Self-Recognition and Countermemory

Philosophy Today 33 (4):302-317 (1989)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I use concepts from Foucault's analysis of the human condition to investigate how we recognize or fail to recognize ourselves in machines like computers. Human beings are traditionally defined as "rational animals" or as "thinking things". I examine how this self-conception determines our use of computing machines as logical mirrors in which we both hope and fear to see our truest selves. I examine two analogies: (1) how we think of computers as if they were human (self-projection) and (2) how we think of humans as if they were computers (self-reflection). I interpret the humanization of computers and the computerization of humans as ways that thought tries to master its own freedom by thinking of itself metaphorically in terms of something else.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Semiotic Systems, Computers, and the Mind: How Cognition Could Be Computing.William J. Rapaport - 2012 - International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems 2 (1):32-71.
Knowledge Discovery in Chess Using an Aesthetics Approach.Azlan Iqbal - 2012 - Journal of Aesthetic Education 46 (1):73-90.
Using genetic information while protecting the privacy of the soul.James H. Moor - 1999 - Ethics and Information Technology 1 (4):257-263.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-02-01

Downloads
20 (#653,002)

6 months
1 (#1,027,696)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Eric Steinhart
William Paterson University of New Jersey

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references