The meaning of Technosphere, Technogenesis and Technicity - explained and summarized

What is the technosphere?

Think of the technosphere as Earth’s newest “sphere,” alongside the lithosphere and biosphere. It’s the vast, coupled system made of all our machines, infrastructures, energy networks, software, and the humans who keep them running. Geoscientist Peter Haff coined the term to stress that this is not just a heap of gadgets but a quasi-autonomous system with its own dynamics—fuel flows, information loops, supply chains—that can constrain what individuals and even states can do. 

In this lens, your phone isn’t just “your” device. It’s a node in larger grids—cloud services, rare-earth mining, logistics, platforms—whose momentum often outruns personal intentions. That’s why policy debates about AI, energy, or content moderation can feel like steering a tanker with a canoe paddle: local choices meet system-level inertia. 

What is technogenesis?

Technogenesis names the co-evolution of humans and technics: tools shape our bodies, attention, and culture as we in turn design tools that reflect our habits and ideals. N. Katherine Hayles popularized this framing in the digital humanities, arguing that contemporary media literally reconfigure our cognitive styles (e.g., hyperattention vs. deep attention) even as we reconfigure media. 

This is not a brand-new story—fire, writing, and the clock already rewired human life—but digital networks accelerate feedback. The everyday example is search: we externalize memory to the web, which then optimizes results for engagement, which in turn rewards certain forms of writing and thinking. Our “minds” increasingly include servers, recommender systems, and interfaces. 

What is technicity?

Technicity is the quality or mode of operation that makes something technical—its propensity to form systems, to be redesigned, and to transform its milieu. French thinkers help here. For Gilbert Simondon, technicity appears most clearly in technical elements (gears, circuits, code primitives) whose functions can transfer and recombine across devices; technology “individualizes” through ongoing integration with an associated milieu (energy, users, norms). 

Bernard Stiegler pushes further: human becoming must be thought through technicity. Tools are not mere add-ons; they’re constitutive supplements that exteriorize memory (from knotted strings to cloud drives). This exteriorization is a pharmakon—both remedy and poison—expanding capability while risking dependency and loss of individuation. 

How the three ideas interlock

• Scale: Technogenesis describes micro-level co-evolution (bodies, habits, cognition). Technicity names the operational logic that enables such evolution. The technosphere is the macro-level system where these logics aggregate and acquire momentum.

• Agency: Individuals innovate, but large-scale technological systems develop path dependencies that can limit what any actor can choose—think fossil-fuel infrastructures or platform economies. Recognizing technosphere dynamics reframes governance as system design rather than mere personal virtue. 

• Ethics and politics: If technicity is constitutive of the human, ethics cannot be tech-optional. Education, regulation, and design are sites of care for how externalized memory and algorithmic attention are shaping selves and publics. 

Why this matters now

1. Policy realism: Climate tech, AI safety, and data governance must target system couplings (energy, computation, incentives), not only user behavior. 

2. Design for cognition: Interfaces should respect human attentional limits and support plural styles of thinking, rather than exploiting hyperattention alone. 

3. Cultural literacy: Understanding technogenesis helps educators and parents move beyond nostalgia or panic toward practices that scaffold memory, attention, and judgment in networked life. 

4. Institutional foresight: Organizations live inside the technosphere; resilience demands mapping dependencies (cloud providers, supply chains, standards) and planning for their shifts. 

Know more: 

Yanis Varoufakis’ Technofeudalism - Summary and Explanation

Algorithmic Culture and Surveillance Capitalism: what we’re really selling when we scroll

Power/Knowledge in the Age of AI: The Algorithmic Structuring of Discourse

From Culture Industry to Culture Data: The Economics of Aesthetic Control

Your Phone Is an Organ Now: Technogenesis and the Myth of the 'Offline Self'

Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Fredric Jameson’s Thought

1. Materialism

Jameson’s work begins from Marx’s materialist premise — that social and cultural phenomena must be understood in relation to material, historical conditions rather than abstract ideas. Culture is never autonomous; it is a product and reflection of the social relations of production.

2. Ideology

A key Marxist inheritance for Jameson. Ideology is not simply false consciousness but the total structure through which people live their relation to reality. All cultural texts are ideological because they symbolically negotiate contradictions within a given historical moment.

3. The Dialectic

Jameson’s method is dialectical — interpreting contradictions not as failures but as revealing historical processes. Influenced by Hegel, Lukács, and Adorno, Jameson treats dialectical thought as a means to grasp totality without simplification, always holding contradictions in play.

