Destiny Domesticated: The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Technology - Hardcover

De Mul, Jos

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1438449712 ISBN 13: 9781438449715

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2014

Synopsis

Analyzes contemporary technological society through the lens of Greek tragedy.

Destiny Domesticated investigates three ways Western civilization has tried to tame fate: the heroic affirmation of fate in the tragic culture of the Greeks, the humble acceptance of divine providence in Christianity, and the abolition of fate in modern technological society. Against this background, Jos de Mul argues that the uncontrollability of technology introduces its own tragic dimension to our culture. Considering a range of literary texts and contemporary events, and drawing on twenty-five centuries of tragedy interpretation from philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, literary critics George Steiner and Terry Eagleton, and others, de Mul articulates a contemporary perspective on the tragic, shedding new light on philosophical topics such as free will, determinism, and the contingency of life.

About this title

About the Author

Jos de Mul is Full Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He is the author of Cyberspace Odyssey: Towards a Virtual Ontology and Anthropology,/i>; The Tragedy of Finitude: Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of Life; and Romantic Desire in (Post)modern Art and Philosophy, also published by SUNY Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1438449712
• ISBN 13: 9781438449715
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 358