I would like to share a translation of a subsection from the recently published manuscript, Le nouvel esprit technologique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2020) which is symbolized by the acronym NET. It is my hypothesis that this book makes up an early portion of Laruelle’s work, though the placement of it I am unsure of. It fits closer to themes present in Le principe de minorité (1981) and Theory of Identities (1992), so my working hypothesis is to place this text in Philosophy II, somewhere in the mid-1980s. This subsection (p.66-72) is in the chapter entitled “The Critique of Technological Reason.” In this chapter and the book as a whole, Laruelle is envisioning the break from the ‘philosophy of technics’, more than likely comprised of Simondon, but equally Deleuze and Leroi-Gourhan, with a critique leveled against Heidegger’s Question Concerning Technology. This as much is demonstrated below. Another figure among them is a compatriot of Laruelle’s who is barely known or spoken about in Anglophone secondary scholarship, Gilbert Hottois. Hottois’ book, Le signe et la technique: la philosophie à l’épreuve de la technique (Sign and Technics: Putting Philosophy to the Test of Technics), was published by Laruelle’s edited series, L’invention philosophique in 1984 by Aubier (and republished in 2018 by Vrin). Please enjoy. (Jeremy R. Smith)
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Foto: Sylvia John