Book Review- Philosophy of Technology

published on APA blog (https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/11/13/syllabus-showcase-agostino-cera-technology-as-a-philosophical-question/), 2019

Syllabus of a course for graduate students of 60 hours (namely 20 3-hours lessons). Starting from the complex historical-theoretical evolution of the topic “technology” (i.e. from the idea of techné in the ancient Greek to modern and contemporary idea of Machbarkeit/makeability), the course aims to highlight the importance of such a topic as philosophical question. Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of technology will emerge as the fundamental point of reference for the idea itself of a philosophy of technology. At the same time the course will deal with the problem of Heidegger’s legacy, that is the current options and future possibilities for the philosophy of technology. The course aims to provide the students with the basic conceptual tools in order to deal with the topic “technology” as crucial “hub” of the philosophical thought (especially with reference to its modern and contemporary stages). For this purpose a particular attention will be given to the direct confrontation with the “classics”, chosen as reference literature.

2006

Philosophy of technology is a relatively recent addition to philosophy. It was not until the late 1970s that a few philosophers started to consider technology as a potential topic in philosophical reflections. In 1979, Mario Bunge even complained that “[philosophy of technology] is an underdeveloped branch of scholarship… So far no major philosopher has made his central concern or written an important monograph on it” (Bunge, 1979, p.68). However, in the past three decades, rapid developments have embedded technology into human society and even human bodies (e.g. biomedical engineering). Philosophers have thus felt obligated to think about the ways technology fundamentally alters living conditions and what it means to be human. Such a challenge has given rise to the philosophy of technology. Nevertheless, gaps still remain in the philosophy of technology. On one hand, technological advancement requires intellectual resources to guide its trajectory wisely. On the other, philosophy of technology has not completely been established as an institutionalized field. Contemporary philosophy of technology is attempting to bridge this gap. Since “no major reference work on the philosophy of technology is in existence,” this Companion to the Philosophy of Technology (hereafter simply Companion) edited by Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks, is the most up-to-date attempt to synthesize all sorts of historical and contemporary efforts and to point toward further research (p.1).

International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 2006

Philosophical Interventions in Language Ed. Tuhin Majumder, Sk. Aktar Hossain, 2024

Philippiniana Sacra

This contribution departs from the observation that, notwithstanding the empirical tum, work in the philosophy of technology is still too fragmented and isolated, both internally, in how its various themes are mutually related, and externally, in how well its themes are linked up to what happens in the established major fields that make up philosophy as a whole. We argue that the philosophy of technology as currently practiced has to extend both in scope and method and that a systematic exploration of its connections with the core fields of philosophy will help it develop into a mature field. We, then, mount a diagnosis and provide a remedy. Greater systematicity is needed to counteract the fragmentation and lack of substantive unity in philosophy of technology. Such systematicity can be provided by means discussed in this paper, above all a newly developed theory of use with clear application to the ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology of technology.

Encyclopedia of Technology and Innovation Management, 2010