Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the anthropological assumptions that inform Marx's and Aristotle's ethic of human freedom. It discusses the critical point of view on the digitalised mode of life that contemporary capitalism needs. It overviews the body of work concerned with language as a constitutive rather than merely representative dimension of human life, selecting from this work the writings of Eric Havelock, Walter Ong and Jack Goody. The book elaborates the source of an analytical mode of thinking was the alphabetised textualisation of ancient Greek epic poetry that permitted the nurturing of a generalising, as opposed to associative, mode of thinking. It shows the capitalist divisions of labour and of the dehumanising modes of life to which the workers caught up in these divisions were subjected. It presents the autonomist concept of the political form of the 'people' from several points of view.