From the subject to the agent in social and humanitarian discourses of the 21st century

Abstract

Introduction. The article is focused on the problem of tuning research optics in the directions of vision and understanding a subject, society and the whole world. Since the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of subjectivity has been the foundation for such optics. In the 21st century the place of the subject is claimed by multiple agents that do not have a human nature. Theoretical analysis. In addition to nature as such and the organisms inhabiting it, the role of agents today is being played by instruments and technologies, including digital technologies. In order to trace the development of the idea of agency in social and humanitarian discourses, the article is based on the concepts of modern authors who carry out their research within the framework of the so-called queer theory (posthuman by R. Braidotti, companion species by D. Haraway and A. Tsing, agential realism and intraactivity by K. Barad). Conclusion. In posthumanistic logic, the contemporary world can be perceived as a smooth, heterogeneous space (G. Deleuze). In this “smoothness” it becomes more and more difficult to single out one or another element that is capable of performing the function of a structuring beginning, hierarchizing the external. The article concludes that the understanding of a person, society, nature and technology through the agential prism will clarify research optics in the context of social and humanitarian discourses.

Keywords

• agents
• subjectivity
• society
• nature
• technology
• digital technologies
• digital anthropology