Global InformationPromethean gap information
The Promethean gap (German: prometheisches Gefälle) is a concept concerning the relations of humans and technology and a growing "asynchronization" between them.[1] In popular formulations, the gap refers to an inability or incapacity of human faculties to imagine the effects of the technologies that humans produce, specifically the negative effects.[1] The concept originated with philosopher Günther Anders in the 1950s and for him, an extreme test case was the atomic bomb and its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a symbol of the larger technology revolution that the 20th century was witnessing.[2] The gap has been extended to and understood within multiple variations – a gap between production and ideology; production and imagination; production and need; production and use; technology and the body; doing and imagining; and doing and feeling.[3][4][5][6] The gap can also be seen in areas such as law and in the actions of legislatures and policymakers.[7]
Various authors use different words to explain Gefälle, accordingly resulting in Promethean divide,[8] Promethean disjunction,[9] Promethean discrepancy,[10] Promethean gradient,[11] Promethean slope,[12] Promethean decline,[13] Promethean incline,[14] Promethean disparity,[15] Promethean lag,[14] and Promethean differential.[16]
- ^ a b Fuchs 2021.
- ^ Dawsey 2016, p. 146, 147, "In Obsolescence, Anders embedded the atomic bomb within his theory of the 'Promethean gap'. Not the A-bomb itself, but the broader course of mechanisation in the twentieth century had brought about this ominous cleft between industrial production and our imagination, emotions and sense of conscience. While not the original source of the discrepancy, the splitting of the atom and the new super-weapons resulting from it marked, in Anders' interpretation, a limit-case for the Gefälle".
- ^ Fuchs 2021, "he ... terms the Promethean gap, an asynchronicity of humans and products. The Promethean gap entails gaps between the relations of production and ideology, production and imagination, doing and feeling, knowledge and conscience, the machine and the body ... production and needs ...".
- ^ Dawsey 2016, p. 144, "The concept encompassed 'gaps' that had arisen (1) between 'making and imagining/representing'; (2) between 'doing and feeling'; (3) between 'knowledge and conscience'; (4) finally and above all, that 'between the produced instrument and the (not suited to the "body" of the instrument) body of the human being'.".
- ^ Filk 2012, p. 9, "Die von Anders konstatierte A-synchronisiertheit des Menschen umfasst das Gefälle zwischen "Machen und Vorstellen", zwischen "Tun und Fühlen", zwischen "Wissen und Gewissen" sowie das Gefälle zwischen "produzierte[m] Gerät" und "Leib des Menschen" ..." (in German) DeepL Translator translation: The A-synchronizedness of the human being, as Anders states, comprises the between "doing and imagining", between "doing and feeling", between "knowledge and conscience" as well as the gap between the "produced "produced[m] device" and "body of man" ....
- ^ Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1956, p. 29, "das Gefälle zwischen Machen und Vorstellen; das zwischen Tun und Fühlen; das zwischen Wissen und Gewissen; und schließlich und vor allem das zwischen dem produzierten Gerät und dem (nicht auf den "Leib" des Geräts zugeschnittenen) Leib des Menschen". DeepL Translator translation: the difference between doing and imagining; that between doing and feeling; that between knowing and conscience; and finally, and above all, that between the produced device and the human body (which is not tailored to the "body" of the device); Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1980, Introduction: The Three Industrial Revolutions (1979) § 3. Variations on the "Promethean Disjunction".
- ^ Pardo 2021, p. 805, 806.
- ^ Mayerhofer 2012.
- ^ Hecker 2018; Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1980.
- ^ Schraube 2005; Costello 2014.
- ^ Dawsey 2017, He later termed this gulf the "prometheische Gefälle" (Promethean gradient or Promethean gap) in The Obsolescence of Human Beings; Muller 2016, p. 12; Liessmann 2011, p. 126.
- ^ Gagliardi 2017; Muller 2016, p. 12.
- ^ Dijk 2000, p. 37.
- ^ a b Toscano 2016, p. 19.
- ^ Masullo 2019, p. 96.
- ^ Müller 2021.