By Pablo Esteban Rodríguez
The Nation, Saturday October 13, 2007.
Interviewed at the Second International Congress of Philosophy (San Juan, 2007), the English philosopher Felix Duke, author of several remarkable works of art and humanism, talks about the effects that cybernetics can cause in the contemporary value system. To enter the interview, it is necessary to consider a central debate in the anthropology today. Peter Sloterdijk
philosopher is perhaps the most disturbing and fascinating in Europe. It was a few months in 2000 when he delivered a lecture entitled "Rules for a human park" in Elmau Castle, Germany, during a conference on Heidegger and Emanuel Levinas. His words generated a buzz that still continues. In fact, Sloterdijk had only to come back to the "Letter on Humanism" Heidegger from the dialogue "The Statesman" Plato to demonstrate that the era of humanism is ending and that, among other things, genetic engineering into the future unfolds a kind of "domestication and breeding of humans different from modernity. Sloterdijk is one that celebrates technological advancements, it is assumed in the wake of Heidegger and especially Nietzsche, German thinkers who still bear the burden of their alleged closeness to the Nazis, and who is not afraid to say "domestication and breeding" in this context, even though Plato's words are taken up by Nietzsche himself. Are sufficient reasons, then, to be accused of intellectual filonazi by German officers, led by Jürgen Habermas.
Duke spent a long letter to the so-called "affair Sloterdijk" and is an authority to comment on the lawsuit.
" Sloterdijk says Duke antropotécnico is some optimism that leads him to say that autooperable man is genetically and that there is nothing wrong with that. In itself is a salvageable position as far in advance does not condemn eugenics and that also recognizes the innovation introduced by cybernetics. But we must clarify that the man is also the man autooperable autodesechable, it is evident that not all men have access to this stage of autooperación eugenics. Second, we must discuss how this race is desirable autocorroboración technological potential, how to keep thinking it or not human dignity. Finally, the new regime of domestication and breeding, to what extent do not play all the problems of domination of the old man? And I'm not just talking about the domination of some men over others, but the relationship with the body, with the domination of oneself. "
Taming the subject. Winter crude was presented in San Juan, a city that knows, and much, natural punishments, and hosted the Second Extraordinary World Congress of Philosophy . The former provincial hotel, decorated in the style of the 70, with spacious rooms and a magnificent pool that spreads reflections in the tiles, allowing open space chat with Felix Duque, professor of philosophy at the Autonomous University Madrid. The theme of around the concerns of this remarkable specialist in German philosophy is the art. In "Philosophy of the art of nature" (1986), “El mundo por de dentro. Ontotecnología de la vida cotidiana” (1995) y “En torno al humanismo. Heidegger, Gadamer y Sloterdijk” (2002), entre muchas otras obras, Duque ha dejado constancia de que el pensamiento acerca de la técnica se enlaza perfectamente con los grandes temas filosóficos tradicionales, pues los avances tecnológicos de los últimos cincuenta años han puesto en jaque la imagen del hombre y de la naturaleza.
"El problema -explica Duque- es que la figura moderna del hombre fue forjada en contraposición con la imagen de la naturaleza. La modernidad ha concebido que el hombre and nature have built a relationship of struggle that manifests itself in many ways: from the idea of \u200b\u200btorturing nature to extract its secrets (Bacon), to dominate the natural fact, or what animal in man himself, from the current ecological problems. Man and nature in the modern conception appear as two separate things bluntly. And in the course of the twentieth century, we realized that one and another share a relational logic. Think this relationship, and not to man or nature alone. "
Martin Heidegger, one of the main philosophers of the twentieth century had dealt extensively with this problem in many works, notably in his famous lecture "The question of art" (1953). Duke talks with him backed up by another English at that time discussed with Heidegger and became a model of the philosophy of technology: José Ortega y Gasset. The point to be clarified is the following: Because the art such as transformation of man and nature, seems to escape the dominion of man himself, how to think about their existence? What is art, something in principle only human, yet transcends the limits of one man? This is a way of seeing the problem. The other, represented by the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon says conclusively that Western culture has opposed human existence and technology to the point of not recognizing the human in the artificial, where the artificial is truly human.
