Thinking Through Digital Technologies. Plato as a Media Philosopher

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to view Plato’s philosophy through the lens of contemporary media philosophy and to review the latter from the point of view of the former, discussing in particular what kind of media philosopher he would be today. I emphasize three key mediological ideas at the core of Plato’s thought: our inner thoughts are made of words and images because we think through technologies of the word and of the image outside the mind (§ 1); digital media and technologies represent a pharmakon and thus we should be aware of their cognitive risks while also being sensitive to their cognitive possibilities (§ 2); virtual reality, which presents itself as a strange and peculiar presence, does, in fact, exist and does offer affordances (§ 3). Thus, I argue that Plato would be among those (not so many) contemporary media philosophers who intend not only to understand what (new digital) media are, but also to find a way to think through them while facing all the tensions and ambiguities that this approach implies.