Günther Anders

Claude Eatherly, pilota e metereologo,
era un ragazzo texano di
27 anni quando ordinò lo sgancio
della prima bomba atomica della
storia, Little Boy, che colpì Hiroshima
il 6 agosto 1945.
Nonostante la giovane età, non
era certo un dilettante: per quella
missione vennero scelti i migliori
piloti della US Army, e Eatherly
aveva già dato prova del suo valore
militare, abbattendo, nel corso
della sua fulminante carriera,
più di trenta aerei nemici. Dopo
lo sgancio della bomba, tuttavia,
lasciò l’esercito e rifi utò qualsiasi
riconoscimento al valore da parte
degli Stati Uniti. Compì anche
maldestre rapine e altri piccoli
crimini, con la speranza di trovare
sollievo nel biasimo collettivo. Ma
ciò non bastò a placare i suoi dilanianti
sensi di colpa e Eatherly
venne internato in un ospedale
psichiatrico. Fu in questo momento,
quattordici anni dopo Hiroshima,
che iniziò un carteggio con
Günther Anders, il fi losofo tedesco
autore del capolavoro L’uomo
è antiquato. Il risultato è questo
libro: un commovente scambio
epistolare tra Anders e un’anima
persa, in cerca di un’espiazione
tanto impossibile quanto necessaria.
Dopo anni di assenza dalle
librerie, torna disponibile una delle
testimonianze più toccanti sul
disastro che cambiò per sempre
la coscienza collettiva.

The paper aims to investigate the lecture given by Günther Anders of John Heartfield’s peculiar art of expressionistic montage, in 1938, focusing the connections between aesthetics and politics. The role of the photomontage is, following this text, to put on the surface the reality which is hired under the cover. In this sense, so Anders, Heartfield’s photomontage is a falsification, aimed to reveal the truth. It does not mean a hoax, in order to trick, but rather a way to show the real connections between the things of the world.

The aim of this paper is to investigate some of Robert Jungk’s (1913-1994) most significant theses regarding nuclear weapons, comparing them on the one hand with the perspectives of the “philosopher of hope”, Ernst Bloch (1885-1977), and, on the other hand, with the “thinker of despair”, Günther Stern, known as Günther Anders (1900-1992). The affinities be- tween Anders and Bloch can be found in their engagement in the nuclear issues, but also in the common consideration of the philosophy of praxis as a device and “organon” of critical thinking. The persistent trust in the future and in the modifiability of the world and of the humanity implies a strong difference between the positions of the two intellectuals. In this di- rection Jungk’s remarks instead reveal unexpected contacts with the phi- losopher Ernst Bloch and with his topic of a concrete utopia.

Musée Rodin, Paris, 9-10 novembre 2017

Pour le Centanaire de la mort d'Auguste Rodin, le second volet de "Rodin - L'Onde de choc" est l'occasion de poursuivre les réflexions et les échanges qui ont animé le colloque organisé au Grand Palais en mars 2016.
"Dans cette histoire riche de rencontres nous croiserons des personnalités attendues comme Michel-Ange, Brancusi ou encore l'helléniste Mario Meunier, et d'autres beaucoup moins, comme Gaston Bachelard et Günther Anders qui, sensibles à l'art de Rodin, ont publié leurs réflexions sur le sculpteur."

Pour écouter la conférence : http://www.musee-rodin.fr/fr/agenda/activite/rodin-londe-de-choc-ii

Ce texte est paru en italien sous le titre "Senza riparo in moto perpetuo. Günther Anders su Rodin" dans l'ouvrage La scrittura dell’esilio oltreoceano. Diaspora culturale italo-tedesca nell’Europa totalitaria del Nazifascismo. Riflessioni interdisciplinari (dir. E. Saletta), Aracne, 2020.

The aim of my paper is to explore the investigations of Günther Anders about the violence within the horizon of his philosophical thinking, and in connection with his idea of the (possible) physical disappearance of humanity and of the world due to the nuclear bomb. Anders was a theorist of power who philosophized about violence. He underscored the impotence of the politics of peaceful resistance, arguing that the ideology of non-violent resistance is superfluous and dangerous. In the face of the violence of violence, there is no non-violence, no pacifism.

