2017_hui_On Cosmotechnics - Énergies, Temps & Cosmotechniques

On Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Relation between Technology and Nature in the Anthropocene === > [!tldr] Tags > #cat/litterature #type/journalArticle > [!info] Meta Data >**FirstAuthor**:: [[Hui, Yuk]] ~ > **Title**:: On Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Relation between Technology and Nature in the Anthropocene > **Year**:: 2017 > **Citekey**:: [[2017_hui]] > **itemType**:: journalArticle > **Journal**:: *Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology* > **Volume**:: 21 > **Issue**:: 2 > **Pages**:: 319-341 > **DOI**:: 10.5840/techne201711876 > **ISSN**:: 2691-5928 > > [!Cite] > Hui Yuk, « On Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Relation between Technology and Nature in the Anthropocene », _Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology_, 2017, vol. 21, no 2, p. 319‑341. > > %%[@2017_hui]%% > **URL**:: http://www.pdcnet.org/oom/service?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=&rft.imuse_id=techne_2017_0021_42769_0319_0341&svc_id=info:www.pdcnet.org/collection . > > **Related**:: . > > **Attachment**::[Hui et Philosophy Documentation Center - 2017 - On Cosmotechnics For a Renewed Relation between T.pdf](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/9F2F37WR). --- > [!important] Synthesis > **Contribution**:: > > [!Abstract] > > This article 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 opens up the question of participation of non-humans. This article contrasts this anthropological attempt with the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon, who wants to overcome the antagonism between culture and technics. According to Simondon, this antagonism results from the technological rupture of modernity at the end of the eighteenth century. This paper analyses the differences of the oppositions presenting their work: culture vs. nature, culture vs. technics, to show that a dialogue between anthropology of nature (illustrated through the work of Philippe 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 initiate such a conversation as well as to think about the reconciliation between nature and technology, this article tries to show, is to develop the concept of cosmotechnics as the denominator of these two trends of thinking. >> --- # Note. --- # Annotations%% begin annotations %% ### Imported: 2024-05-05 2:22 pm Quote > bio-politics Quote > Haraway does not directly address the question of technology; rather, like Descola, she abstracts technology as culture, and therefore avoids a direct confrontation with the question of technology. It is by going to Simondon’s work that we make the question of and confrontation with technology explicit Quote > there is an antagonism of culture against technics which comes from an ignorance and misunderstanding of the latter Quote > The question of co-existence or being-with is of ultimate importance in this connection. Haraway and Descola are right to point out the necessity of reconsidering the question of co-existence with nature. However, such co-existence Quote > Quote > is only possible when we reflect on the role of technical objects which do not only have their own existence, but also function as relations with other existences. Quote > if there is an ecology in Simondon, it understands technology in terms of modes of reticulation and technological progress as the constant transformation of forms of reticulation Quote > cosmopoeisis. Quote > cosmogeographic a priori in Simondon’s thinking, which is crucial for the construction of the techno-geographic mil Quote > eu. Quote > nature is considered as the pre-individual Quote > is always anterior to the already individuated being and what gives rise to a second individuation when conditions are met Quote > key points (points clés) Quote > The de-phasing or phasing out [déphasage] of the magic phase is developed into technics and religion Quote > problematic tension between what Simondon calls aesthetic thinking and philosophical thinking Quote > Aesthetic thinking was not able to cope with the constant bifurcation, because aesthetic thinking is still situational, meaning its role will be to serve as “the paradigm for orienting and supporting the effort of philosophical thinking Quote > he detachment of technics from nature continued during European modernity, and as Simondon noticed, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the rupture was amplified to the extent that the ancient technics were repressed, the relation to the natural world was lost, and technical objects became “artificial” objects—artificial in the sense that it has nothing to do with nature Quote > I reformulate Simondon’s genesis of technicity as a cosmotechnical thinking, and would go beyond Simondon in adding that this search for convergence should also mediate the modern and the traditional, which in the process of modernisation became strangers to one another—this was the case in Europe, and it has been much more serious in China, Japan and other non-European countries over the past two centuries Quote > in the thinking of Simondon, reticulation is always given as a form of cosmo-geographic a priori, and it is the departing point that we can describe as a techno-geographic milieu of technical ensembles, Quote > And cosmologies, when realized as cosmotechnics, will allow us to go beyond the limits of the technical system that is in the progress of realization, as well as to see how cosmological thinking can intervene into the imagination of technological development Quote > Is aesthetics, then, the solution to the problem we have discussed above? It is this question that takes us to the relation between the cosmo-geographic a priori and the construction of the techno-geographic milieu, and to the role of cosmotechnical thinking Quote > associated milieu (milieu associé) Quote > An associated milieu is defined by a recurrent causality between output and input, in a way that we can understand as “feedback” in cybernetics.9 Quote > However, Simondon also goes beyond the “feedback” mechanism of cybernetics and considers the formation of the associated milieu within a general technical process of concretization Quote > the cosmo-geographic a priori is neither merely aesthetic, nor being a background, but also operational Quote > in the case of the turbine, and its integration of