The Philosophy of Gesture and Technological Artefacts

Western philosophy often overlooked the problem of technology. It is a long-standing prejudice of a nominalist or idealist mentality that goes on from ancient Greece up to today. Compared to other contemporary currents of thought, the pragmatist tradition had some interesting ideas because it united in a profound continuum theory and practice, overthrowing any dualism. This move was particularly effective in Peirce’s studies on continuity, logical modalities, logic of abduction, and existential graphs as well as in Dewey’s approach to logic as an integrated tool of inquiry in which technology is part of the human organism. However, also the pragmatist tradition remained somehow only with a good analysis of synthesis and a good theory of practice but did not complete its drive toward a different vision of syntheticity and technology. The philosophy of gesture that I will propose in this paper wants to complete the unfinished work of this tradition relying heavily on pragmatist phenomenology and semiotics. In the first part, I will sum up the main structure of this philosophy of gesture, as I name it (I). In the second part, I will show the fundamental application of this philosophy to technology (II). At the end, I will illustrate an application for blind people to see a museum that is inspired by the Philosophy of gesture (III).