Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Media temporalities of the internet: Philosophies of time and media in Derrida and Rorty

  • Published:
AI & SOCIETY Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

My considerations are organised into four sections. The first section provides a survey of some significant developments that determine contemporary philosophical discussion on the subject of ‘time’. In the second section, I show how the question of time and the issue of media are linked with one another in the views of two influential contemporary philosophers: Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. Finally, in the third section, the temporal implications of cultural practices which are developing in the new medium of the Internet are analysed and, in the fourth section, related to the central theses of Derrida and Rorty.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anders, G. (1956).Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution. Vol 1. Beck, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baert, P. (ed.) (1999).Time in Modern Intellectual Thought. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumgartner, H.M. (ed.) (1993).Das Rätsel der Zeit: Philosophische Analysen. Alber, Freiburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, French original inZeitschrift für Sozialforschung. 1936,5(1). 40–68. (English translation in: Benjamin,Illuminations. Schocken, New York, 1969, 217–251.)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolter, J.D. (1991).Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruckman, A. (1997). MOOSE Crossing: Construction, Community, and Learning in a Networked Virtual World for Kids. PhD dissertation, MIT Media Lab, May 1997 (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/thesis/index.html).

  • Derrida, J. (1976).Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (1982).Margins of Philosophy. Harvester, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (1987).The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (1992).The Other Heading: Reflections on Today's Europe. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gimmler, A., Sandbothe, M. and Zimmerli, W.Ch. (eds) (1997).Die Wiederentdeckung der Zeit: Analysen-Reflexionen-Konzepte. Primus-Verlag and Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, N. (1978).Ways of Worldmaking. Harvester, Hassocks, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, D.R. (ed.) (1986).Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time: Bohm, Prigogine, and Process Philosophy. State University of New York Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M. (1954). The Question Concerning Technology. German original in Podewils, C.G. (ed.)Jahrbuch der Akademie der Schönen Künste. R. Oldenbourg, München, 70 ff. (English translation in Heidegger,The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Harper and Row. New York 1977.)

    Google Scholar 

  • Krohn, W., Küppers, G. and Nowotny, H. (eds) (1990).Self-organization: Portrait of a Scientific Revolution. Kluwer, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landow, G.P. (1992).Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, R. and McBeath, M. (1993).The Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy, P. (1997).Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace. Plenum Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Licklider, J.C.R. and Taylor, R. (1968). The Computer as a Communication Device.Science & Technology. 76 (April). 21–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lübbe, H. (1992).Im Zug der Zeit: Verkürzter Aufenthalt in der Gegenwart. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLuhan, M. (1964).Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musil, R. (1954).The Man without Qualities, Vol. II (2). Secker & Warburg, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. (1973). Time, Irreversibility and Structure. In Mehra, J. (ed.)Physicist's Conception of Nature Reidel, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. (1983).Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. Bantam, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. (1988).Vom Sein zum Werden: Zeit und Komplexität in den Naturwissenschaften. Piper, München.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. (1997).The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature. Free Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. and Stengers, I. (1981).Dialog mit der Natur: Neue Wege naturwissenschaftlichen Denkens. Piper, Munich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, I. and Stengers, I. (1988).Entre le Temps et l'Éternité. Fayard, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rheingold, H. (1994).The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Harper Perennial, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1980).Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1989).Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1991).Essays on Heidegger and others: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1993a). Putnam and the Relativist Menace,Journal of Philosophy XC(9). 443–461.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1993b). Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality, In Shute, S. and Harley, S. (eds)On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993. Basic Books, New York 111–134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1994).Hoffnung statt Erkenntnis. Eine Einführung in die pragmatische Philosophie. Passagen, Mienna.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1995a). Habermas, Derrida, and the Functions of Philosophy,Revue Internationale de Philosophie.49(194). 437–459.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1995b). Philosophy and the Future,Rorty and Pragmatism. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1996). Remarks on Deconstruction and Pragmatism, In Mouffe, C. (ed.)Deconstruction and Pragmatism. Routledge, London, 13–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R. (1998).Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (1993). Zeit und Medien: Postmoderne Medientheorien im Spannungsfeld von Heideggers ‘Sein und Zeit’,Medien und Zeit: Forum für historische Kommunikationsforschung,8(20). 14–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (1996). Mediale Zeiten: Zur Veränderung unserer Zeiterfahrung durch die elektronischen Medien. In: Hammel, E. (ed.)Synthetische Welten: Kunst, Künstlichkeit und Kommunikationsmedien. Blaue Eule, Essen, 133–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (1997a). Theatrale Aspekte des Internet. In Willems, H. and Jurga, M. (eds):Theatralität. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (1997b). Transversale Medienwelten: Philosophische Überlegungen zum Internet. In Vattino, G. and Welsch, W. (eds):Medien-Welten-Wirklichkeiten. Fink, Munich, 1997, 59–84.

