Where Are You? : An Ontology of the Cell Phone / Maurizio Ferraris.
Ferraris, Maurizio, author.; Eco, Umberto, contributor.; Sanctis, Sarah De, contributor.
2014
HE9713 .F477 2014eb
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource Online Access

Details

Title Where Are You? : An Ontology of the Cell Phone / Maurizio Ferraris.
Author Ferraris, Maurizio, author.
ISBN 9780823256198
DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823256198
Published New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2014]
Copyright ©2014
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (248 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers 10.1515/9780823256198 doi
Call Number HE9713 .F477 2014eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 303.4833
Summary This book sheds light on the most philosophically interesting of contemporary objects: the cell phone. "Where are you?"-a question asked over cell phones myriad times each day-is arguably the most philosophical question of our age, given the transformation of presence the cell phone has wrought in contemporary social life and public space.Throughout all public spaces, cell phones are now a ubiquitous prosthesis of what Descartes and Hegel once considered the absolute tool: the hand. Their power comes in part from their ability to move about with us-they are like a computer, but we can carry them with us at all times-in part from what they attach to us (and how), as all that computational and connective power becomes both handy and hand-sized.Quite surprisingly, despite their name, one might argue, as Ferraris does, that cell phones are not really all that good for sound and speaking. Instead, the main philosophical point of this book is that mobile phones have come into their own as writing machines-they function best for text messages, e-mail, and archives of allkinds. Their philosophical urgency lies in the manner in which they carry us from the effects of voice over into reliance upon the written traces that are, Ferraris argues, the basic stuff of human culture.Ontology is the study of what there is, and what there is in our age is a huge network of documents, papers, and texts of all kinds. Social reality is not constructed by collective intentionality; rather, it is made up of inscribed acts. As Derrida already prophesized, our world revolves around writing. Cell phones have attached writing to our fingers and dragged it into public spaces in a new way. This is why, with their power to obliterate or morph presence and replace voice with writing, the cell phone is such a philosophically interesting object.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)
Added Author Eco, Umberto, contributor.
Sanctis, Sarah De, contributor.
Series Commonalities
In Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
Available in Other Form print 9780823256167
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
Frontmatter
CONTENTS
FOREWORD: TRUTH AND THE MOBILE PHONE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
INTRODUCTION: WHERE ARE YOU?
Part I. PERÌ MAIL: THE PHARAOH'S MOBILE PHONE
1. SPEAKING
2. WRITING
3. RECORDING
4. CONSTRUCTING
THE BOTTLE IMP
Part II. SOCIAL OBJECTS: REALISM AND TEXTUALISM
5. STRONG REALISM
6. STRONG TEXTUALISM
7. WEAK REALISM
8. WEAK TEXTUALISM
EPILOGUE
NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export