• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.147
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• pp.239-260
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• 2018

Is an artificial intelligence robot, a non-human beings newly emerging in the age of technology, a threat to human beings, or a mutual cooperation or ensemble with human beings? The desire to control nature through the use of the power of science and technology is manifested in the fear that humans can annihilate themselves. This study attempts to identify the problems of Cartesian epistemology underlying these questions and fears and to answer these questions based on Merleau - Ponty 's ontological ontology using the Ontology and Latour' s ontology and technological philosophy. The cogito derived from the Cartesian philosophy became the basis of the structure of dichotomous epistemology of 'subjectivity and objectivity' based on human - reason. In the human-centered world, all non-human beings were tools or controls for humans. The problem of the modern people is not only to get help from the natural scientific methods to control the nature including man, but also to think that scientific method is the only way to understand the world. In criticizing this, Merleau-Ponty shows that the body mediates between human beings and non-human beings, and provides a possible ontological basis for the ontology. Merleau - Ponty 's phenomenological methodology and ontology are newly developed by Simondon under the influence of phenomenological philosopher and phenomenology. The relationship between human beings and nonhuman beings by Simondon appears as an ensemble of human and technical objects or a mutual co - operation of human and technical objects. In particular, Latour goes a step further in Simondon and defines all the bodies living in the world as actor-network theory, denying the core concept of modernity. Merleau - Ponty 's phenomenological view can be a new possible basis for the philosophical discussion of the technological age. We will see that the problem itself can be solved by shifting modern fear to a phenomenological attitude.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.613-632
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• 2016

The recent diagnosis of the Anthropocene challenges public understanding of nature as a pure and singular entity removed from society, as the diagnosis confirms the earth-changing force of humans. In geography, the nature-society divide has been critically interrogated long before the diagnosis of the Anthropocene, developing several ways of theorizing nature-society relations. This paper introduces a new frontier for such theoretical endeavors: more-than-human geography. Inspired by the material and performative turn in geography and the social sciences around the 2000s, more-than-human geographers have sought to re-engage with the livingness of the world in the study of nature-society relations. Drawing on actor-network theory, non-representational theory (NRT) and vitalism, they have developed innovative ways of thinking about and relating to nature through the key concepts of 'nonhuman agency' and 'affect'. While more-than-human geography has been extensively debated and developed in recent Euro-American scholarship on cultural and economic geography, it has so far received limited attention in Korean geographical studies on nature. This paper aims to address this gap by discussing the key concepts and seminal work of more-than-human geography. I first outline four theoretical strands through which nature-society relations are perceived in geography. I then offer an overview of more-than-human geography, discussing its theoretical foundations and considering ontologies, epistemologies, politics and ethics associated with nature-society relations. Then, I compare more-than-human geography with political ecology, which is the mainstream critical approach in contemporary environmental social sciences. I would argue that more-than-human geography further challenges and develops political ecology through its heightened attention to the affective capacity of nonhumans and the methodological ethos of doing a careful political ecology. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of more-than-human geography for Korean studies on nature-society relations.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.182-196
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• 2012

본고에서는 미래인터넷 환경으로서 사람 사물 공간 간의 새로운 관계망으로서의 만물지능통신 기반 초연결 네트워크(All Things on Ambient Network: ATAN)에 주목한다. ATAN은 네트워크를 구성하는 행위 주체로서 인간과 인간의 소통에서 인간과 사물, 사물과 사물, 공간과 공간으로 확장되어 데이터, 정보 그리고 행동을 초연결하는 시스템의 총체로 본다. 본고에서는 ATAN이 포스트 스마트 사회 인프라로 이행하는 기여 지점에서 인간과 비인간의 의사소통 티핑 포인트(tipping point)로서의 ATAN 싱귤래리티(singularity) 개념이 존재함을 제안한다. 이러한 전제하에서 ATAN 싱귤래리티의 발생 구도를 설정하고, 웹의 과거 현재 미래 고찰을 통해 ATAN 패러다임으로 전개되는 과정을 고찰한다. 또한 주요국의 미래인터넷 전략 분석을 통하여 ATAN으로의 공통 지향성을 추출한다. 이러한 작업을 통해 우리나라의 미래 네트워크의 전략적 콘셉트로서 ATAN 국가전략기조를 제시한다. 마지막으로 첨단 네트워크 기술이 사회변형을 촉진하고 사회가 기술을 인간 중심으로 수용하는 건강한 기술사회 복합체(technology-social complex)를 지향할 것을 강조하였다.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.83-94
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• 2019

