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In a precarious world even our most basic assumptions are subject to challenge and change. Confronted by economic, environmental and existential crises, humanity is once again undergoing a profound reappraisal of its place and purpose. This book draws on the ideas of Michel Foucault to trace the evolving relationship between power, knowledge, and governance in the modern era, from the Age of Enlightenment to artificial intelligence.
As it explores the ideas, actors and events that have shaped our world, the volume chronicles the development of four overlapping periods of modern thought: atomistic, mechanistic, organic, and dataistic. Moving through the centuries from early industrial capitalism to neoliberalism and the emergence of data-driven systems of thought and control it charts the transformation of human assumptions, aspirations and the art of governance. As we enter into an uncertain future, the book identifies the rise of new technologies that conceive and conduct us in radical new ways. Establishing the parameters of a new episteme, these knowledges reveal new realities and raise the possibility of alternative forms of humanity.
As such, the book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the history of knowledge, social theory and the sociology of modernity.
List of contents
Introduction.- Part One: The Past.- 1. A New World of Knowledge: The Atomistic Episteme.- 2. Rise of the Machines: The Mechanistic Episteme.- 3. A Design for Life: The Organic Episteme.- Part Two: The Present.- 4. Fabricating Freedom: The Rise of Neoliberalism.- 5. No Alternative: Neoliberalism in Ascendance.- 6. Turbulent Twenty-First Century: Neoliberalism in Crisis.- Part Three: The Future.- 7. A World of Information: The Dataistic Episteme.- 8. How and to What Ends? Toward a Dataistic Art of Governance.- Epilogue.
About the author
Dominic Hewson
is a writer and social theorist with experience teaching and conducting research in Ireland, Vietnam and the UK. He is currently working at Ulster University, where he teaches classical and contemporary social theory.
Summary
In a precarious world even our most basic assumptions are subject to challenge and change. Confronted by economic, environmental and existential crises, humanity is once again undergoing a profound reappraisal of its place and purpose. This book draws on the ideas of Michel Foucault to trace the evolving relationship between power, knowledge, and governance in the modern era, from the Age of Enlightenment to artificial intelligence.
As it explores the ideas, actors and events that have shaped our world, the volume chronicles the development of four overlapping periods of modern thought: atomistic, mechanistic, organic, and dataistic. Moving through the centuries – from early industrial capitalism to neoliberalism and the emergence of data-driven systems of thought and control – it charts the transformation of human assumptions, aspirations and the art of governance. As we enter into an uncertain future, the book identifies the rise of new technologies that conceive and conduct us in radical new ways. Establishing the parameters of a new episteme, these knowledges reveal new realities and raise the possibility of alternative forms of humanity.
As such, the book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the history of knowledge, social theory and the sociology of modernity.
