2025/10/20

Byung-Chul Han - Wikipedia

Byung-Chul Han - Wikipedia

Byung-Chul Han

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In this Korean name, the family name is Han.
Byung-Chul Han
Byung-Chul Han in 2015
Born1959 (age 65–66)
Seoul, South Korea
Education
Alma materUniversity of Freiburg
University of Basel
Philosophical work
Era20th-/21st-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolContinental philosophy, Post-structuralism, Deconstruction
Main interests
Notable ideasShanzhai as "Deconstruction in Chinese"
Korean name
Hangul
한병철
Hanja
韓炳哲
RRHan Byeongcheol
MRHan Pyŏngch'ŏl
IPA/han pjʌŋt͡ɕʰʌl/

Byung-Chul Han (born 1959) is a South Korean-born philosopher and cultural theorist living in Germany.[1] He was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and still occasionally gives courses there. His work largely centers around critiques of neoliberalism and its impact on society and the individual. Although he writes in German, his books have been best received in the Hispanosphere.[2]

Biography

Byung-Chul Han studied metallurgy at Korea University in Seoul[3] before moving to Germany in the 1980s to study philosophy, German literature and Catholic theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. In 1994, he received his doctoral degree at Freiburg with a dissertation on Stimmung, or mood, in Martin Heidegger.[4]

In 2000, he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, where he completed his habilitation. In 2010, he became a faculty member at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, where his areas of interest were philosophy of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, ethics, social philosophy, phenomenology, cultural theory, aesthetics, religion, media theory, and intercultural philosophy. From 2012 to 2017 he taught philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he directed the newly established Studium Generale general studies program.[5]

Han is the author of more than thirty books, the most well known are treatises on what he terms a "society of tiredness" (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft) and a "society of transparency" (Transparenzgesellschaft). He also wrote about the concept of shanzhai (山寨), a style of imitative variation, which pre-exist practices known in Western philosophy as deconstructive.[6]

Han's current work focuses on transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on the pornographic. According to Han, the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust.[6] To rebel against digital capitalism, Han does not own a smartphone, does not engage in tourism, only listens to music in analog form, and has spent years cultivating a 'secret garden', an experience he describes in his book In Praise of the Earth.[7][8]

Personal life

Through his career, Han has refused to give radio and television interviews and rarely divulges any biographical or personal details, including his date of birth, in public.[9] He is a Catholic.[10]

Thought

Han has written on topics such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder, burnout, depression, exhaustion, internet, love, multitasking, pop culture, power, rationality, religion, social media, subjectivity, tiredness, transparency and violence.

Much of Han's writing is characterised by an underlying concern with the situation encountered by human subjects in the fast-paced, technologically driven state of late capitalism. The situation is explored through several themes in his books: sexuality, mental health (particularly burnout, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), violence, freedom, technology, and popular culture.[6]

In The Burnout Society (original German title: Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), Han characterizes today's society as a pathological landscape of conditions such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality and burnout. He claims that they are not "infections" but "infarcts", which are not caused by the negativity of people's immunology, but by an excess of positivity.[11] According to Han, driven by the demand to persevere and not to fail, as well as by ambitions of efficiency, we become committers and sacrificers at the same time and enter a swirl of demarcation, self-exploitation and collapse. In Psychopolitics, Han explains that "When production is immaterial, everyone already owns the means of production, him- or herself. The neoliberal system is no longer a class system in the proper sense. It does not consist of classes that display mutual antagonism. This is what accounts for the system's stability."[12]

Han argues that subjects become self-exploiters: "Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class struggle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself."[12] The individual has become what Han calls "the achievement-subject"; the individual does not believe they are subjugated "subjects" but rather "projects: Always refashioning and reinventing ourselves" which "amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint—indeed, to a "more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation." As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the "I" subjugates itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.[13]

In Agonie des Eros ('Agony of the Eros') Han carries forward thoughts developed in his earlier books The Burnout Society (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft) and Transparency Society (Transparenzgesellschaft). Beginning with an analysis of the "Other" Han develops an interrogation of desire and love between human beings. Partly based on Lars von Trier's film Melancholia, where Han sees depression and overcoming depicted, Han further develops his thesis of a contemporary society that is increasingly dominated by narcissism and self-reference. Han's diagnosis extends even to the point of the loss of desire, the disappearance of the ability to devote to the "Other", the stranger, the non-self. At this point, subjects come to revolve exclusively around themselves, unable to build relationships. Even love and sexuality are permeated by this social change: sex and pornography, exhibition/voyeurism and re/presentation, are displacing love, eroticism, and desire from the public eye. The abundance of positivity and self-reference leads to a loss of confrontation. Thinking, Han states, is based on the "untreaded", on the desire for something that one does not yet understand. It is connected to a high degree with Eros, so the "agony of the Eros" is also an "agony of thought". Not everything must be understood and "liked", not everything must be made available.[14]