the natural world as part of its operation, how about those other living beings, for example fishes swimming in the river? Quote > We will propose that it is for this reason that we can supplement Simondon’s analysis with current debates in anthropology, in order to conceive a cosmotechnics confronting the current global technological exploitation. Quote > Sputnik created a new environment for the planet. For the first time the natural world was completely enclosed in a man-made container. At the moment that the Earth went inside this new artefact, Nature ended and Ecology was born. ‘Ecological’ thinking became inevitable as soon as the planet moved up into the status of a work of art. (McLuhan 1974, 49) Quote > The attempt to introduce the concept of cosmotechnics is to explore the limit of the current concept of technology as well as to re-affirm the relation between cosmology, morality and technology which has disappeared in the technological Quote > Quote > system called the Anthropocene. Quote > Firstly from interiority, we should question the epistemology of the techno-scientific applications in order to critically access it and to develop alternative Quote > “bio-politics” Quote > Haraway does not directly address the question of technology; rather, like Descola, she abstracts technology as culture, and therefore avoids a direct confrontation with the question of technology. It is by going to Simondon’s work that we make the question of and confrontation with technology explicit. Quote > there is an antagonism of culture against technics which comes from an ignorance and misunderstanding of the latter. Quote > The question of co-existence or being-with is of ultimate importance in this connection. Haraway and Descola are right to point out the necessity of reconsidering the question of co-existence with nature. However, such co-existence Quote > Quote > is only possible when we refect on the role of technical objects which do not only have their own existence, but also function as relations with other existences. Quote > if there is an ecology in Simondon, it understands technology in terms of modes of reticulation and technological progress as the constant transformation of forms of reticulation. Quote > cosmopoeisis.6 Quote > cosmogeographic a priori in Simondon’s thinking, which is crucial for the construction of the techno-geographic mili Quote > ieu. Quote > nature is considered as the pre-individual, Quote > is always anterior to the already individuated being and what gives rise to a second individuation when conditions are met. Quote > key points (points clés): Quote > The de-phasing or phasing out [déphasage] of the magic phase is developed into technics and religion. Quote > problematic tension between what Simondon calls aesthetic thinking and philosophical thinking Quote > Aesthetic thinking was not able to cope with the constant bifurcation, because aesthetic thinking is still situational, meaning its role will be to serve as “the paradigm for orienting and supporting the effort of philosophical thinking” Quote > The detachment of technics from nature continued during European modernity, and as Simondon noticed, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the rupture was amplifed to the extent that the ancient technics were repressed, the relation to the natural world was lost, and technical objects became “artifcial” objects—artifcial in the sense that it has nothing to do with nature Quote > I reformulate Simondon’s genesis of technicity as a cosmotechnical thinking, and would go beyond Simondon in adding that this search for convergence should also mediate the modern and the traditional, which in the process of modernisation became strangers to one another—this was the case in Europe, and it has been much more serious in China, Japan and other non-European countries over the past two centuries. Quote > t in the thinking of Simondon, reticulation is always given as a form of cosmo-geographic a priori, and it is the departing point that we can describe as a techno-geographic milieu of technical ensembles, Quote > And cosmologies, when realized as cosmotechnics, will allow us to go beyond the limits of the technical system that is in the progress of realization, as well as to see how cosmological thinking can intervene into the imagination of technological development. Quote > Is aesthetics, then, the solution to the problem we have discussed above? It is this question that takes us to the relation between the cosmo-geographic a priori and the construction of the techno-geographic milieu, and to the role of cosmotechnical thinking. Quote > associated milieu (milieu associé) Quote > An associated milieu is defned by a recurrent causality between output and input, in a way that we can understand as “feedback” in cybernetics.9 Quote > However, Simondon also goes beyond the “feedback” mechanism of cybernetics and considers the formation of the associated milieu within a general technical process of concretization. Quote > the cosmo-geographic a priori is neither merely aesthetic, nor being a background, but also operational. Quote > : in the case of the turbine, and its integration of the natural world as part of its operation, how about those other living beings, for example fshes swimming in the river? Quote > We will propose that it is for this reason that we can supplement Simondon’s analysis with current debates in anthropology, in order to conceive a cosmotechnics confronting the current global technological exploitation. Quote > Sputnik created a new environment for the planet. For the frst time the natural world was completely enclosed in a man-made container. At the moment that the Earth went inside this new artefact, Nature ended and Ecology was born. ‘Ecological’ thinking became inevitable as soon as the planet moved up into the status of a work of art. (McLuhan 1974, 49) Quote > The attempt to introduce the concept of cosmotechnics is to explore the limit of the current concept of technology as well as to re-affrm the relation between cosmology, morality and technology which has disappeared in the technological Quote > Quote > system called the Anthropocene. Quote > Firstly from interiority, we should question the epistemology of the techno-scientifc applications in order to critically access it and to develop alternatives %% end annotations %% %% Import Date: 2024-05-05T14:23:26.559+02:00 %%