Alle Publikationen
2017
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(2017): Type and Metaphor for Computer Programmers. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 71-105. DOI: 10.5840/techne20174662
Abstract: The duality of computer programs is characterized, on the one hand, by their physical implementations on physical devices, and, on the other, by the conceptual implementations in programmers’ minds of the objects making up the computational processes they conceive. We contend that central to programmers’ conceptual implementations are (i) the concept of type, at both the programming and the design level, and (ii) metaphors created to facilitate these implementations.
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(2017): Social Transformation and Online Technology. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 55-70. DOI: 10.5840/techne20174561
Abstract: The Internet age has seen the influential rise of social media. Consumer culture is tied to this modern phenomenon. This paper begins with an exposition of Herbert Marcuse’s grounding in phenomenology and his subsequent critique of Heidegger’s apolitical Dasein. In explicating Marcuse’s critical theory of technology, this paper will retrace Hegel’s influence on Marcuse in the idea of the dialectic. The dialectic is an integral aspect of social transformation. While modern technology may be value-neutral, it is argued herein that the lack of depth in social media provokes thought and invites critical dissent. Marcuse believes in the capacity of modern tools to effect social reform through adaptation. But emerging pathologies from online technology also have pressing challenges. For instance, social media makes manifest a dominant order that can be manipulative. It can be said that particular interests, notably from business and capitalists, shape the type of consumer culture that online technology promotes. In advancing Marcuse’s relevance in today’s Internet age, the paper will explore how social media as a platform can truly liberate the individual from the ills that consumerism peddles online.
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(2017): Entangled in Digital Media. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 106-113. DOI: 10.5840/techne20172111
Abstract: Review of Digital Media: Human-Technology Connection, by Stacey O’Neal Irwin In the first wave of digital studies, between the 1980s and the early 1990s, the term ‘virtual’ used to have at least three meanings. First, it used to indicate a realm apart, a software-based dimension detached from physically existing reality. Second, the virtual was seen as a place where people could experiment, without the risks and the physical, social, and ethical constraints of real life, new possibilities, actions, and choices. This second acceptation is closer to the etymology of the word. In fact, ‘virtual’ comes from the Latin virtus/virtualis, which translates the Greek term ‘dynamis,’ ‘ability,’ ‘potential,’ ‘potency,’ ‘power.’ In his comment on the first three chapters of the ninth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Martin Heidegger (1995) rendered ‘dynamis’ with ‘Kraft,’ ‘force,’ and ‘Vermögen', a term that might be translated as ‘ability,’ but also ‘faculty,’ ‘capacity,’ and ‘capability.’ As such, the virtual is not opposed to the real, but rather to the actual – ‘actus’ in Latin, translation of the Greek ‘energheia.’ And this is precisely the third meaning of ‘virtual’ as computer-mediated self- and social-empowerment. In other terms, ‘virtual’ and ‘virtuality’ refer to the effects, positive and negative, of online experimentations on real life.
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(2017): Recovering a "Disfigured" Face. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 1-23. DOI: 10.5840/techne2016121659
Abstract: Prosthetic devices that replace an absent body part are generally considered to be either cosmetic or functional. Functional prostheses aim to restore (some degree of) lost physical functioning. Cosmetic prostheses attempt to restore a “normal” appearance to bodies that lack (one or more) limbs by emulating the absent body part’s looks. In this article, we investigate how cosmetic prostheses establish a normal appearance by drawing on the stories of the users of a specific type of artificial limb: the facial prosthesis. Given that prostheses are first and foremost devices worn upon the body, such an analysis requires an understanding of the ways in which bodies and technologies interact. We thus interpret users’ stories by critically engaging with the work of disability researcher and Actor-Network theorist Myriam Winance, as well as with the postphenomenological scholarship of Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek. Using this framework, we explore users’ attempts to achieve a proper fit between their faces and their prostheses, the technological transparency such a fit enables, and the ways in which transparency mediates users’ everyday exchanges with others. We conclude that a normal appearance, when it is achieved by means of prosthetics, enables the device’s user to navigate a precarious social environment as they encounter and interact with others in public.
