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The Truth of the Technological World: Essays on the Genealogy of Presence
Friedrich Kittler (1943–2011) combined the study of literature, cinema, technology, and philosophy in a manner sufficiently novel to be recognized as a new field of academic endeavor in his native Germany. "Media studies," as Kittler conceived it, meant reflecting on how books operate as films, poetry as computer science, and music as military equipment. This volume collects writings from all stages of the author's prolific career. Exemplary essays illustrate how matters of form and inscription make heterogeneous source material (e.g., literary classics and computer design) interchangeable on the level of function―with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the humanities and the "hard sciences." Rich in counterintuitive propositions, sly humor, and vast erudition, Kittler's work both challenges the assumptions of positivistic cultural history and exposes the over-abstraction and language games of philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida. The twenty-three pieces gathered here document the intellectual itinerary of one of the most original thinkers in recent times―sometimes baffling, often controversial, and always stimulating.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Friedrich A. Kittler
42 books51 followersFriedrich Kittler was a literary scholar and a media theorist.
Kittler is influential in the new approach to media theory that grew popular starting in the 1980s
Kittler's central project is to "prove to the human sciences [...] their technological-media a priori" (Hartmut Winkler), or in his own words: "Driving the human out of the humanities",[4] a title that he gave a work that he published in 1980.
Kittler sees an autonomy in technology and therefore disagrees with Marshall McLuhan's reading of the media as "extensions of man": "Media are not pseudopods for extending the human body. They follow the logic of escalation that leaves a written history behind it.
Among Kittler's theses was his tendency to argue, with a mixture of polemicism, apocalypticism, erudition, and humor, that technological conditions were closely bound up with epistemology and ontology itself. This claim and his style of argumention is aptly summed up in his dictum "Nur was schaltbar ist, ist überhaupt"—a phrase that could be translated as "Only that which is switchable, exists" or more freely, "Only that which can be switched, can be."
He studied German studies, Romance philology and philosophy at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Freiburg im Breisgau. During his studies, he was influenced by Jacques Lacan's, Michel Foucault's and Martin Heidegger's writings.
In 1976, Kittler received his doctorate in philosophy after a thesis on the poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Between 1976 and 1986 he worked as academic assistant at the university's Deutsches Seminar. In 1984, he earned his Habilitation in the field of Modern German Literary History.
He had several stints as a Visiting Assistant Professor or Visiting Professor at universities in the United States, such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford University.
He was recognized in 1996 as a Distinguished Scholar at Yale University and in 1997 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York.
Kittler is influential in the new approach to media theory that grew popular starting in the 1980s
Kittler's central project is to "prove to the human sciences [...] their technological-media a priori" (Hartmut Winkler), or in his own words: "Driving the human out of the humanities",[4] a title that he gave a work that he published in 1980.
Kittler sees an autonomy in technology and therefore disagrees with Marshall McLuhan's reading of the media as "extensions of man": "Media are not pseudopods for extending the human body. They follow the logic of escalation that leaves a written history behind it.
Among Kittler's theses was his tendency to argue, with a mixture of polemicism, apocalypticism, erudition, and humor, that technological conditions were closely bound up with epistemology and ontology itself. This claim and his style of argumention is aptly summed up in his dictum "Nur was schaltbar ist, ist überhaupt"—a phrase that could be translated as "Only that which is switchable, exists" or more freely, "Only that which can be switched, can be."
He studied German studies, Romance philology and philosophy at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Freiburg im Breisgau. During his studies, he was influenced by Jacques Lacan's, Michel Foucault's and Martin Heidegger's writings.
In 1976, Kittler received his doctorate in philosophy after a thesis on the poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Between 1976 and 1986 he worked as academic assistant at the university's Deutsches Seminar. In 1984, he earned his Habilitation in the field of Modern German Literary History.
He had several stints as a Visiting Assistant Professor or Visiting Professor at universities in the United States, such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford University.
He was recognized in 1996 as a Distinguished Scholar at Yale University and in 1997 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 29, 2015
Es Kittler su nombre y no hay más que agregar... literatura, música, tecnología, filosofía. Este libro, reune 23 ensayos que documentan el viaje intelectual de uno de los más grandes pensadores de nuestro tiempo.
May 12, 2024
A slog. Spurred by a reference from a music review I bought this volume containing the most cited essay on how rock'n'roll was made possible by the war and the German inventiveness, only to find out that almost everything was made possible by these two phenomena. Even the author of the afterword mentions, politely, how ridiculous is Kittler's uber alles nationalism. The texts collected here deal with a) reinterpretation of Greek (and German) poetry - a lot of Lacan here - , b) media as a direct extension of technological advance teutonically thrown into the world, c) philosophy, mainly German, and if French, then German, originally. The bit on Jimi et al. is entertaining, the rest fodder.
October 9, 2015
Even if Kittler didn't have a very distinctive writing style, his essays would be instantly recognizable by the topics that he choose to clash together: Lacanian psychoanalysis, war technology, Wagner opera, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, mathematics and music, computer programming, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, the genesis of the Greek alphabet, Heidegger's philosophy. And it is also very revealing how he adresses himself and into which context of like-minded people he would put himself: We literature scholars, we programmers, we philosophers...
