An Ontology of the Cell Phone

WHERE ARE YOU? Fordham University Press New York 2014 Commonalities Timothy C. Campbell, series editor WHERE ARE YOU? An Ontology of the Cell Phone Maurizio Ferraris Translated by Sarah De Sanctis Copyright © 2014 Fordham University Press Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone was fi rst published in Italian under the title Dove sei? Ontologia del telefonino, by Bompiani, in 2005, © RCS Libri S.p.A. - Milano. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the per sis tence or accuracy of URLs for external or third- party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014939960 Printed in the United States of America 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1 First edition CONTENTS Foreword by Umberto Eco . vii A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s . xi Translator’s Note . xiii Introduction: Where Are You? . 1 I Perì Mail: Th e Pharaoh’s Mobile Phone . 9 1 Speaking . 11 2 Writing . 44 3 Recording . 71 4 Constructing . 101 Th e Bottle Imp . 119 II Social Objects: Realism and Textualism . 121 5 Strong Realism . 123 6 Strong Textualism . 132 7 Weak Realism . 140 8 Weak Textualism . 161 Epilogue . 183 Notes . 185 References . 213 Index . 229 vi Contents FOREWORD: TRUTH AND THE MOBILE PHONE Umberto Eco In this book, Maurizio Ferraris shows how mobile phones are radically changing our way of life and have therefore become a “philosophically interesting” object. Now that they have also assumed the functions of a palm- sized agenda and pocket computer with an Internet connection, mobile phones are less and less a tool for oral speech and more and more a tool for writing and reading. As such, they have become an omnicomprehen- sive tool for recording— and we shall see to what extent words like writing, recording and “inscription” prick up a Derridian’s ears. Th e fi rst hundred pages of this “anthropology” of the mobile phone are also fascinating for the general reader. Th ere is a substantial diff erence between talking on the home phone and talking on the mobile phone. On the home phone, one could ask whether someone was home, whereas on the mobile phone (except for theft cases) one always knows who is answering, and whether they are there (which changes our situation of “privacy”). On the other hand, home phones allowed one to know where the caller was, while now there is the problem of where she might be (besides, if she answers “I’m behind your back” while calling through a foreign mobile company, her reply is traveling half the world). Nevertheless, I do not know where the person who answers me is, but the phone company knows where we both are— so our ability of escaping the control of single individuals is counterbalanced by a total transparency of our movements with respect to Big Brother (Orwell’s, not the TV one). One can therefore make some pessimistic (paradoxical and hence reli- able) refl ections on the new “homo cellularis.” For instance, the very dy- namics of the face- to- face interaction between Tom and Dick changes, being no longer a relation between two people: the conversation can be inter- rupted by the cellular insertion of Harry, so the interaction between Tom and Dick proceeds only by fi ts and starts, or stops altogether. Th us the main instrument of connection (my being constantly present to others and the others to me) becomes, at the same time, the instrument of disconnec- tion (Tom is connected to everyone apart from Harry). Among the opti- mistic refl ections, I like the reference to the tragedy of Zhivago, who aft er years sees Lara from the tram (remember the fi nal scene of the fi lm?), doesn’t manage to get off in time, and dies. Had they both had a mobile phone, would we have had a happy ending? Ferraris’s analysis oscillates between the possibilities that the mobile phone opens up and the castrations it forces upon us: fi rst of all the loss of solitude and of the silent refl ection upon ourselves, as well as our being condemned to the constant presence of the present. Transformation does not always coincide with emancipation. A third of the way through the book, though, Ferraris moves from the mobile phone to a discussion on themes that have become increasingly interesting to him in the past few years, such as the polemic against his origi- nal masters, from Heidegger to Gadamer to Vattimo; against philosophical postmodernism; against the idea that there are no facts, only interpreta- tions; up to a now complete defense of consciousness as (poor