This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)

The way we experience, investigate and interact with reality changes drastically in the course of history. Do such changes occur gradually, or can we pinpoint radical turns, besides periods of relative stability? Building on Oswald Spengler, we zoom in on three styles in particular, namely Apollonian, Magian and Faustian thinking, guided by grounding ideas which can be summarised as follows: “Act in accordance with nature”, “Prepare yourself for the imminent dawn and “Existence equals will to power”. Finally, we reach the (...) present. How to characterise the new era we entered round the year 2000? (shrink)

This volume aims to develop a philosophical diagnostic of the present, focussing on contemporary technoscience. psychoanalysis submits contemporary technoscientific discourse to a symptomatic reading, analysing it with evenly-poised attention and from an oblique perspective. Psychoanalysis is not primarily interested in protons, genes or galaxies, but rather in the ways in which they are disclosed and discussed, focussing on the symptomatic terms, the metaphors and paradoxes at work in technoscientific discourse. This monograph presents a psychoanalytical assessment of technoscience. The first four (...) chapters provide a short introduction into the psychoanalysis of technoscience, its basic concepts and methods, as developed Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Gaston Bachelard and Jacques Lacan. In subsequent chapters, this approach is fleshed out with the help of case histories (palaeoanthropology, classical conditioning and virology). Psychoanalysis reveals that, rather than by disinterested curiosity, technoscience is driven by desire, resistance and the will to control. Moreover, the focus is on primal scenes, such as Dubois’ quixotic quest for the missing link and Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex. In addition, psychoanalysis opts for triangulation: understanding technoscientific research by comparing it to “different scenes”: to genres of the imagination, notably novels, so that, in this volume, the discovery of a Homo erectus skull by Dubois is compared to missing link novels by Jules Verne and Jack London (dating from the same period), Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex is compared with B.F. Skinner’s novel Walden Two and virology as a research field is considered through the lens of viral fiction. (shrink)

Heidegger’s oeuvre (> 100 volumes) contains a plethora of comments on contemporary science, or rathertechnosciencebecause, according to Heidegger, science is inherently technical. What insights can be derived from such comments for philosophers questioning technoscience as it is practiced today? Can Heidegger’s thoughts become a source of inspiration for contemporary scholars who are confronted with automated sequencing machines, magnetic resonance imaging machines and other technoscientific contrivances? This is closely related to the question of method, I will argue. Although Heidegger himself was (...) notoriously ambivalent when it came to method, especially in his later writings, his oeuvre nonetheless contains important hints for how a philosophical questioning of technoscience could be practiced, such as: paying attention to language (to the words that we use) or taking a step backwards (towards the moment of commencement of the type of rationality at work). For Heidegger, method means: being underway, and a philosophical method must be developed along the way. After discussing Heidegger’s views on method, both in his earlier and in his later writings, three dimensions of contemporary technoscience will be addressed, namely: technoscientific objects (research artefacts), technoscientific sites (laboratories as unworldly environments) and technoscience as a global enterprise. In the final section, the question will be addressed whether and how a critical encounter between philosophy and technoscience is possible. (shrink)

During the past decades, our image ofHomo neanderthalensishas changed dramatically. Initially, Neanderthals were seen as primitive brutes. Increasingly, however, Neanderthals are regarded as basically human. New discoveries and technologies have led to an avalanche of data, and as a result of that it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint what the difference between modern humans and Neanderthals really is. And yet, the persistent quest for a minimal difference which separates them from us is still noticeable in Neanderthal research. Neanderthal discourse is (...) a vantage point from which the logic of ‘us’ versus ‘other’ is critically reconsidered. Studying contemporary academic literature and science autobiographies from an oblique perspective, focusing not on Neanderthals as objects, but on the dynamics of interaction between Neanderthal researchers and their finds, basic convictions at work in this type of research are retrieved. What is at issue is not the actual distinction between modern humans and Neanderthals, but rather the dualistic construction of human and nonhuman. Neanderthal understanding is affected by the desire to safeguard human uniqueness. The overall trend is to identify the human mark or spark, which defines us as favoured ‘winners’. The paradoxes emerging in contemporary Neanderthal discourse are symptomatic of the fact that a dualistic style of thinking is no longer tenable. (shrink)

