Papers by Steven Dorrestijn
Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte
DS 117: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2022), London South Bank University in London, UK. 8th - 9th September 2022
The Dutch research project "Wijs met techniek" (Tech-Wise) explores ethics education from a toolb... more The Dutch research project "Wijs met techniek" (Tech-Wise) explores ethics education from a toolbased, practical perspective. Especially if and how practical tools for ethical deliberation on the impact of technology can be helpful in ethics education for engineering students. The approach is first intended as a variation on theories in ethics and technology. Secondly, the approach uses a focus on the impact of technology as a way toward ethical deliberation. Both characteristics are intended to better appeal to engineering students. In the project we cover three levels of higher education: a University, a University of Applied Sciences and a School for Vocational Training. Together we are developing and testing a suite of activating working methods that can be tailored to various engineering programmes. A first result of this is the simple workshop format "ethics for engineers", consisting of five steps with four effective ingredients. In this paper we present the general format of this workshop and dive in particular into a specific instance of the workshop called "Wonderberries". The experiences from the workshop show that with a carefully chosen combination of engaging orientation, a specific 'technology' and a concrete design exercise the ethical questions and subsequent deliberation and reflection can be very rich.
Designers have a key role in the creation of the products and technologies that shape people and ... more Designers have a key role in the creation of the products and technologies that shape people and society. Awareness of the societal effect of their designs is, therefore, an important quality. The Product Impact Tool (PIT) is a tool that originated in philosophy of technology and elaborates how technologies can have a social impact. The tool has the potential to be of use to designers to design more socially acceptable products, but does not yet fit into the process of design. In this paper the PIT is further developed into a tool for designers. The question answered is how designers can make better use of the PIT to create designs for people and society. Through a literature study, interviews and ideation phase, the Product Impact Tool For Designers (PITFD) was developed. The PITFD was then tested with both professional- and student designers and improved further. It contains four booklets and a worksheet to be used in a brainstorm session and is developed to be more practical in u...
Collaboration between Design and Philosophy of technology can generate new insights in the comple... more Collaboration between Design and Philosophy of technology can generate new insights in the complex interplay between humans and technology. These so-called human-technology relations are one of the key issues in design innovation and the shaping of our future. Design Innovation can use the frameworks of philosophers to theorize the findings from practice or to make sense of past developments, especially since Philosophy of Technology in the current of the so-called empirical turn is more focused on individual technologies and contexts. On the other hand, designing actual things provides a powerful laboratory to test philosophical frameworks in real life. You might say that through design innovation these conceptual frameworks can become ‘applicable’. So, in analogy with the empirical turn in philosophy of technology before, the present collaboration with design is termed a ‘practical turn’. Philosophy of Technology has a substantial track record in thinking about the impacts of tech...
Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, 2016
Draft of the text published as: S. Dorrestijn, "History, philosophy, and actuality of the utopian... more Draft of the text published as: S. Dorrestijn, "History, philosophy, and actuality of the utopian view of technology: On Pierre Musso's critique of network ideology". In Garcia, José Luís (ed.), Pierre Musso and the Network Society: From Saint-Simonism to the internet (pp. 103-129). Cham, Ch: Springer International Publishing. • publisher link] Steven Dorrestijn is a senior researcher in the Ethics and Technology group at Saxion University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. In 2012 Dorrestijn completed his PhD thesis (The design of our own lives: Technical mediation and subjectivation after Michel Foucault) at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Previously he studied Philosophy in Paris and Philosophy and Mechanical Engineering in Twente. Dorrestijn's research and publications focus on the philosophy and ethics of technology, Michel Foucault's work in relation to technology, and the integration in design of knowledge about the impact of technology (Product Impact Tool). www.stevendorrestijn.nl
What is the meaning of the ‘care of the self’ in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discip... more What is the meaning of the ‘care of the self’ in Sensor Societies such as Singapore, where discipline and control seem to come first? Assessing sensoring and behaviour control in Smart Cities, Michel Foucault’s pivotal work on surveillance and power is still highly relevant. Applying this work on surveillance studies also needs to take into consideration Foucault’s later work on the care of the self, as well as revisit his work on power. This amounts to a framework of surveillance pulled apart and inside-out: from top-down hierarchical surveillance to lateral surveillance among people, and even to self-surveillance. Interwoven with this theoretical development is a reportage about the experience of walking the streets of Singapore with an eye to emerging forms of self-care in this situation of ubiquitous surveillance.
Steven Dorrestijn outlines the advantages of Musso’s contribution, putting together an essay on t... more Steven Dorrestijn outlines the advantages of Musso’s contribution, putting together an essay on the utopian, dystopian or ambivalent interpretations of technical mediation, while developing a dual critique of Musso’s appropriation of the notions of ‘network’ and ‘utopia’. Dorrestijn sees the breadth of Musso’s historical perspective as its principal merit, in that it gives him an analytical advantage when it comes to discussing the issues surrounding technology today. Dorrestijn goes on to explain the origins and meaning of the notion of utopianism and describes the historical development of ideas which link technology and its social worth.