Over the past years I have grown a bit weary with literature and culture studies and their speculative look at the world being presented as factual. Maybe this book of Mr. Kittler can serve as a wake-up call. Yes, his conclusions are often far-flung, nearing the unbelievable and are stated as facts even if they just come from speculation. Does it say anything about the albums of late Beatles that the stereo tape recording technology has been developed for military purposes during WW II? I'm not so sure about that.
Largely we still live in a world where intellectual realms are separated, artificially divided into domains that do not want to have anything to do with each other. There are way too few scholars really crossing the boundaries between science, engineering, and humanities. Therefore it is so refreshing to see that in Kittler we had a scholar who really understood technology, and expressed his understanding in a way that is probably inaccessible to pure technologists who do not have any training in the humanities. Kittler neither simplifies technology for the humanities reader, nor does he simplify his scholarly discourses to be understood by engineers. This makes his essays on the one hand very demanding, on the other hand unique and revelatory. You don't have to believe in every conclusion to be provoked to think about radical ideas like "Does software exist?" (Kittler says, no, in a way similar to Barthes and Foucault announcing the death of the author).
And in the end, Kittler's scholarly prose has poetic qualities and meanings:
"Wie läßt sich Heideggers Gestell verwinden? 2007, hier und heute? Kann die Gefahr - mit Hölderlin - uns retten? Ja nein, nein ja. Solange wir - Konzernen wie der IBM und Microsoft ergeben - Computer immer nur top-down entwerfen, von Bill Gates' Geschäftskalkül hinunter zu den vielen Einzelteilen, treiben wir (Männer, Programmierknechte, Stanford-Studenten) bloß Mimesis, ja Mimikry an jenen einen Gott, der ohne jede Frau und Liebe als Schöpfer auszukommen glaubt. Wundern wir uns daher nicht, wenn die Computer sich mit Bugs und Lügen rächen. Würden wir sie nämlich liebevoller bottom-up entwerfen, würde vieles anders. Wir könnten zwar nicht mehr Milliarden Dollar mit der Lüge namens Software scheffeln, doch HAL empfinge von uns Programmierern - streng nach Turing - nacheinander Sinne, Muskeln und ein Herz. Computer wären Embryonen, die in einem Mutterschoß (um mit Homer zu rechnen) zehn lange Monde wachsen und gedeihen. Dann geben wir sie frei - wie jeder Mutterschoß sein Kind.
Vor Liebe zu Penelope fährt Odysseus heim. Wir wissen nicht, ob sie ihn liebt." (p. 375/75).
Over the past years I have grown a bit weary with literature and culture studies and their speculative look at the world being presented as factual. Maybe this book of Mr. Kittler can serve as a wake-up call. Yes, his conclusions are often far-flung, nearing the unbelievable and are stated as facts even if they just come from speculation. Does it say anything about the albums of late Beatles that the stereo tape recording technology has been developed for military purposes during WW II? I'm not so sure about that.
Largely we still live in a world where intellectual realms are separated, artificially divided into domains that do not want to have anything to do with each other. There are way too few scholars really crossing the boundaries between science, engineering, and humanities. Therefore it is so refreshing to see that in Kittler we had a scholar who really understood technology, and expressed his understanding in a way that is probably inaccessible to pure technologists who do not have any training in the humanities. Kittler neither simplifies technology for the humanities reader, nor does he simplify his scholarly discourses to be understood by engineers. This makes his essays on the one hand very demanding, on the other hand unique and revelatory. You don't have to believe in every conclusion to be provoked to think about radical ideas like "Does software exist?" (Kittler says, no, in a way similar to Barthes and Foucault announcing the death of the author).
And in the end, Kittler's scholarly prose has poetic qualities and meanings:
"Wie läßt sich Heideggers Gestell verwinden? 2007, hier und heute? Kann die Gefahr - mit Hölderlin - uns retten? Ja nein, nein ja. Solange wir - Konzernen wie der IBM und Microsoft ergeben - Computer immer nur top-down entwerfen, von Bill Gates' Geschäftskalkül hinunter zu den vielen Einzelteilen, treiben wir (Männer, Programmierknechte, Stanford-Studenten) bloß Mimesis, ja Mimikry an jenen einen Gott, der ohne jede Frau und Liebe als Schöpfer auszukommen glaubt. Wundern wir uns daher nicht, wenn die Computer sich mit Bugs und Lügen rächen. Würden wir sie nämlich liebevoller bottom-up entwerfen, würde vieles anders. Wir könnten zwar nicht mehr Milliarden Dollar mit der Lüge namens Software scheffeln, doch HAL empfinge von uns Programmierern - streng nach Turing - nacheinander Sinne, Muskeln und ein Herz. Computer wären Embryonen, die in einem Mutterschoß (um mit Homer zu rechnen) zehn lange Monde wachsen und gedeihen. Dann geben wir sie frei - wie jeder Mutterschoß sein Kind.
Vor Liebe zu Penelope fährt Odysseus heim. Wir wissen nicht, ob sie ihn liebt." (p. 375/75).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews