Technique

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches technology as the world of means: it increases power without saying anything about ends. He shows this through Alberich's magic helmet in Das Rheingold, a figure of the understanding and of the Cartesian mastery of nature, whose evil lies in the use made of it1. He concludes that responsibility lies with the subject who handles the tool. He opposes the Heideggerian indictment of technology, which he calls a reactionary theme: what must be judged are the relations of production, not the productive forces2. He applies this reasoning to nuclear weapons and then to artificial intelligence3. Drawing on Hegel's Jena texts, he makes the instrument the middle term between the worker and the object, that in which labour gains permanence and is passed on; in his view, the brain is a result of the tool, not its origin4. He also links technology to Prometheus, to Daedalus the engineer who keeps to the measure, to Robinson rescuing tools from the wreck, and to Greek technè, which does not separate art from craftsmanship5.

1. 1#9.12 How can sciences of history be real?14 Jan 2021
2. 2#4.7 Angélique (by Nerval)12 Apr 2018
3. 3Nature vs. freedom?8 Oct 2026
4. 4Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”22 Jul 2023
5. 5#12 Return to the logics of the subject2 Jul 2020

Introduction produced automatically from the 7 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.