Abstract
Most recently, two distinctions—echoing the cross-disciplinary critique of the teleological and “quantitative” approach of human arts and sciences at the expanse of the “qualitative”—have been foregrounded by Amzallag (Philosophy and Technology 34, 785–809, 2021) and Crease (2011), respectively, between the modern understanding of “technology” (as technopraxis) and the “forgotten dimension/phase of technology” (called technopoiesis) and between the ontic and ontological measurement. Pace gently the denotation of technopoiesis as a juvenile phase of technological development and the “ontological measurements” as logical and practical impossibility in the modern, mathematized metroscape, the paper reexamines the relevancy of the distinctions (ontic/ontological and po[i]etic/practical, both recalling Heidegger’s “hermeneutical” critique of Husserl’s phenomenology) in non-Platonic/Aristotelian contexts and, in the process, seeks to refine the vital notion of technopoiesis by looking at the intersection of these fuzzy domains. In particular, the ancient Chinese measurements and their understudied onto-poietic dimension in the shifting econ-political contexts may offer an alternative approach to the otherwise elusive presence of technopoiesis and its ontological roots. Arguing that the techno-onto-poiesis does not necessarily belong to the foregone Arcadian past, the paper proposes refined “signals” for recognizing the technopoietic as well as new “forms” of its presence—“interactive emergence” (the cross-stimulating agonistic interactions between techniques of different “stages”) and “poietic clusters” (poietic ideas and/or implements that survive as “cluster” into the future), calling for future investigation of technical inventiveness (even in modern times) that reveal the process of how technopoietic elements enter the lives of technology through least expected embodiment.
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Notes
Anonymous epigrams in the Greek Anthology 1968: 16.223, also 12.193 (“Nothing beyond measure”). For early depictions of the ancient Chinese deities and their relation to early mathematical treatises, see Tseng 2011, 50–55; for the cosmological and methodological importance of the circumference squares and early method/device to determine the diameter of a circle, see Cullen, 1996, 62, 83–84, 181–82.
Such as the converting of theoretical algorithms and high data into everyday practices and actionable knowledge.
For this point, we are especially grateful to an anonymous reviewer for indicating the need to address the Heideggerian reflection on the ontological measures and measuring, preferred in the historical world of Dasein, especially in the context of oriental philosophy. Unless noted, we use the terms onto-poiesis in the same trajectory as the Husserlian (and Heideggerian) discourse. See also n. 5 for further clarification of the use of terms.
Note that, thanks to the insight of one anonymous reviewer, the critical terminologies (autonomy, dependency, embeddedness, state) are used by us to paraphrase (and interpret) Amzallag (2021)’s theses.
For the clarification of terminology, Amzallag’s paper argues for a dual conception of technology—technopoiesis (the mode not guided by an exogenous finality, in which the production process is more important than the end-product) and technopraxis (the mode of technological production conditioned by a specific desired end-product, whose representation exists before the action of transformation). Having adopted the major differences that exist between the two conceptions in the brackets, the present analysis differs from Amzallag’s implication by using “technology” and its practice neither as a synonym of the mature phase of the technological development nor as a quantifiably essentializable concept (but more broadly, as denoting the “entire” duration of the discourse of a given group of techniques, whose periodization is contestable under different terms). The neologisms such as “onto-poietic” and the implied onto-poietic technology (echoing the phenomenological discourse but sans the connotation to reified essences) are intended to highlight the commensurability (and specific modernity) of the theoretical distinctions made in (such as the ontic vs. ontological measures) and around (life, language, or poiesis vs. material object, physical movements, and praxis) the “many ontologies” (depending on the scientific perspective on the account) rather than for reifying/over-generalizing or removing the tangential planes between different conceptions of technology or ontologies.
