Bernard Stiegler's account of technology as constitutive of the human as such is without precedent. However, Stiegler's work must also be understood in terms of its explicit appropriations from the thought of Jacques Derrida. An important, yet overlooked, context for framing Stiegler's relation to Derrida is the question of nonhuman life thought in terms of différance . As I argue, Stiegler's account does not unfold the most profound implications of Derrida's understanding of nonhuman life as différance . While Stiegler describes (...) human life as prosthetic and in default of origin, there is no treatment of the way in which nonhuman life is also aporetic and constituted in terms of its relatedness to exteriority. I conclude with a reconsideration of Stiegler's work from the perspective of Derrida's richer account of nonhuman life as différance in order to bring to light an anthropocentric aspect of Stiegler's work. (shrink)

The Prometheus myth has long now provided inspiration for those who envision solutions to environmental issues. Prometheus is the figure par excellence of human forethought and progress in the anthropocene. In this article, we introduce the concept of ambient Prometheanism to describe the way of thinking that foregrounds foresight and anticipation and advances technological solutions developed by capital and energy-intensive projects. We question this stance, arguing that ambient Prometheanism, with its emphasis on technofix, leads to the economisation and depoliticisation of (...) planetary environmental issues. Following Bernard Stiegler, we recover from the myth the figure of Epimetheus, Prometheus’ brother, as well as his associated faculty, epimetheia to theorise what we call an ‘Epimethean politics’. Thinking the anthropocene from the perspective of ambient Prometheanism and Epimetheanism means to consider the role of technology in climate politics, and in particular to make the case for the importance of afterthought in face of unintended consequences and accumulated errors. To substantiate our argument, we outline the challenge posed by emerging solutions focussed on technological intensification and socio-economic acceleration. An Epimethean politics of the climate requires to use reflexivity as a capacity to anticipate, but also to mobilise epimetheia to account for accidents and past mistakes. Such a politics builds from an alternative conception of technology, one that radically differs from ambient Prometheanism. Finally we read as actualisations of Epimethean politics contemporary eco-political struggles and their imperatives for multispecies living and convivial livelihoods. (shrink)

In Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, the famous sophist recounts the myth of how mortal creatures were created. The gods, he says, gave the brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus the task to deal out to each creature the equipment of its proper faculty. Yet Epimetheus, literally the afterthinker, asked Prometheus, the forethinker, to distribute the qualities himself: “‘And when I have dealt,’ he said, ‘you shall examine’”. So Epimetheus distributed to each animal qualities according to a principle of equilibrium and (...) compensation, each becoming either swift or strong, skilled or large, and thereafter he provided all creatures with their appropriate food and clothing. Only then, however, did he realize that, lacking... (shrink)

What is a technical object? At the beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle contrasted beings formed by nature, which had within themselves a beginning of movement and rest, and man-made objects, which did not have the source of their own production within themselves. This book, the first of three volumes, revises the Aristotelian argument and develops an innovative assessment whereby the technical object can be seen as having an essential, distinct temporality and dynamics of its own. The Aristotelian concept persisted, in (...) one form or another, until Marx, who conceived of the possibility of an evolution of technics. Lodged between mechanics and biology, a technical entity became a complex of heterogeneous forces. In a parallel development, while industrialization was in the process of overthrowing the contemporary order of knowledge as well as contemporary social organization, technology was acquiring a new place in philosophical questioning. Philosophy was for the first time faced with a world in which technical expansion was so widespread that science was becoming more and more subject to the field of instrumentality, with its ends determined by the imperatives of economic struggle or war, and with its epistemic status changing accordingly. The power that emerged from this new relation was unleashed in the course of the two world wars. Working his way through the history of the Aristotelian assessment of technics, the author engages the ideas of a wide range of thinkers—Rousseau, Husserl, and Heidegger, the paleo-ontologist Leroi-Gourhan, the anthropologists Vernant and Detienne, the sociologists Weber and Habermas, and the systems analysts Maturana and Varela. (shrink)

This paper argues that Protagoras’ great myth depicts human nature as both Promethean and Epimethean: human foresight depends on the condition of oversight. If Protagoras’ praise of foresight betrays his desire to overcome this condition, Socrates embraces it. While Protagoras repeats Epimetheus’ mistake of forgetting his own nature by aiming to overcome the risks of oversight, Socrates’ foresight recognizes that oversight and perplexity are intrinsic to human nature.

What have the following in common: Epimetheus, Paris, Anchises, and the suitors of Penelope? The ready answer might be that it must have something to do with women, for it requires no great thought to see that the attractions of femininity proved the undoing of three of them, while for Anchises life was never to be the same again after his encounter with Aphrodite. But suppose we add to our first group such figures as Zeus, Priam, Polynices, and Eumaeus? (...) The fates of all these characters as they, appear at certain points in the poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and others give expression i to a network of interrelated sexual and economic anxieties that seem to underlie a { great deal of what the Archaic poets say about the female sex. In this article I 1 propose to explore a particular part of that network, which I have called the ? ‘Pandora complex’, since it is Hesiod′s version of the Pandora myth which provides the classic statement of the male dilemma over women, poised between the conflicting desires for sexual gratification and domestic stability.1. (shrink)

Morality, or one's own question as a figure -- Politics, or what is truth? -- Revelation, or he that is not with me is against me -- History, or the Christian Epimetheus.

