„Wie ist Geschichte a priori möglich?“ Algorithmische Vorhersage und die Aufgabe der Kritik

Abstract

The term of critique is deeply embedded in the history of modernity. However, it seems that the current media technologies of algorithmic prediction transcend the temporal semantics of modernity and its forms of subjectivation. What does this mean for critique and the critical subject? Is critique still possible when (future) events are not only predicted but also captured and modified? This article takes up these questions by addressing Shoshana Zuboff’s analysis of surveillance capitalism and Antoinette Rouvroy’s notion of algorithmic governmentality. Additionally, the article takes the historical framework of the project of critique and its forms of subjectivation into consideration to finally evaluate the question whether it is possible to think beyond history with the help of history.