Physics and metaphysics of the apparatus: Mapping and contextualizing the concept in Flusser’s published work
This paper examines the concept of the apparatus in Vilém Flusser’s published corpus, focusing on its philosophical scope, conceptual development and ontological implications. Rather than treating the term as homogeneous or self-evident, the paper approaches it as a shifting conceptual formation. It concentrates on four textual loci through which the concept’s successive determinations can be identified: “Le vivant et l’artificiel”, Towards a philosophy of photography, Into the universe of technical images and Gestures. These textual loci make it possible to trace successive levels of Flusser’s conceptualization: its general metaphysical substratum, its specific ontological determinations, as well as its expansions through information theory, thermodynamics and cybernetics. In reconstructing these different layers, the paper draws a series of selective connections between Flusser’s formulations and a number of otherwise distinct intellectual contexts, following the movement of Flusser’s thought itself. The Platonic-Aristotelian conception of knowledge provides a point of reference for the “subject–object” distinction on which Western science is founded, whereby the knowing subject renders the world available to contemplation, investigation and apprehension. Heidegger’s notion of Gestell provides a further point of reference for situating Flusser’s apparatus within the broader problematic of modern technological ordering and en-framing, without identifying the two concepts. McLuhan’s understanding of media as extensions of the human being is subsequently inverted in order to describe the human being’s deconstruction into systemic functions. Wiener’s cybernetic account of entropy and information provides a point of reference for understanding how Flusser extends a physical-mathematical schema into ontological, cosmological, aesthetic and ethical domains. The discussion further invokes the Lacanian mirror stage as a possible macro-historical figure for the processes through which apparatuses confer upon humanity a historically specific form, identity and image of itself. Finally, Korzybski’s “organism–environment” anti-elementalist formula and Pias’s media-theoretical reflections contribute to the tentative conceptualization of apparatuses as operational environments rather than merely external instruments.