4. Totality

For Jameson, totality means the attempt to understand any cultural text within the full structure of social and historical relations — the “whole system.” While Althusser warned that such totalization leads to totalitarianism, Jameson insists that without the category of totality, critique becomes fragmented and politically impotent.

5. Reification

Adopted from Lukács, reification refers to the process by which social relations appear as things, obscuring their historical and human origins. For Jameson, reification characterizes modernity itself: the aesthetic and ideological freezing of living processes into static forms.

6. Commodification

The twin concept to reification. Commodification describes how every aspect of life, including art and identity, becomes subsumed under capitalist exchange. In Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Jameson argues that this process reaches its zenith in postmodern culture, where style, affect, and value are flattened into the commodity form.

7. The Political Unconscious

Perhaps Jameson’s most famous concept. Every cultural artifact, like a dream, encodes repressed historical conflicts. Interpretation thus resembles psychoanalysis: the critic’s task is to reconstruct the buried history — the “political unconscious” — that a text both reveals and conceals.

8. History as the Real

Jameson often describes History (with a capital H) as analogous to the Lacanian Real — the ultimate horizon of meaning that resists full representation. Literature and theory can only approach history indirectly, through its symbolic and ideological traces.

9. Narrative

For Jameson, narrative is the central form through which societies symbolically organize experience. In The Political Unconscious, he calls narrative “the socially symbolic act” — a structure that mediates between individual experience and historical process.

10. Mediation

Mediation is the dialectical link between the cultural and the economic. Art and ideology are not mere reflections of material conditions; they are complex mediations that translate systemic contradictions into symbolic form.

11. Late Capitalism

A term Jameson borrows from Ernest Mandel. It refers to the global, post-industrial phase of capitalism characterized by multinational corporations, mass culture, and digital production. Jameson identifies postmodernism as its cultural logic — the aesthetic expression of late capitalist society.

12. Postmodernism

Jameson defines postmodernism as the “cultural logic of late capitalism” — a historical condition marked by the collapse of historical depth, the replacement of affect by pastiche, and the dominance of image over substance. It is not an artistic movement but a global mode of production in culture.

13. Pastiche vs. Parody

A key distinction in Jameson’s analysis of postmodern art. Parody mocks the original through irony, implying a moral stance; pastiche, by contrast, imitates without critique — a “blank parody” emblematic of a culture that has lost historical consciousness.

14. Utopia

Utopia, for Jameson, is not a blueprint for a perfect society but a structural function in thought — a “desire called Utopia” that points toward what cannot yet be imagined within existing social limits. It is a necessary horizon for political and aesthetic practice.

15. Cognitive Mapping

A later concept introduced in The Geopolitical Aesthetic. Cognitive mapping refers to the need for cultural forms that help individuals orient themselves within the totality of global capitalism — a project of restoring a sense of collective spatial and social location amid fragmentation and alienation

Back to: Introduction to Fredric Jameson's Philosophy

Gadamer's Fusion of Horizons Explained

Hans-Georg Gadamer, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, devoted his life to exploring how human beings understand one another, their traditions, and the world. Among his many contributions, none is more central than the idea of the fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung), a concept that reshaped the very meaning of interpretation.

Horizons of Understanding

To grasp this idea, start with the image of a “horizon.” For Gadamer, a horizon is not just the line where the earth seems to meet the sky; it is a metaphor for the range of vision that defines our understanding. Each of us lives within a horizon shaped by our history, culture, language, and prejudices (in Gadamer’s sense of “pre-judgments” or inherited assumptions). When we read a historical text, listen to another person, or encounter a foreign tradition, we do so from within our own horizon, which is never neutral or universal.

But the other—the text, person, or tradition—also has a horizon. The horizon of ancient Greece, for example, is not the same as that of 21st-century readers; the worldview of a medieval theologian differs dramatically from that of a modern scientist. If horizons are different, how can understanding occur at all?

Fusion, Not Collapse

Gadamer’s answer is that understanding is achieved through a fusion of horizons. This does not mean that one horizon collapses into another, or that differences are erased. Rather, it is a dialogical process in which my horizon and the horizon of the other come into contact, overlap, and expand. When I interpret a text or converse with another person, I bring my questions and assumptions to the encounter. The text or person responds, challenges, and reshapes them. In this exchange, my horizon shifts, and so does the horizon of the meaning I encounter.

For example, when a modern reader studies Plato, they inevitably bring contemporary concerns—questions of democracy, justice, education. Plato’s texts, written in a distant historical horizon, answer back in ways that can unsettle or enrich the reader’s assumptions. The result is not simply the past horizon, nor purely the present one, but something new: a fusion that enlarges both.

