This book brings together a number of prominent scholars to explore a relatively under-studied area of Marshall Mc Luhan’s thought: his idea of formal cause and the role that formal cause plays in the emergence of new technologies and in structuring societal relations. Aiming to open a new way of understanding Mc Luhan’s thought in this area, and to provide methodological grounding for future media ecology research, the book runs the gamut, from contributions that directly support Mc Luhan’s arguments to those that see in them the germs of future developments in emergent dynamics and complexity theory.
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Foreword
Eric Mc Luhan
A Trialogic Introduction
Robert K. Logan, Corey Anton, and Lance Strate
Chapter One: The Form of Things to Come: A Review of Media and Formal Cause
Corey Anton
Chapter Two: Mc Luhan, Formal Cause and the Future of Technological Mediation & Postscript
Corey Anton
Chapter Three: Medium as ‘Metaform’: An Inquiry into the Life of Forms
Paolo Granata
Chapter Four: From Aristotle via Aquinas: Understanding Formal Cause in Marshall Mc Luhan’s Philosophy
Laura Trujillo Liñán
Chapter Five: The Effects That Give Cause, and the Pattern That Directs
Lance Strate
Chapter Six: Mc Luhan and Causality: Technological Determinism, Formal Cause and Emergence
Robert K. Logan
Chapter Seven: Formal Cause: Mc Luhan’s ‘Objective Turn’?
Yoni Van Den Eede
Chapter Eight: Forms of Causality
Chad Hansen
Chapter Nine: Anti-Environmental Art and Its Role in Making Formal Cause Visible
Steve Reagles
Chapter Ten: Of Memes, Modes, Minor Audiences and Formal Cause
Eric S. Jenkins
Chapter Eleven: After Effects, Before Causes: Technique, Artistic Intent and Formal Causality
Kirk Zamieroski
Chapter Twelve: Re-Cognizing Formal Cause
Peter Zhang
Chapter Thirteen: Disrobing the Probe, Unpacking the Sprachage: Formal Cause or the Cause of Form Reframing Mc Luhan and the Kabbalah
Adeena Karasick
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Lance Strate is professor of communication and media studies, and a past president of the Media Ecology Association. He is the author of seven books, including Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World Revisited (Peter Lang, 2014), Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (Peter Lang, 2017) and the poetry collection, Thunder at Darwin Station (Neo Poiesis, 2014).