The article analyzes Yuka Hui's concept of the transformation of modern technology. He is a well-known Hong Kong philosopher of technology, well acquainted with both Western and Eastern (Chinese) philosophy. He is an obvious follower of Martin Heidegger, who proposes to consider language and art, but not modern, but authentic, given in historical reconstructions, as a means of transforming technology. Specifically, Hui considers Chinese reconstructed art and worldview to be the tools of such a transformation. To convince readers of this, (...) both Western and Eastern, Hui, on the one hand, turns to the analysis of Chinese Shan Shui painting, which he considers an example of "cosmo-art", on the other ‒ to Western concepts of second-order cybernetics, the concept of autopoiesis, studies of individuation by the French philosopher J. Simondon. The author shows that Hui's thinking and discourse are hybrid, including, on the one hand, cultural logic, on the other ‒ cybernetic and autopoetic, on the third hand, modernized ancient Chinese logic. Hui connects them quite organically, although for a Western reader, such logic still looks contradictory. Especially when it comes to understanding the third logic, when Hui, for example, comments and clarifies ideas about the Tao, pointing to such signs as invisibility, obscurity, a combination of natural and anthropological properties (Heaven and the virtuous path). At the end of the article, the author discusses whether Hui managed to outline an effective solution to the problems posed by him and Heidegger. He examines the arguments for and against and tends to conclude that the proposed solutions look dubious, in the sense that they are almost impossible to implement. In addition, the author draws attention to the fact that the interpretation of modern technology as a "delivery" is clearly insufficient to solve these problems. In reality, modern technology is a more complex phenomenon; in the philosophy of technology, in addition to delivery, other aspects are considered in it (engineering, technology, technical environment, technosocial large projects, the Internet, robotics, AI). These and other considerations, especially regarding the conditions for the implementation of projects such as those proposed by Hui, incline the author to a pessimistic point of view about the transformation of modern technology. (shrink)

The article presents the author's reconstruction of the main stages of the origin of ideas about cognition. The picture of the reality of cognition accepted in modern science is presented, in which the yet unknown world is contrasted as a source of latent knowledge and patterns and a person as a cognizer striving to discover this knowledge. It is argued that in the Ancient World, such a familiar picture for a modern person did not take place. An analysis of the (...) way of mastering the world related to this period shows that it represented the resolution of problematic situations through the invention of knowledge and schemes (local and fundamental), opening the way to understanding and new behavior. Together, local and fundamental schemes set the Ancient world, understandable and epistemologically transparent, requiring no knowledge. Man lived in a world of souls, spirits and gods. Although he created this world himself, solving problematic situations, he perceived it as having always existed. Cognition begins to take shape, starting with ancient culture; its prerequisites are the formation of an ancient personality and the invention of a new way of obtaining knowledge, not on diagrams, but in reasoning. The contribution of Plato and Aristotle to this revolutionary epistemic process is considered. The first introduces cognition as a dialectical and partly sacred way of understanding a new way of obtaining consistent knowledge. Stagirite transfers knowledge from heaven to earth, and places the source of new knowledge in things. Aristotle interprets this source as a hidden natural movement, calling it nature. The author reconstructs two more stages of the formation of knowledge related to the Middle Ages and modern times. It turned out that nature is not only movements hidden from human eyes, but those that are "written in the language of mathematics" and "constrained," as Francis Bacon wrote, by human art. The article ends with an indication of the next stage in the evolution of cognition, characteristic of the study of humanitarian and social phenomena. (shrink)

The article offers a new interpretation of the technique and its evolution. The ideas about the technique of Aristotle, F. Bacon, P. Engelmeir, N.Berdyaev are analyzed, as well as the understanding of nature, on the basis of which the technique is comprehended and conceptualized. The author's hypothesis is that it is necessary to distinguish between two fundamentally different understandings of technology and the lines of its development: one, where technology is understood as engineering and conceptualized within the framework of the (...) first nature, and the other, technology as technology, conceptualized within the framework of the idea of the second nature. In addition, the author shows that in the twentieth century there is a convergence of both lines of technology development, entailing a synthesis of engineering and technology. The atomic project is given as an illustration. On the basis of the proposed ideas, an explanation of the peculiar explosion of the development of technology in the XIX and XX centuries and the emergence of technoprime is outlined. To analyze the features of the second nature, the work of Dmitry Efremenko is considered, who suggests the genesis of megamachines, distinguishing between their two main types and outlining the third. Another component of the second nature is technology, in which, in addition to the sequence of operations and the conditions that ensure them, the author highlights the division of labor, attitudes to economy, standardization and quality of products, research and optimization or restructuring of production activities. In conclusion, the article points out three consequences of the synthesis of engineering and technology, as well as the crisis of technology in modernity: the need to revise ideas about nature, technology and the modern project, as well as the importance of studying the second nature. (shrink)

The author analyzes the formation of questioning in two cultures (Ancient and Middle Ages) by the example of questions and answers in the works of Plato and St. Augustine. The author points out two reasons that triggered this process: firstly, the formation of an ancient personality, which was characterized by independent behavior and creativity, and secondly, the need not only to present new knowledge and pictures of the world to listeners, but also to convince them of the correctness of the (...) proposed innovations. The questions and answers in Plato's dialogues are considered; in addition to the task of persuasion, they mark the stages of Plato's construction of concepts, while probably taking into account the objections of Plato's listeners, and the contradictions arising from the proposed definitions, and the understanding of various empirical cases, and the possibility of thinking them all as a whole. Questions, on the one hand, were a kind of reflection of cognition (dialectics) Plato of complex phenomena, on the other hand, helped Plato's listeners to develop a seemingly similar process of cognition. The analysis of questioning in Augustine's "Confession" allowed the author to distinguish three semantic contexts: the first one is the certification of new theoretical constructions, the second context is thinking, here the questions, on the one hand, mark the stages of creativity, representing a form of reflection, on the other hand, initiate listeners' own thinking, the third context is religious, it is both repentance and the conviction of those who waver in faith. If most questioners usually have questions that help thinking and work for persuasion, then the third context can be very different. (shrink)