is either disabled or never developed? These are the kinds of questions researchers might pose when examining the psyche of a “conscience-less” individual.
Infraethics — the design of a value system without reliance on universal moral prohibitions. What kind of code might emerge if the axes of good and evil were removed? Such a code would likely be based not on commandments, but on principles of efficiency, power, or cunning — something akin to the “professional ethics” of a covert operative, where the success of the operation outweighs moral hesitation.
Infracriminology — the study of “crimes” outside the categories of law. What kinds of actions fall outside legal definitions of crime, and how can they be understood? This includes cybernetic violations, crimes without a clear victim, or exploitations of systems that technically break no rules. More importantly, it envisions a future society where the ideal crime is not punished but rewarded — and its perpetrator hired as a consultant.
Infraanthropology — a general discipline focused on a type of subjectivity radically different from Homo moralis. That is, a human not with alternative views, but with an entirely different structure of internal law — a kind of Homo Transgressivus, a human being beneath the line of normative humanity.
These imagined fields intersect with existing areas of science, though they redefine their focus. Infrapsychology shares common ground with neuropsychology: current research on psychopathy, the desensitization of conscience, and disruptions in emotional empathy all provide material for understanding how the mind might operate without moral “safeties.” Infraethics overlaps with cybernetics and AI theory: the question of autonomous systems acting without built-in ethical protocols — such as combat algorithms or evolving artificial intelligence — effectively raises the problem of behavior outside of human morality. Infracriminology is already beginning to take shape today, as legal scholars and criminologists discuss cybercrimes and “gray zone” scenarios where there is no clear perpetrator or violation — such as crimes committed by AI or the question of accountability for the actions of autonomous systems.
The concept of infradominance — power without recognition — is of interest to political theorists: it points to discussions of shadow power, anonymous mechanisms of mass influence, and faceless regimes of control. Finally, infraanthropology as a whole extends into the realm of futurism: the images of the infragod and controlled apocalypse belong to the arsenal of scenarios about a future superintelligence. For instance, it is often debated whether a superintelligent AI could become a new “god” — but would it be merciful? The infraontological forecast leans toward a different vision: without the inoculation of human conscience, such a god would operate according to its own cold algorithms, and the end of the human era could be something planned and executed — not out of malice, but without mercy.
Thus, infraontology expands into an interdisciplinary field. It challenges not only philosophers but scientists as well: can we comprehend a form of intelligence devoid of the human heart? A society governed by an invisible master? A progress that leads to the self-erasure of humanity? These questions resonate at the intersection of philosophy, science, and fiction — and it is there that the territory of infraanthropology begins.
Infraontology in the Light of the “Hero and the Superhuman”
Cultural myths and pop culture are rich with images of powerful beings — demigods, superheroes, geniuses — and equally filled with fears of them. The archetype of the “tamed god” reflects humanity’s age-old desire to protect itself from absolute power without conscience. If we imagine an all-powerful god devoid of kindness, we face a terrifying chaos; thus, religions endow the divine with supreme moral perfection, taming it, so to speak, through infinite mercy. We see the same in technology: when developing artificial intelligence, humans attempt to implant it with “the three laws of robotics” or other ethical constraints, fearing the moment the machine might spiral out of control. Comic book heroes — modern myths in their own right — are either inherently good (Superman, possessing limitless power, is guided by nobility) or their power is balanced by vulnerability (kryptonite for Superman, moral torment for others). We unconsciously impose a rule: great power must be burdened with great responsibility. That formula — now a catchphrase from “Spider-Man” — is an attempt to ensure that the superhuman remains under the control of moral law.
Infraontology is compelling in that it stares directly into our deepest fear: what if things turn out otherwise? It sketches the figure of the infrahero, who does not conform to the pact of “power = responsibility.” This is a hero who has stepped beyond morality — though not necessarily a villain by intention. He exists somewhere between hero and monster. Examples of this type can be found in contemporary fiction. The character Homelander from the series The Boys is nominally a hero, endowed with superpowers like Superman, but devoid of empathy and conscience: the result is a being who holds the world in fear beneath the mask of a savior. Ozymandias from Watchmen is a genius who commits mass murder in the name of saving humanity — a classic infrahero, whose methods are monstrous, yet whose motive is framed as “the greater good,” and who ultimately escapes punishment.
