Giuseppe Longo
Centre Cavaillès, République des Savoirs, CNRS e Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris (giuseppe.longo@ens.fr; orcid.org/0000-0003-1498-4883).
The Evil of Banality
Abstract: We explore the relevance of a dual phenomenon to that analyzed by H. Arendt: the rise of banality, foreign to any reasoning or deeper analysis, which creates a pervasive evil in various social dynamics and knowledge. A brief digression will allow us to see how “scientism” promotes, contrary to science, technosciences that present themselves without limits. By contrast, the analysis is conducted by developing a brief parallel with the ideas of two great thinkers in distant fields, always rich in original and profound proposals of knowledge. We then hint at how powerful computational networks with enormous potential are used to promote not knowledge but the circulation of banalities. An “imperative” vision, based on orders and instructions that machines and nature must execute, is also an implicit aspect of the worldviews promoted by the technosciences without science we refer to.
Keywords: Technosciences; Computational netwoorks; Artificial Intelligence; H. Arendt; A. Grothendieck.