The philosopher Bob Dobbs puts at the origin of what McLuhan called the second Copernican revolution — the turn inward that discovers acoustic space. In dialogue 65 he is the point where the session's philosophical genealogy begins: Hegel, Fichte and Schelling are all described as working out problems he left. New to him — dialogue 65.
Across the dialogues
Installed as the hinge between McLuhan and German idealism — Bob credits him with the second Copernican revolution and Cameron makes everyone after him an heir to one set of problems
Kant is given credit for the discovery McLuhan built on, which relocates acoustic space from anthropology into the history of philosophy.
"what about Marshall McLuhan second Copernican revolution, which is Kant discovering inner or acoustic space?"Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 65 (16 Feb 2023), 1:14:32
The idealists are defined by inheritance rather than doctrine — which is what lets Cameron treat them as one movement without flattening their differences.
"everybody after Kant had certain problems that they had to figure out."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 65 (16 Feb 2023), 1:12:20
Cameron blocks the determinism the session was drifting toward — if the laboratory and the seminar are two expressions of one thinking, then technology cannot be the sole cause of the thought that periodizes it.
"what the German idealists were thinking in the wake of Kant, that kind of thinking was also expressed in people like Michael Faraday that were experimenting with electricity and figuring out its laws."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 65 (16 Feb 2023), 1:16:44
Connections
Bob attributes the discovery of inner or acoustic space to Kant.
Hegel is placed among those working out the problems Kant left.