This paper analyzed the posthuman features of the open-world adventure game. These games represent the player character as Posthuman Subject through the restrictions of information and body. The player explores all of the spaces to perform the quests due to nonlinearity of open-world. The interactions are restricted conflicts and it reveals through gameplay. The experiences as Posthuman Subject allow the player to embody the Hybrid Subjectivity and think about coexistence of human and inhuman.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.40
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• pp.111-131
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• 2015

An unusual success engendering loyalty among cult fans in the United States, Mamoru Oshii's 1995 cyberpunk anime, Ghost in the Shell (GITS) revolves around a female cyborg assassin named Motoko Kusanagi, a.k.a. "the Major." When the news came out last year that Scarlett Johansson was offered 10 million dollars for the role of the Major in the live action remake of GITS, the frustrated fans accused DreamWorks of "whitewashing" the classic Japanimation and turning it into a PG-13 film. While it would be premature to judge a film yet to be released, it appears timely to revisit the core achievement of Oshii's film untranslatable into the Hollywood formula. That is, unlike ultimately heteronormative and humanist sci-fi films produced in Hollywood, such as the Matrix trilogy or Cloud Atlas, GITS defies a Hollywoodization by evoking much bafflement in relation to its queer, posthuman characters and settings. This essay homes in on Major Kusanagi's body in order to update prior criticism from the perspectives of posthumanism and queer theory. If the Major's voluptuous cyborg body has been read as a liberating or as a commodified feminine body, latest critical work of posthumanism and queer theory causes us to move beyond the moralistic binaries of human/non-human and male/female. This deconstruction of binaries leads to a radical rethinking of "reality" and "identity" in an image-saturated, hypermediated age. Viewed from this perspective, Major Kusanagi's body can be better understood less as a reflection of "real" women than as an embodiment of our anxieties on the loss of self and interiority in the SNS-dominated society. As is warned by many posthumanist and queer critics, queer and posthuman components are too often used to reinforce the human. I argue that the Major's hybrid body is neither a mere amalgam of human and machine nor a superficial postmodern blurring of boundaries. Rather, the compelling combination of individuality, animality, and technology embodied in the Major redefines the human as always, already posthuman. This ethical act of revision-its shifting focus from oppressive humanism to a queer coexistence-evinces the lasting power of GITS.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.41
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• pp.381-413
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• 2015

This article aims to trace a historical trajectory of "Humanism" as a Modern scientific concept in the light of Michel Foucault's genealogy. Generally, we believe that Humanism is a natural and eternal idea for mankind, because no one doubts that he or she is not included in the category of a "Human Being." On the contrary, according to French philosopher Foucault, the Idea of Humanism, or anthropocentrism, appeared only in the Modern Age, from the 16th century downward. Before the Renaissance, human beings did not occupy the most important status in Nature, and only existed as natural beings. As soon as mankind was liberated from the superstitious of fear and religious dogma, the concept of "Human Being" is supplied with new meanings and values. The famous maxim, such as, "Man is the lord of creation" constitutes modern human science as an inviolable category of modernity. However, Foucault tried to illuminate the hidden sides of humanism, and gave us the strict warning on the end of the human beings, which turned out to be an object of Modern knowledge. If there would be no reason to maintain a knowledge system of Modernity, in other words, Modernity as knowledge would lose its validity and we could give up Humanism as a heavy burden. Moreover, it is very clear that we are confronted with the critical moments of radical skepticism on the meaning and value for Humanity. That means that we need to think about the new transformations of Human Beings, which will probably appear in the forms of "Non-Humans," "Machines (Deleuze & Guattari)," or "Post-Humans" etc. At the present time, we cannot know if it will be positive, or negative for mankind. We should look back at the history of Humanism from a genealogical perspective, which is why we have to investigate the conceptual trajectory of Humanism in this moment.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.299-304
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• 2020

