The Digitalisation of (Inter)Subjectivity: A Psi-critique of the Digital Death Drive

This book explores the responsibility of psychological and neuropsychological perspectives in relation to the digitalisation of inter-subjectivity. It examines how integral their theories and models have been to the development of digital technologies, and by combining theoretical and critical work of leading thinkers, it is a new and highly original perspective on (inter)subjectivity in the digital era.

The book engages with artificial intelligence and cybernetics and the work of Alan Turing, Norbert Wiener, Marvin Minsky, Gregory Bateson, and Warren McCulloch to demonstrate how their use of neuropsy-theories persists in contemporary digital culture. The author aims to trace a trajectory from psychologisation to neurologisation, and finally, to digitalisation, to make us question the digital future of humankind in relation to the idea of subjectivity, and the threat of the ‘death-drive’ inherent to digitality itself.

This volume is fascinating reading for students and researchers in the fields of critical psychology, neuroscience, education studies, philosophy, media studies, and other related areas.

Jan De Vos holds an MA in psychology and a PhD in philosophy and is currently affiliated to Ghent University and University College Ghent, Belgium. He is author of several monographs, amongst others, The Metamorphoses of the Brain. Neurologisation and its Discontents (2016) and Psychologisation in times of Globalisation (2012).