The Significance of the Concept

The fusion of horizons has radical implications. First, it undermines the dream of a “view from nowhere”—the belief that interpretation could ever be purely objective. Understanding is always situated, conditioned by time and place. Second, it gives tradition a positive role: we are not trapped by our prejudices, but enabled by them to enter into dialogue with what is other. Third, it makes understanding an open-ended process. Each generation reads Shakespeare differently, not because we misread him, but because new horizons of meaning emerge with time.

Finally, Gadamer’s concept highlights the ethical dimension of interpretation. To engage in a fusion of horizons requires openness, humility, and a willingness to be transformed. It is not about mastering the other, but letting one’s own horizon be challenged and expanded.

A Philosophy of Dialogue

In a world marked by cultural plurality and conflict, Gadamer’s vision of the fusion of horizons offers a hopeful model. Understanding across differences—whether between cultures, political communities, or individuals—is never about imposing one’s own horizon but about creating space for a shared horizon to emerge. This is the essence of hermeneutics: truth as something that happens in dialogue.

More on Gadamer:

Introduction to Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophy

Gadamer in Context: Philosophy After Heidegger

Gadamer and Truth Beyond Method

Understanding Gadamer’s Understanding

Gadamer's Horizons of Understanding

Gadamer Between Relativism and Realism

Gadamer on Dialogue, Language, and Understanding

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics, Ethics, and Politics

Gadamer and the Hermeneutics of Faith: Interpretation as Discovery and Revelation

Gadamer Today: Hermeneutics in the 21st Century

Gadamer's Terms and Concepts Explained

Meaning of Complicit Masculinity Explained

"Complicit Masculinity", a term coined by gender sociologist R.W. Connell (in "Masculinities", designates a nuanced landscape of male behaviors and their impact on gender dynamics. It pertains to men who may not actively dominate or demean women, yet indirectly support a gender system that favors men over women. The are, in a sense, wing-men for hegemonic masculinity By not challenging gender inequality, they sustain a system that provides them with advantages, making them complicit in the process.

Consider a man who doesn't dominate women or exhibit macho behavior, but also doesn't intervene or silently agrees when witnessing sexism or gender inequality. His silence and inaction indirectly contribute to the perpetuation of the male dominance system. This is an example of complicit masculinity in action.

The defining characteristic of complicit masculinity is its subtlety. It's not about blatant dominance or aggression. Instead, it's about silently accepting the privileges that come with being part of the dominant group. It involves enjoying the benefits of being a man in a patriarchal society without directly participating in the subordination of women.

In our everyday life, instances of complicit masculinity are not rare. It's the men who remain silent when casual sexism occurs, those who gain from the gender pay gap without questioning it, or those who relish their male privileges without acknowledging the struggles faced by women and other marginalized genders.

Recognizing and understanding complicit masculinity is a significant stride towards achieving gender equality. As long as it persists, the system that favors men is continually reinforced, and gender inequality remains intact. It's crucial for men to not only avoid being complicit but also to actively work towards challenging and dismantling these unfair norms and systems.

The Meaning of "Mimicry" in Postcolonialism

What is Mimicry?

In the context of postcolonialism, mimicry refers to the way colonized people adopt the customs, techniques, and language of the colonizer. It is not a simple imitation but a complex strategy of representation that can be both subversive and reinforcing of colonial power structures. Mimicry can be seen as both a symptom of colonial influence and a tactic of resistance.

Key Thinkers dealing with Mimicry

• Homi K. Bhabha: Arguably the most influential figure in the discussion of mimicry in postcolonial theory, Bhabha introduced the idea in his seminal works. He posited that mimicry can be a double-edged sword. While it can be a sign of colonial domination, it can also be a means of undermining the authority of the colonizer. For Bhabha, mimicry is "at once resemblance and menace."
• Frantz Fanon: A psychiatrist and philosopher, Fanon explored the psychological effects of colonization. In his works, especially "Black Skin, White Masks," he discussed how colonized individuals might internalize the values of the colonizer, leading to a kind of mimicry that can be both empowering and self-deprecating.

