ON COSMOTECHNICS – for a renewed relation between technology and nature in the anthropocene

This talk aims to bring forward a critical reflection on a renewed relation between nature and technology in the anthropocene, by contextualizing the question around the recent debates on the “ontological turn” in Anthropology, which attempts to go beyond the nature and culture dualism analysed as the crisis of modernity. The “politics of ontologies” associated with this movement in anthropology aims to open up the question of participation of non-humans. The talk contrasts this anthropological attempt with the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon who wants to overcome the antagonism between culture and technics. This antagonism, according to Simondon, is resulted from the technological rupture of modernity towards the end of the 18th century. It analyses the differences of the oppositions set up in their work: culture vs nature, culture vs technics, to show that a dialogue between anthropology of nature (illustrated through the work of Descola) and philosophy of technology (illustrated through the work of Simondon) will be fruitful to conceptualize a renewed relation between nature and technology. One way to create such a conversation as well as to think about the reconciliation between nature and technology, as this talk tries to show, is to develop the concept of cosmotechnics as the denominator of these two trends of thinking.

more information: https://eu.spb.ru/forthcoming-events/18079-on-cosmotechnics-for-a-renewed-relation-between-technology-and-nature-in-the-anthropocene