Pós-história como se ontologia : Vilém Flusser

Abstract

This thesis advances a reading hypothesis concerning Vilém Flusser’s post-history—post-history as if ontology. It begins with the observation that, in the wake of the ontological and speculative turns—intellectual movements of great impact in the late first decade of the 21st century—new hermeneutic tools of analysis have been directed toward 20th-century philosophies as a whole. Mobilizing these resources, the thesis makes two incisions into Flusser’s work: the first, a vertical cut, focuses on the fissures and separation between the thesis “language is reality” and post-history; the second, a horizontal cut, establishes on the surface the point of contact and rupture between phenomenology and ontology, in an attempt to answer the question: Is there ontology in Flusser? Following these decisions, and within the context of post-history, it investigates what Flusser means by paraphenomenology—associating this idea with ontology—and emphasizes the author’s declared intention to overcome history and geography. To this end, zero-dimensionality and information are highlighted as an indeterminate point of arrival, simultaneously supporting both the critique of metaphysics and the affirmation of ontology. Against this backdrop, the research explores the relationship between post-history and ancient atomism, Flusser’s place within critical posthumanism, the fictional device operating in the reform of logic, and the subterranean emphasis on space at the expense of time. Finally, it argues that Flusser proposes a speculative immaterialism, which transcends the demarcation between knowing and thinking. Thus, it concludes that just as new ontologies can be characterized as post-historical, so too can post-history be understood as if ontology.