3. Implications of Mimicry

• Cultural Hybridity: One of the outcomes of mimicry is the emergence of hybrid cultures. As colonized societies adopt elements from the colonizers, they create new cultural forms that are neither entirely indigenous nor entirely foreign. This hybridity can be a source of creativity and resilience but can also lead to identity crises.
• Power Dynamics: Mimicry can subtly reinforce colonial power dynamics. When colonized people adopt the ways of the colonizer, it can sometimes be seen as validating the superiority of the colonizer's culture and values.
• Resistance and Subversion: On the flip side, mimicry can also be a tool of resistance. By adopting the colonizer's methods and turning them against the colonizer, colonized people can subvert the power structures. This is evident in many postcolonial literatures where the language of the colonizer is used to critique colonialism.
• Identity and Self-perception: Mimicry can lead to complex questions about identity. The colonized individual, in mimicking the colonizer, might face an internal conflict between their indigenous identity and the imposed colonial identity. This can lead to feelings of alienation, inferiority, or overcompensation.

See also: Examples of Colonial Mimicry

Cognitive Capitalism Explained

In the annals of economic history, societies have moved from agricultural economies, where land is the primary resource, to industrial economies, where physical labor and machines take center stage, and finally to digital economies, where information is king. However, in the 21st century, a new concept has emerged - "cognitive capitalism" - where the most valuable resource is what happens inside our heads.

So what exactly is cognitive capitalism?

Cognitive capitalism is an economic production model where knowledge, information, and skills (or "cognitions") are the scientific drivers of economic growth. While traditional capitalism emphasizes tangible assets like land, factories, and raw materials, cognitive capitalism emphasizes intangible assets like information, intellectual property, and human capital.

Several factors have contributed to the rise of cognitive capitalism:

1. Technological progress: The digital revolution that began with the rise of the Internet, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies has transformed the production, storage, and transmission of information.
2. Globalization: As economies become more connected, there is a greater emphasis on knowledge transfer, innovation, and skills development.
3. Shift in work dynamics: There has been a major shift from manual labor to knowledge-based work, with professions in IT, finance, design, and other fields becoming more common.

The characteristics of cognitive capitalism include:

1. Value of intangible assets: Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have large valuations not because of their physical assets, but because of their intellectual property, user data, and network effects.
2. Continuous learning: In a knowledge-driven economy, learning and adapting become crucial. Emphasis is placed on lifelong learning and continuous skill development.
3. Network effects: The value of products or services increases as more people use them. For example, a social media platform becomes more valuable as more users join.
4. Collaborative work: The rise of platforms like GitHub and Wikipedia exemplifies collaborative knowledge creation and sharing.

The consequences of cognitive capitalism include:

1. Economic disparities: While cognitive capitalism can lead to innovation and rapid growth, it can also exacerbate economic inequalities. Those with advanced skills and access to knowledge networks thrive, while others risk being left behind.
2. Changing the nature of work: Traditional "nine to five" work is giving way to more flexible, project-based, and remote work. The gig economy, characterized by short-term contracts and self-employment, is also a product of this change.
3. Education and training: There is an increasing emphasis on skills over degrees, with on-the-job training programs imparting specialized skills that are immediately applicable to work.
4. Intellectual property issues: As intellectual property becomes a valuable commodity, issues related to copyrights and trademarks become more controversial.

In conclusion, cognitive capitalism is transforming our understanding of economic value and work. As knowledge and information become central to our economy, we must adapt our institutions, policies, and mindsets accordingly.

What is Intersectionality and How it Screws You Over

What happens to someone who belongs to a discriminated gender, an oppressed minority, a low socioeconomic class, and a persecuted race? The answer is that all these factors combine to make their life particularly difficult. This concept is known as "intersectionality". The term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s to challenge simplistic views of identity and oppression. Intersectionality highlights how different aspects of a person's identity intersect and interact, creating unique experiences that are often overlooked.

So, what is intersectionality? It challenges the traditional model of seeing identity and oppression as separate and distinct. People embody multiple identities that intersect and interact, shaping their experiences in profound ways. For example, a black woman's experiences may differ significantly from those of a white woman due to the additional layer of racial discrimination she faces.

The wage gap between the sexes is a good example of intersectionality. While the gap is often presented as a gap between men and women, a cross-view reveals a more complex reality. Taking into account social background and ethnicity, we find that the pay gap for minority women is multiplied by the gap between them and men, as well as the gap between them and other cultural groups.

Intersectionality becomes especially important when examining the lived experiences of marginalized people. For instance, a disabled, transgender immigrant who belongs to a lower socioeconomic class has experiences shaped not only by their disability but also by their gender identity, immigrant status, and economic circumstances. The approach's crucial insight is that social change must recognize and address the intersections and intersections of oppression. By understanding the complex ways in which different forms of harm, oppression, and exclusion intersect, better strategies can be devised to deal with them.

see also: Three Theoretical Takes on Intersectionality

Politeness Theory Explained

Politeness theory, developed by sociolinguists Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, explains how people use language to maintain social balance and harmony and to avoid conflict. The theory is widely used in pragmatics and discourse analysis to study how politeness is expressed in language, and how it is interpreted by speakers and listeners.

