Technoscientific Research

Unlike the bulk majority of publications on philosophy of science and research ethics, which are authored by professional philosophers and intended for philosophers, this book has been written by a research practitioner and intended for research practitioners. It is distinctive by its integrative approach to methodological and ethical issues related to research practice, with special emphasis of mathematical modelling and measurement, as well as by attempted application of engineering design methodology to moral decision making. It is also distinctive by more than 200 real-world examples drawn from various domains of science and technology. It is neither a philosophical treaty nor a quick-reference guide. It is intended to encourage young researchers, especially Ph.D. students, to deeper philosophical reflection over research practice. They are not expected to have any philosophical background, but encouraged to consult indicated sources of primary information and academic textbooks containing syntheses of information from primary sources. This book can be a teaching aid for students attending classes aimed at identification of methodological and ethical issues related to technoscientific research, followed by introduction to the methodology of analysing dilemmas arising in this context.

Research powers innovation and technoscientific advance, but it is due for a rethink, one consistent with its deeply holistic nature, requiring deeply human nurturing. Research is a deeply human endeavor that must be nurtured to achieve its full potential. As with tending a garden, care must be taken to organize, plant, feed, and weedÑand the manner in which this nurturing is done must be consistent with the nature of what is being nurtured. In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences. Narayanamurti and Tsao argue that research is a recursive, reciprocal process at many levels: between science and technology; between questions and answer finding; and between the consolidation and challenging of conventional wisdom. These fundamental aspects of the nature of research should be reflected in how it is nurtured. To that end, Narayanamurti and Tsao propose aligning organization, funding, and governance with research; embracing a culture of holistic technoscientific exploration; and instructing people with care and accountability.

The key objective of this volume is to allow philosophy students and early-stage researchers to become practicing philosophers in technoscientific settings. Zwart focuses on the methodological issue of how to practice continental philosophy of technoscience today. This text draws upon continental authors such as Hegel, Engels, Heidegger, Bachelard and Lacan (and their fields of dialectics, phenomenology and psychoanalysis) in developing a coherent message around the technicity of science or rather, “technoscience”. Within technoscience, the focus will be on recent developments in life sciences research, such as genomics, post-genomics, synthetic biology and global ecology. This book uniquely presents continental perspectives that tend to be underrepresented in mainstream philosophy of science, yet entail crucial insights for coming to terms with technoscience as it is evolving on a global scale today. This is an open access book.

Technology is increasingly subject to methodological, sociological and ethical evaluation. Technology assessment already is part of the engineering curriculum worldwide especially in view of industry 4.0 developments. The book tackles legal and mora

A study of science and technology practices that shows how even emergent aspects of research and development remain entangled with established hierarchies. In the last four decades, during which magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has emerged as a cutting-edge medical technology and a cultural icon, technoscientific imaginaries and practices have undergone a profound change across the globe. Shifting transnational geography of tecchnoscientific innovations is making commonly deployed Euro/West-centric divides such as west versus non-west or “innovating north” versus “non-innovating south” increasingly untenable—the world is indeed becoming flatter. Nevertheless, such dualist divides, which are intimately tied to other dualist categories that have been used to describe scientific knowledge and practice, continue to undergird analyses and imaginaries of transnational technoscience. Imperial Technoscience puts into broad relief the ambivalent and contradictory folding of Euro/west-centrism with emergent features of technoscience. It argues, Euro/West-centric historicism, and resulting over-determinations, not only hide the vibrant, albeit hierarchical, transnational histories of technoscience, but also tell us little about shifting geography of technoscientific innovations. The book utilizes a deconstructive-empirical approach to explore “entangled” histories of MRI across disciplines (physics, chemistry, medicine, etc.), institutions (university, hospitals, industry, etc.), and nations (United States, Britain, and India). Entangled histories of MRI, it shows, better explain emergence and consolidation of particular technoscientific trajectories and shifts in transnational geography of science and technology (e.g. centers and peripheries).

What kind of stuff is the world made of? What is the nature or substance of things? These are ontological questions, and they are usually answered with respect to the objects of science. The objects of technoscience tell a different story that concerns the power, promise and potential of things – not what they are but what they can be. Seventeen scholars from history and philosophy of science, epistemology, social anthropology, cultural studies and ethics each explore a research object in its technological setting, ranging from carbon to cardboard, from arctic ice cores to nuclear waste, from wetlands to GMO seeds, from fuel cells to the great Pacific garbage patch. Together they offer fascinating stories and novel analytic concepts, all the while opening up a space for reflecting on the specific character of technoscientific objects. With their promise of sustainable innovation and a technologically transformed future, these objects are highly charged with values and design expectations. By clarifying their mode of existence, we are learning to come to terms more generally with the furniture of the technoscientific world – where, for example, the 'dead matter' of classical physics is becoming the 'smart material' of emerging and converging technologies.

Research powers innovation and technoscientific advance, but it is due for a rethink, one consistent with its deeply holistic nature, requiring deeply human nurturing. Research is a deeply human endeavor that must be nurtured to achieve its full potential. As with tending a garden, care must be taken to organize, plant, feed, and weed—and the manner in which this nurturing is done must be consistent with the nature of what is being nurtured. In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences. Narayanamurti and Tsao argue that research is a recursive, reciprocal process at many levels: between science and technology; between questions and answer finding; and between the consolidation and challenging of conventional wisdom. These fundamental aspects of the nature of research should be reflected in how it is nurtured. To that end, Narayanamurti and Tsao propose aligning organization, funding, and governance with research; embracing a culture of holistic technoscientific exploration; and instructing people with care and accountability.

Offering an overall insight into the French tradition of philosophy of technology, this volume is meant to make French-speaking contributions more accessible to the international philosophical community. The first section, “Negotiating a Cultural Heritage,” presents a number of leading 20th century philosophical figures (from Bergson and Canguilhem to Simondon, Dagognet or Ellul) and intellectual movements (from Personalism to French Cybernetics and political ecology) that help shape philosophy of technology in the Francophone area, and feed into contemporary debates (ecology of technology, politics of technology, game studies). The second section, “Coining and Reconfiguring Technoscience,” traces the genealogy of this controversial concept and discusses its meanings and relevance. A third section, “Revisiting Anthropological Categories,” focuses on the relationships of technology with the natural and the human worlds from various perspectives that include anthropotechnology, Anthropocene, technological and vital norms and temporalities. The final section, “Innovating in Ethics, Design and Aesthetics,” brings together contributions that draw on various French traditions to afford fresh insights on ethics of technology, philosophy of design, techno-aesthetics and digital studies. The contributions in this volume are vivid and rich in original approaches that can spur exchanges and debates with other philosophical traditions.