Following our presentation of the »Labyrinth of Signs,« parts I and II, we now provide a deeply reflective yet light-hearted post-mortem discussion between us to help you understand what it means to be literate. Martin’s concept of Psychotope becomes more understandable as our conversation progresses; it becomes clear how essential the Alphabet is in enabling us to be literate in our thinking, writing, and discourses, revealing that we are essentially working with an outsourced, historical unconscious in how it shapes us through its use. This is evident from the fact that the origin of Symbolic Logic remains a gaping blank space in Philosophy—even more so: it’s hidden within the conspicuousness of its absence. Something I’ve come to know as the Burckhardtian leitmotif of »The Philosopher’s Shame.«
It’s also no coincidence that »Geist der Maschine«1 features a chapter on how Sigmund Freud developed his concept of the unconscious, which we’ve also translated into English and will be posting soon. For now, it suffices to say that this chapter explains how and why Freud excluded the 19th century’s material culture (meaning its Logic of an Electrified/Telegraphic Society), which fulfilled his metaphysical needs, while simultaneously introducing something like a black box unconscious of the Unconscious into the World as its Psychotope.
Hopkins Stanley
In the Labyrinth of Signs - I
The following text is part one of the second chapter from Martin’s second book, titled »Vom Geist der Maschine. Eine Geschichte kultureller Umbrüche«, published in 1999.
In the Labyrinth of Signs - II
This is part two of the second chapter from Martin’s second book, titled »Vom Geist der Maschine. Eine Geschichte kultureller Umbrüche«, published in 1999. You can find part one here:
Related Content
In the Working Memory
In the early 1980s, Martin Burckhardt, a young, aspiring writer, completed his Master’s thesis on Walter Mehring and Dadaism. After writing his first radio play in which he’d gathered a group of Dadaists in an old folk home and called for the death of modernity, he soon found himself working in the recording studio with Johannes Schmölling, who’d recent…
The Psychotope
The following text appeared in German in Lettre International, No. 146, Autumn 2024. Since the Universal Machine and its Psychotope are such central leitmotifs to Burckhartdian thinking, we’ve translated the text for our English readers.
Audiobücher / Audiobooks
Hier kann sich der geneigte Leser einige durchaus liebevoll produzierte Hörbücher zu Gemüte führen / Here the reader can listen to some lovingly produced audio books
Burckhardt, M. – Vom Geist der Maschine: Eine Geschichte kultureller Umbrüche, Frankfurt/M, 1999.
Share this post