According to Politeness Theory, politeness is a complex social phenomenon that involves balancing competing needs and interests, such as the need to be polite and the need to be honest. Politeness is also context dependent, as what is considered polite in one culture or situation may not be in others.

There are two main types of politeness strategies: positive politeness and negative politeness. Positive politeness involves emphasizing similarities and showing appreciation, while negative politeness involves avoiding subordination to others and showing respect. Both strategies are used to minimize "face" threatening acts, or acts that threaten the self-esteem and social identity of others.

Examples of positive and negative politeness strategies:

positive politeness:

- "You look great today!"

- "I really appreciate your help with this project."

- "We share the same interests, don't we?"

Negative politeness:

- "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

- "I know you're busy, but can you spare a few minutes?"

- "Sorry to interrupt, but can I talk to you?"

Politeness theory also distinguishes between direct and indirect speech acts. Direct speech acts are simple and clear, while indirect speech acts are more ambiguous and rely on context and shared knowledge. Indirect speech acts are often used to be more polite, as they allow speakers to make requests or convey meaning without being too direct or blunt.

Here is an example of an indirect speech act:

- "Do you have the time?" (request for an hour)

In this example, the speaker is not directly asking the time, but is using the question as a way of indirectly conveying his request.

In summary, politeness theory is a useful framework for understanding how people use language to maintain social harmony and avoid conflict. By analyzing politeness strategies and speech acts, researchers can gain insights into how people interact with each other in different social and cultural contexts.

See also:

Felicity, Sincerity, and Proprietary Conditions in Linguistics

Meaning of Communicative Competence Explained

Meaning of The Sincerity Condition Explained

The Sincerity Condition is a fundamental aspect of communication in linguistics. The sincerity condition's definition requires speakers to express themselves in a truthful, honest, and accurate way. In other words, speakers must say what they mean and mean what they say.

For instance, if a speaker says, "I am happy," the sincerity condition requires that the speaker is truly happy. Failure to meet the conditions of honesty can lead to miscommunication, misunderstandings, and can even damage relationships. It can also lead to a lack of trust in the speaker, which can further complicate communication.

Sincerity conditions play a crucial role in communication. These conditions require speakers to be sincere, truthful, and accurate when expressing themselves. Violation of this condition can lead to a lack of communication, misunderstandings, and distrust of the speaker.

Examples of Sincerity Condition

1. A student who did not complete an assignment tells his teacher that he left it at home. If the student lies, they do not meet the conditions of honesty.
2. A politician who promises to reduce unemployment but has no intention of doing so does not meet the conditions of sincerity.
3. A person who says he is sorry for hurting someone but does not really mean that he does not meet the conditions of honesty.

In summary, the sincerity condition is a critical aspect of communication in linguistics. It requires speakers to be honest, sincere, and accurate when they express themselves. Violation of this condition can lead to a lack of communication, misunderstandings, and distrust of the speaker. By understanding the importance of the sincerity condition, we can improve our communication skills and build stronger relationships with others.

See also: 

Felicity Conditions in linguisitics

Proprietary Conditions

Meaning of Heidegger's "Mitsein" (being-with) Explained

Definition: Heidegger's concept of Mitsein, usualy translated as "being-with," refers to the fundamental fact of human existence that we are always already "with" others. The concept was first introduced in Heidegger's Being and Time and forms a central past in his phenomenology. What it means is that our experience of the world, of ourselves and of existence is always already shaped by our relations with other people and by the social and cultural contexts in which we find ourselves.

For Heidegger, Mitsein is not just a matter of being physically present with other people, but of being fundamentally intertwined with them in a way that is essential to our very being. We are always already "with" others in the sense that our thoughts, feelings, and actions are always already influenced by and directed towards them. Existence, in other words, is shared. 

Examples of Mitsein / Being-with

One example of Mitsein can be seen in the way that we use language. When we speak, we do not simply express our own individual thoughts and ideas, but we also participate in a shared language and a shared way of understanding the world. In this way, language itself can be seen as a kind of "being-with," as it allows us to communicate and interact with others in a meaningful way (this point if further developed by Levinas).