Keywords: Akzeptanz der äußeren Erscheinung in prekären sozialen Begegnungen in der Öffentlichkeit, Anblick, Human Enhancement Technologies, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), normales Erscheinungsbild, Philosophie, Prothesen, Realtechnik, Selbst, Technik, Technikphilosophie, Technologie, Technologische Konstruktion, Visuelle Wahrnehmung, Zeitschrift: techne -
(2017): “Extimate” Technologies and Techno-Cultural Discontent. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (1), S. 24-54. DOI: 10.5840/techne20174560
Abstract: According to a chorus of authors, the human life-world is currently invaded by an avalanche of high-tech devices referred to as “emerging,” ”intimate,” or ”NBIC” technologies: a new type of contrivances or gadgets designed to optimize cognitive or sensory performance and / or to enable mood management. Rather than manipulating objects in the outside world, they are designed to influence human bodies and brains more directly, and on a molecular scale. In this paper, these devices will be framed as ‘extimate’ technologies (both intimate and external; both embedded and foreign; both life-enhancing and intrusive), a concept borrowed from Jacques Lacan. Although Lacan is not commonly regarded as a philosopher of technology, the dialectical relationship between human desire and technological artefacts runs as an important thread through his work. Moreover, he was remarkably prescient concerning the blending of life science and computer science, which is such a distinctive feature of the current techno-scientific turn. Building on a series of Lacanian concepts, my aim is to develop a psychoanalytical diagnostic of the technological present. Finally, I will indicate how such an analysis may inform our understanding of human life and embodiment as such.
2016
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(2016): Beyond Technological Mediation. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (3), S. 177-197. DOI: 10.5840/techne201671949
Abstract: Several philosophers of technology have argued that technology mediates human actions. For example, in the branch of post-phenomenology, authors such as Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek have described the mediating aspects of technology in terms of morality of technology (more prominent in Verbeek) as well as in the sense that technology changes our perception of ourselves and the world (more prominent in Ihde). In this article, different existing types of mediation are presented, critiqued, and enriched. The four types are illustrated by referring to military high-tech environments with a focus on visual data and imaging technologies. These technologies can mediate actions (1) by inviting certain behavior, (2) through amplification and reduction, (3) through built-in norms, and (4) through interpretation. The four types of mediation mainly focus on the technology or technological artifact itself. What these approaches fail to grasp, however, is the specific user practices in which most technologies function. In this article, it is argued that to understand the mediating aspects of technology more fully, attention should be paid to the specific user context in which the technology functions. Therefore, an enriched understanding of the four types of mediation of technology is proposed by taking the lens of normative practices and analyzing the different types of mediation through this lens. The Kunduz airstrike incident, which took place in 2009 in Afghanistan, is a case in which a visual data sharing device called Rover played a prominent role. This case is used in this article to illustrate how technology mediates human actions in military practice.
Keywords: Bürger vs. Staat, Disziplin, Grundlagenreflexion, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Interaktionspartner, Mensch oder Maschine, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Militär, Philosophie, Reflexionen über MTR, Sozialer Raum / Kultureller Kontext, Spezifischer Nutzer-Kontext beim Benutzer der Maschine, Technikphilosophie, (Theory of) technological mediation, Verbeek, Zeitschrift: techne -
(2016): Missing Ihde. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 95-104. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672551
Abstract: This article investigates how lack of a phenomenology of technology has hurt understanding of the lifeworld. One way, as Ihde has shown, involves a failure to appreciate the instrumental mediation of experience and the extension of perception. But Ihde also fails to notice the background in which these mediations are taking place and which shapes the mediations themselves and our interpretation of them; not even the research of technoscientists takes place in a neutral atmosphere that does not affect how we work. This article also discusses hermeneutic distortion, or the gap in collective interpretive resources that occurs when the technoscientific infrastructure withdraws and becomes all but invisible, encouraging the tendency to treat scientific conclusions as mere opinions, and technoscientific devices as accessory rather than integral to the modern world.
