Originally published nearly forty years ago as a spiritual successor to Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey’s Philosophy and Technology,the essays collected in the two volumes of Theology and Technology span an array of theological attitudes and perspectives providing sufficient material for careful reflection and
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Two journal articles by Bernard Stiegler and Yuk Hui are now available in the latest issue of Derrida Today (Volume 13, Issue 1, May 2020).
Writing and Cosmotechnics – Yuk Hui
Elements for a General Organology – Bernard Stiegler
There is certainly no lack of media technology around us. In fact, within the first 20 years of the 21st century, the media exist in superabundance. For thoroughly media-conditioned individuals, this cannot possibly be the stuff that obsessions are made of any longer but has turned into a given. Media are no longer coveted objects of desire but are now utilized and defended as property. Advanced technology has become an integral part of an everyday coercive context which is termed “practical constraints.” As cultural techniques which need to be learned for social fitness, these constraints are at the greatest possible remove from what whips us into a state of excitement, induces aesthetic exultation, or triggers irritated thoughts.
This current-day situation is an enormous challenge for artists who are working with advanced technologies. The change of paradigm in art praxis and in thinking the arts has enormous aesthetic and ethical consequences for the artists and those who are dealing with the arts – in the public sphere, education, in galleries and museums and the art market. Participants within this vibrant, living system are responsible for each and every element within this reality.
The complex interplay between the ideas for an expanded visual arts and the challenges of an art after the media will be in the center of a book project realized by HKACT!, initiated and organized by the Osage Art Foundation. As a starting point it takes the public forum HKACT! Act 4 “A Forum Act”, held in January 2019, in which it gathered outstanding thinkers and activists working in the field of art, culture and technology relations. The Hong Kong Forum was organized around “HKACT! Act 1 BeHere”, a new public art project by Masaki Fujihata, the Japanese pioneer of Media Art. Implicitly, his extraordinary Oeuvre is present in the reflections of the contributors for this book.
A dozen international authors from different fields of the arts, sciences and humanities will reflect broadly and precisely with distinct forms of entrances for a lexicon on some of the main concepts developed and discussed at the January Forum like Interobjectivity of Images, the Zero Dimensionality of the Technical Image, Networked Interaction and Visuality, Time Based Media/Animation, the Perception Quality of Experience and New Faculties for Art Education.
Contributors:
JAMIE ALLEN (Kopenhagen)
HANS BELTING (Berlin)
SUZANNE BUCHAN (London)
TIMOTHY DRUCKREY (New York)
ANNE-MARIE DUGUET (Paris)
YUK HUI (Hong Kong/Berlin)
HIDETAKA ISHIDA (Tokyo)
HIROAKI KITANO (Tokyo)
SCOTT LASH (London)
CHARLES MEREWETHER (Tiflis)
KENJIRO OKAZAKI (Tokyo)
ANDREY SMIRNOV (Moscow)
BERNARD STIEGLER (Paris)
PETER WEIBEL (Karlsruhe/Vienna)
SIEGFRIED ZIELINSKI (Berlin)
Editors Siegfried Zielinski & Charles Merewether
Contributing Editor Masaki Fujihata
Managing Editor Agnes Lin
Text Editors Charles Merewether & Siegfried Zielinski
Copy Editor Lauren Wolfe
Editorial Assistant Yidi Tsao
Designer Osage Design
Production Print Management Sigma Art Services
Publisher Osage Publications
Supported by
Institute of Creativity, Hong Kong Baptist University
(Sponsored by Hung Hin Shiu Charitable Foundation 孔憲紹慈善基金贊助)
Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
ISBN 978-988-77281-3-9
Price USD50 (shipping excluded)
Enquiries: info@oaf.cc
The rise of classic Euro-American philosophy of technology in the 1950s originally emphasized the importance of technologies as material entities and their mediating influence within human experience. Recent decades, however, have witnessed a subtle shift toward reflection on the activity from which these distinctly modern artifacts emerge and through which they are engaged and managed, that is, on engineering. What is engineering? What is the meaning of engineering? How is engineering related to other aspects of human existence? Such basic questions readily engage all major branches of philosophy — ontology, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics — although not always to the same degree. The historico-philosophical and critical reflections collected here record a series of halting steps to think through engineering and the engineered way of life that we all increasingly live in what has been called the Anthropocene. The aim is not to promote an ideology for engineering but to stimulate deeper reflection among engineers and non-engineers alike about some basic challenges of our engineered and engineering lifeworld.
