Philosophy of the Medium - John Lechte

Philosophy of the Medium

The Age of McLuhan in Question

(Autor)

Buch | Softcover
240 Seiten
2025
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-29922-1 (ISBN)
36,15 inkl. MwSt
Taking the principle of the ‘disappearance of the medium’ into new territory, this book questions the pervasive influence of the principle that the ‘medium is the message’. Bold and expansive, this book argues that we have for too long focused on the technical specificities of media, when we should have been focusing on what it is that mediums do, that is, on their ‘content’ rather than their formal and technical qualities.

With a re-reading of McLuhan, this volume offers a study of the conflicting views of technics as a medium in Bernard Stiegler’s work as well as an investigation into the extent to which Michel Serres’ work on communication sheds light on the nature of medium. Engaging also with the concept of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), and the notion of probabilistic objects in quantum physics and climate change, he explores the way in which measurement is perceived to ‘create’ reality. Concluding with a fascinating study of the implications of consciousness as a medium, this book ultimately reconsiders and offers a deeper understanding of what we mean by the term ‘media’: it is that which comes ‘between’ and which facilitates the transmission of content, essentially a creator of possibilities, yet never present as such in the light of its success as a vehicle for meaning.

John Lechte is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Macquarie University, Australia. He has published widely on French thought, particularly the work of Julia Kristeva. He is author of Genealogy and Ontology of the Western Image and its Digital Future (2013), which includes an analysis of Sartre’s philosophy of the image. His most recent book is The Human: Bare Life and Ways of Life (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
Introduction

1. The Meaning and Signification of ‘Medium’
2. Revisiting the ‘Medium is the Message’: McLuhan and Medium Specificity
3. The Medium as ‘Disappearance’: The Work of Sybille Krämer
4. Discourse Networks, Time and Materiality: Kittler, Ernst, Krauss and the ‘Post-Medium’
5. Michel Serres and Communication as Medium: Is it Possible?
6. Object and Medium: Technics in the Work of Bernard Stiegler
7. The Medium and Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)
8. The Probabilistic Object as Hyperobject and Media Specificity

Conclusion: On Whether the Medium is Always Transparent
References
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag 29.5.2025
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
Geisteswissenschaften Psychologie Biopsychologie / Neurowissenschaften
Sozialwissenschaften Kommunikation / Medien Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10 1-350-29922-7 / 1350299227
ISBN-13 978-1-350-29922-1 / 9781350299221
Zustand Neuware
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