The Outdatedness of Writing. A Hermeneutic Perspective on the Genesis and Destiny of Graphism in the Technological Era

Abstract

The aim of the essay is to outline a mass media ontology in the technological era starting from a philosophical-anthropological perspective.
The contemporary era is characterized by a radical changing of mass media's technology which made the modern ones, such as the writing, antiquated and obsoletes. The evolution of both writing and mass media, related to the effects on the society and on the human dimension, is examined starting from the anthropological genesis of man and from the birth of technology and language. The approach used tends to hybridize sociological and anthropological perspectives with a philosophical point of view. In fact only a multidisciplinary debate guided by the philosophical method a and theoretical approach can clarify and analyze the contemporary complexity. The anthropological variations caused by mass media revolutions from the birth of writing to the “third wave mass media” are surveyed comparing McLuhan sociological thesis with Andrè Leroi-Gourhan anthropology and Martin Heidegger, Günther Anders and Arnold Gehlen philosophies of technology. In the final part of the essay, as consequence of the previous observations, is outlined the possibility of an ethical perspective of the technological civilization applied to the correct use and understanding of this new kind of media.