Experience of Multiplicity, Multiplicity’s Experience. From a Critical Genealogy of Homo Economicus to a Contemporary Machine Phenomenology

  • Ruben Pfizenmaier GCSC

Abstract

In Experience. New Foundations for the Human Sciences, sociologist Scott Lash addresses the human sciences in general. He proposes a new perspective on the methodological status of experience. His book covers a vast array of fields and topics: rooted in sociology and cultural studies, Lash takes his readers on a profound, sometimes swift journey from Greek antiquity to the Methodenstreit in 19th century sociology, from Kant’s transcendentalism to Arendt’s political thought and from the rise of cybernetics to Chinese art and aesthetics – always focussed on the historical conditions, role, and function of experience. Lash’s aim is twofold: firstly he is presenting a critique of the homo economicus, the currently dominant ideology of the Western world, by a genealogy of objective experience and formalism in the social sciences and economics. Secondly, he develops, with Aristotle, Hannah Arendt, William James but also Chinese thought, a perspective on subjective experience suitable for our present.

Published
2018-11-01
How to Cite
Pfizenmaier, Ruben. 2018. “Experience of Multiplicity, Multiplicity’s Experience. From a Critical Genealogy of Homo Economicus to a Contemporary Machine Phenomenology”. KULT_online, no. 56 (November). https://doi.org/10.22029/ko.2018.233.
Section
KULT_reviews