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Innovation, from Industrial Consumption to the Reinvention of Socialization: a Reflection on a Recent Semantic Enrichment

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Abstract

In this paper, we observe an undergoing transformation in the qualification of the processes of emergence that we call ‘innovation’. First conceived in the industrial mode defined by Schumpeter within the consumer economy context, innovation has now acquired a more general meaning and has been transformed in the understanding of collective action. Against the backdrop of transformations in the industrial reality, the crisis of desire in consumer societies, and the impoverishment of the imaginary, ‘social innovation’ appears to be a new form of imaginary institution of society in the definition that Cornelius Castoriadis gave to this expression. The semantic enrichment of the notion of innovation allows us to glimpse a new framework for the ethics of innovation, which needs to be interpreted from the perspective of the age of transitions.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank his colleagues at Grenoble Alpes University, Fabienne Martin-Juchat, whose discussion advanced his ideas, and Louis Devillaine and Alice Leyraud for their contribution to the revision of the text.

Funding

Funding obtained from the Ethics & AI Chair, Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence (MIAI@Grenoble Alpes, ANR-19-P3IA-0003).

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  1. Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence (MIAI@Grenoble Alpes, ANR-19-P3IA-0003), Grenoble, France

    Thierry Ménissier

  2. Institut de Philosophie de Grenoble, Grenoble, France

    Thierry Ménissier

  3. Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    Thierry Ménissier

  4. Bâtiment ARSH, BP 47, Domaine Universitaire, 1281, Avenue Centrale, 38400, Saint-Martin d’Hères, France

    Thierry Ménissier

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Ménissier, T. Innovation, from Industrial Consumption to the Reinvention of Socialization: a Reflection on a Recent Semantic Enrichment. Philos. Technol. 35, 66 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00563-x

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