NOTES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF BYUNG-CHUL HAN: THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

This article aims to discuss some central themes of Byung-Chul Han's philosophy. This journeying through various important and complex works does not intend to exhaust any subject, but to help understand our life in the digital age. To start with, we will address the main differences made by Han between the new digital society and the disciplinary society of the last century. The changes concern the very nature of thought and the perception of the world, brought about by a way of life in which the operational processes of digital machines become paradigmatic. We will then show how, by proposing a new model of thinking opposed to operational thinking, Han restores ritual actions as symbolic practices, as well as insists on a review of Hegel's thinking, especially the notions of wholeness and otherness. For a better understanding of narcissism in our digital age, we will look into the author's aesthetic theory because the aesthetic experience is being threatened, partly by the individual's inability to surrender oneself to the other. This last point will particularly focus upon Kant and Adorno's aesthetics.