Another example of Mitsein can be seen in the way that we engage in social practices and institutions. When we participate in activities like going to school, going to work, or engaging in leisure activities, we do not do so in isolation, but rather as part of a larger social group. These activities are not simply things that we do by ourselves, but are always already shaped by our relationships with others and by the shared norms and values of our society.

In summary, Heidegger's concept of Mitsein highlights the fact that human existence is fundamentally social and relational. Being is being with others, and we are always already "with" others in a way that is essential to our being and our experience of the world.

Heidegger's concept of mitsein is closley realted to his concept of Dasein and other themes like "care", "temporality" and "being-in-the-world.

See also: Heidegger and Levinas on being with others

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

Simple Explanation of Heidegger's Concept of Dasein

Definition: Heidegger's concept of Dasein, which is often translated as "being-there", refers to the unique way that human beings exist in the world. Heidegger's philosophy argues that human existence is fundamentally different from the existence of other things, such as objects or animals. Unlike previous philosophical conceptions of the self, which often treated the self as a fixed and unchanging entity, Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes the dynamic and constantly changing nature of human existence. He argued that human beings are always in the process of becoming, and that they are constantly shaping and reshaping their identities through their interactions with the world around them.

Dasein and time

One of the key ideas in Heidegger's philosophy is that human beings have a unique relationship with time. He argued that we are always "thrown" into the world at a particular moment in time, and that our existence is defined by our relationship to the past, present, and future. This means that our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world is constantly evolving, and that we are never fixed or static.

Application and influence

Overall, Heidegger's concept of Dasein offers a new and unique perspective on the nature of human existence. It emphasizes the dynamic and constantly changing nature of the self, and it highlights the importance of our relationships with the world around us in shaping our identities. The concept helped to direct philosophical attention not just to things that exist in the world but to what it means to exist. 

While Heidegger's concept of Dasein has had a central place in his own philosophy, it has also been further developed and expanded upon by other philosophers. For example, Jean-Paul Sartre built upon Heidegger's ideas in his own philosophy of existentialism. Sartre's concept of "existence precedes essence" is closely related to Heidegger's idea of Dasein, and both philosophers emphasize the importance of human freedom and choice in shaping our lives. Other philosophers who have expanded upon Heidegger's concept of Dasein include Martin Buber, who explored the role of relationships in shaping human existence, and Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively about the nature of political action and the way it shapes our experience of the world. Emmanuel Levinas was a critic of Heidegger but nevertheless took some of his methods and assumption to the sphere of ethics. 

Heidegger's concept of Dasein is related to his concept of Mitsein.

Read more in our Introduction to Martin Heidegger's Philosophy and the article about Understanding Dasein: Heidegger’s Notion of Human Existence

See also: Heidegger's "Dasein" compared with Husserl's "transcendental I".

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*This text was created with the aid of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model and modified by the author.

What is Absurdism in philosophy - short definition and explanation

Absurdism is a philosophical position that argues that life is essentially meaningless, that it is impossible to rationally explain why life exists, and that any attempt to unravel the essence of the universe is doomed to failure. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it liberates the human capacity to courageously live against its absurd existence. The concept of absurd is related to existential nihilism. 

According to absurdists, human suffering is the result of vain attempts by individuals to find reason or meaning in the absurd stream of existence. Absurdism as a theme of thought first appears in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, and its main proponent is Albert Camus.

 

Meaning of Absurdism for Kierkegaard

For Søren Kierkegaard the absurd (which appears for example in his Fear and Trembling) is the fact that we can never really know what we are to chose in life. The term for him is closely associated with Paradox. Kierkegaard writes in his Journals: 

"What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite easily be seen, that I, a rational being, must act in a case where my reason, my powers of reflection, tell me: you can just as well do the one thing as the other, that is to say where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act and yet here is where I have to act. 

 For an extended explanation see Kierkegaard's concept of absurd. 

 

Absurdism in Camus' Sisyphus 

For Albert Camus absurdism was exemplified by The Myth of Sisyphus who continues to push his rock up the hill even though it is bound to fall back again. The absurd of his action is what gives their lack of meaning over to human freedom. Camus does not want to argue that life is pointless. What he wishes is to be at peace with the idea that life has no real meaning and to live through it, pushing the rock up the hill. 

 

Meaning of Constitution in Phenomenology

In philosophical phenomenology, the verb "to constitute" or the word "constitution" is central in describing how things receive their meaning. Constitution in phenomenology always involves a two-fold action of matching a “constituent” with a “constituted”. This is somewhat similar to Saussure's signifier and signified. Constitution is not the act of mentally producing an object in the world, but the act by which a sense of object is formed in the course of experience. This notion of constitution is associated with Husserl's Intentionality.

