Agostino Cera

This paper deals with the ecological interpretation of “care” within the Anthropocene framework, which I have called Techno-care My basic assumption is that the Anthropocene equates to more than an aspirant geological epoch: it is the best candidate for becoming the métarécit of our age. In its essence, the Anthropocene does not correspond to the “Age of Man”, but to the epoch in which technology becomes the “subject of history and of nature as well.” Hence the idea that its appropriate name is not Anthropo-cene, but Techno-cene. Concretely, the following pages sketch the Paradox of Omni-responsibility, an ethical paradox emerging within the Anthropocene framework and especially evident in the geoengineering solutions being proposed for ecological problems. I have characterized this oxymoron as techno-care, that is, something that transforms responsibility (and care) into a risk rather than a resource. On this basis, the most significant outcome of the Paradox of Omni-responsibility as techno-care is the undermining of Hans Jonas’ principle/imperative responsibility as a standard for the ecological thought of recent decades. In the conclusion, I suggest the possibility of a Care Imperative as a reply to this undermining.

Proposing to examine syntheses of manifold experiences of the contemporary philosophical panorama, Michel Foucault’s “critical ontology of actuality” culminates in the elaboration of an epistemology of the human sciences starting from their irreversible modern twist. Among the various possible ways of characterizing this epistemology—equipped with its own modus operandi: the archaeological-genealogical method—is to see it as the result of a reflection on the topic of temporality. In particular, it is a reflection on historical temporality as «knowledge of time», that is organized into two different yet complementary modalities, two historical heterochronies that can be defined as evenemential time and epistemic time. The first, acephalous and atelic, proves discontinuous, traced back to pure becoming. The second corresponds to the necessary disciplining of this original shapeless material by means of the solidification of structures that each time produce an equilibrium (an episteme) among the instances of knowledge and power. Yet these structures, too, remain subjected to that historic-temporal change to which they have attributed an order. Such an interpretation of time implies a metamorphosis of the notion of subject that, within an overall anti-humanistic perspective, goes from its death as the cogito to its rebirth in the form of an ethical-aesthetic subject: no longer the atemporal guarantor of the order of the real, but rather something committed to a risky exercise of its own freedom as care of the Self.

My paper deals with the topic “Physis in a post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology”, by interpreting it as two topics or questions. By doing so, I have the opportunity to present two related sides of my philosophical work. The first side consists in a several years historical and theoretical work on the philosophy of technology, whichculminates in the proposal of a Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case (TECNOM). The second side is more recent and has to do with the philosophical implications of the Anthropocene and culminates in its reinterpretation/redefinition as Technocene. The two topics/questions around which move these pages are the following: 1) whatis (whathasbecome) the post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology? 2) whatis the peculiar interpretation of physis in ourage (the idea of nature) expressed by the Anthropocene? With reference to the first question, in the Part I (After Heidegger, Beyond Heidegger. The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology) I will sketch an overview on the most recent developments in this area of studies, or better, a critical historicization of the post-Heideggerianphilosophy of technology, starting from the so-called empirical turn. My thesis is that the empirical turn gradually turned in to an ontophobic turn, namely a rejection of Heidegger’s legacy, which has produced a philosophical lack/deficit in the philosophy of technology, namely its genetivization. Ascountermovement against this ontophobic turn (i.e. as first step for the establishment of a “philosophy of technology in the nominative case”) I suggest a Heidegger-renaissance in the philosophy of technology. Moving from Heidegger’s assumption according to which the technischesZeitalter establishes the death of physis/nature, that is its definitive trasformation in to an object (Gegenstand) or standing-reserve (Bestand), in the Part II (After Physis, Beyond Physis. The Pet-ification of Nature)I will highlight a new form of reification of nature. This is the Pet-ification of Nature, a trans-objectualreification of it which takes place in the Anthropocene. More than a new geological epoch, with “Anthropocene” I mean the entelechy of the age of technology and thisiswhy I propose to call it Techno-cene. In the pet-ification of nature I see the accomplishment of the “disenchantment of the world” (Weber) as goal of the whole modernity. Pet-ification of nature’s main out come consists in an ethical paradox: the Paradox of Omni-responsibility, namely the overcoming of Hans Jonas’s imperative of responsibility as an ethical standard for philosophical thought over recent decades.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between neoliberal presentist temporality and the climate-environmental crisis, arguing for the necessity of envisioning a new “eco-temporality”. The deconstruction of the modern concept of progress in postmodern thought and postcolonial studies is considered, making a case for the undesirability of its complete abandonment –since a progressive temporality retains a role in enabling political change and long-term vision. To capture the connection between politics and temporality we develop the concept of “political temporality”, which we define as the schema of interaction between the social representation of time and what is perceived as politically feasible in each community at a given time. Furthermore, we analyse the most prominent features of neoliberal temporality (structural presentism, the public/private distinction, individual subjects, and philosophy of history), sketching an account of how each of them impacts ecological and climate politics. Finally, to envision a new, Anthropocene-friendly “regime of historicity”, we lay down two basic conditions that an “eco-temporality” should satisfy. In the last two sections, we sketch a new (multi)temporal model that is meant to be apt for the Anthropocene, drawing on Ernst Bloch’s concepts of “multiversum” and “contemporaneity of non-contemporaneous elements”

