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Calculus
Vilém Flusser’s philosophical work can be divided
into two main periods: the first, sometimes
referred to as “philosophy of language,” and the
second one, known as “philosophy of communication”
or “media philosophy.” In the latter, the
word “calculus” gains a more accurate and precise
meaning than in the first period, for reasons
that will be described in the following.
In the first stage of Flusser’s thinking, his conception
of mathematics contains the notion of
calculus. In The History of the Devil (2014) this
concept is rather negative in the chapter on
wrath, and more positive in the chapter concerning
pride, as well as in the section on music
in the chapter “A Língua Cria Realidade” [Language
Creates Reality] in Língua e Realidade
[Language and Reality] (1963).
In the first case, his notion of mathematics,
from the Renaissance to the present day, refers
to the idea of law (that exists since classical
antiquity) which has been interpreted as a
mechanical regularity. This gave rise not only to
modern science, but also to the technologies it
spawned. The negative connotations of mathematics
mentioned above relate to the blind faith
in the truth of the “hard” sciences and also to
the danger that the technologies brought forth
by these sciences are so powerful they can annihilate
all human life. As described in the two
main works produced during Flusser’s first work
phase, the positive side of mathematics derives
from its similarity with music: “This aesthetic
quality (why shouldn’t one say it?), this musical
aspect of mathematics is, most likely, the real
reason for the attraction it exerts on the intellect.
And, vice versa, the mathematical quality
of music at the level of prayer makes music the
greatest contribution to the inflected languages
in all the actual conversations that constitute reality.”
(Língua e Realidade, 2010, p. 166; translated
from the Portuguese)
As for his philosophy of communicology, the term “calculus” appears in the context of Flusser’s periodization, according to which traditional images refer to prehistory, texts to history, and technical images refer to post-history. If this sequence is understood as the progressive abstraction of the dimensions through which we experience reality, traditional images are two-dimensional (a dimension of our three-dimensional world experience is abstracted), writing is one-dimensional, and technical images are zero-dimensional. Geometrically, this “zero-dimensionality” corresponds to one point (just as two-dimensionality refers to the plane and one-dimensionality refers to the line), which can be understood as one of the elementary units that lead to the calculus (Latin; literally “small pebble,” as used on an abacus). This becomes the origin of “computerization” and of the encoded world we currently live in: “Therefore, calculating and computing are the fourth gesture of abstraction (the length of the line is abstracted), whereby humans transform themselves into players who calculate and compute concepts.” (O Universo das Imagens Técnicas, 2010, p. 17; translated from the Portuguese)* * Editorial note: This passage does not exist in the English edition.