technics

That progress has negative effects is a well-worn idea. Yet, insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that they ensue from the excessiveness brought about by technological progress. Does that mean that there exists a scale favourable to the thriving of humans?

Is the American government’s drone warfare a radical kind of manhunting, or just a military tactic that can be used for various ends, ranging from highly legitimate to barbarous?

The French literary magazine Esprit evaluates the work of Ivan Illich. It first focuses on his denouncing the perverse effects of industrial society. It also analyzes the symbolic effects of the system of modern technology. Despite the thematic and methodological eclecticism of the two periods in his life, there is one central preoccupation that runs throughout, that of man and his autonomy.

What does it mean to be modern? Is the modern era over, as proponents of post-modernism claim? Flying in the face of conventional definitions, Pierre-Damien Huyghe defends a conception of the modern based on the transformative power of technology, which has always been a characteristic of man.