In this series of lectures, delivered at Nanjing University from 2016 to 2019, Bernard Stiegler rethinks the so-called Anthropocene in relation to philosophy’s failure to reckon with the manifold and indeed “cosmic” consequences of the entropic and thermodynamic revolution. Beginning with the Oxford Dictionaries’ decision to make “post-truth” the 2016 word of the year, and taking this as an opportunity to understand the implications for Heidegger’s “history of being”, “history of truth” and Gestell, the first series of lectures enter into an original consideration of the relationship between Socrates and Plato (and of tragic Greece in general) and its meaning for the history of Western philosophy. The following year’s lecture series traverse a path from Foucault’s biopower to psychopower to neuropower, and then to a critique of neuroeconomics. Revising Husserl’s account of retention to focus on the irreducible connection between human memory and technological memory, the lectures culminate in reflections on the significance of neurotechnology in platform capitalism. The concept of hyper-matter is introduced in the lectures of 2019 as requisite for an epistemology that escapes the trap of opposing the material and the ideal in order to respond to the need for a new critique of the notion of information and technological performativity (of which Moore’s law both is and is not an example) in an age when the biosphere has become a technosphere.
Publication: “How Can Database Animals Be Political Animals?” By Hiroki Azuma
Hiroki Azuma’s lecture at the symposium led by Yuk Hui entitled “Postmoderns and After?” (http://
German translation of The Question Concerning Technology in China will be published next year. More information: https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/die-frage-nach-der-technik-in-china.html
Eine Zusammenführung östlicher und westlicher Denktraditionen mit dem Ziel eines tieferen Verständnisses der Natur der globalisierten Technologie.
Heideggers Kritik der modernen Technologie, die er in seinem berühmten Aufsatz »Die Frage der Technik« formulierte, grundiert alles philosophische Nachdenken über Technik. Auch im östlichen Denken ist die darin festgestellte Beziehung der Technik zur Metaphysik allgemein akzeptiert. Doch ist die darin zugrunde gelegte Annahme, es gäbe nur eine – ursprünglich griechische – Form der Technik, ein Hindernis, wenn es darum geht, ein zeitgemäßes kritisches Denken in Bezug auf Technologie zu entwickeln. Yuk Hui zeigt in diesem wegweisenden Essay die Notwendigkeit einer Suche nach einem ganz spezifisch chinesischem Denken über Technologie, das sowohl in der Lage ist, mit Heidegger in Dialog zu treten, als auch die affirmative Haltung gegenüber Technik und Technologie problematisiert. Unter Bezugnahme auf Denker wie Lyotard, Simondon und Stiegler, aber auch auf östliche Philosophen wie Feng Youlan, Mou Zongsan und Keiji Nishitani gelangt Hui zu einem besseren Verständnis der Eigenheiten chinesischen Denkens in Bezug auf Technologie. Er geht dabei so grundsätzlichen Fragen auf den Grund wie: Warum hat chinesisches Denken Technik so lange ausgeklammert? Warum war Zeit nie ein Thema für chinesische Philosophie? Yuk Hui liefert einen Überblick über Geschichte und aktuelle Debatten chinesischen Denkens und versucht davon ausgehend, Antworten auf die Fragen zu finden, die uns die entfesselte Technologie jeden Tag neu stellt.
Nishida, Kawabata, and the Japanese Response to Modernity explores the Japanese response to Western modernity in philosophy and literature. Throughout the 20th century, Japanese thinkers and writers were engaged in the paradoxical attempt to produce original works rooted in their own culture within forms adapted from the West. In the 1930s the founder of modern Japanese philosophy, Kitaro Nishida, proposed an innovative theory of multi-cultural modernity based largely on the Western philosophical tradition. After World War II, the Nobel prize winning novelist, Yasunari Kawabata, depicted the cultural conflict between West and East within Western literary forms. Were these and other Japanese thinkers discussed in this book successful in modernizing Japanese culture? Did their attempts to do so establish or refute the often claimed universality of Western modernity? These are the questions to which this book is addressed.
This book employs recursivity and contingency as two principle concepts to investigate into the relation between nature and technology, machine and organism, system and freedom. It reconstructs a trajectory of thought from an Organic condition of thinking elaborated by Kant, passing by the philosophy of nature (Schelling and Hegel), to the 20th century Organicism (Bertalanffy, Needham, Whitehead, Wiener among others) and Organology (Bergson, Canguilhem, Simodnon, Stiegler), and questions the new condition of philosophizing in the time of algorithmic contingency, ecological and algorithmic catastrophes, which Heidegger calls the end of philosophy.
The book centres on the following speculative question: if in the philosophical tradition, the concept of contingency is always related to the laws of nature, then in what way can we understand contingency in related to technical systems? The book situates the concept of recursivity as a break from the Cartesian mechanism and the drive of system construction; it elaborates on the necessity of contingency in such epistemological rupture where nature ends and system emerges. In this development, we see how German idealism is precursor to cybernetics, and the Anthropocene and Noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin) point toward the realization of a gigantic cybernetic system, which lead us back to the question of freedom. It questions the concept of absolute contingency (Meillassoux) and proposes a cosmotechnical pluralism. Engaging with modern and contemporary European philosophy as well as Chinese thought through the mediation of Needham, this book refers to cybernetics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and inhumanism.