These pages aim to emphasize the not occasional link among "network", "technology" and "pandemic" as potential characterization of the word "society". In particular, I will try to clarify in what sense the network society, according to Manuel Castells' definition, inherently equates to a techno-society or Gestell-society, rather than a mere technological society. I will also try to clarify why its constitutive technological vocation could transform such a society into a pandemic society: an ideal incubator of pandemic phenomena. On this basis, the real face of the pandemic society proves to be that of a unary society: a social and epochal framework immunized against the difference, i.e. unable to tolerate any form of authentic otherness.

This paper aims to highlight a latent evidence emerging from the pandemic phenomenon: Pandemic Capital. By this formula I mean a process of naturalization in regards to the equivalence between the right of a commercial enterprise to profit from its activity and the right of people to protect their own health, or, better, the right to maximize profit as new aspirant fundamental right. This naturalization becomes particularly clear in relation to the question of vaccine patents. The distinction between just profit and maximum profit equates to an updated version of the classic dilemma between nomos and dike, which in Sophocle’s Antigone takes the form of a clash between Kreon and Antigone. Faced with the risk of a legal nihilism, we need to establish a hierarchy of rights that is up to par with our times, namely we must re-contractualize the social contract. To overcome the challenges of a globalized world/pandemic society, we need the neo-contractualism of a social contract that includes a “natural contract” as well. The latter is strictly related to the question of an Open Access Knowledge as new common good. Knowledge also means power, and as such demands responsibility, particularly from scientists and intellectuals. The idea of a human responsibility – or better, “fraternal responsibility” – could therefore represent the basis for a new alliance between nomos and dike for the sake of the polis.

Starting from a critical evalutaion of the current mainstream in the philosophy of technology, this paper aims to outilne a historical and theoretical overview of the technology as philosophical question. The outocme of this overview is a taxonomy of the different ideas of a "philosophy of technology", that represents the basis for a brand new approach to this topic. It is a philosophical anthropology of technology, namely a Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case (filosofia della tecnica al nominativo - TECNOM), grounded in turn on the twin concepts of neonvironmentality (neoambientalità) and feralization of human being (ferinizzazione dell'essere umano).

From the Anthropocene to the Technocene: Ethical-anthropological Perspectives from the “terra incognita” By assuming a transcendental approach, my paper aims to suggest that “the essence of the Anthropocene is by no means anything anthropocenic”. That is to say, the Anthropocene represents a philosophical rather than a scientific question, because it essentially equates to a Weltanschauung or «a paradigm dressed as epoch» (§1). Given this assumption, I try to bring out the basic features of such a paradigm, namely: the osmotic fusion between techne and physis (§ 2); the problem of periodization (§ 3); the ontological equation between “being” and “being makeable” (§ 4); the anthropological metamorphosis of homo faber into homo materia/Bestand man (§ 4). The final outcome of these considerations is that this aspirant new (geological) epoch isn’t the «Age of Humans» or «Menschenzeit», rather the age of technology as «subject of history» and thus my re-definition of Anthropo-cene as Techno-cene.