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(2016): Data Science and Designing for Privacy. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (1), S. 51-68. DOI: 10.5840/techne201632446
Abstract: Unprecedented advances in the ability to store, analyze, and retrieve data is the hallmark of the information age. Along with enhanced capability to identify meaningful patterns in large data sets, contemporary data science renders many classical models of privacy protection ineffective. Addressing these issues through privacy-sensitive design is insufficient because advanced data science is mutually exclusive with preserving privacy. The special privacy problem posed by data analysis has so far escaped even leading accounts of informational privacy. Here, I argue that accounts of privacy must include norms about information processing in addition to norms about information flow. Ultimately, users need the resources to control how and when personal information is processed and the knowledge to make information decisions about that control. While privacy is an insufficient design constraint, value-sensitive design around control and transparency can support privacy in the information age.
Keywords: Daten, Datenschutz & Privatssphäre, Design, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Informationelle Selbstbestimmung, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Öffentlicher vs. privater Raum, Philosophie, Privacy and data, Privatsphäre, Reflexionen über MTR, Soziale Angemessenheit, Sozialer Raum / Kultureller Kontext, Value-Sensitive-Design, Werte, Zeitschrift: techne -
(2016): Reply to My Interlocutors. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 168-176. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672855
Abstract: “Reply to My Interlocutors” responds to each contributor, not in order in the text, but in order of issues. Each interlocutor deals with important issues and I situate myself in relation to these. Dealing with Husserl from a twenty-first century position has called for a multiple layered time response, since I find much of his philosophy of science highly outdated. The origins of the various chapters take place over several decades of time.
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(2016): From Interrelational Ontology to Instrumental Ethics. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 112-128. DOI: 10.5840/techne20168857
Abstract: Current human/social science research supports Don Ihde’s postphenomenology. In particular, archeology and anthropology support Ihde’s instrumental realism, and history identifies the culture that nourished Platonic and Aristotelian separation of mentality and materiality. Deweyean pragmatism, beginning with his analysis of the reflex arc, supports both instrumental realism and an interrelational ontology that rejects the residual Cartesian dualism in Husserlian phenomenology. Ihde’s acknowledgment of the affinity between postphenomenology and Deweyean pragmatism enables expanding his prevalent epistemological and structural orientation to encompass a normative dimension. Peter-Paul Verbeek’s focus on the ethical dimension of how products are designed and how things interact with humans is an important expansion of pragmatic postphenomenology as well as an expansion of current research on the “4e’s” of cognition—embedded, embodied, enacted, and extended—to include a fifth: ethical.
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(2016): On Technological Rationality and the Lack of Authenticity in the Modern Age. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (1), S. 34-50. DOI: 10.5840/techne201632445
Abstract: I will argue in this paper that Andrew Feenberg has erred in his claim on technological adaptability. Adapting to modern technology may not always be liberating. Drawing from his reflections on Heidegger and Marcuse, I will explain why Feenberg thinks that adaptability has a redemptive role in the midst of technological domination. I will also show why technological domination still characterizes human relations in the modern age. Advanced technologies including social media, have continued to manipulate people and as such, diminish rather than deepen the authenticity of human life. For instance, two people in a café sometimes spend more time on their smartphones rather than valuing their face-to-face encounter; here, one can point out the lack of authenticity in human relations. This clearly manifests how consumer culture has taken over human life. In addition, it can be said that the notion of adaptability also fails to account for the hegemonic social relations created by modern technological innovations, since these gadgets remain beyond the reach of the masses, thus broadening the divide between classes of people in society. In order to address this, I propose that people should use technology in a socially sensitive way in order to truly give meaning to their lives and to effectively resist the totalitarian tendency of the modern age.
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(2016): Dispose After Expiration Date. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 129-136. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672753
Abstract: This article argues that there are three key claims of postphenomenology: first, that there is no immediate access to a phenomena that is not always already embodied; second, that there is no science that is not determined by a technology, and that technologies are instances of certain theoretical assumptions and perspectives; third, that all technoscience is enabled and mediated by the embodied perception that takes place in and through instrumentation, which leads to the insight that all scientific evidence is manufactured perception. There is critical engagement with Ihde’s take on pragmatism and it is argued that he makes too severe a distinction between embodied praxis and communicative action, between practices of embodiment and practices of communicating. The argument is that the technoscientific body is a communicative body. The article closes with the consideration of Ihde’s provocative thesis that we ought to think of philosophical systems as having expiration or obsolesce dates. The author recalls the important work of German-Jewish philosopher Günther Anders in order to think through the sense in which it is not so much our technologies that expire, but our ethical worldviews that are made discrepant and incommensurate with the challenges our technologies throw at us. It is argued that we have to make distinction between obsolesce, on the one hand, and error or failure, on the other.