“I hardly know how best to recommend this third major achievement in as many years by one of the most insightful younger philosophers. It reanimates an abandoned arc of reflection that includes cybernetics, organicism, and organology from both European and Chinese traditions to address aspirations for a pluralism of homes within the becoming of an artificial Earth.”
Carl Mitcham,
Colorado School of Mines
Readers can order the book from the publisher（http://suo.nz/4ySotN ）, and obtain a 30 percent discount by entering the code “RECC30,” the book in all formats is also available on Amazon: http://suo.nz/4FIe5g
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Preface, by Howard Caygill
Introduction: A Psychedelic Becoming §1. Adventure of Reason §2. Invisible Nature, Visible Mind §3. Contingency and Finality §4. Beyond Mechanism and Vitalism §5. The Great Completion §6. The Conflict of Organs §7. After Ecology, before Solar Catastrophe §8. The Future Cosmologists
Chapter 1. Nature and Recursivity
§9. Kant and the Model of System §10. The Organic Condition of Philosophy §11. Recursivity in Fichte’s Ich §12. Circularity in Soul and Nature §13. Recursivity in Naturphilosophie §14. Organicist and Ecological Paradigm §15. General Organism, Gaia, or Artificial Earth
Chapter 2. Logic and Contingency
§16. Recursivity in the Phenomenology of Spirit §17. Organicist and Reflective Logic §18. “Feebleness of the Notion in Nature” §19. Death of Nature as Affirmation of Logic §20. General Recursivity and Turing Machine §21. Wiener’s Leibnizianism §22. Cybernetics of Cybernetics §23. Information of Dialectics §24. Incomputability and Algorithmic Contingency
Chapter 3. Organized Inorganic
§25. From Organicism to Organology §26. Form and Fire, or Life §27. Descartes and the Mechanical Organs §28. Kant as Philosopher of Technology §29. Organology in Creative Evolution §30. Norms and Accidents §31. The Uncanny Fire
Chapter 4. Organizing Inorganic
§32. Universal Cybernetics, General Allagmatic §33. Recursivity in Psychic and Collective Individuation §34. An Organology of Contingency §35. Nature or Art §36. Tertiary Protention and Preemption §37. Inorganic Organicity or Ecology §38. The Principle of Ground
Chapter 5. The Inhuman That Remains
§39. Postmodernity and Recursivity §40. Technosphere or Christogenesis §41. Inhuman contra System §42. Contingency after System, or Technodiversity §43. Sensibility and Passibility §44. Organicism, Organology, and Cosmotechnics
Yuk Hui
On the Existence of Digital Objects
University of Minnesota Press, 2016
许煜着，李婉楠译
《论数码物的存在》
上海人民出版社，2018
目 录
前言/贝尔纳·斯蒂格勒
导言 数码物研究提纲
第一部分 物体
第二部分 关系
第三部分 逻辑
鸣谢
注释
参考文献
索引
貝爾納‧斯蒂格勒的前言（節錄）﹕
许煜这本书是一部具有多重意义的杰作。首先，这得益于作者所提问题的视野，以及他在思考过程中所呈现之非比寻常的严谨态度和十分宝贵的开明精神。此处的“理智开明”（ouverture d’esprit）应理解为字面意思：许煜借由尺度关系（relations of scale）和数量级（orders of magnitude）的概念有条不紊地实践着这种开明态度，此乃心智生命所在。他集结了分析哲学与欧陆哲学、认知主义与现象学、计算理论与人文和社会科学，表明其关系与非关系在很大程度上是未概念化的尺度问题导致的结果。他的思维方式兼收并蓄：他将哲学与定理置于同一尺度之下，依据数量级一以贯之。这使得各式各样严谨又具独创性的思想都能融会贯通。
面对这一理性地整合当代知识体系的庞杂课题，人们或许会不由得察觉到一丝不合时宜的对体系性的期望。此乃谬误。体系对于许煜而言或许确实是一个问题，但是他以相互关系建构的数量级思想远不止于此，在此体系问题反而变成了环境问题。自动化与自动主义科学和技术——在从路德维希·冯·贝塔朗非（Ludwig von Bertalanffy）到大数据的发展过程中，历经控制论、信息理论和开放系统理论，重新激发并且转变了热力学与生物学的问题——确实就广义而言回溯并延续了系统问题。考虑到这些系统所建立的全球化资本主义生产器械影响之广，这些系统确实扩展了马克思在其《大纲》之“机器论片段”中所揭示的问题。因此，我们也应在政治经济学的视野之内阅读本书。
