Author: Bernard Stiegler File Type: pdf The catastrophic economic, social and political crisis of our time calls for a new and original critique of political economy - a rethinking of Marxs project in the very different conditions of twenty-first century capitalism.Stiegler argues that today the proletarian must be reconceptualized as the economic agent whose knowledge and memory are confiscated by machines. This new sense of the term proletarian is best understood by reference to Platos critique of exteriorized memory. By bringing together Plato and Marx, Stiegler can show how a generalized proletarianization now encompasses not only the muscular system, as Marx saw it, but also the nervous system of the so-called creative workers in the information industries. The proletarians of the former are deprived of their practical know-how, whereas the latter are shorn of their theoretical practice, and both suffer from a confiscation of the very possibility of a genuine art of living.But the mechanisms at work in this new and accentuated form of proletarianization are the very mechanisms that may spur a reversal of the process. Such a reversal would imply a crucial distinction between ones life work, originating in otium (leisure devoted to the techniques of the self), and the job, consisting in a negotium (the negotiation and calculation, increasingly restricted to short-term expectations), leading to the necessity of a new conception of economic value.This short text offers an excellent introduction to Stieglers work while at the same time representing a political call to arms in the face of a deepening economic and social crisis.ReviewPassionate, rigorous, and fundamental, this is a key part of Stieglers urgent and vitally important diagnosis of our contemporary predicament.Martin Crowley, University of CambridgeStieglers critique of political economy provides the theoretical resources to understand how technologies have reconstituted memory and subjectivity, renewing modes of domination and generating new forms of collectivity. In the midst of a crisis of Western neo-liberalism, this path-breaking book could not come at a more opportune time. Eat your heart out Slavoj ?i?ek!Scott Lash, Goldsmiths, University of LondonStieglers writings emerge as the real world antidote to the utopian and apocalyptic traces of post-politics in figures like the multitude, biopolitics, or ?i?eks recent Christo-communist imaginary. He is one of the few contemporaries capable of addressing a new era whose epistemological mutations are just beginning to appear.Tom Cohen, State University of New YorkFrom the Back CoverThe catastrophic economic, social and political crisis of our time calls for a new and original critique of political economy - a rethinking of Marxs project in the very different conditions of twenty-first century capitalism.Stiegler argues that today the proletarian must be reconceptualized as the economic agent whose knowledge and memory are confiscated by machines. This new sense of the term proletarian is best understood by reference to Platos critique of exteriorized memory. By bringing together Plato and Marx, Stiegler can show how a generalized proletarianization now encompasses not only the muscular system, as Marx saw it, but also the nervous system of the so-called creative workers in the information industries. The proletarians of the former are deprived of their practical know-how, whereas the latter are shorn of their theoretical practice, and both suffer from a confiscation of the very possibility of a genuine art of living.But the mechanisms at work in this new and accentuated form of proletarianization are the very mechanisms that may spur a reversal of the process. Such a reversal would imply a crucial distinction between ones life work, originating in otium (leisure devoted to the techniques of the self), and the job, consisting in a negotium (the negotiation and calculation, increasingly restricted to short-term expectations), leading to the necessity of a new conception of economic value.This short text offers an excellent introduction to Stieglers work while at the same time representing a political call to arms in the face of a deepening economic and social crisis.

Author: Michiel Wielema File Type: pdf Ever since it was first written, Adriaan Koerbaghs anti-Christian work, A Light Shining in Dark Places, has been nearly inaccessible. Had it been known during the Enlightenment, it would have been a great inspiration to radical thinkers. However, it was suppressed and the author died in jail. The full text is now available in English. Koerbagh demolishes such Christian notions as the Creator, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, heaven and hell, angels, devils and miracles. Instead, he presents a monistic world view in which Nature and God are identical. Theology is a part of natural science. God can only be worshipped by acting rationally. Koerbaghs rational religion is intended to contribute to a free, peaceful and liberal society. **