Following our presentation of the »Labyrinth of Signs,« parts I and II, we now provide a deeply reflective yet light-hearted post-mortem discussion between us to help you understand what it means to be literate. Martin’s concept of Psychotope becomes more understandable as our conversation progresses; it becomes clear how essential the Alphabet is in enabling us to be literate in our thinking, writing, and discourses, revealing that we are essentially working with an outsourced, historical unconscious in how it shapes us through its use. This is evident from the fact that the origin of Symbolic Logic remains a gaping blank space in Philosophy—even more so: it’s hidden within the conspicuousness of its absence. Something I’ve come to know as the Burckhardtian leitmotif of »The Philosopher’s Shame.«

It’s also no coincidence that »Geist der Maschine« features a chapter on how Sigmund Freud developed his concept of the unconscious, which we’ve also translated into English and will be posting soon. For now, it suffices to say that this chapter explains how and why Freud excluded the 19th century’s material culture (meaning its Logic of an Electrified/Telegraphic Society), which fulfilled his metaphysical needs, while simultaneously introducing something like a black box unconscious of the Unconscious into the World as its Psychotope.

Hopkins Stanley

What does it mean to be literate?