Likewise, the technoscientific search for the (absolute) measure forms a narrative of the “juvenile(-archaic) phase” of ontological measuring (i.e., reflecting primarily the harmonious proportions of the universe or concrete living human experience, what is “fitting” or “right”; Crease 269–270) to the “mature(-contemporary) phase” of ontic measurements that abstract measurable entities from living experience or space. Nonetheless, as Jan Dijksterhuis, Scharff and others argue in the critique of Crease’s distinction, such crude distinction ignores the historicity of measurement, quantification, and mathematization; measures such as the Euclidean and Vitruvian proportions involve both the poietic dimension of and the practical rendering of the form of things into quantity (Friis et al., 2013, 233, 235).
Notice that, it is not poiesis, but mètis that characterizes the “early phase” (pre-4th c. BCE) of knowledge production in Detienne and Vernant; its conspicuous absence in later history is attributed to the predominance of philosophical intelligence (5). In the traditional field of the history of ancient Chinese science and philosophy, the co-existence of “polarized” modes of thinking and operation such as the “experiential” and “experimental,” the “intuitive” and “rational,” and the “temporal” and “spatial” (but not necessarily technopoiesis and technopraxis) has been approached systematically since the coining of the so-called “intuitive-associative” or “coordinate thinking” (Needham, 1956, 280–281). For a further discussion of the historicity of specific synthetic views, see Scheid (2016).
For a discussion of the problems in received periodization of China, see Zhang, 2021.
Citing ethnographic studies of metal production in traditional societies from western Afirca, Amzallag also notes that their “cosmic and practical dimensions of the produced artifacts become inseparable” (788, n.3). However, the inseparability is seen as restricted to the facultative stage of development.
For the modern use of “practical time” vs “quality/experienced time” in the method of social studies, see e.g., Shir-Wise, 2019, 100–101.
For instance, the history of Rome introduces the chapter on measuring and writing as such: “The art of measuring brings the world into subjection to man; the art of writing prevents his knowledge from perishing along with himself; together they make man–what nature has not made him–all-powerful and eternal. It is the privilege and duty of history to trace the course of national progress along these paths also” (Mommsen, 1913, 263).
See for instance Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s 2000 works, Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, Vol. 70 (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), especially “Part One, Chapter Two, Section IV/The Logos Projecting Its Rails of Unfolding: Measure, Order, Timing, Spacing’’ (p. 489 sq.) and ‘‘Part Six, Chapter Three, Section III/The Measure: The Moral Apparatus and the Elemental Passions that Prompt It’’ (p. 581 sq.). And yet, as much as the project is authentically motivated, it exploits the malleability of the concept of measure by making it a synonym of “Life” or “Morality,” flattening its intricacies in the name of the salvation of humankind.
In Chinese linguistics, measure words are distinguished from unit word (used for numerical counting) and classifiers (that classify or categorize nouns by highlighting some salient or inherent properties of the noun and thus contribute no additional meaning). Measure words, on the other hand, play a substantive role in denoting the quantity of the entity named by the noun. While measure words are language universals quite common in Indo-European languages, the unique grammatical categories of classifiers have almost no Indo-European counterparts. See Xu (2012). The periodization is based on the rough estimation in Xu, 2012, 103–4 and does not necessarily reflect the historical reality of technopoietic changes of the measure words and practices. While non-linguistic studies (e.g., Zürn, 2020) tend to use “measure word” for both terms, we wish to highlight their innate difference.
One peng equals two chuan “string,” one chuan equals five bei “cowry/shell.”.
For a more literary translation, we added the meaning of the classifier “tóu of” to the original translation made by Li and Branner, who do not emphasize the grammatical distinction between measure words and classifiers.
Crease’s storytelling is largely informed and influenced by Qiu Guangming, whose publications on the du-liang-heng system based on modern measurements of actual surviving measuring devices include Zhongguo lidai du-liang-heng kao [Researches on measures of length, capacity, and weight in the successive Chinese dynasties], Kexue chubanshe: Beijing in 1992 etc.