In Topologie der Gewalt ('Topology of Violence'), Han continues his analysis of a society on the edge of collapse that he started with The Burnout Society. Focusing on the relation between violence and individuality, he shows that, against the widespread thesis about its disappearance, violence has only changed its form of appearance and now operates more subtly. The material form of violence gives way to a more anonymous, desubjectified, systemic one, that does not reveal itself, as it is merging with its antagonist – freedom. This theme is further explored in "Psychopolitics", where through Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Richard Sennett, René Girard, Giorgio Agamben, Deleuze/Guattari, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Pierre Bourdieu and Martin Heidegger, Han develops an original conception of violence. Central to Han's thesis is the idea that violence finds expression in 'negative' and 'positive' forms (note: these are not normative judgements about the expressions themselves): negative violence is an overtly physical manifestation of violence, finding expression in war, torture, terrorism, etc.; positive violence "manifests itself as over-achievement, over-production, over-communication, hyper-attention, and hyperactivity." The violence of positivity, Han warns, could be even more disastrous than that of negativity. "Infection, invasion, and infiltration have given way to infarction."[15]

Reception

Han being awarded the Prix Bristol des Lumières [fr] alongside Jacques Attali, Christophe Barbier, Philippe-Joseph Salazar, among others

The Burnout Society has been translated into over 35 languages.[16] Several South Korean newspapers voted it the most important book in 2012.[17] It sold over a hundred thousand copies across Latin America, Korea, and Spain.[18] The Los Angeles Review of Books described him as "as good a candidate as any for philosopher of the moment."[19]

The Guardian wrote a positive review of his 2017 book Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power,[20] while the Hong Kong Review of Books praised his writing as "concise almost to the point of being aphoristic, Han's writing style manages to distill complex ideas into highly readable and persuasive prose" while noting that "on other occasions, Han veers uncomfortably close to billboard-sized statements ("Neoliberalism is the 'capitalism of' Like), which highlights the fine line between cleverness and self-indulgent sloganeering."[21] Along similar lines, others observe that he writes with a style "more typical of [literature and poetry] than philosophical essays",[22][23] though Han contends that "In the past, "I wrote differently. I wrote books that were very difficult to read, without thinking about whether they were understandable. But now, for me, [accessibility] is very important."[23]

In 2025, Han was awarded the Princess of Asturias Awards for his writings on the ills of digital technology and contemporary capitalism.[24]

Works in English

  • The Burnout Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015) ISBN 9780804795098.
  • The Transparency Society (Stanford: Stanford Briefs, 2015) ISBN 080479460X
  • The Agony of Eros (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2017) ISBN 0262533375
  • In the Swarm: Digital Prospects (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2017), ISBN 0262533367
  • Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (London & New York: Verso Books, 2017) ISBN 9781784785772
  • Saving Beauty (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017) ISBN 9781509515103
  • The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017) ISBN 1509516050
  • Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2017) ISBN 0262534363
  • The Expulsion of the Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018) ISBN 1509523065
  • Topology of Violence (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2018) ISBN 9780262534956
  • What Is Power? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018) ISBN 9781509516100
  • Good Entertainment: A Deconstruction of the Western Passion Narrative (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2019) ISBN 0262537508
  • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020) ISBN 1509542760
  • Capitalism and the Death Drive (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021) ISBN 9781509545018
  • The Palliative Society: Pain Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021) ISBN 9781509547258
  • Hyperculture: Culture and Globalisation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022) ISBN 9781509546183
  • Infocracy: Digitization and the Crisis of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022) ISBN 9781509552986
  • Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022) ISBN 9781509551705
  • The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022) ISBN 9781509545100
  • Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023) ISBN 9781509546206
  • Vita contemplativa: In praise of inactivity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023) ISBN 9781509558018
  • The Crisis of Narration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2024) ISBN 9781509560431
  • The Spirit of Hope (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2024) ISBN 9781509565191

