The Question Concerning Theory: Humanism, Subjectivity, and Computing

Abstract

Deeply held humanist ideasconstitute a residual discourse in our late ageof print, a discourse that has not been effacedby the rise of technology or by widespreadcomputing practices. Against humanism'sEnlightenment idea of the rational individual,mid-twentieth century schools of anti-humanismpostulated a ``subject'' constructed by, ratherthan controlling, its language, culture, andtechnologies. The contemporary notion of thesubject comes from Lacanian psychoanalytictheory, where Lacan draws upon cybernetics andcomputing as evidence of a symbolic orderconstructive of subjectivity. Thiscomputational symbolic, in turn, owes much toHeidegger's post-war notions of technology. Today, however, work in new media suggests thatthe dominant discourse on the subject – thediscourse underwriting contemporary theory – isbeing challenged by an emergent discourse ofthe posthuman. Consequently, theory itself isthrown into question. The question of theorynow arises since we must ask whether theposthuman subject of technology is rewritingthe anti-humanist subject of theory in new andunanticipated ways. This article thus offersan overview of the shift from humanist, toanti-humanist, to posthumanist assumptions. Mygoal is to help readers decide whether today'scomputing environments can still be approachedthrough late twentieth century anti-humanisttheories or whether e-texts demand new,media-specific analyses.