Cybernetics for the 21st Century Vol.1 – Epistemological Reconstruction

Cybernetics for the 21st Century
Vol.1 Epistemological Reconstruction
Edited by Yuk Hui

Philosophy, Art and Technology series

Cybernetics for the 21
st Century Vol.1 is dedicated to the epistemological reconstruction of cybernetics, consisting of a series of historical and critical reflections on the subject – which according to Martin Heidegger marked the completion of Western metaphysics. In this anthology, historians, philosophers, sociologists and media studies scholars explore the history of cybernetics from Leibniz to artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the development of twentieth-century cybernetics in various geographical regions in the world, from the USA to the Soviet Union, Latin America, France, Poland, China and Japan. The reconstruction shows the various paths of cybernetics and their socio-political implications, which remain unfamiliar to us today. It reveals more than what we thought we knew – and yet we hardly know – and allows us to understand where we are and to reflect on the future of technology, ecology and planetary politics. 

With texts by Brunella Antomarini, Slava Gerovitch, Daisuke Harashima, Kathrine Hayles, Yuk Hui, Dylan Levi King, Michał Krzykawski, David Maulen de los Reyes, Andrew Pickering, Dorion Sagan and Mathieu Triclot.

This publication is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit: creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/

ISBN: 978-988-70268-0-8 (print)
ISBN: 978-988-70268-4-6 (e-book)
Book size: 148 x 210 mm
Pages: 271
Language: English
Publish year: 2024

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Cybernetics Now? 
Yuk Hui

Part I: Maps

Translating Rationalism: Leibniz and Cybernetics 
Brunella Antomarini

Machine and Ecology 
Yuk Hui

Ontology and the Politics of Information in the first Cybernetics 
Mathieu Triclot

Detoxifying Cybernetics: From Homeostasis to Autopoiesis and Beyond
Kathrine Hayles

James Lovelock, Gaia, and the Remembering of Biological Being 
Dorion Sagan

 

Part II: Territories

Cybernetics in Britain 
Andrew Pickering

Cybernetics Across Cultures: The Localization of the Universal 
Slava Gerovitch

Cybernetics, Communism, and Romanticism: Cybernetic Thinking in the Polish People’s Republic and in the Pre-Cybernetic Era  
Michał Krzykawski

A Brief History of Chinese Cybernetics  
Dylan Levi King

Why Did Cybernetics Disappear from Latin America? An Incomplete Timeline 
David Maulén de los Reyes

Life-in-formation: Cybernetics of the Heart  
Daisuke Harashima

Biographies