The Rise of Procedural Digital Humanity: From Logos to Arithmos

Beckouche, Pierre

This book argues that the digital revolution constitutes an anthropological turning point in human history. It examines the rise of a new procedural humanity—Homo Externatus—born from a profound cultural shift between logos, the symbolic foundation of thought grounded in language, truth, causality, and meaning, and “arithmos”, a procedural, a-semantic metaculture driven by calculation and correlation. Humanity is moving from a culture of differentiation, between true and false, good and evil, man and God, toward one of de-differentiation, where everything becomes calculable and thus comparable. Drawing on psychoanalysis, social theory, and geo-economic analysis, the book explores how digitalization, while seemingly unifying, actually fragments our “society of individuals”; and asks whether it might herald the advent of a new form of totalitarianism.

Scholars, researchers, and students in social sciences, digital studies, philosophy and psychoanalysis will find this book invaluable. It offers a unique blend of insights, combining social sciences with psychoanalysis to illuminate the new interplay between the psychic and the social in the digital age. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the transformative impact of digitalization on human psyche, thought and society.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2026-04-14

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783032128102

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-12811-9

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 354