The Algorithmic Prison: A Critical Analysis of the Computational Metaphor as a Hegemonic Paradigm of Rationality

This paper critiques the hegemonic status of the "computational metaphor" in contemporary thought. It argues that this metaphor functions not as a neu- tral descriptive tool, but as a complete and coherent "Paradigm of Rationality" (PoR)—a contingent, historical framework that sets the a priori conditions for intelligibility. Using the PoR’s fourfold analytical structure (Ontological, Epistemic, Axiological, Methodological), the paper maps the core metaphys- ical commitments of the computational worldview, revealing its postulate of "reality-as-information" and its valorization of "optimization" as the highest good. This new anthropology gives rise to a new subject, Homo Algorithmicus, whose sense of self is a machine-generated Subjectivity ex Machina. The paper then analyzes the paradigm’s logic of hegemonic control, specifically its "auto-concealment" as a post-ideological, neutral framework and its "judgment of unintelligibility," which pathologizes non-computable realities and inefficient practices. By making the architecture of this algorithmic prison visible, the pa-per serves a diagnostic and liberatory purpose: to create the critical distance necessary to challenge its premises and expand the horizon of reason beyond its computational limits.