Anders was a preeminent critic of technology and critic of the atomic bomb as he saw this hermeneutico-phenomenologically in the visceral sense of being and time: the sheer that of its having been used (where the Nietzschean dialectic of the ‘having been’ reflects the essence of modern technology) as well as the bland politics of nuclear proliferation functions as programmatic aggression advanced in the name of defense and deterrence. The tactic of sheerly technological, automatic, mechanical, aggression is carried out in good conscience. The preemptive strike is, as Baudrillard observed, the opponent’s fault: such are the wages of evil. Violence in good conscience characterizes the postwar, cold war era and the present day with its mushrooming effects of neo-fascism under the titles of national security and anti-terrorism. Karl Krauss’ 1913 bon mot regarding psychoanalysis as the very insanity it claims to cure [Psychoanalyse ist jene Geisteskrankheit, für deren Therapie sie sich halt] has never been more apt for political translation — straight into the heart of what Lacan called the Real which has ‘always been’ the political register. Where Habermas and heirs have tended to disregard Anders (as they also sidestep Heidegger and Nietzsche), just as most philosophers of technology (and indeed philosophers of science) have ignored the political as well as the ethical in their eagerness to avoid suspicion of technophobia, we continue to require both critical theory and a critical philosophy of technology, a conjunction incorporating Ander’s complicated dialectic less of art in Benjamin’s prescient but still innocent age of technological reproduction but and much rather “on the devastation of life in the age of the third industrial revolution.” Thus rather than reading Anders’ critique of the bomb as limited to a time we call the Atomic Age — as Anders himself varied Samuel Beckett’s 1957 Endgame (Fin de partie) as Endzeit that is “Endtime,” here invoking the eschatological language of Jacob Taubes as Anders does — this essay connects his reflections on the bomb with his critique of technology and the obsolescence of humanity as of a piece with our dedication to hurling ourselves against our own mortality. This concern with the violence of technology, this hatred of the vulnerability of having been born and having been set on a path unto death (the mortal path that is the path of life) inspires Anders’ engagement with the sons of Eichmann — the heirs of those who designed and executed the Nazi death camps and extermination chambers of the Holocaust — and the sons of Claude Eatherly — the heirs of both those who designed and those who as pilots (banality of banality) deployed the bombings that exploded the supposed stuff of the sun itself contra the Empire of the Sun in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Martin Heidegger, der sein Leben damit verbrachte, über die Frage nach der Beherrschung der Technik und insbesondere nach der Vorstellung technologischer Herrschaft über die Vorstellung dessen, was für ihn die Frage des Humanismus war, nach zu denken, wies darauf hin, dass die Gefahr der Technik einerseits genau in der Verwirklichung ihrer potentiellen Herrschaft liegt und dass andererseits die äußerste Gefahr der Technik in unserem Bestreben diese Herrschaft zu beherrschen liegt. Maschinen sind Verlängerungen unserer menschlichen Sinne oder unseres Vermögens und daher des Bewusstseins, insofern als Bewusstsein im husserlschen Sinne unvermeidlich intentional ist. Aber die Zweischneidigkeit der Ausrichtung ist nur bis zu der Tatsache gegeben, dass wir maschinen-hörig sind. Je größer unsere Hörigkeit, desto „besser“ fügt sich die Maschine all unseren Launen. Günther Anders, der Hannah Arendts erster Ehemann und Mitglied des anfänglichen Kreises junger Studenten, der in Verbindung mit der Frankfurter Schule steht, und der ebenso ein Schüler Heideggers war machte die Frage nach der Herrschaft der Technik oder deren Übermaß und die damit im Zusammenhang stehende Vorstellung des Obsolet-Werdens der Menschheit zum Zentrum seines Lebenswerks. Anders behielt seine scharfe Beobachtungsgabe bis zum Schluss und sein gesamtes langes Leben hindurch, hierin nicht ungleich Kant; und lassen Sie uns an dieser Stelle als unterschiedliche, ungleichartig begabte menschliche Wesen festhalten, dass eine solche Errungenschaft alles andere ist, als das Resultat eines Automatismus. Darüber hinaus stimmte Anders seine Beobachtungsgabe streng auf die ihn umgebenden technischen Veränderungen der jeweiligen Zeit ab. Darunter wird auch von Fritz Lang sowie James Cameron zu sprechen, beide in Zusammenhang mit Ray Kurzweil sowie die Wissens-Theoretikern Martin Kusch and Harry Collins zu Maschinengehorsamkeit.