"Indeed, Simondon's position is important to define the technical problem, but we must be careful. The ambivalence of technology is something establishing the twentieth century experience because everything we think of as progress in one area can be converted back into another, or something that undermines moral and ethical without presenting us with new ones. The current technique is immensely operational, hence man's efforts to vindicate their own humanidad frente a la máquina no hagan sino mostrar una vez más que él es, a la vez, productor y producto de ella. Pero no es menos cierto que el hombre se comprende a sí mismo mejor en sus frustraciones, en sus deseos prohibidos, que en sus sueños "mecanofílicos" de dominio del mundo. Es importante señalar esto porque estamos asistiendo a una eclosión planetaria de la técnica. Cualquier avance en cualquier lugar repercute inmediatamente en todo el mundo; por lo tanto, lo que parece no ser humano es el hecho de que los hombres que crean algo técnicamente pierden el control de lo creado o desconocen las consecuencias, porque son tantas que ninguna experiencia particular puede captarlas en su totalidad. Pienso en las redes digitales, in biotechnology, but there are thousands of examples. And here there is an opposition between culture and technology that is not a mere prejudice of the twentieth century.
-technique seems to meddle in politics.
"Yes. This boom in global art provokes in the field of politics the need to adapt to demands of others. Then, if the policy is now a passive adaptation to the facilities offered by the technique, no longer has a teleological sense. It seeks to adapt the body politic to the requirements of the economic body, which in turn derives from the technical diagram. The technique has become technology that is, a logos, a discourse that justifies the rule so ideological same art as self-referential material advancement and legitimization of that progress.
Duke seems to reach the tone of reporting has been consistent in thinking about art during the twentieth century. However, in his work notes that this complaint is in danger of not seeing the technological advance that an amendment would be understood by man. It presents a glaring example: cybernetics. The draft cyber machines is transferred to some features which are considered fully human and less animal: consciousness, feeling, perception, and all this together into a single entity. The computer, without going any further, is the material manifestation of the idea of \u200b\u200ban artificial brain endowed with mechanisms for entry and exit data. This marks the very human need to cross the boundaries that he himself has made, at least in the Western definition. Therefore, many contemporary authors underline the link between cybernetics and the so-called "post-human" as the fundamental data of the technical problem of today.
"You can say that cybernetics has initiated an unprecedented type of relationship between the human, natural and artificial. But I insist they simply cybernetics confronts us with evidence of something we should have known all along: the opposition between man and nature is meaningless.
- Is this what you might call the post-human?
-classical humanism has always been a companion fallacious philosophy. No great humanist philosophy has been, if by humanistic conception in which man is the subject and the controller of the universe. Heraclitus used to say: "I do not listen to me, listen to the logos." What Plato said, when the dialogue Sophist wrote that we should not believe what they say, that the Man is the measure of all things. She said Sophocles in Antigone, when he says that man has to be the mediator between the jury order the black cops and closure of the land, which mediates between the extremes. From Pico della Mirandola, who wanted to turn the man in the center of the universe, began a gigantic ideological, the more it strives to convey the values \u200b\u200bof individuality, dignity and freedom, undermines the more these values \u200b\u200bin history. A genuine doctrine of absolute values \u200b\u200bis not in self-determination or autonomy, but as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty calls the flesh, a continuity of meat through pain experience does just impossible language. This is the animal in us, which prevents the domain of the machine. The point is that, precisely because of this experimentation with the human and the machine that is given with cybernetics, we have access to these animals without having to master to define ourselves as men. In other words, what is now called "post-human"-and I would add the term "anti-humanism" - is the finding that the dogmatic humanism can not be sustained. We can put the code we want: anti, post, etc..