In recent years, Nietzsche’s views on (natural) science attracted a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Overall, his attitude towards science tends to be one of suspicion, or ambivalence at least. My article addresses the “Nietzsche and science” theme from a slightly different perspective, raising a somewhat different type of question, more pragmatic if you like, namely: how to be a Nietzschean philosopher of science today? What would the methodological contours of a Nietzschean approach to present-day research areas (such as neuroscience, (...) astrophysics, synthetic biology or climate studies) amount to? In other words, my paper reflects a shift of focus from author studies to extrapolation. The design of my article is as follows. I will start with the question (already widely discussed in the expert literature) to what extent Friedrich Nietzsche (a classical philologist by training) managed to familiarise himself with the natural sciences of his epoch. Subsequently, I will outline some basic methodological and conceptual ingredients of Nietzsche’s philosophy of science, focussing on core issues such as “genealogy”, “interpretation”, “enhancement” and “truth”. Next, I will elucidate Nietzsche’s genealogical methodology with the help of three case studies (three representative samples if you will) taken from Nietzsche’s writings and dealing with physiology, astronomy and neuro-psychology respectively. Finally, I will present the methodological contours of a Nietzschean understanding of contemporary technoscience. (shrink)

Metaphors allow us to come to terms with abstract and complex information, by comparing it to something which is structured, familiar and concrete. Although modern science is “iconoclastic”, as Gaston Bachelard phrases it, scientists are at the same time prolific producers of metaphoric images themselves. Synthetic biology is an outstanding example of a technoscientific discourse replete with metaphors, including textual metaphors such as the “Morse code” of life, the “barcode” of life and the “book” of life. This paper focuses on (...) a different type of metaphor, however, namely on the archetypal metaphor of the mandala as a symbol of restored unity and wholeness. Notably, mandala images emerge in textual materials related to one of the new “frontiers” of contemporary technoscience, namely the building of a synthetic cell: a laboratory artefact that functions like a cell and is even able to replicate itself. The mandala symbol suggests that, after living systems have been successfully reduced to the elementary building blocks and barcodes of life, the time has now come to put these fragments together again. We can only claim to understand life, synthetic cell experts argue, if we are able to technically reproduce a fully functioning cell. This holistic turn towards the cell as a meaningful whole also requires convergence at the “subject pole”: the building of a synthetic cell as a practice of the self, representing a turn towards integration, of multiple perspectives and various forms of expertise. (shrink)

This contribution addresses the anthropocenic challenge from a dialectical perspective, combining a diagnostics of the present with a prognostic of the emerging future. It builds on the oeuvres of two prominent dialectical thinkers, namely Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Hegel himself was a pre-anthropocenic thinker who did not yet thematise the anthropocenic challenge as such, but whose work allows us to emphasise the unprecedented newness of the current crisis. I will especially focus on his views on (...) Earth as a planetary process, emphasising that the “spirit” of technoscience is basically monitoring the impacts of its own activities on geochemistry and evolution. Subsequently, I will turn attention to Teilhard de Chardin, a palaeontologist and philosopher rightfully acknowledged as one of the first thinkers of the Anthropocene whose oeuvre provides a mediating middle term between Hegel’s conceptual groundwork and the anthropocenic present. Notably, I will discuss his views on self-directed evolution, on the on-going absorption of the biosphere by the noosphere, and on emerging options for “sublating” the current crisis into a synthetic convergence towards the Omega point. I will conclude that, after disclosing the biomolecular essence of life, biotechnology must now take a radical biomimetic turn ; that reflection itself must become distributed and collective; and, that the anthropocenic crisis must be sublated into the noocene. (shrink)

This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities (...) worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. (shrink)

Synthetic cells spark intriguing questions about the nature of life. Projects such as BaSyC (‘Building a Synthetic Cell’) aim to build an entity that mimics how living cells work from basic components. But what kind of entity would a synthetic cell really be? I assess this question from a philosophical perspective, and show how early fictional narratives of artificial life – such as the laboratory scene in Goethe’s Faust – can help us to understand the challenges faced by synthetic biology (...) researchers. (shrink)

