The metaphysics of media: Descartes' sticks, naked communication, and immediacy. Issue 4 (3rd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sprenger, Florian
• Is Part Of: Cultural studies. Volume 30:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 630
• Page End: 649
• Publication Date: 2016-07-03
• Subjects: Descartes -- media theory -- action at a distance -- metaphysics -- conceptual history -- German Media Theory; Culture -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Periodicals; 306
• DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2016.1180757
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-2386

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Continuing longstanding debates in German Media Theory, the article explores the genealogy of the concepts of media and communication and their physico-philosophical background. By referring to Descartes' physics, it shows how concepts of action at a distance were part of the formation of the modern idea of physical mediation, while at the same time leading to phantasms of immediacy, which means the cancellation of mediation. In his Dioptrics, Descartes uses the analogy of a stick to explain how light is transmitted from the sun to the earth. This mediation is described as naked communication because it acts at two places at the same time, thus showing a historical oscillation related to all concepts of mediation.