"There is also the prefix" super. " Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of the superman, Michel Foucault was based on him to apply in the 60 to the humanism and Gilles Deleuze said years ago that the findings cyber scene again put in issue.
"Superman is the opposite of individual, who is one who is incapable of a donation or delivery with no hope of getting something in return. Nietzsche speaks of the meaning of the earth. What is the meaning of the earth? Is given to feel that we can destroy, but nonetheless we can not do otherwise, as in the myth of Sisyphus. Nietzsche Solitaire Solitaire is the antipode of the crowd, that petty encapsulated in its individuality does not know that he is just the technical product. Very clear there is a scene from the movie Toy Story, when a doll has a conscience is faced with other like him and realizes that everyone believes to be unique. The superman is one who can overcome death and incorporate. In this sense, Nietzsche is close to Hegel, even if they want, where Hegel said that the spirit is able to endure the death and internalize it, to save and live from that death. Here, one might contrast the humanism of modern man because the animal Nietzschean superman, death, pain is what drives the man beyond himself.
Invite you to share your views on the topics covered in this interview
Taming the subject. Winter crude was presented in San Juan, a city that knows, and much, natural punishments, and hosted the Second Extraordinary World Congress of Philosophy . The former provincial hotel, decorated in the style of the 70, with spacious rooms and a magnificent pool that spreads reflections in the tiles, allowing open space chat with Felix Duque, professor of philosophy at the Autonomous University Madrid. The theme of around the concerns of this remarkable specialist in German philosophy is the art. In "Philosophy of the art of nature" (1986), “El mundo por de dentro. Ontotecnología de la vida cotidiana” (1995) y “En torno al humanismo. Heidegger, Gadamer y Sloterdijk” (2002), entre muchas otras obras, Duque ha dejado constancia de que el pensamiento acerca de la técnica se enlaza perfectamente con los grandes temas filosóficos tradicionales, pues los avances tecnológicos de los últimos cincuenta años han puesto en jaque la imagen del hombre y de la naturaleza.
"El problema -explica Duque- es que la figura moderna del hombre fue forjada en contraposición con la imagen de la naturaleza. La modernidad ha concebido que el hombre and nature have built a relationship of struggle that manifests itself in many ways: from the idea of \u200b\u200btorturing nature to extract its secrets (Bacon), to dominate the natural fact, or what animal in man himself, from the current ecological problems. Man and nature in the modern conception appear as two separate things bluntly. And in the course of the twentieth century, we realized that one and another share a relational logic. Think this relationship, and not to man or nature alone. "
Martin Heidegger, one of the main philosophers of the twentieth century had dealt extensively with this problem in many works, notably in his famous lecture "The question of art" (1953). Duke talks with him backed up by another English at that time discussed with Heidegger and became a model of the philosophy of technology: José Ortega y Gasset. The point to be clarified is the following: Because the art such as transformation of man and nature, seems to escape the dominion of man himself, how to think about their existence? What is art, something in principle only human, yet transcends the limits of one man? This is a way of seeing the problem. The other, represented by the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon says conclusively that Western culture has opposed human existence and technology to the point of not recognizing the human in the artificial, where the artificial is truly human.
"Indeed, Simondon's position is important to define the technical problem, but we must be careful. The ambivalence of technology is something establishing the twentieth century experience because everything we think of as progress in one area can be converted back into another, or something that undermines moral and ethical without presenting us with new ones. The current technique is immensely operational, hence man's efforts to vindicate their own humanidad frente a la máquina no hagan sino mostrar una vez más que él es, a la vez, productor y producto de ella. Pero no es menos cierto que el hombre se comprende a sí mismo mejor en sus frustraciones, en sus deseos prohibidos, que en sus sueños "mecanofílicos" de dominio del mundo. Es importante señalar esto porque estamos asistiendo a una eclosión planetaria de la técnica. Cualquier avance en cualquier lugar repercute inmediatamente en todo el mundo; por lo tanto, lo que parece no ser humano es el hecho de que los hombres que crean algo técnicamente pierden el control de lo creado o desconocen las consecuencias, porque son tantas que ninguna experiencia particular puede captarlas en su totalidad. Pienso en las redes digitales, in biotechnology, but there are thousands of examples. And here there is an opposition between culture and technology that is not a mere prejudice of the twentieth century.