This paper addresses the issue of human spatiality as existential givenness, taking as its fundamental orientation relationality, namely the natural tendency towards the other as my co-man (Mitmensch) for the purposes of instituting, together with him, the first place for such a spatiality : the being-with-one-another (Miteinandersein). If the being-with-one-another embodies the first place of this spatiality, then the encounter between an I and a you—that is to say, otherness declined in the second person, as Duheit—represents the culmination of such a place. On this basis the τόπος of the Miteinandersein emerges as an οἶκος and the achievement of such an ‘oikological’ rank makes the space of the relation a real Lebensraum, a living space. Given these assumptions, a comparison will be offered between two paradigmatic modes of interpreting Duheit, the outcomes of a short season in which continental philosophy questioned itself on this issue with unusual urgency and depth. On the one hand, the Zwischenontologie (“Between-ontology”) of Martin Buber, on the other, the Mitanthropologie (“With-anthropology”) of Karl Löwith. The comparison here proposed will reveal that the philosophical question of otherness is essentially a matter of measure, namely that the promotion of the space of the relation established by I and you to the rank of οἶκος and Lebensraum depends on its ability to stay within the limit of an anthropic perimeter.

This paper presents and discusses Karl Löwith’s anthropological critique of existential analytic that is formulated in his Habilitation thesis (Das Individuum in der Rolle des Mitmenschen, 1928), where he develops an anthropological counter-paradigm, i. e.Mitanthropologie, in opposition to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Given the extent and the complexity of such a subject, I will limit the present inquiry to two specific topics: theMiteinandersein(Being-with-one-another) and above all theSein zum Tode(Being-towards-death). In practice, I will first explain the basic features of Mitanthropologie together with the crucial critique that it levels atBeing and Time. I will follow by outlining the importance of theTodesfrage(the question of death) within the existential analytic by means of a comparison between Heidegger’sBeing-towards-deathand Kierkegaard’sSickness unto death(Krankheit zum Tode). Finally, I will expound Löwith’s objection toBeing-towards-death, which is expressed in the alternative formulaFreiheit zum Tode(Freedom-towards-death).

Moving from Roberto Marchesini’s – one of the exponent of the so called posthumanism – criticism against the dialectics “technophoby versus technomania”, this paper claims to point out and discuss the unexpressed anthropological assumption lying at the basis of a supposed unbiased approach to technology. In the idea of overcoming the traditional image of human being, which may be considered restrictive as it does not fully express its “being able to be”, a more specific thought is hidden: that human being were, in fact, a basically creature of lack, needing healing and salvation. Technology was invested with such a sotheriological aim, so that it is its thaumaturgical virtue which has to redeem man. It realizes its purpose through a process called neoambientalità, according with the following stages: pauperizzazione and ferinizzazione. Deprived of his own peculiar mondanità, its having-world, human being becomes poorer from an ontological point of view and therefore placed into a mere environment as an animal among the others. Such an environment that is not a physical or natural one, but a technological environment, which is why it is a neoenvironment. Behind the supposed technoequanimity claimed by posthumanism hides a pure technolatry. This argument lead us to affirm that discriminant and metron which has to be used in inquiring into the Frage nach der Tecnhik is a fideistic one. In order to face it, philosophy must always answer to this question in one way: confirming its atheistic calling in referring to its own skeptical ethos. When technology, as shape of the contemporary world, claims its epochal injunction, philosophy has to make an act of supreme desertion.

While putting forward the proposal of a “philosophy of technology in the nominative case,” grounded on the concept of Neoenvironmentality, this paper intends to argue that the best definition of our current age is not “Anthropocene.” Rather, it is “Technocene,” since technology represents here and now the real “subject of history” and of (a de-natured) nature, i.e. the (neo)environment where man has to live.This proposal culminates in a new definition of man’s humanity and of technology. Switching from natura hominis to conditio humana, the peculiarity of man can be defined on the basis of an anthropic perimeter, the core of which consists of man’s worldhood: man is that being that has a world (Welt), while animal has a mere environment (Umwelt). Both man’s worldhood and animal’s environmentality are derived from a pathic premise, namely the fundamental moods (Grundstimmungen) that refer them to their respective findingness (Befindlichkeit).From this anthropological premise, technology emerges as the oikos of contemporary humanity. Technology becomes the current form of the world – and so gives birth to a Technocene – insofar as it introduces in any human context its ratio operandi and so assimilates man to an animal condition, i.e. an environmental one. Technocene corresponds on the one side to the emergence of technology as (Neo)environment and on the other to the feralization of man. The spirit of Technocene turns out to be the complete redefinition of the anthropic perimeter.While providing a non-ideological characterization of the current age, this paper proposes the strategy of an ‘anthropological conservatism,’ that is to say a pathic desertion understood as a possible (pre)condition for the beginning of an authentic Anthropocene, i.e. the age of an-at-last-entirely-human-man.