American Philosophy Of Technology

Introduces contemporary American philosophy of technology through six of its leading figures. The six American philosophers of technology whose work is profiled in this clear and concise introduction to the field--Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner--represent a new, empirical direction in the philosophical study of technology that has developed mainly in North America. In place of the grand philosophical schemes of the classical generation of European philosophers of technology (including Martin Heidgger, Jacques Ellul, and Hans Jonas), the contemporary American generation addresses concrete technological practices and the co-evolution of technology and society in modern culture. Six Dutch philosophers associated with Twente University survey and critique the full scope and development of their American colleagues' work, often illustrating shifts from earlier to more recent interests. Individual chapters focus on Borgmann's engagement with technology and everyday life; Dreyfus's work on the limits of artificial intelligence; Feenberg's perspectives on the cultural and social possibilities opened by technologies; Haraway's conception of the cyborg and its attendant blurring of boundaries; Ihde's explorations of the place of technology in the lifeworld; and Winner's fascination with the moral and political implications of modern technologies. American Philosophy of Technology offers an insightful and readable introduction to this new and distinctly American philosophical turn. Contributors are Hans Achterhuis, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Martijntje Smits, Pieter Tijmes, and Peter-Paul Verbeek.

As Europe moves toward 1992 and full economic unity, and as Eastern Europe tries to find its way in the new economic order, the United States hesitates. Will the new European economic order be good for the U.S. or not? Such a question is exacerbated by world-wide changes in the technological order, most evident in Japan's new techno-economic power. As might be expected, philosophers have been slow to come to grips with such issues, and lack of interest is compounded by different philosophical styles in different parts of the world. What this volume addresses is more a matter of conflicting styles than a substantive confrontation with the real-world issues. But there is some attempt to be concrete. The symposium on Ivan Illich - with contributions from philosophers and social critics at the Penns- vania State University, where Illich has taught for several years - may suggest the old cliche of Old World vs. New World. Illich's fulminations against technology are often dismissed by Americans as old-world-style prophecy, while Illich seems largely unknown in his native Europe. But Albert Borgmann, born in Germany though now settled in the U.S., shows that this old dichotomy is difficult to maintain in our technological world. Borgmann's focus is on urgent technological problems that have become almost painfully evident in both Europe and America.

The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers includes both academic and non-academic philosophers, and a large number of female and minority thinkers whose work has been neglected. It includes those intellectuals involved in the development of psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology, education, theology, political science, and several other fields, before these disciplines came to be considered distinct from philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Each entry contains a short biography of the writer, an exposition and analysis of his or her doctrines and ideas, a bibliography of writings, and suggestions for further reading. While all the major post-Civil War philosophers are present, the most valuable feature of this dictionary is its coverage of a huge range of less well-known writers, including hundreds of presently obscure thinkers. In many cases, the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers offers the first scholarly treatment of the life and work of certain writers. This book will be an indispensable reference work for scholars working on almost any aspect of modern American thought.

George GrantÑphilosopher, conservative, Canadian nationalist, ChristianÑwas one of Canada's most significant thinkers, and the author of Lament for a Nation, Technology and Justice, and English-Speaking Justice. In Technology and Empire, his comments on technology, religion, the university, political structures, and the significance of modern life are perhaps the most disturbing and enlightening to come from any Canadian philosopher.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neglected importance of technology for virtually every subfield of philosophy, including ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and political theory. The Handbook also gives readers a new sense of what philosophy looks like when fully engaged with the disciplines and domains of knowledge that continue to transform the material and practical features and affordances of our world, including engineering, arts and design, computing, and the physical and social sciences. The chapters reveal enduring conceptual themes concerning technology's role in the shaping of human knowledge, identity, power, values, and freedom, while bringing a philosophical lens to the profound transformations of our existence brought by innovations ranging from biotechnology and nuclear engineering to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. This new collection challenges the reader with provocative and original insights on the history, concepts, problems, and questions to be brought to bear upon humanity's complex and evolving relationship to technology.

Maps the future of phenomenological thought, accounting for how technology expands our means of experiencing the world.

This volume includes eleven original essays that explore and expand on the work of Don Ihde, bookended by two chapters by Ihde himself. Ihde, the recipient of the first Society for Philosophy and Technology's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, is best known for his development of postphenomenology, a blend of pragmatism and phenomenology that incorporates insights into the ways technology mediates human perception and action. The book contains contributions from academics from Europe, North America, and Asia, which demonstrates the global impact of Ihde’s work. Essays in the book explore the relationship between Ihde's work and its origins in phenomenology (especially Husserl and Heidegger) and American pragmatism; integrate his philosophical work within the embodied experience of radical architecture and imagine the possibility of a future philosophy of technology after postphenomenology; develop central ideas of postphenomenology and expand the resources present in postphenomenology to ethics and politics; and extend the influence of Ihde's ideas to mobile media and engineering, and comprehensively assess the influence of his work in China. The book includes a reprint of the Introduction of Sense and Significance, one of Ihde's first books; "Hawk: Predatory Vision," a new chapter that blends his biographical experience with feminism, technoscience, and environmental observation; and an appendix that lists all of Ihde's books as well as secondary sources annotated by Ihde himself. Starting with an Editors' Introduction that offers an overview of the central ideas in Ihde's corpus and concluding with an index that facilitates research across the various chapters, this book is of interest to a diverse academic community that includes philosophers, STS scholars, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists.

BACKGROUND: DEPARTMENTS, SPECIALIZATION, AND PROFESSIONALIZATION IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION For over half of its history, U.S. higher education turned out mostly cler gymen and lawyers. Looking back on that period, we might be tempted to think that this meant specialized training for the ministry or the practice of law. That, however, was not the case. What a college education in the U.S. prepared young men (almost exclusively) for, from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 through the founding of hundreds of denominational colleges in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, was leadership in the community. Professionalization and specialization only began to take root, and then became the dominant mode in U.S. higher education, in the period roughly from 1860--1920. In subsequent decades, that seemed to many critics to signal the end of what might be called "education in wisdom," the preparation of leaders for a broad range of responsibilities. Professionalization, specialization, and departmentalization of higher education in the U.S. began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.