-technique seems to meddle in politics.
"Yes. This boom in global art provokes in the field of politics the need to adapt to demands of others. Then, if the policy is now a passive adaptation to the facilities offered by the technique, no longer has a teleological sense. It seeks to adapt the body politic to the requirements of the economic body, which in turn derives from the technical diagram. The technique has become technology that is, a logos, a discourse that justifies the rule so ideological same art as self-referential material advancement and legitimization of that progress.
Duke seems to reach the tone of reporting has been consistent in thinking about art during the twentieth century. However, in his work notes that this complaint is in danger of not seeing the technological advance that an amendment would be understood by man. It presents a glaring example: cybernetics. The draft cyber machines is transferred to some features which are considered fully human and less animal: consciousness, feeling, perception, and all this together into a single entity. The computer, without going any further, is the material manifestation of the idea of \u200b\u200ban artificial brain endowed with mechanisms for entry and exit data. This marks the very human need to cross the boundaries that he himself has made, at least in the Western definition. Therefore, many contemporary authors underline the link between cybernetics and the so-called "post-human" as the fundamental data of the technical problem of today.
"You can say that cybernetics has initiated an unprecedented type of relationship between the human, natural and artificial. But I insist they simply cybernetics confronts us with evidence of something we should have known all along: the opposition between man and nature is meaningless.
- Is this what you might call the post-human?
-classical humanism has always been a companion fallacious philosophy. No great humanist philosophy has been, if by humanistic conception in which man is the subject and the controller of the universe. Heraclitus used to say: "I do not listen to me, listen to the logos." What Plato said, when the dialogue Sophist wrote that we should not believe what they say, that the Man is the measure of all things. She said Sophocles in Antigone, when he says that man has to be the mediator between the jury order the black cops and closure of the land, which mediates between the extremes. From Pico della Mirandola, who wanted to turn the man in the center of the universe, began a gigantic ideological, the more it strives to convey the values \u200b\u200bof individuality, dignity and freedom, undermines the more these values \u200b\u200bin history. A genuine doctrine of absolute values \u200b\u200bis not in self-determination or autonomy, but as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty calls the flesh, a continuity of meat through pain experience does just impossible language. This is the animal in us, which prevents the domain of the machine. The point is that, precisely because of this experimentation with the human and the machine that is given with cybernetics, we have access to these animals without having to master to define ourselves as men. In other words, what is now called "post-human"-and I would add the term "anti-humanism" - is the finding that the dogmatic humanism can not be sustained. We can put the code we want: anti, post, etc..
"There is also the prefix" super. " Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of the superman, Michel Foucault was based on him to apply in the 60 to the humanism and Gilles Deleuze said years ago that the findings cyber scene again put in issue.
"Superman is the opposite of individual, who is one who is incapable of a donation or delivery with no hope of getting something in return. Nietzsche speaks of the meaning of the earth. What is the meaning of the earth? Is given to feel that we can destroy, but nonetheless we can not do otherwise, as in the myth of Sisyphus. Nietzsche Solitaire Solitaire is the antipode of the crowd, that petty encapsulated in its individuality does not know that he is just the technical product. Very clear there is a scene from the movie Toy Story, when a doll has a conscience is faced with other like him and realizes that everyone believes to be unique. The superman is one who can overcome death and incorporate. In this sense, Nietzsche is close to Hegel, even if they want, where Hegel said that the spirit is able to endure the death and internalize it, to save and live from that death. Here, one might contrast the humanism of modern man because the animal Nietzschean superman, death, pain is what drives the man beyond himself.
Invite you to share your views on the topics covered in this interview
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