Awards

References

  1.  Han, Byung-Chul. "Optimismus der Fremden: Wer ist Flüchtling?". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 2022-03-18.
  2.  Juan Carlos Galindo (2018-02-10). "El filósofo surcoreano que se hizo viral". El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2018-02-10. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
  3.  "[책과 지식] 『피로사회』 저자 한병철, 도올 김용옥 만나다" [(Books and knowledge) 'Society of Tiredness' author Han Byung-Chul and Do-ol Kim Young-oak meet]. JoongAng Ilbo. 24 March 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  4.  "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2017-09-14. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  5.  "Studium Generale".
  6.  Knepper, Steven; Stoneman, Ethan; Wyllie, Robert (2024). Byung-Chul Han: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 978-1509560981.
  7.  "Menos darle al 'like' y más coger el azadón". El Periódico (in Spanish). 2018-02-06. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  8.  Han, Byung-Chul; Steuer, Daniel (2025). In praise of the earth: a journey into the garden. Hoboken: polity. ISBN 978-1-5095-6789-8.
  9.  "Play more and work less: A visit with Byung-Chul Han in Karlsruhe". Sign and Sight. 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2012-06-09.
  10.  Han, Byung-Chul (12 April 2021). "The Tiredness Virus". The Nation.
  11.  "'새 대통령에게 선물하고 싶은 책' 1위 철학자 한병철의 '피로사회'". Kyunghyang Shinmun. 2012-11-29. Archived from the original on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-12-09.
  12.  Han, "Psychopolitics" (2017), p. 13
  13.  Han, "Psychopolitics" (2017), p. 21
  14.  Han, Byung-Chul (2017) [2012 in German]. The Agony of Eros. Translated by Butler, Erik. Foreword by Alain Badiou. London: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262533379. LCCN 2016031913.
  15.  "Topology of Violence". The MIT Press. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  16.  "The Burnout Society". Verlag Matthes & Seitz Berlin. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
  17.  "2012년 미디어 선정 올해의 책" [2012 Media Picks for Book of the Year]. Aladin Books. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  18.  Elola, Joseba (8 October 2023). "Byung-Chul Han, the philosopher who lives life backwards: 'We believe we're free, but we're the sexual organs of capital'". EL PAÍS English (in Spanish). Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  19.  West, Adrian Nathan. "Media and Transparency: An Introduction to Byung-Chul Han in English". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  20.  Jeffries, Stuart (2017-12-30). "Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han – review". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  21.  Hamilton (2018-05-16). "Psychopolitics". HONG KONG REVIEW OF BOOKS 香港書評. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  22.  Zamora Bonilla, Jesús (2022-07-29). "El infierno de Byung-Chul Han". SCIO: Revista de Filosofía (22): 157–177. doi:10.46583/scio_2022.22.1001. hdl:20.500.12466/2532. ISSN 2603-6924.
  23.  Elola, Joseba (2023-10-08). "Byung-Chul Han, the philosopher who lives life backwards: 'We believe we're free, but we're the sexual organs of capital'". EL PAÍS English (in Spanish). Retrieved 2025-06-11.
  24.  "Philosopher Byung-Chul Han wins Spain's Princess of Asturias prize for humanities". AP News. May 7, 2025. Retrieved May 7, 2025.
  25.  "Byung-Chul Han - Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities 2025". Princess of Asturias Foundation.
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한병철

위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전.
한병철
Byung-Chul Han
출생1959년(65~66세)
대한민국
성별남성

한병철(韓炳哲, 독일어: Byung-Chul Han, 1959년~)은 대한민국 태생으로 독일에서 활동하는 독일 국적 철학자이다.[1] 2012년부터 2017년까지 베를린 예술대학교에서 철학 및 문화연구학 교수를 맡았으며, 현재도 강사로 활동하고 있다.