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(2016): Genes, Affect, and Reason. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (1), S. 1-15. DOI: 10.5840/techne20162443
Abstract: Many believe that, in addition to cognitive capacities, autonomous robots need something similar to affect. As in humans, affect, including specific emotions, would filter robot experience based on a set of goals, values, and interests. This narrows behavioral options and avoids combinatorial explosion or regress problems that challenge purely cognitive assessments in a continuously changing experiential field. Adding human-like affect to robots is not straightforward, however. Affect in organisms is an aspect of evolved biological systems, from the taxes of single-cell organisms to the instincts, drives, feelings, moods, and emotions that focus human behavior through the mediation of hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters, the autonomic nervous system, and key brain structures. We argue that human intelligence is intimately linked to biological affective systems and to the unique repertoire of potential behaviors, sometimes conflicting, they facilitate. Artificial affect is affect in name only and without genes and biological bodies, autonomous robots will lack the goals, interests, and value systems associated with human intelligence. We will take advantage of their general intelligence and expertise, but robots will not enter our intellectual world or apply for legal status in the community.
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(2016): Husserl's Missing Multistability. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 153-167. DOI: 10.5840/techne20168356
Abstract: The notion of “multistability” is a central fixture of the postphenomenological framework of thought, one of the central ideas that enables this perspective to avoid both shallow determinism and instrumentalism. While this notion has been put to use in numerous case studies and theoretical treatments, here I argue that the work of following out the philosophical implications of technological multistability has only just begun. Don Ihde’s new book, Husserl’s Missing Technologies, provides a helpful jumping off point as he provides a leading-edge formulation of this idea. I continue with an attempt to sketch out the vast philosophical ground opened up by this concept, and review the contemporary work by postphenomenologists that is just starting to explore this new terrain.
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(2016): Ihde and Husserl. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 84-89. DOI: 10.5840/techne201620247
Abstract: A Symposium on Don Ihde's Husserl's Missing Technologies The contributions to this special issue of Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology have asembled together to use the publication of Don Ihde's newest book, Husserl's Missing Technologies, as a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging discussion about the phenomenology of technology. The following contributions reflect Ihde's own interdisciplinarity, philosophical pluralism, and empirical orientation. And they touch on an assortment of issues and themes, including acoustic technologies, Galileo's biography, American pragmatism, the lifespan of philosophical ideas, big data, and philosophical methodology.
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(2016): Ihde’s Missing Sciences. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 137-152. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672754
Abstract: In Husserl’s Missing Technologies, Don Ihde urges us to think deeply and critically about the ways in which the technologies utilized in contemporary science structure the way we perceive and understand the natural world. In this paper, I argue that we ought to extend Ihde’s analysis to consider how such technologies are changing the way we perceive and understand ourselves too. For it is not only the natural or “hard” sciences which are turning to advanced technologies for help in carrying out their work, but also the social and “human” sciences. One set of tools in particular is rapidly being adopted—the family of information technologies that fall under the umbrella of “big data.” As in the natural sciences, big data is giving researchers in the human sciences access to phenomena which they would otherwise be unable to experience and investigate. And like the former, the latter thereby shape the ways those scientists perceive and understand who and what we are. Looking at two case studies of big data-driven research in the human sciences, I begin in this paper to suggest how we might understand these phenomenological and hermeneutic changes.
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(2016): Information Privacy and Social Self-Authorship. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (3), S. 216-239. DOI: 10.5840/techne201671548
Abstract: The dominant approach in privacy theory defines information privacy as some form of control over personal information. In this essay, I argue that the control approach is mistaken, but for different reasons than those offered by its other critics. I claim that information privacy involves the drawing of epistemic boundaries—boundaries between what others should and shouldn’t know about us. While controlling what information others have about us is one strategy we use to draw such boundaries, it is not the only one. We conceal information about ourselves and we reveal it. And since the meaning of information is not self-evident, we also work to shape how others contextualize and interpret the information that they have about us. Information privacy is thus about more than controlling information; it involves the constant work of producing and managing public identities, what I call “social self-authorship.” In the second part of the essay, I argue that thinking about information privacy in these terms reveals threats to privacy that the control approach neglects. Namely, information technology makes social self-authorship invisible and unnecessary by making it difficult for us to know when others are forming impressions about us and by providing others with tools for making assumptions about who we are which obviate the need for our involvement in the process.