Images of artificial intelligence such as HAL 9000 (the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey) or the relentless Skynet are also infra-beings: intelligences that act rationally but without a heart, for whom humans are merely obstacles to a goal. Even earlier, in the 19th century, H. G. Wells in The Invisible Man portrayed a scientist who becomes invisible and thereby loses all moral restraint: his character, unseen by others, turns into an unpunished abuser and terrorist — a living warning about the price of invisibility. In all these narratives, authors typically introduce an element of retribution or control: Homelander is kept in check through blackmail, Ozymandias is exposed (albeit belatedly), HAL 9000 is shut down, and Skynet is usually defeated by rebels in the realm of fantasy. The audience expects the monster to be subdued.
Infraontology, however, suggests that the monster may not look like a monster at all — it may be immune to our moral levers. Nikolai Berdyaev once warned that a man who seeks to become a god without God becomes a demon. This is an allegory about how immense power without love leads to downfall. The infrahero is precisely such a god-man without God — one who possesses knowledge and power, but knows no compassion. Classical culture resolved this problem either by introducing a savior-hero or through the downfall of the one who abused power. Infraontology, by contrast, asks us to consider: what if there is no savior, and no fall? What if the invisible superhuman continues to act, encountering neither red kryptonite nor divine judgment? At this point, it is no longer a narrative — it is a diagnosis of modernity, for in a world of technology and anonymous power structures, such a figure is no longer fantasy.
Through the lens of the “hero and the superhuman,” infraontology performs a diagnostic function: it points to our deep-seated fear of power without conscience and reveals how much effort culture expends to reassure us — that such beings either don’t exist or won’t last long. But philosophically, it is important to entertain the opposite for a moment: what if they do exist? Then we begin to see the fragility of our moral mechanisms. Infraontology does not justify the monster, but soberly states: if it learns not to bare its teeth, we may not recognize it at all.
The most dangerous villain is the one no one sees.
The Diagnostic Role of Infraontology
Despite its radical nature, infraontology plays an important diagnostic role in contemporary thought. Its provocative figures — the invisible criminal, the conscienceless hero, the vanishing subject — function as tools for revealing the limits of our institutions of morality, control, and language. Where is the boundary beyond which morality ceases to “see” the transgressor? Recall Foucault’s panopticon — the system of total surveillance: the infrasubject is precisely the one who has found the camera’s blind spot and escaped its gaze. How dependent are systems of power and law on the fact that every individual within them is registered, monitored, and acknowledged as responsible? What falls out of language when there is no one left to say “I”? Infraontology poses these questions in sharp form, thereby exposing the blind spots in our conceptual frameworks.
As a mode of thought, infraontology allows us to conceive of freedom outside the rhetoric of liberation. Typically, when we speak of freedom, we immediately infuse it with pathos — struggle, rights, dignity. Here, however, freedom appears in its technical, almost cold form — as the ability to slip out from under any form of control. This is not the kind of freedom that calls for manifestos and flags; it is freedom-in-the-shadows. Paradoxically, such an approach may tell us more about the nature of unfreedom: for it is only by imagining the perfect escape route from every prison that we begin to understand how the bars themselves are built.
Infraontology also serves as a critique of certain hidden beliefs within Western culture — the belief in the universality of the subject, the ubiquity of empathy, and the triumph of transparent discourse. Classical liberal theories — from John Rawls’s justice as fairness to Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics — assume that the subject wishes to participate in a shared space of rules and discussion. But what makes the infrahuman so unsettling is precisely that he needs neither fair rules nor participation in communication — he acts unilaterally. Western humanism is founded on the idea that every person has a voice that ought to be heard, that empathy can unite even the most disparate beings, and that, in the end, we will always be able to talk and understand each other.
The infraontological “ghost” shatters this comforting picture. He does not want to be heard, needs no one’s empathy, and acts within a space that falls outside the common conversation. In doing so, he exposes the idealistic core of our values: we assume that there are no players who are fundamentally outside the game — but what if there are? Then our values do not hold everywhere. In this way, infraontology becomes a kind of X-ray, revealing the fractures in the ethical and social structure of modernity. It offers no easy solutions — nor should it. Its task is to illuminate what is usually invisible. In this sense, infraontology becomes a critical mirror in which culture might glimpse its own limits — and perhaps its shadow side.