생애

한병철은 대한민국 서울특별시에서 태어나 고려대학교에서 금속공학을 전공하였다[2][3]. 22세 때, 그는 한국의 폐쇄적인 사회 분위기 속에서 금속공학이나 공부하는 삶을 피하고자 독일로 가는 비행기에 올랐다[1]. 독일에 도착해 프라이부르크 대학교과 뮌헨 대학교에서 가톨릭 신학, 독일어문학과 철학을 공부한 이후, 1994년에 프라이부르크 대학교에서 하이데거를 주제로 박사학위를 받았다. 2000년에 바젤 대학교에서 데리다에 관한 논문으로 교수 자격을 취득했다. 그 후 바젤 대학에서 철학과 사강사로 재직하며 동시에 독일 및 스위스의 여러 대학에서 강의했다. 2010년에 독일 카를스루에 조형예술대학교의 철학/미디어학 교수로 임용되었으며, 2012년부터 2017년까지 베를린 예술대학교에서 철학 및 문화학 교수로 재직했다. 중점적 연구분야는 18세기-20세기 철학, 윤리학, 사회철학, 현상학, 문화철학, 미학, 종교철학, 미디어철학 등이다.

대한민국에서는 2011년 12월 《권력이란 무엇인가》가 번역돼 출간되면서 처음으로 이름이 알려졌다[4], 2012년 3월에 주 저서인 《피로사회》가 한국어로 번역되어 출판되면서[2] 대한민국에서도 한 달 사이에 1만 5천권[5], 8개월만에 4만 권이 팔리는[6]이례적 현상을 이끌어 냈다.

사상

그의 사회철학은 고도의 기술이 발전한 현대 자본주의 사회 속의 인간상에 집중한다. 그는 《피로사회》에서 현대의 사회를 우울, 불안, 과로 등의 신경증적인 요소로 가득찬 사회로 특징지으면서 이들이 정신의 결핍에 의해서 발생한다기보다는 오히려 과잉으로 인해 발생하는 것이라고 지적한다. 즉 개개인이 성과를 위해 스스로를 과도하게 착취하고 실패를 두려워하게 되는 것이 피로사회를 유발한다는 것으로 이를 규율이 강제되던 과거의 사회와 대조시키며 규율사회로부터 성과사회로의 전환이 일어났음을 보인다. 따라서 이러한 신자유주의 사회는 더 이상 계급구조만으로는 설명할 수 없다고 주장한다. 또한 《폭력의 위상학》에서 주장하듯 이러한 전환은 과거 사회의 폭력이 모습을 바꾼 것에 불과하다고 말한다.

《시간의 향기》에서는 오로지 노동과 그 준비를 위해서만 탕진되는 현대인의 시간 관념을 '자연스러운 지속성의 부재'라는 새로운 시점에서 해석한다.

《에로스의 종말》에서도 이러한 생각을 발전시켜 각 개인의 자기애와 자기주장이 지배하고 있는 현대사회를 해부한다. 그는 더 나아가 이러한 자기애적 사회에서는 진정한 타자와의 관계가 성립할 수 없으므로 적대와 사랑의 구분이 사라져 에로스와 욕망이 불가능하게 되어 가고 있다고 분석한다.

학술적 평가

대한민국의 철학계에서는 《피로사회》의 주요 논제인 규율사회에서 성과사회로의 전환이 유효한 것인지에 대한 논의가 진행되었다. 특히 성과사회 속에서의 자기 착취를 해결하기 위한 방안으로 사회적인 연대를 통한 분노의 표출이 도입될 수 없는지에 대한 지적이 다수 있다.[7][8] 또한 개신교 신학적 관점에서 《피로사회》의 후반부에 논의되는 안식일이 부여하는 오순절-사회 개념이 피조물과 생태계의 위기까지 제대로 설명하고 있지 못하다는 의견도 있다.[9]

저서

  • 『선불교 사상 Philosophie des Zen-Buddhismus』
  • 『권력이란 무엇인가? Was ist Macht?』
  • 『죽음의 종류-죽음에 대한 철학적 연구 Todesarten. Philosophische Untersuchungen zum Tod』
  • 『하이데거 입문 Martin Heidegger』
  • 『죽음과 타자성 Tod und Alterität』
  • 『헤겔과 권력-친절함에 대한 시도 Hegel und die Macht. Ein Versuch über die Freundlichkeit』
  • 『시간의 향기-머무름의 기술에 대한 철학 에세이 Duft der Zeit. Ein philosophischer Essay zur Kunst des Verweilens』[10]
  • 『피로사회 Müdigkeitsgesellschaft』[11]
  • 『폭력의 위상학 Topologie der Gewalt』
  • 『투명사회 Transparenzgesellschaft』
  • 『심리정치 Psycho Politik』
  • 『아름다움의 구원』
  • 『타자의 추방』
  • 『땅의 예찬』

수상


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