 

In phenomenology, constitution is manifested as the counterpart of the phenomenological reduction. This means that after with reduce or suspend everything we think we know we are free to examine the manner in which things make themselves available to our consciousness. This means it is also associated with how Husserl viewed appearance and apprehension. The act of constitution can be defined as the return to the actual being of the object, before knowing anything else about it. 

 

Constitution and Constitutive Subjectivity

The phenomenological notion of constitution is tied with that of subjectivity (see Transcendental Subjectivity and the Transcendental I ). Subjectivity is the platform on which things are constituted into objects of perception. In the "natural attitude", this type of constitutive subjectivity or consciousness is unaware of itself in designating things in the "Lifeworld".

For later phenomenologists like Emmanuel Levinas, constitution is something that always involves a relation with another which mediates the relation to things in the world and to subjectivity itself. 

 

Back to: What is Phenomenology? or to Things Themselves: Easy Intro to Husserl's Phenomenology

 

Husserl's Intentionality explained simply

In Edmund Husserl's phenomenology Intentionality (Intentionalität) means that consciousness is characterized by the fact that it is always related to something. That is, consciousness is always an intentional act. The simplest definition of intentionality is simply  an "awareness of something" (here you can read what a "thing" is).

Intentionality serves a key function in Husserl's phenomenology as the relationship between an act of consciousness and the outside world. Husserl borrowed the term from Franz Bretano who defines it as a key characteristic of mental phenomena. Every psychic act has content, an object "intended" by consciousness. This applies not just to sensual phenomena, but also to things imagined. Every belief, desire, etc. has an object to which it refers: the believed, the desired and the imagined (think about how imagination always has to imagine something). 

 Husserl gives an example of intentionality with a mannequin in a shop window in front of which we are standing. it can happen that we realize with surprise that it was not a mannequin but a human being. At that moment - and this is the moment when the illusion turns - the meaning of this character changes. The meaning of the object was not in itself (actually mannequin or human) but in the manner in which consciousness actively engaged them. (For a similar example see Freud's Uncanny)

 

Intentionality, noesis and noema

In his "Ideas I" Husserl speaks of noesis and noema as basic moments of the constitution of objects and thus as the limit of what can be said. "Noesis" means how the act of consciousness relates to its object (believe, want, hate, love) and "Noema" means how the object appears through these noetic acts (what is believed, wanted, hated, loved).

 In the mannequin/human example, Husserl would say that in both cases we had a perception of the object. Through a change in our "Noesis", the way we realted to the object, its "Noema" changed and its meaning for us shifted from mannequin to human. 

 

Husserl's adumbration

Another central concept in Husserl's phenomenology whish relates to intentionality is "adumbration" or "shadowing" (Abschattung). Objects are never presented to us as a complete unit, they only show themselves to us in a partial manner. We never have full perspective of what we percieve, and this means for Husserl the total imperceptibility of the object. The prerequisite for perception is therefore the perspective, which at the same time constitutes the hiddenness of the thing and therefore makes the phenomenon of misconception possible in the first place.

 

For background see: Husserl's Critique of Psychologism

For Husserl's next step see: Phenomenological Reduction and Epoché or Transcendental Subjectivity and the Transcendental I 

Back to the beginning: Introduction to Husserl's Phenomenology

 

 

 

Meaning of Spivak's Strategic Essentialism Explained

Strategic essentialism is a key term in postcolonial theory, introduced by Indian thinker and literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in 1987.  The term deliberately subverts the meaning of traditional essentialism or "ontological essentialism".  

The meaning of Spivak’s Strategic Essentialism refers to a political tactic by which social groups that constitute minorities, nationalities or ethnic groups temporarily build a joint mobilization on the basis of a gender, cultural or political identity in order to self-represent themselves. It implicitly recognizes the inherent constructivism of society, but does not deny its power or the need for political solidarity of a group that is considered as such, even if it is an artificial exercise. While there may be differences between members of these communities that may not be agreed upon in certain debates, it makes it possible for the strategy to be temporarily imbued with a common "essential " feature". Strategic essentialism is thus utilized in order to promote their joint position and simplify the potential to achieve certain goals such as equal rights or anti-globalization positions. All this without  having to abandon the debate, or positions and differences of each.

An example of resolute solidarity using tactics of strategic essentialism could be the case of “Sati” : this was a funeral practice practiced by certain Hindu communities in which the widow of the deceased had to set fire to the funeral pyre. In her famous “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak holds that the history of this act has only been recorded from the hegemonic discourses of British imperialism and Hinduism, while the widow's testimony is nowhere to be found. Spivak explained this recorded lack of voice in the widespread absence of the voice of those she calls subordinates.