而借“数码物”一概念，许煜表明，在对工业创新下的产品持续重构的动力系统中，新的尺度相关性形成并形变，并且由此产生源自系统的稀有动态过剩。在此语境中，该系统则不仅应被理解为一个系统，更应是一个前个体环境（preindividual milieu）。从前个体中形成吉尔伯特·西蒙东（Gilbert Simondon）所称的缔合环境（associated milieu）（不止一重意味的术语）。是以许煜贯通西蒙东。不仅如此，他更进一步重温海德格尔（Heidegger）并使二者相互争辩——我们不可忘记海德格尔本人阅读了雅各布·冯·魏克斯库尔（Jakob von Uexküll），对前者而言环境问题演变为世域（Umwelt）问题，构建其在《存在与时间》中存在主义分析的世界概念。
以数码物概念为基础理解当代自动化系统则意味着贯串前个体环境、个体化、世界、在世存有（being-in-the-world）、上手性（Zuhandenheit）及其缔合环境，将该系统重新定义。这或许还会为理解海德格尔用以研究控制论时代的概念——座架（Gestell）与本有（Ereignis）提供新的参考。如此说来，海德格尔在其讲授谢林（Schelling）的课程中对系统的分析或许值得重新诠释。1二十世纪则本该成为系统理论的世纪，该系统迥异于凝聚在康德（Kant）影响下的“唯心主义系统”之现代哲学衍生。若如海德格尔所主张，谢林的系统概念与精神自由（以及作为开明的精神）问题不可分割，然则反之，在控制论时代由座架以全新方式产生的系统问题应被西蒙东的关系实在论和以尺度关系及数量级呈现的个体化进程分析重新定义：此推测乃《论数码物的存在》可能带来的启迪。
书评﹕
在这个正在崛起的领域中，它具有成为未来真正经典的所有品质。 这是一项真正杰出的成就，是值得广大读者阅读的不可或缺的著作。It has all the qualities of becoming a genuine classic in the future, in a domain that it is partially in the process of excavating itself. A truly outstanding achievement that deserves a wide audience and is indispensable and essential reading.
—《技术哲学年鍳》（Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie）
许煜的著作不只与二十世纪的技术哲学（Simondon，Heidegger，Husserl，Stiegler，Ellul）进行概念性的交流，而且通过数码技术的问题来进一步推动这些理论。Hui’s project is remarkable for a conceptual engagement with twentieth-century philosophies of technology (Simondon, Heidegger, Husserl, Stiegler, Ellul) that pushes these theories further by confronting them with questions of the digital.
—《基进哲学》( Radical Philosophy)
這是對技術哲學領域的重大貢獻，它進入了20世紀的兩座哲學高塔，海德格爾和西蒙東，來思考人類與技術的關係。This is a major contribution to the subfield of the philosophy of technology, and as such, takes on two of the towering figures in the 20th century thinking on humans’ relationship with technics: Heidegger and Simondon.
—《Parrhesia﹕批判哲学期刊》 (Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy)
《论数码体的存在》是一本要求很高的著作，但它也是一个非常有回报的读物……凭藉这本书，许煜已经确立了作为年轻一代杰出数码研究学者的地位，毫无疑问在未来他将继续发挥在本书建立的概念基础。On the Existence of Digital Objects is a demanding read, but it is also an extremely rewarding one…With this book Hui has established himself as a formidable young digital scholar and he will undoubtedly continue to draw from this substantial conceptual foundation for many years to come.
—《计算机文化﹕软件研究期刊》 (Computational Culture: a Journal of Software Studies)
许煜的著作令人信服地证明了形而上学的及时性以及数码时代对新本体论的迫切需求，同时也提出了大胆的提议。Hui hat ein Buch vorgelegt, das die Aktualität von Metaphysik und den dringenden Bedarf an neuen Ontologien in digitalen Zeiten überzeugend darstellt und überzeugende, teils kühne Vorschläge liefert.
—《德国媒介科学期刊》 (Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft)
…读者将会因对哲学史和复杂的html标记的坚持不懈，而得到回报。…Reader is rewarded for their perseverance through the history of philosophy, the intricacies of html mark-up.
—《理论、文化与社会》 (Theory, Culture and Society)
许煜在这部著作中发展了对数码物的哲学研究，这远远超越了数码人文的定义。Hui develops in this essay an absorbing philosophical investigation of these objects which goes well beyond the ample definition of digital humanities.
许煜娴熟地融合了他的技术和哲学知识，以解决一个基本问题：技术和人文学科的关系是什么？Hui adeptly blends his technical training and philosophical knowledge to address a fundamental question: what is the relationship between technological and humanistic concerns?