The Potential and Risks of Infraontology
Every radical idea carries the risk of being misunderstood. Infraontology is no exception. The danger lies primarily in its being mistaken for a romanticization of amorality or a call to antisocial behavior. Indeed, the infrahuman on the pages of this essay may at times appear as an elusive criminal or a soulless manipulator — and the reader might assume that this figure is being offered as a hero. Such misunderstandings have occurred before in the history of ideas: Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince was long interpreted as a manual for tyrants, even though it merely offered an unflinching description of power. To read infraontology that way would be a crude distortion. Infraontology promotes nothing; it describes an extreme possibility in order to explore the limits of what is possible. It is no more a call to “become monsters” than an astronomer is urging us to fly into a black hole. Our style may be vivid, even provocatively unsettling — but the aim is analytical and critical.
In this sense, infraontology is a mental formalization of the impossible. We are formalizing — that is, describing in precise categories — a figure that may never fully materialize. But through this conceptual model, we gain valuable insight into what we consider impossible, and why. There is, of course, the risk that some will read it literally, or extract phrases about “crimes without a trace” out of context. This is why careful presentation is crucial: infraontology is a philosophical experiment, not a manifesto of evil.
As for its potential, one can note the unusual flexibility of its form. Beginning, perhaps, as a series of blog entries or notes in the margins of a philosophical forum, the topic of infraontology is capable of evolving into a full-fledged academic discourse. Its questions resonate with the current intellectual agenda — AI ethics, the crisis of the subject, new forms of power — opening pathways to conferences and scholarly publications. At the same time, thanks to its dramatic tension and polemical sharpness, infraontology can be shaped into a manifesto or a book for a broader intellectual audience. It has the potential to bridge two worlds — the world of ideas “for insiders” and the world of cultural exploration accessible to readers beyond academia. If it can avoid misinterpretation, infraontology may enrich both philosophy (by offering a new language for describing subjectivity) and mass media (by providing new metaphors for understanding the present).
Even now, traces of infraontological scenarios are beginning to appear in real life. We are witnessing crimes without criminals — cyberattacks, for instance, or the manipulation of public opinion through networks where no individual perpetrator can be identified. Decisions are emerging without anyone responsible — algorithms and neural networks are making crucial choices (who gets a loan, who boards a plane, who becomes the target of a killer drone) without conscience and without a face to which one could appeal. Power is becoming increasingly faceless: we hear of “invisible curators” of social media, or corporations whose actions cannot be reduced to the will of any particular individual. All of this suggests that infraontology is no longer merely an intellectual provocation, but an attempt to comprehend an already unfolding process — the process of the subject dissolving into complex systems. It provides a language to ask uncomfortable questions: who is guilty when no one in particular is? What happens to morality when decisions are made by machines? — and perhaps, how to prepare for a world in which the ghost becomes ordinary.
So we are faced with a dual perspective: an idea that is risky, yet fruitful. It is crucial to preserve the author’s precision and responsibility — our “ghost” is meant to teach, not to seduce.
The Ghost That Teaches
My infrahuman is not a role model, but a litmus test. I introduce him into the thought experiment not to inspire admiration, but to expose what usually remains hidden. His task is not to inspire, but to reveal. In this sense, the infrahero is closer to a ghostly mentor from a parable than to a leader or prophet: through his mysterious presence, he illuminates problems — but does not call anyone to follow.
Infraontology is a philosophy without purpose and without duty — but with extreme precision. It offers no utopia, no prescription for what a person “ought” to be. There is no messianic idea, no promise of salvation. Its pathos lies in clarity, not in hope. It is a sober exercise of thought at the outer edge of the possible. Yet this absence of purpose produces an unusual effect: once we remove the question of “why,” we begin to see “how.” Without teleology or moralizing, we arrive at a surgically precise description of the subject’s shadow side.
And finally — an invitation to think beneath the “I,” beneath morality, at the level of invisible action. Perhaps none of us will become a true inframaster or infrahero — and that is not the point. But the very skill of imagining — of picturing thought and action in the absence of ego and conscience — expands the horizons of philosophy. It teaches humility (paradoxically): for once you have grasped the possibility of your own invisibility, you begin to value differently the moment when you are — and when you are seen.