The Conceptual Act of (Non)Instrumentality

Abstract

This paper aims at hypothesizing that the issue of technology could never be considered separate from the creative act. We develop the hypothesis starting from Heidegger’s opposition of technology and the poietic, which we interpret through the dialectic between the performative and constative function of the hand. To overcome the Heideggerian problem of Enframing, we introduce the question of singularity inherent in every poietic activity which, however, does not result in conceiving technology as an instrument. When defining the nature of such poietic singularization we employ Spinoza’s concept of an inadequate idea – an idea that involves its cause but does not explain it. The inherent negativity of the inadequate idea generates the sphere in which the new appears as radical otherness. But in order to produce the new, that is, to perform it, technology has to be conceptualized and thus made an instrument – a singular instrument of the creative act.