Blog
2022.05.25

[Report]5th Academic Frontier Lecture Series 2022

In this lecture, Hong Kong philosopher Yuk Hui emphasized that we are now under a new condition of philosophizing——meaning that today, a naïve dichotomy between machine and life, or mechanism and organicism, has been made obsolete by the rise of cybernetic machines. They make technology organic.

Therefore, Hui insisted that if we want to explore  diversity or symbiosis in the true sense, we should not limit ourselves to the question of biodiversity and noodiversity. Because it is Western technology that always already lies behind the current technology, we must also reflect on the question of techno-diversity.

But how can we imagine the diversity of technology? Although this time Hui did not explain this point well, we may say that it is our task to delve into the question. A possible way is by interrogating language/writing, a perspective discussed during the Q&A session. Hui’s own approach is developing another principle of technology by reinventing technological thought that once existed in various non-European cultures. His The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics is a monograph devoted to the question in terms of Chinese thinking, and its Japanese translation will be published this July. We hope this lecture as well as his works start to examine the question of technodiversity in Japan.

Reported by Kohei Ise (EAA Research Assistant)