This paper considers the research content and its historical significance of the Study of Nature conducted by John Ruskin(1819-1900) who had a profound influence on art, architecture, social reformation, and preservation of natural environment in Great Britain. Because Ruskin's Study of Nature would be the key to understand totally the implicative meaning of his various academic trials for integrating a wider contexts among human, culture, and society, without being bound by the rules of conventional disciplines. For Ruskin, 'Nature' is defined as 'a system' governing every aspects of human and non-human beings, formulating certain laws of composition. This system has an ecological quality to form a state of harmony by internal interaction and process. Such organic quality of nature worked as 'a metaphor' in Ruskin's research practices. Therefore, Ruskin's Study of Nature would be the conceptual basis for organizing and connecting its various elements of Ruskin's spiritual world.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.341-356
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• 2022

This study aims to derive the implications of actor-network theory in science education research. To this end, previous studies applying the actor-network theory were analyzed. The study results show that educational research using actor-network theory can be divided into three main approaches. First, ANT was used as an epistemological perspective to construct an educational method or perspective, Second, ANT was used as an ontological perspective to recognize non-human agency, Third, ANT was used as a methodology for educational research. Based on the results, the possibility of contributing to science education research is discussed. As a new theoretical point of view, we hope that actor-network theory will be meaningful in science education practice and empirical research.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.191-221
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• 2019

This study aims to analyze the post-humanistic imagination that has emerged as a major academic thesis in Korean literature, especially novels. In particular, this paper focuses on Cho Ha-hyung's two novels Chimera's Morning(2004) and A Prefabricated Bodhi Tree(2008), published in the early 2000s, for intensive analysis. Post-humanism can be seen as an extension of post-modernism that tried to overcome the limitations of modernity and seek to establish a new world view. In particular, this thought pays attention to the comprehensive understanding of how the rapid development of science and technology, which has developed since the 20th century, has changed the view of humanity and human-centered civilization itself. At the concrete level, it is developing in the direction of constructing a new subject idea by reflecting and dismantling Western-, reason-, and male-centered power mechanisms that are the core of modern civilization. Cho attempts to discover and re-illuminate the surrounding figures, non-humans, and objects that were not noticed in the classic works written in the past. This ideological flow reflects the fact that the concept of human beings, which had been dominated by the humanities in recent years, has been completely changed, and the natural science and technology perspective is applied to the discourse field in various ways. From the point of view of post-humanism, objects that have not been classified as humans and objects that were considered inferior to humans should be included in human or comparable levels. These questions generate interdisciplinary research tasks by involving the large categories of philosophy, such as ontology, epistemology and empirical fields, as well as calling for the participation of the entire literature, science and social sciences. Against the backdrop of a disaster-hit world, Chimera's Morning and A Prefabricated Bodhi Tree depict human beings as variants transformed by bio-technology, and creatures made out of the artificial intelligence built by computer simulations. Post-humanistic ideas in Cho's novels provide a reflective opportunity to comprehensively reconsider the world's shape and human identity reproduced in the text, and to re-explore boundary lines and hierarchy order that distinguish between human and non-human.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.109-127
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• 2014

This study is devised out of the recognition that the existing standardization-related research has not sufficiently examined the overall social environment where a standard is actually made and diffused and the roles of the actors and the changes in them in the complex social system where multiple stakeholders exist. Against this backdrop, this study purports to reconstruct the dynamic process of developing and standardizing an innovative technology through a socio-technical approach involved by multiple stakeholders with different interests in the context of a socio-technical institutional environment. The specific goals to achieve the purpose include first, inspecting the characteristics of the interactions between the human actors and between the human and non-human actors in the socio-technical network surrounding a standardization process. Second, the study aimed to observe the activities of the focal actor who led the standardization process and its changing role. To that end, it analyzed the dynamic features of the process of standardizing a HD 3DTV broadcasting technology that took place in South Korea based on the actor network theory. As for the analysis method, the researchers personally took part in the actor network involving the new technology to analyze the dynamic characteristics of the network, applying the qualitative research method of survey and in-depth interviews and exploring the overall dynamics of environment, behavior and technology observed over the course of the entire standardization process.