Can science influence philosophical theory? With modern technoscience being everywhere around us nowadays and having a big impact on our lives, it seems hard to negate this question. If we look at the history of philosophy however, a different picture arises. René Descartes famously envisioned the academy as a tree, with metaphysics being the root, physics the trunk, and all the other sciences being the different branches. A strict hierarchy is thus assumed, with philosophy (metaphysics) predominating the sciences.
This view is preserved in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who claimed that science is fundamentally different from philosophy. This is because science ascribes the theoretical attitude, meaning that it always starts from a presupposed framework, that cannot itself be put into question within the scientific discipline. For example, modern physics assumes physical processes can be described mathematically. A physicist cannot question whether this is valid, because it cannot be answered within the discipline of physics itself. Practicing physics is by definition only possible when starting from this assumption. Questioning such a starting point, or condition of possibility, is rather the task of philosophy, according to Heidegger. Hence, like Descartes, Heidegger assumes a one-directional influence between philosophy and science.
In this article, I would like to explore the recent dynamic between (techno-)science and philosophy, which deviates from this strict hierarcical view of philosophy predominating science, towards a model where both can potentially influence each other. In particular, I would like to suggest that this change in dynamic is might be an interesting perspective to view the history of philosophy of technology, in addition to the empirical turn that has been signalled by Hans Achterhuis. I will do so by focussing on the last phase in the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler (1956â2020), namely his neganthropical phase. Before we do so, we will first briefly explain the empirical turn in philosophy of technology.
The Empirical Turn
Modern technology, while greatly influencing our lives since at least the 18th century, has only been a serious subject of philosophical enquiry in the past 75 years (Achterhuis 1992). A now famous dichotomy has been noticed by Hans Achterhuis in this period, separating the classical philosophers of technology from the modern, more emperically oriented ones (Achterhuis 1997). The classical philosophers tend to envision technology as a singular, abstract, all embracing essence that permeates all our technological practices. Their tendency is usually to be skeptical towards technology and warn the reader for its danger.
Again, Heidegger is a typical example of a classical philosopher of technology, who envisioned the essence of technology as Gestell, the broad, being-historical epoch which we are all subjected to, and in which everything already appears as controllable, paving the way for the technological society which we know today.
In contrast, the more modern, empirical philosophers of technology emphasize the variety of technological practices, claiming that technology is not just dangerous, but also in some contexts useful, good or maybe even essential to our lives. Typically these philosophers are not interested in finding a singular âessenceâ of technology, either because they are convinced this essence does not exist, or because it is impossible to determine this essence, given the immense variety of existing technologies. Besides being empiristic, these philosophers therefore also usually subscribe to a form of (American) pragmatism.
Broadly speaking, this empirical turn seems to have happened around the 1990s with the works of, to name a few, Don Ihde, Albert Borgmann and Andrew Feenberg. Interestingly though, the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, who published the first part of his main work Being and Technics in 1994, does not really fit this dichotomy. Because, while chronologically speaking, his work is situated after the empirical turn, his philosophy is much more related to that of the classical philosophers of technology, in particular that of Heidegger.
Stigler's Neganthropical Phase
While Stiegler has never really been an empirical philosopher of technology, it is especially the third and (sadly) last phase of his thinking, what Daniel Ross called his third conversion or neganthropical phase, where this has become most apparent (Stiegler 2018, 23). Here Stiegler is concerned primarily with the Anthropocene, meaning the dominant geological force that man has become through technology. In the Anthropocene, Stiegler states, man has become neganthropic, undermining its own conditions of possibility and thus tragically exterminating (negating) himself (the anthropos).
This view of technology is very reminiscent of Heideggerâs Gestell, and is thus more closely related to the classical philosophers of technology than the empirical philosophers, even though he is situated after the empirical turn. A crucial difference with Heidegger though, according to Stiegler himself, is that Heidegger never considered the problems of entropy and negentropy (Stiegler 2022, 274). To see why this marks a significant difference, we will explain the concept of negentropy in some detail.
Schrödingerâs Negative Entropy
The concept ânegentropyâ or ânegative entropyâ has been introduced by the theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1944). According to the second law of thermodynamics, a closed physical system tends towards more disorder over time. This âdisorderednessâ physicists measure by the quantity of entropy, which is essentially given by the number of arrangements that are possible for a given state.