Rorty) the Mirror of Nature. Of course, with a lot of common sense— and it is a shame not to be able to follow step by step the foundation of the sort of realism that Ferraris calls “weak textualism.” How do we get from mobile phones to the problem of Truth? By way of a distinction between physical objects (like a chair or Mount Blanc), ideal objects (like Pythagoras’s theorem) and social objects (like the Italian Constitution or the obligation of paying for drinks in the pub). Th e fi rst two kinds of objects exist also outside of our decisions, whereas the third kind becomes, so to speak, operative only aft er a recording or an inscription. Given that Ferraris also attempts a somehow “natural” foundation of these social recordings, then the mobile phone presents itself as the abso- lute device for any kind of recording. It would be interesting to discuss many of the points made in the book. For example, the pages dedicated to the diff erence between recording (like viii Umberto Eco a bank statement, a law, or any collection of personal data) and communication. Ferraris’s ideas on recording are extremely interesting, while his ideas on communication have always been a little generic (they seem like they have been bought in Ikea, to use the meta phor of a previous pamphlet of his against him). But in the space of a Bustina1 one does not go into deep philosophical discussions. Some readers might wonder whether a refl ection on the mobile phone was really needed to reach conclusions that could have been drawn from the concepts of writing and “signature.” Of course, a phi los o pher can be prompted even by the refl ection on a worm to build an entire metaphysics, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is not that mobile phones allowed Ferraris to develop an ontology, but rather that his ontology allowed him to understand, and make us understand, mobile phones. Foreword: Truth and the Mobile Phone ix AC KNOW LEDG MENTS Th e idea of a collective intelligence— the dream that, by connecting to a network, people could create some super- intelligent totem— seems bizarre to me. But without friends, students, colleagues, even relatives and obvi- ously without masters (one of whom unfortunately died a few years ago), this book would not have been written. Which perhaps would have been better, but still, the book is there, and acknowledgements are needed— and, as is appropriate, have to be written down. I thank everyone, and full heartedly, but fi rst of all my friends from the LabOnt (laboratory for ontology) at the University of Turin, who have been a source of ideas, elaborations, and reasonings that otherwise would have never crossed my mind: Tiziana Andina, Carola Barbero, Cristina Bec- chio, Cesare Bertone, Stefano Caputo, Alessandro Gatti, Alessandra Jaco- muzzi, Pietro Kobau, Alessandro Lancieri, Luca Morena, Alessandra Saccon, Alessandro Salice, Daniela Tagliafi co. For the same reason I am indebted to the 2004– 5 graduate students in philosophy at the University of Turin, with whom I tested this book and from whose reactions and relations I received suggestions of various kinds: Giulia Alberti, Elisabetta Audisio, Alessandra Berlese, Marco Bertello, Da- vide Biasoni, Laura Borlengo, Maria Teresa Busca, Fabrizio Calzavarini, Raff aella Cavalletto, Davide Coero Borga, Maurizio Dale, Barbara D’Alessandro, Laura Teresa Di Summa, Davide Passio, Sara Gennaro, Davide Grasso, Alessandro Lomartire, Gemma Lupi, Carola Marucci, Giuliana Racca, Erika Sampò, Davide Saraniti, Alessandra Scotti, Fabio Scuderi, Fabio Straforini, Maria Grazia Turri, Nicolò Valenzano, Simona Verlengia, Antonella Vitielli. My friends Barry Smith and Leo Zalbert, from the IFOMIS in Leipzig and Saarbrücken, saw this work as it was taking shape (initially in a very short observation to Smith about his objection to Searle, then in its defi ni- tive form in Saarbrücken, in January 2004). Kristòf Nyìri of the Hungarian Science Academy saw its conclusion and pushed me to hurry up with it. I thought that maybe the way to an ontology of the mobile phone could be possible thanks to my friend Armando Massarenti and my brother Gabriele Ferraris, who welcomed its fi rst, fragmentary, sketches in the Sun- day issue of “Il Sole 24 Ore” and in “Torinosette.” I also owe a lot to other friends: Gian Maria Ajani, Andrea Bottani, Mauro Bussani, Rosa Maria Calcaterra, Richard Davies, Michele Graziadei who off ered me comments and suggestions on previous versions.

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