Life between Rules and Particulars A Review of Lorraine Daston, Rules: A History of What We Live By
Our so-called information age has doubtless brought with it all manner of political, ethical, and existential concern. The rationalizing tendencies of modern culture culminate in the information revolution, reaching a startling peak of bureaucracy; one not maintained by pencil-pushers, but by an ever more forceful turn to the automatic operationalism of algorithms. Lorraine Daston’s latest book Rules: A History of What We Live By (2022) is an ambitious study of the changing character of rules, intended to arm us with the appropriate historical background to consider these conceptual tectonic shifts. In this study, Daston’s impressive erudition is mobilized in service of a historical elucidation of the notion of rules. As she demonstrates, the algorithmic interpretation of rules is a recent development, predicated on the view of universal legality that gained prominence in the 19th century. Throughout most of human history, rules were understood along lines of a model or paradigm, and so did not require of its followers blind adherence, but the use of judgment. This review urges the philosophically inclined reader to take up this book: Bountiful with insight into the historical trends shaping the rules that form such an integral part of human existence, Daston’s latest study is also a careful yet audacious return to “grand narratives,” offering an account of the role and evolution of rules in Western history
Attay Kremer is a PhD candidate at the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities of Tel Aviv University. His research focuses on materialism, and the philosophy of technology and the natural sciences. In particular, his dissertation centers on the philosophical genealogy of the computer and post-Kantian Idealism. His work has been published in AI & Society, Technophany and e-flux notes.