"Rosanna Gangemi dedica una profonda analisi alla pratica del fotomontaggio di John Heartfield, fondata sull’idea che il principio della composizione classica, basata sul pezzo isolato, restituisce l'immagine univoca di un mondo perfetto, mentre quella dell'assemblaggio di parti eterogenee, a priori incompatibili, rivela le contraddizioni dell'esistente. Nel 1938 il filosofo Günther Anders dedica ai fotomontaggi di Heartfield un testo poco conosciuto, Sul fotomontaggio: il saggio di Rosanna Gangemi si propone principalmente di dare conto della lettura originale che Anders fa dei fotocollage militanti di Heartfield, definiti come veri e propri giudizi sul mondo. Sono scandagliati gli argomenti che fanno emergere ciò che vi è di profondamente nuovo nella sua pratica: le modalità di enunciazione che promuove, il ruolo che assegna al destinatario e il posto, necessariamente ambivalente, nel mondo dell'arte, fino al processo di concezione e diffusione frutto di certe dinamiche creative collettive, in particolare il contributo del fratello, Wieland Herzfelde, a cui si devono molti degli enunciati verbali che striano i pamphlet visivi di Heartifield."

Across the world, militaries are racing to acquire and develop new capabilities based on the latest in machine learning, neural networks, and artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, I argue that the shift into military AI is shaping human behaviour in heretofore unacknowledged and morally significant ways. Following Anders, I argue that as the human becomes digitally co-machinistic (mitmaschinell), they are compelled to adopt a logic of speed and optimisation in their ethical reasoning. The consequence of this is a form a moral de-skilling, whereby military personnel working with digital infrastructures and interfaces become less able to act and decide as moral agents. This is an especially concerning development when it comes to the conduct of war, where the moral stakes could not be higher.

Starting from a critical evalutaion of the current mainstream in the philosophy of technology, this paper aims to outilne a historical and theoretical overview of the technology as philosophical question.
The outocme of this overview is a taxonomy of the different ideas of a "philosophy of technology", that represents the basis for a brand new approach to this topic. It is a philosophical anthropology of technology, namely a Philosophy of Technology in the Nominative Case (filosofia della tecnica al nominativo - TECNOM), grounded in turn on the twin concepts of neonvironmentality (neoambientalità) and feralization of human being (ferinizzazione dell'essere umano).

Following media-theoretical studies that have characterized digitization as a process of all-encompassing cybernetization, this paper will examine the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s oeuvre vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has witnessed and negotiated the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticized its tendency to automate and expand, as well as its circular logic and ‘integral power’, including disruptive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s works, particularly his magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen [The Obsolescence of Man], sheds new light on the technologically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime and also highlights a new form of cybernetic ‘conformism’. The goal of the essay is therefore, not only to emphasize the contemporary nature of Anders’s thought but also to use it to frame a critique of current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as ‘algorithmic regulation’, ‘smart states’, ‘direct technocracy’, and ‘government as platform’. This essay argues that cybernetic capitalism is causing what Anders terms ‘Unfestgelegtheit’ to disappear; that is, we are losing the originary possibility of technologically (re-)structuring our world in alternative ways, particularly given the determinist character of current technologies.

In questi ultimi anni, con l’incalzare della globalizzazione, della rivoluzione digitale, della bioingegneria, dell’automazione, dell’intelligenza artificiale e altro ancora, l’essere umano è stato sottoposto a molteplici sollecitazioni che ne stanno “muovendo” il profilo. I confini di ciò che sarebbe proprio dell’uomo sono in vario modo messi in discussione. In tale contesto diviene necessaria, perfino urgente, una ricognizione del concetto di umanità, con uno sguardo il più possibile ampio, impegnato con i diversi fronti delle sfide in corso. È questo il tentativo del presente volume: contribuire a una riflessione sistematica sul complesso di problemi racchiusi nell’antica e nuova questione dell’identità umana.

Empfohlene Zitierweise: Grillmayr, Julia (2017): Was übermorgen gewesen ist. Die Rezeption von Günther Anders im zeitgenössischen französischen catastrophisme éclairé. In: Günther Anders-Journal, Jg. 1. Sonderausgabe zur Tagung "Schreiben für übermorgen". Forschungen zu Werk und Nachlass von Günther Anders. Hg. v. Reinhard Ellensohn und Kerstin Putz in Verbindung mit der Internationalen Günther Anders-Gesellschaft. URL: http://www.guenther-anders-gesellschaft.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ grillmayr-2017.pdf Online seit: 20.12.2017 Die Tagung "Schreiben für übermorgen". Forschungen zu Werk und Nachlass von Gün-ther Anders des FWF-Projekts Günther Anders, P-24012 (Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien, Literaturarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek) und des Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Wien (IWK) fand am 28. und 29.11.2014 am IWK in Wien statt.