In Protagoras’ so called Great Speach, in Plato’s dialogue named after him, the Greek philosopher attributes the sophist a myth about the origin, development and nature of human beings, which has philosophical relevance. It is said that the gods created the mortal beings out of two elements, earth and fire. They assigned two titans, Epimetheus and Prometheus, to provide mortals with their faculties. Do this implies that creation had not been finished by the gods? To what extent do the (...) gods entirely create human beings? Is this mith a creationist one? In this paper, the development of living beings is divided in four stages, and different hermeneutic and explanatory models are proposed to adress the myth and answer the questions raised before. (shrink)

In Protagoras’ so called Great Speach, in Plato’s dialogue named after him, the Greek philosopher attributes the sophist a myth about the origin, development and nature of human beings, which has philosophical relevance. It is said that the gods created the mortal beings out of two elements, earth and fire. They assigned two titans, Epimetheus and Prometheus, to provide mortals with their faculties. Do this implies that creation had not been finished by the gods? To what extent do the (...) gods entirely create human beings? Is this mith a creationist one? In this paper, the development of living beings is divided in four stages, and different hermeneutic and explanatory models are proposed to adress the myth and answer the questions raised before. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Socrates adopts a philosophical stance of indifference that is particularly unique to the Protagoras. The peculiarity stems from Socrates’s significant interest in dealing with Protagoras as a certain kind of thinker rather than merely a sophist in general. The stance of indifference is shown to be a dramatic reaction to the attitude sophists like Protagoras take toward philosophical problems, specifically, thinkers who understand solutions to philosophical problems as commodities. The stance is shown to anticipate (...) certain Academic skeptical methods, to embolden Socratic ignorance, and shore up defenses against the sophistic insecurity of needing to succeed for the sake of success. This stance is elaborated upon in three specific aspects of Socrates’s dramatic portrayal culminating in a re-reading of the poem of Simonides and the myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus. I resist readings that try to see the Protagoras as a simple takedown of sophistry or as a catalog of platonic doctrine, and instead treat Protagoras as a “philosopher in decline,” a significantly dangerous type of thinker who is savvy enough to repurpose genuine insight for the sake of easy answers to immensely difficult problems. (shrink)

…behind the diversity of discoveries [in molecular biology] moved a unity, a constant direction of change, the development of the concept of biological specificity.In his landmark book Evolution by Gene Duplication, geneticist Susumu Ohno pointed out that whereas most evolutionary developments represent adjustments to past challenges and mutations, two unique systems had evolved to deal with future challenges: the immune response and neural memory functions. He named these two evolutionary modes after the Titan brothers of Greek mythology: “standard” evolutionary developments (...) were named for rearward-looking Epimetheus, and “anticipatory” evolutionary mechanisms for foresighted Prometheus (Ohno 1976; Ohno et.. (shrink)

These essays, written in the spirit of Goethe’s Epimetheus who "traces the quick deed to the dim realm of form-combining possibilities", display the depth and breadth of Tallis’s fascination with our lives. Whether discussing philosophical "hardy perennials" like time, or a mundane artefact like ink, Tallis challenges us to think differently about who we are and why we are. The first part of the book – Analysis – dives into the deep-end to explore some of the big questions in (...) philosophy: perception, knowledge and belief; time; the relationship between mathematics and reality; and probability and causation. The middle section – Tetchy Interludes – takes a wry look at some aspects of contemporary art; stupidity (including the author’s own); and Christmas. The third part – Celebration – is more experimental in both its subject matter and treatment. It celebrates the complexity of ordinary, everyday consciousness by contemplating the miracle of speech, artefacts that have transformed our lives (and what they reveal about our cognition) such as the wheel, the sail, and ink; and ‘snapshots’ of the author’s own consciousness on an ordinary day, of past consciousness, as captured in historical memory. Notwithstanding their diversity in theme and style, these essays share the common aim of discovering and celebrating the submerged riches in the "quick deeds" of our everyday lives and perceptions. (shrink)

The author shows how Protagoras's notion that justice is teachable because it is behavioral conditioning (punishment) in cities that are gangsterism incarnate.

In this volume, Heinrich Meier sets out to present what is “of lasting importance in [Schmitt’s] political theology”. The four chapters seek to develop the theme of the radical “eitheror” that faces human beings in Schmitt’s thought. Meier argues the distinction between political theology and philosophy rests on their fundamental causes—faith in revelation and human wisdom. Schmitt’s political theology and the choice he sees forced on mankind derives from the eschatological view of history found in revelation, in particular the final (...) battle with the anti-Christ. There is a fundamental existential alternative between God and the anti-Christ that has an attendant choice between political theology and political philosophy. Coupled with this treatment of the existential necessities of being human is a presentation of Schmitt’s critique of the modern liberal state and a report on his analysis of Hobbes’s Leviathan. The book concludes with a chapter entitled “History, or the Christian Epimetheus” that considers the ethical ramifications of Schmitt’s view of history and examines his thought in light of his endorsement of National Socialism and his anti-Semitism. (shrink)