Foundations of Science, 2015
What can the art of living after Foucault contribute to ethics in relation to the mediation of hu... more What can the art of living after Foucault contribute to ethics in relation to the mediation of human existence by technology? To develop the relation between technical mediation and ethics, firstly the theme of technical mediation is elaborated in line with Foucault’s notion of ethical problematization. Every view of what technology does to us at the same time expresses an ethical concern about technology. The contemporary conception of technical mediation tends towards the acknowledgement of ongoing hybridization, not ultimately good or bad but ambivalent, which means for us the challenge of taking care of ourselves as hybrid beings. Secondly, the work of Foucault provides elements for imagining this care for our hybrid selves, notably his notions of freedom as a practice and of the care of the self. A conclusions about technical mediation and ethics is that whereas the approaches of the delegation of morality to technology by Latour and mediated morality by Verbeek see technical m...
Foundations of Science, 2015
The art of living idiom suits well a practice-oriented approach in ethics of technology. But what... more The art of living idiom suits well a practice-oriented approach in ethics of technology. But what remains or becomes of the functioning and use of reason in ethics? In reaction to the comments by Huijer this reply elaborates in more detail how Foucault's art of living can be adapted for a critical contemporary ethics of technology. And the aesthetic-political rationality in Foucault's ethics is compared with Wellner's suggestions of holding on to the notion of code but with a new meaning. Foucault's fourfold scheme of subjectivation and a distinction of ''below and above reason'' structure the argument. Keywords Technical mediation Á Ethics Á Foucault Á Fourfold of subjectivation Á Uses of reason This text supplements my paper on 'The Care of Our Hybrid Selves: Ethics in Times of Technical Mediation,' in reply to the two insightful commentaries by Galit Wellner and by Marli Huijer. My historical overview in three stages of philosophical analysis of technology with three different figures of technical mediation raised no pressing questions. The commentaries both focus mainly on the second part, which proposed an ethics of technology inspired by Michel Foucault's ideas about the arts of living. Huijer wonders if I do not use Foucault's work in an uncritical way when transferring his ideas from classical Greece and Rome to our days, and from the domain of sexuality to technology. Wellner suggests Self Determination Theory as an approach for giving more content to the care of
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or ... more All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-94-6186-077-4Design for Usability
DRS2018: Catalyst, Jun 28, 2018
The ever rising role of products and technologies in humans' lives is increasing the call for way... more The ever rising role of products and technologies in humans' lives is increasing the call for ways to understand and investigate their influences, in the form of prospective analytical methods. This paper proposes one such method, based upon the Product Impact Tool. This Tool was developed to combine both philosophy of technology and design for usability perspectives. Its effects offer potential for prospective and reflective purposes, and can be used to investigate and structure ideas about the impacts of both current and future technologies. The proposed method offers an addition to existing tools within the field of prospective analysis. This added value is demonstrated through a case study of a concept for future personal transport. Through this case study, it is shown that the proposed method can help uncover information that remained hidden by conventional approaches, by inducing a critical investigation of the subject from multiple perspectives. Such information will aid analysts and strategists in their work, leading to more effective, desirable, and responsible technologies being developed and implemented.
Abstract. Smart technologies and progressive automation raise questions concerning the use of suc... more Abstract. Smart technologies and progressive automation raise questions concerning the use of such technologies. The design challenge to enhance usability cannot be seen apart from the broader societal, and ethical concern of how technologies are accommodated in a way of living. The designer’s tinkering to improve usability, is therefore an ethically relevant practice, as is the consumers engagement with new technologies. Explicit consideration and design of product impact can help to improve the accommodation of technology. The ethical problem of product impact and freedom is treated by elaborating that product impact not so much infringes on freedom but provokes specific forms of freedom.
Philosophy of Technology has produced a substantive amount of theories and reflections about the ... more Philosophy of Technology has produced a substantive amount of theories and reflections about the impacts of technology and innovations on our daily lives and social behaviours. Combining this conceptual toolkit with design, with its capability of actually changing things, promises a powerful approach to developing critical future-making practices. This implies that philosophy of technology moves beyond thinking and discussing concepts and starts to engage more closely with practical probing. In philosophy of technology there has been an empirical turn, towards the study of concrete technologies in society. Our proposal is to further develop this, with a change from ‘study and description’ to ‘interventions by design’, into the actual redesign of technologies and correlated ways of doing. Therefore, in analogy with the empirical turn before, we present this collaboration with design as the ‘Practical Turn in Philosophy of Technology’. In this paper we explore this in a design case st...
International Journal of Design, 2013
This paper is about the application of user-influencing design for improving wellbeing, focusing ... more This paper is about the application of user-influencing design for improving wellbeing, focusing on the ethical issue of finding the right balance between determination and freedom. Two contemporary approaches for user-influencing design, “Persuasive Technology” and “Nudge,” are discussed against the background of social engagement in the history of design. What can be learned from the past? The most explicit but also contested examples of improving people’s lives by means of design can be found in movements of “utopian design.” We discuss the utopian aspirations in Arts and Crafts, New Objectivity, Gute Form, and Postmodernism. The major lesson to be learned is that it is necessary to find a way out of the repeated ethical dilemma between coercing human behavior on the one hand and fostering human freedom on the other. Following Michel Foucault, we will conceptualize freedom not as the absence of influences on people, but as a practice of shaping one’s life in interaction with thes...
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Papers by Steven Dorrestijn