Books by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945-2015, 2019
The volume is edited by Professor Kelly Becker and Professor Iain D. Thomson.
Philosophy of te... more The volume is edited by Professor Kelly Becker and Professor Iain D. Thomson.
Philosophy of technology only came into existence as a specialist branch of professional philosophy during the 1970s, although the philosophical literature during the years between 1945 and the 1970s voices an increasing preoccupation with technology. Just as the First World War led to a wave of disillusionment among intellectuals as well as the common man, so did the Second World War. This disillusionment manifested itself as pessimism, which became characteristic of several influential philosophers during the two first decades after the war. We find it echoed, for instance, in Gabriel Marcel’s The Decline of Wisdom (1954), where Marcel describes the “horror and anxiety” he felt walking through “the ruins of Vienna in 1946, or more recently in Caen, Rouen or Würzburg” (21). But the 1970s, with growing social prosperity, industrial growth, and better technologies, changed that sentiment. The development of a professional philosophy of technology has, after the 1960s, developed along two different yet familiar trajectories: one into an analytical philosophy of technology and science, the other into a Continental (or more broadly humanities-oriented) philosophy of technology (see also Thomson, this volume).
Sustainability in the anthropocene – philosophical essays on renewable technologies, 2019
In 1878 Nietzsche published On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense. What he wrote – as painful... more In 1878 Nietzsche published On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense. What he wrote – as painful as it sounds – rings truer than ever as we face an increasing number of extreme weather events, famine, and overpopulation of the Earth. And yet, we keep on trotting along that fictional trail of industrial and economic progress concocted by our rationalist enlightenment forefathers, today a doctrine embedded into every fabric of human life, guarded by some of the largest corporations and most powerful politicians alike. Nietzsche forcefully reminds us of the ultimately illusory nature of this “progress”:
“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of ‘world history,’ but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.”
In the following, I will discuss some inadequacies of the interrelated ideas of sustainable development and progress. These development ideas have had, and still have, a tremendous influence on the Anthropocene. As a counterpoint, I will present a view of environmental philosophy that is tentative; probably naïve, yet at least an alternative that may help regenerate mankind’s partly forgotten relationship with nature.
Automatic Press. Edited by Jeanette Bresson Ladegaard Knox and Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
Papers by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
Since the 1960s there has been an alternative move within theory of science towards an understand... more Since the 1960s there has been an alternative move within theory of science towards an understanding, according to MacKenzie & Spinardi (1995) that techno-scientific knowledge is no longer to be viewed as objective-in the sense of being "subject independent"; neither is it context independent, and it is not determined by the rule of scientific method. Instead scientific knowledge is situated, it happens locally, it is person-specific, and scientists do not follow rules but specific courses of action determined by the specific research environment and epistemic culture in which they are included (MacKenzie & Spinardi 1995:44). In this paper, I will discuss this view with specific emphasis on mind its tacit nature with regard to knowledge, i.e. what the tacit of "tacit knowledge" is and how it is embodied in technoscientific practice-I will thus attempt to shed light on the mind and in particular the act of thinking that takes place before and during the formation ...
Science is a dialogue between mankind and nature…. But what makes this dialogue possible? A time-... more Science is a dialogue between mankind and nature…. But what makes this dialogue possible? A time-reversible world would also be an unknowable world. Knowledge presupposes that the world affects us and our instruments, that there is an interaction between the knower and the known, and that this interaction creates a difference between past and future. Becoming is the sine qua non of science, and indeed, of knowledge itself.
Historical Materialism, 2010
This review-essay examines the multi-author collection New Waves in Philosophy of Technology. Par... more This review-essay examines the multi-author collection New Waves in Philosophy of Technology. Particular attention is given to the difference between Marx’s and Heidegger’s philosophies of technology. The differential impact of Marx and Heidegger on the essays in the collection is assessed, with some implications drawn about the theoretical background of the philosophy of technology as a whole.