Syllabus of a course for graduate students of 60 hours (namely 20 3-hours lessons).

Starting from the complex historical-theoretical evolution of the topic “technology” (i.e. from the idea of techné in the ancient Greek to modern and contemporary idea of Machbarkeit/makeability), the course aims to  highlight the importance of  such a topic as philosophical question.
Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of technology will emerge as the fundamental point of reference for the idea itself of a philosophy of technology. At the same time the course will deal with the problem of Heidegger’s legacy, that is the current options and future possibilities for the philosophy of technology.
The course aims to provide the students with the basic conceptual tools in order to deal with the topic “technology” as crucial “hub” of the philosophical thought (especially with reference to its modern and contemporary stages). For this purpose a particular attention will be given to the direct confrontation with the “classics”, chosen as reference literature.

Ziel  dieses  Essays  ist  es,  die  Grundidee  der  „Desertion  ins  Lager  der  Geräte“  in Günther Anders’ „Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen 1“ darzulegen,  sie mit  Richard  Dawkins‘  Theorien  zu  verknüpfen  und  einen  Ausblick  zu  geben,  inwieweit  die künstliche  Intelligenz  zur  Gefahr  für  uns  werden  kann,  wie  es  in  Dystopien  wie  „The  Matrix“,  in denen  die  Maschinen  die  Menschen  unterwerfen,  immer  wieder  dargestellt  wird.

In seinem Buch "Das Konzept einer negativen Dialektik" beansprucht Marc Nicolas Sommer, Theodor W. Adornos negative Geschichtstheorie als „Geschichtsphilosophie aus Sicht der Opfer“ zu rekonstruieren. „[S]eit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg“, so behauptet Sommer mit Adorno, sei „[j]edes Subjekt“ zum „potentielle[n] Opfer der Geschichte“ geworden. „[J]eder Einzelne“ könne sich nun „potentiell“ als Opfer des „Äußersten erfahren“. Im Folgenden werde ich diese These einer Kritik unterziehen.

The First World War was both an historical and a philosophical event. Philosophers engaged in what Kurt Flasch aptly called "the spiritual mobilization" of philosophy. Max Scheler was particularly important among these "war philosophers", given that he was the one who penned some of the most influential philosophical writings of the First World War, among them Der Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg. As I aim to show, Max Scheler's war writings were crucial for Jan Patočka's interpretation of the First World War in the sixth of his Heretical Essays. However, the importance of Scheler's war writings goes far beyond the First World War for Patočka, since they offer Patočka a far-reaching interpretation of the 'excessive' character of the 20th century. As I will show through the example of Max Scheler, the German war philosophers succumbed to a dangerously romantic con- ception of "force" – and it is this ominous force, which Patočka takes to lie at the root of the increas- ingly excessive character of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Günther Anders (1902-1992) is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. German-Jewish man of letters, journalist, and activist, he is one of the few philosophers dealing intensely with the moral consequences of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. In the gap between our technical creations and our utter inability to imagine their destructive potential lies the basis for the unstop-pable activity of this practical philosopher. Anders's main body of work, the two collections of essays Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen Vol. 1 & 2, emerge from an intricate philosophical anthropology which he developed in exile, particularly in the late 1920s and early 1930s. But it's during his American vita that he will write his text on August Rodin. The paper explores the original perspectives of Anders on Rodin' oeuvre, mainly read under the peculiar category of "homelessness", and more globally on modern sculpture. It also tries to show the strong coherence of this quite unknown Californian lecture on the French sculptor (1943) in the framework of Anders' philosophical and socio-political concepts as well as his existential context. Moreover, this analysis conveys the substantial theoretical contributions of Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Simmel on Rodin' subversive poetics and aesthetics.

