Ritter, M., Pesimismem proti melancholii.
Walter Benjamin a problém černé žluči. A2 / 12 - 2022
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Resisting Melancholy with Pessimism. Walter Benjamin and the Problem of a Black Bile
An essay on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on melancholy for a Czech journal A2 challenging usual understanding of Benjamin as a melancholic thinker. Benjamin interprets melancholy as tied to acedia, i.e. a state of listlessness. In contrast to such an uncaring attitude, he calls for a more active approach to the world. Accordingly, he urges us to “organize pessimism” in a revolutionary way and sees a redemptive task of a historicist, and of people living in the present, in taking care of both the past and the present.
https://www.advojka.cz/archiv/2022/12/pesimismem-proti-melancholii.
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Ritter, M., Sluhové a páni
časopis Vogue
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Esej pro časopis Vogue o úskalích umělé inteligence v roli prostředníka mezilidské komunikace. "Sousloví umělá inteligence v nás dodnes vyvolává představu ve stylu Čapkova R.U.R. – dramatu, v němž poprvé zaznělo slovo robot. Potenciální vzpoura nadlidsky inteligentních strojů však není tím, co by nás mělo trápit. Podle mnohých odborníků je náš problém spíše opačný: systémy umělé inteligence, které používáme, naopak nejsou dostatečně inteligentní, a přesto je necháváme zásadním způsobem ovlivňovat naše životy.
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As a distinctive voice in the current philosophy of technology, postphenomenology elucidates various ways of how technologies “shape” both the world (or objectivity) and humans (or subjectivity) in it. Distancing itself from more speculative approaches, postphenomenology advocates the so-called empirical turn in philosophy of technology: It focuses on diverse effects of particular technologies instead of speculating on the essence of technology and its general impact. Critics of postphenomenology argue that by turning to particularities and emphasizing that technologies are always open to different uses and interpretations, postphenomenology becomes unable to realize how profoundly technology determines our being in the world. Seeking to evaluate the postphenomenological (in)ability to radically reflect on the human being conditioned by technology, I discuss the two most pertinent criticisms of postphenomenology: an “existential” one by Robert C. Scharff and an “ontological” one by Jochem Zwier, Vincent Blok, and Pieter Lemmens. Assessing the ontological alternative, I point to incapacity of Heidegger’s concept of Enframing to do justice to material technologies. Simultaneously, I acknowledge the necessity of speculating on (the concept of) technology as transcending concrete technologies. Such speculating would be instrumental in reviving Ihde’s idea of non-neutrality of technology in its full philosophical potency.
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Ritter, M. Postphenomenological Method and Technological Things Themselves. Hum Stud (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09603-5
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We live in a world where it is impossible to exist without, and beyond, technologies. Despite this omnipresence, we tend to overlook their influence on us. The vigorously developing approach of postphenomenology, combining insights from phenomenology and pragmatism, focuses on the so-called technological mediation, i.e., on how technologies as mediators of human-world relations influence the appearing of both the world and the human beings in it. My analysis aims at demonstrating both the methodological weaknesses and open possibilities of postphenomenology. After summarizing its essentials, I will scrutinize, first, its ability to turn to the technological things themselves and, second, the so-called empirical turn as realized by postphenomenology. By assessing its conceptual framework from the phenomenological perspective, I hope to demonstrate that postphenomenology needs philosophical clarification and strengthening. In short, it needs a more phenomenological, and less pragmatic, approach to technology in its influence on human experience.
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Ritter, M. Svoboda ve věku klimatické změny: Zelený Leviathan Marka Coeckelberga.
Nezávislý kritický čtrnáctideník A2, 1/2022.
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Nejnovější kniha belgického filosofa Marka Cockelbergha hledá cestu, jak se vypořádat s klimatickou krizí ve světě prostoupeném technologiemi, aniž bychom rezignovali na lidskou svobodu. Zároveň ukazuje meze liberalismu a navrhuje radikálně inkluzivní a "poetickou" koncepci politického kolektivu.
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