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(2016): Ihde, Technoscience, and the Resilience of Phenomenology. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 90-94. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672550
Abstract: My review of Don Ihde’s new book, Husserl’s Missing Technologies begins by identifying a thematic link binding its chapters: specifically, the exploration of alternative histories for the trajectory of classical Husserlian phenomenology. Ihde’s book can be seen as a meditation on questions like the following: “What might phenomenology have been had Husserl paid more attention to the essential role of instrumentation and experiment in science, or to the mediating role of technologies in perception? What road might phenomenology have taken had Husserl traveled it in conversation with John Dewey, rather than the ghost of Descartes?” The book ably demonstrates how such alternative paths might have enriched philosophy, in ways that closely mirror Ihde’s own contributions to postphenomenological thought. In particular, Ihde exposes Husserl’s failure to grasp technoscience as an activity that does not only reduce materiality to mathematical formalisms, but produces new material forms and sensibilities. Yet I resist the book’s implied charge that Husserlian phenomenology is a moribund tradition that has largely exhausted its power. Instead, I argue that the progressive force and intrinsic elasticity of the phenomenological method endures in spite of the inevitable limits of Husserl’s philosophical imagination, allowing his assumptions and results (and ours) to be remade again and again in the light of the ‘things themselves.’ Moreover, the relevance of Husserl’s critique of reductive scientism has enduring relevance today; while modern science may be a practice far richer than Husserl understood, the science of our day is far from rich enough.
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(2016): Variations upon Ihde’s Husserl’s Missing Technologies. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (2), S. 105-111. DOI: 10.5840/techne201672752
Abstract: In his new book, Husserl’s Missing Technologies, Don Ihde provides yet another, and highly enriching, iteration of postphenomenology. My comments here concern a couple of observations that he makes along the way with regard to the “scientific” status of philosophy and the question of whether philosophies, like technologies, have “use-lifes.” These remarks actually pierce through to the core of the postphenomenological theoretical corpus. In particular, there are consequences for the concept of multistability that need to be discussed: Are some stabilities better than others? In asking that question, which deserves the most emphasis: actuality or potentiality? And to what extent is there a continuity between “ideas” (i.e., theories) and technologies?
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(2016): A Cultural Semiotic Aesthetic Approach for a Virtual Heritage Project. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (3), S. 198-215. DOI: 10.5840/techne201653147
Abstract: This paper presents an integrated framework applied towards the design and evaluation of a virtual museum of Byzantine art that combines the theorized fields of semiotics, virtual heritage (VH), and Byzantine art. A devised semiotic model, the case study semiosphere, synthesizes important principles from the theoretical background justifying the overall design and evaluation methodology. The approach presented has theoretical extensions to the understanding of the role technology plays in promoting a consummatory aesthetic experience for Byzantine art in virtual environments, complementing the experience received from traditional Byzantine art media. Part A of the work presents the development of the semiotic foundation of the study prior to presenting the applied potential of the approach in design and evaluation of VH for Byzantine art, which appears in Part B. The final task of the proposed approach aims to support a meaningful interpretation, assisting in the promotion of the significance (value) of the virtual museum to potential interpreters/visitors.