A atmosfera do século XIX via surgir, de modo relativamente consubstanciado, o cronotopo social abstrato fundado na "autonomização do valor", conforme postulado por Marx, o qual em sua dinâmica tendente ao ápice de sua força, passou a manter um processo paradoxal de redução relativa cada vez mais aprimorada das categorias envolvidas. A relevância do desvelamento do pressuposto em um nível de maneira a atingir o pressuposto em outro nível para fins da discussão da obsolescência será um tema basilar, explorado de distintas formas, nas vozes de Debord e Anders. Ambos os falares, especialmente no que toca o século XX, poderiam ser entendidos como teorias de crise que encerram um emperramento histórico chafurdado na ficcionalização elétrica. Kurz, admitindo uma outra teoria da crise, asseverava: "[a] sociedade do espetáculo [de Debord] 'é' a aventura da mercadoria no estado de seu obsoletismo histórico". Em Anders, a título de exemplo, tal obsolescência comparece encravada em sua análise da pusilanimidade e na contígua adoção da não-comunicação de um Beckett , mas também na constatação da alma naufragada nos próprios pressupostos do mundo emocionalmente plástico com comerciais luminosos em seus interstícios.

My paper focuses on two topics emerging from the third chapter of Carmine Di Martino's Viventi umani e non umani. Tecnica, linguaggio e memoria. The first topic deals with the possibility of a (re)encouter between philosophical anthropology (Paul Alsberg) and philosophy of technology (Ernst Kapp) at their beginning. Such a (re)encounter is conceived of as a countermovement with regard to the current 'ontic drift' within these two disciplines. The second topic has to do with the meaning and the function of the culture/technology in a philosophical-anthropological perspective. Between the two alternatives represented by André Leroi-Gourhan and Arnold Gehlen, my paper highlights Gehlen's institutional approach, that is the idea of the institutions as a balance against the potential risk of a 'cultural Überentlastung' (over-relief).

Editorial zur Themenausgabe "Günther Anders aktuell" des Behemoth. A Journal on Civilization, Vol. 11, Nr. 1, 2018 (hg. v. Christian Dries). Mit Beiträgen von Christian Bauer, Andreas Beinsteiner, Bernd Bösel, Felix Maschewski, Verena Nosthoff und Leon Wolff:
https://ojs.ub.uni-freiburg.de/behemoth/issue/view/81.

Le « Poméranien robuste et non sentimental » George Grosz (1893-1959), peintre et dessinateur, et Günther Anders (1902-1992), le philosophe de la catastrophe et auteur, font connaissance tout en « se reconnaissant » à l’instant. Avec un destin commun de rescapés de l’Allemagne nazie et une inclinaison à la révolte, ils partageaient entre autres un changement de nom, un talent prémonitoire, l’ivresse intellectuelle de la provocation, la méthode de l’exagération, un scepticisme envers l’homme ainsi qu’un sentiment aigu de la responsabilité envers les choses du monde, qui devait être pour eux l’ambition ultime de toute œuvre, et qui le fut de leur propre vie. Nous n’avons donc pas de difficulté à imaginer qu’Anders vit en Grosz, telle une allégorie vivante, l’incarnation de sa conception morale de l’Artiste.
Le court essai - sur lequel l’histoire de l’art, l’histoire culturelle et la philosophie de l’art se sont encore très peu penchés -, qu’Anders consacre à Grosz et aux quatre grands moments qu’il repère dans sa pratique, aborde latéralement certaines questions fondamentales de l’art du XXe siècle : du côté de l’œuvre, la quête du vrai, la clairvoyance, le rôle des avant-gardes, le parti pris et les défis de la figuration dans le discours poético-politique, la « transsubstantiation » du sujet (cible) en image (arme) ; du côté de l’artiste, la rage comme pulsion créative, l’art comme possibilité de survivance existentielle, la relation avec le pouvoir politique et marchand, la reconnaissance institutionnelle, les formes de sociabilité artistique, la quasi complète surimpression entre l’art et la vie. Dans les deux perspectives demeurant, au fond, l’exigence de la liberté d’expression à tout prix, jusqu’à courir le risque de la disparition (de l’œuvre, voire de l’artiste).

El presente escrito trata de abordar la relación entre el ser humano y su mundo de productos técnicos mediante la exploración del concepto de desnivel prometeico, acuñado por Günther Anders. De este modo, se llevará a cabo un análisis de correspondencia entre las nociones de Anders y la enajenación marxiana y feuerbachiana, alumbrando así un estudio comparativo de vocación extemporánea y
crítica.