Post-ontology
Post-ontology is a term for theories that transgress classical ontological philosophy.
Søren Brier stated that such theories investigate the functionality and the operative principles of systems by asking "How do systems work?"[1] Niels Lehmann, in contrast, argued that the endeavor to transgress classical ontological philosophy is pursued in the name of difference.[2] He distinguished between positions based on an anarchistic and order-dissolving impulse and positions that, "unlike their anarchistic counterparts, are not opposed to conceptual closure as such, but only to the particular form of order that has governed ontological philosophy until now" (p. 56). In his view, "post-structuralists like Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze belong to the first category of thinkers whereas constructivists like Niklas Luhmann and Richard Rorty should be referred to the latter" (p. 56).
The term was used in Mark Jarzombek's Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age.[3] Jarzombek argued that given the intense interactions, whether known or unknown, between humans and algorithms, it is no longer possible to have any theoretical security about where to start the conversation about Being. He argued that paranoia, once thought of as a disease, is now the new normal that links the human within the systems of data capitalism. He linked post-ontology historically to the emergence in the last decade of the globally-scaled infomatics industrial complex. He argued that humans now live
in a techno-realist/psycho-social/aesthetic-virtual/contractual-anthropological/post-territorial/data-epistemological/pharma-corrected/play-list-enhanced world (p. 47) ... The irony is that whereas the Subject (the 'I') remains relatively stable in its ability to self-affirm (the lingering by-product of the psychologizing of the modern Self), objectivity (as in the social sciences) collapses into the illusions produced by the global cyclone of the infomatic industry. (p. 28)
Jarzombek compared post-ontology with the posthuman. Though linked, post-ontology is less concerned about interspecies realities. Instead, in the post-ontological world, the classic distinction between human and inhuman breaks down, meaning that we have something he calls the "(in)human" – a term that can only be written, as the spoken word places us once again within the structure of dualism. In the digital world, he claimed, we can no longer use language and its dualisms to escape from our darker selves:
The (in)human is both permeable and impermeable, documented and yet never fully documented. It is intended to be enhanced, subverted and replaced. But even if the supremacy of the Self, as felt in the everyday world, is continually being decentered/recentered, the primacy of our subjectivity as a fantasy of our archaic selves remains as if untouched. (p. 41)
References[edit]
- ↑ Lars Qvortrup and Søren Brier, "Foreword: Post-Ontological Theory?" Cybernetics And Human Knowing, (2004) 11/3, pp. 5-8.
- ↑ Niels Lehmann, "On Different Uses of Difference Post-ontological Thought in Derrida, Deleuze, Luhmann, and Rorty," Cybernetics & Human Knowing, (2004) vol. 11/3, pp. 56-80.
- ↑ Mark Jarzombek, Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age (Minnesota University Press, 2016)
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