Futures of Life and Futures of Reason

Submitted by Keith Breckenridge on 20 August, 2021 - 10:58

Publication Type:

Journal Article

Authors:

Achille Mbembe

Source:

Public Culture, Volume 33, Number 1 (93), p.11–33 (2021)

URL:

https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8742136

Abstract:

As the new century unfolds, humans are increasingly surrounded by multiple and expanding wave fronts of calculation. What remains of the human subject in an age when instrumental reason is carried out by and through information machines and technologies of calculation? Who will set the boundary that distinguishes between the calculable and the incalculable? In the double-edged conditions of our times, what will it take to turn instruments of calculation into instruments of liberation?