PHI 2301 Assignment Philosophy and Media
PHI 2301 Assignment Philosophy and Media
Lately, in German speaking countries a “media philosophy” debate has unfolded. If you fear you missed something, don’t worry. Unfortunately, there is not much at stake. At least, the antagonists have so far failed to make clear what the controversy over this concept is all about – presuming there is one. From the outside it looks a failed cockfight over non-existing institutional arrangements, in a time of rising student numbers and shrinking education budgets. Like all academic disciplines, philosophy is also confronted with the rise of the computer. This has been the case for half a century, but it is only now that the knowledge itself is being produced and stored in networks and databases. Technology is no longer an object of study for some, but alters studying in general.
Some of you might be familiar with the work of the Vienna-based philosopher Frank Hartmann. In 2000 I posted an online interview to nettime with Frank (reprinted in Uncanny Networks), in which he talked about media philosophy and how this emerging discipline relates to Kittler’s media theory and the dirty little practice of “net criticism”. Recently Frank Hartmann published Mediologie (also in German). Like his previous Medienphilosophie, it is written as a general introduction to current topics. Unlike most of his continental colleagues, Frank Hartmann’s style is free of hermeneutic exercises. In the following email dialogue Frank summarizes his latest work and contextualizes the debate. For some, media and networks are the latest fads that will fade, thereby not affecting the “eternal” philosophical questions, whereas others believe that the philosophical practice will indeed be fundamentally transformed after the introduction of new media is well and truly over.
In the Anglo-Saxon world the term “media philosophy” has been compromised from the start – Imagologies, the cyber-hype book from Mark C. Taylor and Esa Saarinen, contributed substantially to the derogation of the term. The tragic superficiality of Imagologies proved once and for all that it is not enough to link up students and scholars via email and satellite. As the Canadian communications theorist and political economist Harold Innis realized, one’s technics of practice – or “appraisal” of technology – is peculiar to the medium of communication, and will change according to the type of medium adopted. Human action, after all, is an extension of media forms; for a critical, reflexive practice to emerge, it is essential to go beyond the excitement and hubris of being early adaptors. Praise of Technology is not enough: readers expect philosophers to negate, to circumvent society and its PR phrases, and not just to celebrate the latest. Only radical futurism, such as the transhumanism, has been worth debating. Speculative philosophies need to transcend the present and explore unlikely futures and reject the temptation to extrapolate the cool present. It is also not sufficient either to retreat to the safe Gutenberg galaxies of critical theory. Media philosophy has to take risks and cut across disciplinary borders. The “iconic turn” debate as summarized by Hartmann can only be one of many beginnings and proves just how difficult – and immature – “pictorial thinking” is.
Hartmann’s new media analysis is free of fear and disdain. Without becoming affirmative, he is keen to avoid “totalising” concepts that try to explain all and exclude next to everything that doesn’t fit into the newly carved-out discursive cave. One neither has to be subjected to the Empire of Images, nor does one has to flee it. Every day there are fresh challenges, from blogs, games and wireless to ip-telephony, all set within Big Brother, SARS and the Iraqi War. New media do not stop to surprise us researchers. Tired critics are free to leave the stage and pursue other interests, but that doesn’t mean the Media Question has been resolved. It is all too human to take a break, switch profession and take up parallel passions. Hartmann’s way is to stick around and describe the media reality on its own merits. Philosophy can provide us with outside references, but the outcome is little more than the reproduction of the same. And even that is about to come to an end, as we discuss below with reference to the current situation of the university in Germany and the EU’s efforts to enter the game of higher education as a transnational commodity of interchange.