Forum Philosophicum, 2008
The leap from primitive to scientific time represented as the „time” in „relativity physics”, or ... more The leap from primitive to scientific time represented as the „time” in „relativity physics”, or in „thermodynamics” or perhaps in „quantum physics” or even within „statistical mechanics” is large. Large also is the conceptual
AI & SOCIETY, 2015
In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological ... more In this paper I will argue that medical specialists interpret and diagnose through technological mediations like X-ray and fMRI images, and by actualizing embodied skills tacitly they are determining the identity of objects in the perceptual field. The initial phase of human interpretation of visual objects takes place during the moments of visual perception before we are consciously aware of the perceived. What facilitate this innate ability to interpret are experiences, learning and training that become humanly embodied skills. These embodied skills are actualized during the moments of visual perception. My argument is that biology, society and instruments constitute unique individual ontologies influencing specialist readings of the technological output, in other words, putting limits on the “truth-to-nature” relation, which is so much sought for in science.
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Books by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
Philosophy of technology only came into existence as a specialist branch of professional philosophy during the 1970s, although the philosophical literature during the years between 1945 and the 1970s voices an increasing preoccupation with technology. Just as the First World War led to a wave of disillusionment among intellectuals as well as the common man, so did the Second World War. This disillusionment manifested itself as pessimism, which became characteristic of several influential philosophers during the two first decades after the war. We find it echoed, for instance, in Gabriel Marcel’s The Decline of Wisdom (1954), where Marcel describes the “horror and anxiety” he felt walking through “the ruins of Vienna in 1946, or more recently in Caen, Rouen or Würzburg” (21). But the 1970s, with growing social prosperity, industrial growth, and better technologies, changed that sentiment. The development of a professional philosophy of technology has, after the 1960s, developed along two different yet familiar trajectories: one into an analytical philosophy of technology and science, the other into a Continental (or more broadly humanities-oriented) philosophy of technology (see also Thomson, this volume).
“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of ‘world history,’ but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.”
In the following, I will discuss some inadequacies of the interrelated ideas of sustainable development and progress. These development ideas have had, and still have, a tremendous influence on the Anthropocene. As a counterpoint, I will present a view of environmental philosophy that is tentative; probably naïve, yet at least an alternative that may help regenerate mankind’s partly forgotten relationship with nature.
Papers by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis
Philosophy of technology only came into existence as a specialist branch of professional philosophy during the 1970s, although the philosophical literature during the years between 1945 and the 1970s voices an increasing preoccupation with technology. Just as the First World War led to a wave of disillusionment among intellectuals as well as the common man, so did the Second World War. This disillusionment manifested itself as pessimism, which became characteristic of several influential philosophers during the two first decades after the war. We find it echoed, for instance, in Gabriel Marcel’s The Decline of Wisdom (1954), where Marcel describes the “horror and anxiety” he felt walking through “the ruins of Vienna in 1946, or more recently in Caen, Rouen or Würzburg” (21). But the 1970s, with growing social prosperity, industrial growth, and better technologies, changed that sentiment. The development of a professional philosophy of technology has, after the 1960s, developed along two different yet familiar trajectories: one into an analytical philosophy of technology and science, the other into a Continental (or more broadly humanities-oriented) philosophy of technology (see also Thomson, this volume).
“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of ‘world history,’ but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.”
In the following, I will discuss some inadequacies of the interrelated ideas of sustainable development and progress. These development ideas have had, and still have, a tremendous influence on the Anthropocene. As a counterpoint, I will present a view of environmental philosophy that is tentative; probably naïve, yet at least an alternative that may help regenerate mankind’s partly forgotten relationship with nature.
Copperfield to Daniel Deronda, from the Newgate Novel to the Bildungsroman – we take a long tour of critical discussions concerning what intuition, and more specifically, moral intuition, really is about and how it changed meaning as the century grew old.