  • Sandbothe, M. (1998).Die Verzeitlichung der Zeit: Grundtendenzen der modernen Zeitdebatte in Philosophie und Wissenschaft. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (1999). The Temporalization of Time in Modern Philosophy, In Baert, P. (ed.)Time in Modern Intellectual Thought. Elsevier, Amsterdam (On-line preprint: http://www.uni-jena.de/ms/ms_time.html)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandbothe, M. (2000).Interactivity-Hypertextuality-Transversality: A Media-philosophical Analysis of the Internet, Hermes. Journal of Linguistics, No. 24, Feb. 2000. On-line publication, http://www.unijena.de/ms/tele/e_top.html

  • Sandbothe, M. and Zimmerli W.Ch. (eds). (1994).Zeit-Medien-Wahrnehmung. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, J. (1995).Philosophy of the Sign. State University of New York Press, Albany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (1995).Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon & Schuster, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ulmer, G.L. (1985).Applied Grammatology: Post(e) Pedagogy from Jacques Derrida to Joseph Beuys. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vattimo, G. (1992).The Transparent Society. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Virilio, P. (1984).L'Horizon Négativ. Galilée, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Virilio, P. (1990)L'Inertie Polaire. Christian Bourgois Editeur, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Virilio, P. (1994).The Vision Machine. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. (French original:La machine de vision. Editions Galilée, Paris, 1988.)

    Google Scholar 

  • Virilio, P. (1991). Die Ästhetik des Verschwindens: Ein Gespräch zwischen Fred Forest und Paul Virilio, In Rötzer, F. (ed.)Digitaler Schein: Ästhetik der elektronischen Medien. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 334–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welsch, W. (1987).Unsere postmoderne Moderne, VCH, Weinheim.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welsch, W. (1988). Introduction. In Welsch, W. (ed.).Wege aus der Moderne: Schlüsseltexte der Postmoderne-Diskussion. VCH, Weinheim, 1–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welsch, W. (1996). Transculturality: The Changing Form of Cultures Today, In Roche, J. (ed.)Intercultural Studies: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Proceedings of a lecture series held at the University of British Columbia. Vancouver, Canada, January–May 1996. Centre for Intercultural Language Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1996, S. 106–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welsch, W. and Sandbothe, M. (1997). Postmodernity as a Philosophical Concept. In Bertens, H. and Fokkema, D. (eds)International Postmodernism: Theory and Literary Practice. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 75–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, J.A. (1979). Frontiers of Time. In Toraldo di Francia, G. (ed.)Problems in the Foundation of Physics. Proceedings of the International School of Physics ‘Enrico Fermi’, Course LXXII. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 395–497.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerli, W.Ch. and Sandbothe M. (eds) (1993).Klassiker der modernen Zeitphilosophie. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Friedrich Schiller University, Zwätzengasse 9, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Mike Sandbothe

Authors
  1. Mike Sandbothe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mike Sandbothe.

Additional information

Translated by Andrew Ipkin

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sandbothe, M. Media temporalities of the internet: Philosophies of time and media in Derrida and Rorty. AI & Soc 13, 421–434 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01205987

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01205987

Keywords

Search

Navigation