INTERVISTE / 1 / Tiziano Fossati-Levi, Maurizio Ferraris /
Hysteresis and exteriorization of the human. Interview with Maurizio Ferraris on the anthropology of technology from Documanity
Maurizio Ferraris is Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin and a leading figure in the so-called ‘new realism’, a reaction against postmodern hermeneutic thought to which he has dedicated numerous texts. The most significant among them is the Manifesto of New Realism (2012), which sparked extensive debate in Italy and abroad.
Doc-Humanity (2021) is a speculative work that introduces novel concepts in conjunction with his more established philosophical ideas. The text is structured around four key ideas: registration, iteration, alteration and interruption. The theme of inscription, central in his previous works, gains renewed importance in this book. This is due to a profound teleological examination and the introduction of the concept of hysteresis, a principle that has always operated in history, but has become perceptible only in the context of the documedia revolution. Hysteresis, in this context, signifies the persistence of a system’s effects even after the original causes have ceased to exist. The efficacy of these causes remains discernible in the form of a trace. This notion contradicts the ‘Pentecostal hypotheses’, which attribute special cognitive faculties to humans. Instead, it attributes human evolutionary success to the ability of the species to externalize its inherent deficiencies onto artifacts. Weak by nature and condemned to death, humans began to create external purposes and thus found in technical supplementation the means to survive and in society a way to give meaning to their existence. Anthropology, therefore, corresponds to the history of technology, from which humans have no reason to fear being supplanted, as it exists only for the purpose of satisfying their more or less basic needs.