In later years Spivak became critical of her own concept of strategic essentialism, especially after it was used for nationalists goals. But still, the concept is also commonly used in the context of Queer Theory and feminism. 

Here you can find an introduction to spivak's thought and summaries of her main works.

Foucault's Governmentality Explained

Governmentality is a concept developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault between approximately 1979 and 1984, in the second and third volumes of History of Sexuality. Foucault questioned the nature of the current social order , the conceptualization of power , human freedom and its limits, the possibilities and sources of human action . His best formulation of these issues is in his lesson entitled Governmentality (1978). Foucault sees government as a general technical form that includes everything from self-control to the control of populations.. For Foucault this concept replaces his previous concept of power-knowledge.

Governmentality refers to a specific economy of power. It refers to a society where power is decentralized and where its members play an active role in their own self-government. Due to this active role, individuals need to be regulated from within. Society is based on different institutional spheres ( family , school , prison , ...), and each sphere follows its own logic of government that generates a certain knowledge about the subjects. The knowledge produced allows to govern how individuals will behave in certaincontexts from within the subject, from the subject itself.

The term governmentality - "gouvernementalité" - was originally derived by deriving the word gouvernement with the suffix "al" (adjective), adding "ité" (abstract noun). But of course it is understood as joining goverment with mentality.  Government is defined by foucault as an activity that seeks to change and shape our behavior through various techniques, norms, and knowledge. Government is understood as the "leadership of leaders," and thus governance is a phenomenon that is not only close to the state as a whole, but speaks as individuals themselves, and groups shape the governance of themselves and others. Mentality in governmentality suggests that our thinking is immersed in knowledge, opinions, our language, and therefore is often taken for granted. They are the way we think about the authorities, drawing on the expertise, language, theories, ideas, philosophies and other forms of knowledge that are available to us.  Moreover, thinking is considered as a group activity and not as an individual activity. And so it is not a matter of the individual mind and conscience, but of the science, faith and opinion in which we are immersed.

see: Michel Foucault on Technologies of Power 

Binary Oppositions in linguistics (summary)

The study of language was one of the first areas in which the concept of binary oppositions was applied. This concept was central to the thinking that developed in the Prague School that operated in 1928–1939 and dealt with phonology - a branch of linguistics that deals with the study of the relations between the proud , their function, and their combination in a given language. 

Roman Jacobson , one of the thinkers of the Prague School, spoke about the bilateral nature of language and argued that every linguistic sign is organized in two modes of organization: attachment and choice. 

Ferdinand de Saussure, from the point of view of language as a system of representation and marking, created the basic binary opposition world-language, and saw each word as containing the pair of concepts - 'signifier' (the arbitrary word chosen to represent something in the world), and 'marked' - the object or The concept of them she symbolizes. Other binary concepts de Saussure coined in the context of the linguistic system are synchronous-diachronic, langue-parole. In general, within the framework of the structuralist conception, the linguistic system is composed of pairs of opposites (day / night, good / bad, etc.), and each concept can be understood only against the background of its difference from its opposite. Subsequently, the structure of binary opposition was applied and used to explain human and social phenomena in different fields of knowledge.

see also:

Binary Oppositions in Anthropology

Meaning of "Subaltern" Explained (postcolonialism, critical theory)

In critical theory and postcolonial studies, the term "Subaltern" characterizes the state of a person whose voice and actions are ignored, misappropriated or rendered inoperative. The term subaltern is used in the social sciences to refer  to marginalized sectors and the lower classes of societies. This sense of the word was proposed by Antonio Gramsci and ows much of its popularity to Gayatri Spivak.

The word “subaltern”, which generally designates a person of lower rank, is borrowed by subaltern studies from Gramsci, who gives a more precise meaning to subaltern. For Gramsci, the subordinates do not occupy an inferior position only because of their economic destitution, but also because they have come to accept the “hegemonic discourse” which justifies their lowering . "Subordinate" or "subaltern" thus refers to Gramsci's work on cultural hegemony .

The subalternist studies privilege a refocus on the subalterns, and no longer on the elites, as real agents of social and political change. They show a particular interest in the rhetoric and rhetoric of emerging social and political movements, in their only directly observable actions, such as demonstrations or rebellions.

Indian theorist Gayatri Spivak posed the question of "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in a highly influencial article by that name.

See also: postcolonialism theory explained