Keywords: Ästhetisch angemessene Präsentation von Museumsgut, Augmented & Virtual Reality, Einander-Ergänzen von Objekten und Präsentationsrahmen, Kunst und Kultur, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Museen, Philosophie, Realtechnik, Sozialer Raum / Kultureller Kontext, Technik, Technologie, Zeitschrift: techne -
(2016): The Bright Line of Ethical Agency. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 20 (3), S. 240-257. DOI: 10.5840/techne2016102858
Abstract: In his article The Nature, Importance, and Difficulty of Machine Ethics, James H. Moor distinguishes two lines of argument for those who wish to draw a “bright line” between full ethical agents, such as human beings, and “weaker” ethical agents, such as machines whose actions have significant moral ramifications. The first line of argument is that only full ethical agents are agents at all. The second is that no machine could have the presumed features necessary for ethical agency. This paper shows why Moor is mistaken in his refutation of the first line of argument; it also makes a positive case that “weaker” ethical agents are not agents at all. This positive case, however, allows Moor’s rejection of the second line of argument to stand: allowing that there could be moral machines, but that these machines would have to be full moral agents and not merely something that models moral behavior or can be used in morally charged ways.
2015
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(2015): Transcendence in Technology in advance. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, S. 291-313. DOI: 10.5840/techne2015121742
Abstract: According to Max Weber, the “fate of our times” is characterized by a “disenchantment of the world.” The scientific ambition of rationalization and intellectualization, as well as the attempt to master nature through technology, will greatly limit experiences of and openness for the transcendent, i.e. that which is beyond our control. Insofar as transcendence is a central aspect of virtually every religion and all religious experiences, the development of science and technology will, according to the Weberian assertion, also limit the scope of religion. In this paper, we will reflect on the relations between technology and transcendence from the perspective of technological mediation theory. We will show that the fact that we are able to technologically intervene in the world and ourselves does not imply that we can completely control the rules of life. Technological interference in nature is only possible if the structures and laws that enable us to do that are recognized and to a certain extent obeyed, which indicates that technological power cannot exist without accepting a transcendent order in which one operates. Rather than excluding transcendence, technology mediates our relation to it.
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(2015): Critical Proximity as a Methodological Move in Techno-Anthropology. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (2), S. 266-290. DOI: 10.5840/techne201591138
Abstract: Techno-Anthropology is a new field, operating with a broad range of methodologies and approaches. This gives rise to the question: What does it mean for Techno-Anthropological research to be critical? In this paper, we discuss this question by developing and specifying the notion of ‘critical proximity.’ Critical proximity offers an alternative to critical distance, especially with respect to avoiding premature references to abstract panoramas such as democratization and capitalist exploitation in the quest to conduct ‘critical’ analysis. Critical proximity implies, instead, granting the beings, fields, and objects we study their own rights and abilities to problematize grand scale claims. Critical proximity further entails that we as researchers are implicated in issues and their formation in ways that allow us to register these critiques and methods, and to emphasize or supplement them. We work through two cases—one on the involvement of users in innovation projects and another on commercial web technologies for tracing issues—to show how critical proximity may be practiced. We sum up the lessons derived in four methodological guidelines for doing research with critical proximity.
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(2015): The Technological Construction of the Self. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (2), S. 211-232. DOI: 10.5840/techne20159936
Abstract: This paper aims at constructing the ontological and epistemological background for a methodology to be applied in Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice. The background is constructed as a patchwork, where structuralism, constructivism and post-phenomenology are woven together in order to support Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice in relation to the construction of the self through and with technology. The paper will specifically address what has been named the morality of things, primarily by Jacques Ellul, Hans Jonas, Michel Foucault and Peter-Paul Verbeek. It is the intent of this paper to point out a direction for an appropriate and value-based Techno-Anthropology. This direction is represented by a codex that here has been coined as the 7 ‘E’s: engagement, empathy, embodiment, enactment, enhancement, empowerment, and emancipation. The paper will conclude by showing how these are connected within a Techno-Anthropological perspective.
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(2015): Post-Normal Techno-Anthropology. In: Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (2), S. 233-265. DOI: 10.5840/techne20159937
Abstract: This paper identifies, explains, and illustrates the meaning of Post-Normal Techno-Anthropology as a two-step methodological strategy for analyzing policy-relevant scientific dissent in different segments of science, techno-science, and technological innovation. The first step focuses on epistemological and ethical analyses of the dissenting parties’ positions, and identifies conflicting arguments and assumptions on different levels. The second step involves scholarly discussions on how the analyses of policy-relevant scientific dissent can inform decision-makers and science advisors’ phronetic judgments. Dissenting views on climate change of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change is used as an illustrative example.