ON THE QUEST FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF WORK. REREADING HEGEL

Abstract

This paper discusses a claim made by Bernard Stiegler, in Automatic Society (Vol. 1). The Future of Work, that we must rethink and find a new conception of work. Stiegler states that this new conception “must be based on a new status of knowledge and of its elaboration, transmission and the way it is implemented in economic life”. While in ongoing debates the notion of work is often linked to employment or wage labour, and its crises are primarily discussed in the context of job creation, distribution and retribution, Bernard Stiegler sees in the increasing automatization — according to him, one of the main challenges of our society — the risk of a movement towards the end of work and therefore the end of knowledge. This tendency is in fact a global issue, which needs to be explored and discussed within a universal context. To understand it better, we will turn to Hegel and explore the notion of work within his system, where it has a central role for both the system of Sittlichkeit and for the process of (collective) Bildung.

Keywords

• hegel
• stiegler
• work
• knowledge
• bildung