For instance, Parkes (2022, 32) referred to an influential episode in the Zhuangzi about the craftsman of bell stand, Qing, whose lived experience and self-narration of “observing the nature of the wood as heaven makes it grow” and waiting for “a complete vision of the bell stand” before picking his tree and creating a “daemonic” work were analyzed in relation to the attitude toward technology recommended by Heidegger in Gelassenheit. In the same veins of “daemonic” craftmanship, the creation of the patterns of logic and phenomenal-material correspondences between the sounding of metal/bronze bells (generic term, jin), drums, and jade chimes were important analogies used in early Confucian texts (such as the Mengzi 5BI) on the technological experience of the archery schema, which is projected onto the domain of moral experience opposed to mechanistic strategizing (Zhou, 2019, 29–30).
Small bells (ling), often found with turquoise inlay plaques near the chest, waist, or pelvis of the body in graves, are the first large objects in bronze found in Erlitou—major site in Chinese Bronze Age archaeology with specialized industries such as bronze casting (Thorp, 2006, 40-41), its homonymous Culture (c. 1900-1500 BCE) beyond the site marks the beginning of stereotypical bronze ritual assemblages in early China (46). While links have been made between the ritual usage of these early bronze bells or jingle-bell (luan) in Zhou inscriptions, produced and used in various styles in different geographic regions, the term “bell culture” here refers to the chime-bells (zhong), often with elaborate inscriptions on the outside (a rarity for bronze inscriptions), serving not only as auditory and visual instruments but also as injunctive tools for written pronouncements (Kern, 2007, 141; Li, 2018, 80-82).
Original archaeological report published in Wenwu 1960 (8/9):7–14, 1961 (10):31–34 and Kaogu 1962 (2):55–62.
Zhou Li: Kaogongji “Fushi zuo zhong” (Zhou Li Zhengyi 78:15a-16a) and Chun’guan “Diantong” (Ibid., 46:1b-4a; cited in von Falkenhausen, 1993, 79).
As Falkenhausen noted, “…the post-Qin chimes contrast most markedly with those of the Bronze Age in terms of wall thickness and its correlation to different sizes of bells. Both the perceived pitch and the timbre in the Bronze Age chimes, whose wall thickness is held constant while the shape of individual bells is exceptionally well-suited to their intended function as graduated chimes, are technically far more superior to that in later chimes, typically consisted of sixteen round bells of identical shape and size, but with difference in thickness.” See von Falkenhausen, 1993, 95–6.
One may, coincidentally, recognize such tetralemma pattern that overcomes dualities and resists the tendency toward reification in the (South Asian, Buddhist, and other) “four-proposition” traditions of truth(s) and realit(ies).
Traditional discussions often evoke “Chinese number theory” (i.e., as the pandiagonal squares of hetu and luoshu as well as the number eleven of Dao, not in the quantitative ten plus one but signifying the unity of the qualitative number in its wholeness), on a par with other cultural products (e.g., the cult of Abraxas, the historical mandalas, Hindu astrology, the Pythagorean and Mayan numerical models) to exemplify theories in psychology and psychoanalysis (such as synchronicity or collective unconscious theory of Carl Jung). Such biased method ignores the computation artefacts/implements and their processing involved in such processing. For the methodological focus on mathematical tools and the expression of shu in material forms, see Volkov, 2007, 2014.
Adapted from Gentz’ translation as of the same passage as “changing just as they are about to change, coming out and going in with measure…” (Gentz, 2021, 35).
The act of heng 衡 evokes the notion of “five horizontals (heng) 横” in early hemerology (see Harper, 2012).
In line with Amzallag’s distinction, Wenaus defines poiesis as “[poeisis is] in the broad sense of creating a new idea or thought that transcends prescribed combinatorialism and offers wholly novel concepts. By delimiting the unpredictable emergence of novel potencies and unruly potentialities, both useful and useless, combinatorial prescribes limits to poietic alternatives and, ultimately, reduces the human to the quantifiable” (Wenaus, 2021, 2).
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The article is funded by the Fairbank Center and Harvard China Fund Grant (of Harvard University), Harvard Asia Center, and the Loeb Fellowship (granted by the Committee on the Study of Religion of Harvard University).
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Wu, S. Refining Technopoiesis: Measures and Measuring Thinking in Ancient China. Philos. Technol. 36, 22 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00623-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00623-w