Philosophical Writing in the Face of Technology: From the Pharmakon to the Algorithm — Toward a Genealogical Critique of the Fate of Thought in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

This study begins from a central problem situated at the intersection of philosophy, technology, and writing in a historically critical moment: how is generative artificial intelligence reshaping the nature of philosophical thought and the mechanisms of its production, and does philosophical writing preserve its critical and creative identity when surrounded by an algorithmic system that regenerates meaning according to probabilistic equations rather than the movement of thinking consciousness? The argument is grounded in a dual theoretical depth. On the one hand, it invokes the Platonic-Derridean concept of the pharmakon—that semantic ambivalence which makes writing both poison and remedy at the same time; on the other hand, it draws on Bernard Stiegler’s critique of technology as an organic extension of consciousness through what he called tertiary retention, that is, memory exteriorized into tools, platforms, and data structures. The depth of the argument becomes visible in the transition from the pharmakon—as a “double of danger and promise” in traditional writing—to the algorithm as a new digital pharmakon that reconfigures human symbolic production as a whole.

The research seeks a dual aim: first, to critique the epistemological foundations on which generative artificial intelligence bases its claim to “producing thought”; and second, to construct a genealogical framework—drawing on Nietzsche and Foucault—to trace the historical and power-related conditions that produced the dominance of the algorithmic model in the field of writing and thinking. A review of the literature reveals a real research gap: existing studies are concerned either with the ethical critique of artificial intelligence or with the analysis of its computational techniques, but none has carried out a genealogical-philosophical critique that questions the effect of the algorithm on philosophical writing itself as both a practice and a form of symbolic resistance. The significance of this study derives from an urgent contemporary need: generative artificial intelligence seduces us with the idea of “copying” philosophy as a productive pattern, which raises an existential question concerning the fate of the philosophical logos and the freedom of the thinking subject in the age of text machines.

The research adopts a critical genealogical method, combining phenomenological analysis of philosophical texts, Derridean deconstruction of writing, and comparative philosophical reading across major traditions (Stiegler’s pharmacology, Foucault’s archaeology, and Derrida’s deconstruction). The study concludes with several findings, most notably: that generative algorithms represent the most dangerous form of the contemporary pharmakon because they erase the distance between thought and simulation, producing texts that lack the genealogical depth of lived experience; and that philosophical writing in the algorithmic age must re-establish its identity through a dual practice: critical resistance and conscious use of technology, rather than either absolute rejection or surrender to its logic.