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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

145171

Heinrich Popitz and the power of violence and technical action in the revolutionary and information ages

Erik Garrett(Duquesne University)

pp. 493-502

Abstract

The publication of the Phenomena of power: Authority, domination, and violence into English allows for the English-speaking world to engage the work of Heinrich Popitz. Popitz provides a thorough and organized description of how power operates in social relations that should be valuable to any scholar of the human sciences. This essay is supportive of Popitz's project, but seeks a critical engagement by extending the analysis on violence and technical power. I argue that reading Popitz alongside the decolonial thinker, Franz Fanon and the media ecologist, Marshall McLuhan can provide important correctives. In particular, Fanon's analysis that the colonial use of rhetorical power to dehumanize the oppressed and McLuhan's comment on the importance of the control of medium are missing in an otherwise very thorough philosophical anthropology on the phenomena of power.

Publication details

Published in:

(2018) Human Studies 41 (3).

Pages: 493-502

DOI: 10.1007/s10746-018-9476-6

Full citation:

Garrett Erik (2018) „Heinrich Popitz and the power of violence and technical action in the revolutionary and information ages“. Human Studies 41 (3), 493–502.