Unmanned weapons render obsolete any teleological philosophy of history
Evidence
Had Hegel’s philosophy of history embraced this age, Hitler’s robot-bombs would have found their place … as one of the selected empirical facts by which the state of the world-spirit manifests itself directly in symbols. Like fascism itself, the robots career without a subject. Like it, they combine utmost technical perfection with total blindness. And like it, they arouse mortal terror and are wholly futile. “I have seen the world-spirit,” not on horseback, but on wings and without a head, and that refutes, at the same stroke, Hegel’s philosophy of history. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 645
Categorization
- XREF: Adorno’s subjectless warfare thesis connects to the ‘out of the firing line’ theme and the book’s broader argument about drone operatives achieving subjectlessness at great effort. — connects to: Drone dominance of warfare is not an inexorable historical fate; A single technological leap can render an entire opposing arsenal obsolete — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 562; War experiences convinced thinkers traditional philosophy was obsolete — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 530 (+1 more)
Related
- Drone dominance of warfare is not an inexorable historical fate (similarity 0.94)
- Weapons constitute the essence of combatants, not mere instruments (similarity 0.78)
- Historical continuity of remote killing does not justify drones (similarity 0.78)