This paper analyses the technoscientific objective of building a synthetic cell from a Jungian perspective. After decades of fragmentation and specialisation, the synthetic cell symbolises a turn towards restored wholeness, both at the object pole and at the subject pole. From a Jungian perspective, it is no coincidence that visual representations of synthetic cells often reflect an archetypal, mandala-like structure. As a symbol of restored unity, the synthetic cell mandala compensates for technoscientific fragmentation via active imagination, providing a visual aid (...) for the technoscientific turn towards reintegration. Although the biotechnological desire to reconstruct life in vitro has been compared to alchemy before, a Jungian analysis allows us to make this comparison more specific and precise. The problem of archetypal images, however, is that alluring prospects of reintegration may underestimate and obfuscate the deficiencies and tensions at work in the current situation. As a projection of a future wholeness, it fosters optimism, but may also function as a misleading façade, covering up collisions and complexities. This can be averted by the conscious employment of the mandala as a symbolic scaffold fostering processes of individuation and working through. (shrink)

Мета роботи полягає у постметафізичній концептуалізації суб’єкта у клінічному дискурсі філософської антропології. Теоретичний базис дослідження поєднує засоби дискурсивної аналітики і загальні принципи історико-філософської науки. Логіка дослідження збігається із парадигмальним розумінням трансформацій суб’єкта та передбачає перехід від діагностичних стратегій аналізу індивідуального буття як основи патологічності суб’єкта до дослідження терапевтичних моделей концептуалізації комунікації як детермінанти патології та, нарешті, до аналітики суб’єкта в горизонті полісуб’єктної соціальності. Наукова новизна полягає у розкритті основних антропологічних моделей суб’єкта, що відповідають функціям діагностики й терапії. Показано, що, попри (...) революційність певних проектів, що дозволяє їх віднести до постметафізичних, у них залишаються рецидиви метафізичності, які існують в образі суб’єкта, що мислиться як основа справжності. Відповідно до критеріїв практичної імплементації ключовою є трансформація теорій суб’єкта, орієнтованих на самопокладання і автономію, у концепції, сфокусовані на відповідальності, турботі про суще і здійсненні у якості людини. Висновки. Доведено, що образ посткласичного суб’єкта, зосередженого на ідеалі власної автентичності, мусить діагностуватися як патологічний. Показана недоцільність акцентуації виключно на дискурсивності, розмові, результатом якої стає ствердження незалежності внутрішнього, хоч і маргінального світу девіантного суб’єкта. Обґрунтована необхідність доведення проблеми до логіки соціальної взаємодії, у якій виникає та форма смислової організації феноменів, що є нормальною структурою життєвого світу і на основі якої виникає повноцінний суб’єкт із уявленнями про власну самодостатність, і з турботою про суще. (shrink)

Purpose is the post-metaphysical conceptualization of the subject in the clinical discourse of philosophical anthropology. Theoretical basis of research combines the means of discursive analytics and the general principles of historical and philosophical science. The logic of the research coincides with the paradigmatic understanding of the subject’s transformations and suggests a transition from diagnostic strategies of the analysis of individual being as the basis of the pathological nature of the subject to the study of therapeutic models of communication as the (...) determinants of pathology and, finally, to the analytics of the subject in the horizon of polysubject sociality.Originality of the work consists in disclosing the basic anthropological models of the subject, corresponding to the functions of diagnosis and therapy. It is shown that, in spite of the revolutionary nature of certain projects, which allows them to be classified as postmetaphysical, they still have relapses of metaphysics existing in the image of the subject, which is conceived as the basis of authenticity. According to the criteria for practical implementation, the key is the transformation of the theories of the subject oriented toward self-determination and autonomy into concepts focused on responsibility, caring for what exists and how to exercise it as a person. Conclusions. The research proved that the image of the postclassical subject focused on the ideal of his own authenticity should be diagnosed as pathological. It showed that the accentuation is purely inexpedient in terms of discursiveness, conversation, and the result is the assertion of the independence of the internal, albeit marginal, world of the deviant subject. There is grounded the necessity of bringing the problem to the logic of social interaction, which raises the semantic phenomena organization form that is normal structure of the vital world; on its basis a full-fledged subject emerges with ideas about his own self-sufficiency, and concern for what exists. (shrink)

This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)