This books ushers in a new way of talking about social phenomena. It
develops an ontology of social objects on the basis of the claim that
registration or inscription--the leaving of a trace to be called up
later--is what is most fundamental to them. In doing so, it
systematically organizes concepts and theories that Ferraris's
predecessors--most notably Derrida, in his project of a positive
grammatology--left in an impressionistic state.
Ferraris begins by redefining ontology as a way of cataloguing the
world. Before any epistemology can discuss the validity of scientific or
nonscientific judgments, one faces a collection of objects, be they
natural, ideal, or social. Among these, Ferraris focuses on social
objects, elaborating a theory of experience in the social world that
leads him to define social objects as "inscribed acts." He then uses
this notion to interpret social phenomena, also in light of a systematic
discussion of the concept of performatives, from Austin to Derrida and
Searle.
Moving into considerations of the present technological revolution,
Ferraris develops a "symptomatology of the document" that leads to a
consideration of legal systems, finding in them original applications
for his theory that an object equals a written act.
Written in an easy, often witty style, Documentality revises
Foucault's late concept of the "ontology of actuality" into the project
of an "ontological laboratory," thereby reinventing philosophy as a
pragmatic activity that is directly applicable to our everyday life.