It should be noted that this tendency is not some intentional act or desire of the universe, but rather explained by the statistical fact that there are significantly more disordered than ordered states possible in a given closed system, hence it is statistically improbable that an ordered state will remain ordered over time. In laymanâs terms: if you put a number of cables in your bag and jiggle them around, it is highly likely that you will find them intertwined when you open your bag, not because the universe wants so (though that sometimes seems a plausible thought to the frustrated cable owner), but simply because there are many more ways they can intertwine than remain neatly arranged.
The term ânegative entropyâ then refers to the opposite tendency, namely the tendency of a system to strive towards more order, or at least maintain its order, over time. It is this tendency that can be observed in a living system, Schrödinger argues.
Two remarks should be made here. First, it is again not some intentional actor for Schrödinger that willfully tries to maintain order. Schrödinger hypothesizes a cleverly constructed mechanism between the macro-organism and the molecular âhereditary substanceâ (DNA, as we would call it now), which is exposed to the laws of quantum mechanics.
Secondly, this negative entropy does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because a living system is not a closed system. Rather, the living system must be continually fed from the outside:
"Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness (= fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment. (Schrödinger 1944, 75)"
We can see how Stiegler inherited the concept of negentropy from Schrödinger. It is precisely this âentropy-eatingâ mechanism that Schrödinger develops, that leads Stiegler towards the concept of neganthropology, towards the view of mankind, âeating entropyâ on a global scale, leading to the destruction of his own environment and thus the destruction of himself:
"The theory of entropy â deriving from thermodynamics some thirty years after the advent of industrial technology and the beginning of the organological revolution that lies at the origin of the Anthropocene, that is, after the steam engine â redefines the question of value, given that the relation entropy/negentropy is really the question of life par excellence. It is with respect to such perspectives that we must think, [âŠ] what we should in fact call the Entropocene and neganthropology. (Stiegler 2018, 38â39)"
Science and Philosophy in the Anthropocene
We conclude from this that Stiegler does not fit well within Achterhuisâ dichotomy. On the one hand, while being situated after the empirical turn, he is certainly not an empirical philosopher of technology, because he thematizes technology on a geological scale. Because of this, he is more related to the classical philosophers of technology. However, he is not only dismissive of technology, as classical philosophers of technology tend to be, but rather incorporates modern technoscientific findings into his philosophy. We have seen the example of negentropy that he inherited from Schrödinger, a theoretical physicist, modestly engaging in his book with the recent findings in molecular biology. Additionally, note that the term Anthropocene itself, overly thematized in philosophy, has also been coined by a biologist and a meteorologist (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000).
In general, I think for modern philosophers of technology, when addressing the global scale of technology of the current age and its environmental impact, it is unavoidable to incorporate the results of modern technoscience. After all, the ecological crisis itself is very much a crisis that is signalled and navigated through using modern science and technology. Modern technology allows us to think and perceive on a global scale, which is necessary to address the problems of the Anthropocene. It is because of this that I think that this modern interchange between science and philosophy, dermarks a new phase in the history of the philosophy of technology, which can be seen as a synthesis of the classical and the empirical philosophy of technology.
References
- Achterhuis, Hans, ed. 1992. De maat van de techniek: zes filosofen over techniek. Ambo.
- Achterhuis, Hans, ed. 1997. Van stoommachine tot cyborg: denken over techniek in de nieuwe wereld. Ambo.
- Crutzen, P.J., and E.F. Stoermer. 2000. âThe âAnthropocene.ââ Global Change Newsletter 41: 17â18.
- Schrödinger, Erwin. 1944. What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Cambridge University Press.
- Stiegler, Bernard. 2018. The Neganthropocene. Open Humanites Press. https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/the-neganthropocene/.
- Stiegler, Bernard. 2022. âThe Ordeal of Truth: Causes and Quasi-Causes in the Entropocene.â Foundations of Science 27 (1): 271â80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09736-3.
Author Bio
André van Delft is an external PhD candidate at the Radboud University, interested in Heidegger's concept of nature and how it is received in contemporary environmental debates. He studied theoretical physics and philosophy at Leiden University.