Did the Greeks Believe in Their Robots?

Devecka, Martin

doi:10.1017/s1750270513000079

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…While the notion of automata was already employed by Aristotle among other ancient philosophers, automata received little attention in ancient discussions over the definition of nature [23,24], which was treated in the Aristotelian tradition in connection with the analysis of motion. Mechanical clocks posed a new problem for framing the distinction usually drawn between artificial and natural beings.…”

Section: Clocks and Automata: The Impact Of Technology On Discussion ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Clocks, Automata and the Mechanization of Nature (1300–1600)

Roudaut¹

2022

Philosophies

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This paper aims at tracking down, by looking at late medieval and early modern discussions over the ontological status of artifacts, the main steps of the process through which nature became theorized on a mechanistic model in the early 17th century. The adopted methodology consists in examining how inventions such as mechanical clocks and automata forced philosophers to modify traditional criteria based on an intrinsic principle of motion and rest for defining natural beings. The paper studies different strategies designed in the transitional period 1300–1600 for making these inventions compatible with classical definitions of nature and artifacts. In the first part of the paper, it is shown that, even if virtually all medieval philosophers acknowledged an ontological distinction between artifacts and natural beings, these different strategies demonstrate a growing concern about the consistency of the art/nature distinction. The next part of the paper studies how mechanical clocks, even before the Scientific Revolution, served as theoretical models for applying mechanistic views to different objects (be they cosmological, physical or biological). The epistemological function of clocks appears to stem from different factors (like the specific manufacturing of late medieval clocks as well as the evolution of 16th-century mechanics) that are listed in this second part of the paper. These factors, combined with the definitional issues raised by automata, explain that clocks became the symbol of a new approach to natural philosophy, characterized by the collapse of the art/nature distinction and the “mechanization of nature”.

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Section: Clocks and Automata: The Impact Of Technology On Discussion ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Clocks, Automata and the Mechanization of Nature (1300–1600)

Roudaut¹

2022

Philosophies

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“…There is nothing strictly modernist or futuristic about the artwork of the future. Our dreams (or nightmares) of advanced robotics go back at least to the ancient Greeks (Devecka, 2013) 7 and, as far as space travel is concerned, from the moment humans stood upright and inclined their heads toward the stars. Contrary to science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's (1965) grandiloquent eulogy, Disneyland fails to 'liberate men [sic] to their better selves'.…”

Section: Artwork and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 7. Note that ‘the failure of Hellenistic automata to realise [a utopian substitute for slavery] illustrates some basic constraints on the power of technology to disturb social institutions in the ancient world’ (Devecka, 2013: 52). One might observe that Disney was no more capable of realizing ‘a utopian substitute’ for the division of labour at his own studio. …”

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confidence: 99%

Disney’s Wagner Aesthetic: Music Drama in Pursuit of the Total Artwork

Barker

2024

Animation

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Aside from Walt Disney’s reputation for renegade avant-gardism, ‘sentimental modernism’ and subliterary Americana, the German composer Richard Wagner’s pursuit of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) provides a coherent framework for interpreting the ‘music drama’ of the Disney studio’s Depression-era shorts of the 1930s and its feature films of the Golden Age (1937–1942). In citing Wagner and Adorno’s critique of him, the author argues that Disney follows Wagner in three key respects: (1) in his disavowal of the ‘work’ of art and corresponding objectification of Nature; (2) his espousal of technology and its ‘innovation’ as a means of attaining artistic perfection; and (3) his striving for a synaesthesia, or aesthetic unity of the senses, which would ultimately prove unsustainable given the commercial constraints of capitalist modernity.

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Real‐time identification of fetal anomalies on ultrasound using artificial intelligence: what's next?

Drukker

2022

Ultrasound in Obstet & Gyne

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Did the Greeks Believe in Their Robots?

Cited by 10 publications

References 15 publications

Clocks, Automata and the Mechanization of Nature (1300–1600)

Clocks, Automata and the Mechanization of Nature (1300–1600)

Disney’s Wagner Aesthetic: Music Drama in Pursuit of the Total Artwork

Real‐time identification of fetal anomalies on ultrasound using artificial intelligence: what's next?

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