Technology And The Character Of Contemporary Life

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2009-08-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226163581

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Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life by Albert Borgmann Pdf

Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives. This pattern, discernible even in such an inconspicuous action as switching on a stereo, has global effects: it sharply divides life into labor and leisure, it sustains the industrial democracies, and it fosters the view that the earth itself is a technological device. He argues that technology has served us as well in conquering hunger and disease, but that when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption. Borgmann does not reject technology but calls for public conversation about the nature of the good life. He counsels us to make room in a technological age for matters of ultimate concern—things and practices that engage us in their own right.

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780226066295

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Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life by Albert Borgmann Pdf

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Part One - The Problem of Technology 1. Technology and Theory 2. Theories of Technology 3. The Choice of a Theory 4. Scientific Theory 5. Scientific Explanation 6. The Scope of Scientific Explanation 7. Science and Technology Part Two - The Character of Technology 8. The Promise of Technology 9. The Device Paradigm 10. The Foreground of Technology 11. Devices, Means, and Machines 12. Paradigmatic Explanation 13. Technology and the Social Order 14. Technology and Democracy 15. The Rule of Technology 16. Political Engagement and Social Justice 17. Work and Labor 18. Leisure, Excellence, and Happiness 19. The Stability of Technology Part Three - The Reform of Technology 20. The Possibilities of Reform 21. Deictic Discourse 22. The Challenge of Nature 23. Focal Things and Practices 24. Wealth and the Good Life 25. Political Affirmation 26. The Recovery of the Promise of Technology Notes Index.

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1984-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0226066282

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Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life by Albert Borgmann Pdf

Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives. This pattern, discernible even in such an inconspicuous action as switching on a stereo, has global effects: it sharply divides life into labor and leisure, it sustains the industrial democracies, and it fosters the view that the earth itself is a technological device. He argues that technology has served us as well in conquering hunger and disease, but that when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption. Borgmann does not reject technology but calls for public conversation about the nature of the good life. He counsels us to make room in a technological age for matters of ultimate concern—things and practices that engage us in their own right.

Author : Eric Higgs,Andrew Light,David Strong
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2010-12-15
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780226333885

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Technology and the Good Life? by Eric Higgs,Andrew Light,David Strong Pdf

Can we use technology in the pursuit of a good life, or are we doomed to having our lives organized and our priorities set by the demands of machines and systems? How can philosophy help us to make technology a servant rather than a master? Technology and the Good Life? uses a careful collective analysis of Albert Borgmann's controversial and influential ideas as a jumping-off point from which to address questions such as these about the role and significance of technology in our lives. Contributors both sympathetic and critical examine Borgmann's work, especially his "device paradigm"; apply his theories to new areas such as film, agriculture, design, and ecological restoration; and consider the place of his thought within philosophy and technology studies more generally. Because this collection carefully investigates the issues at the heart of how we can take charge of life with technology, it will be a landmark work not just for philosophers of technology but for students and scholars in the many disciplines concerned with science and technology studies.

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : Brazos Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2003-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781587430589

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Power Failure by Albert Borgmann Pdf

A call to redeem and restrain technology through everyday Christian practices and sacraments such as communal celebrations, shared meals, and daily Scripture reading.

Author : Shannon Vallor
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2016-08-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190498535

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Technology and the Virtues by Shannon Vallor Pdf

The 21st century offers a dizzying array of new technological developments: robots smart enough to take white collar jobs, social media tools that manage our most important relationships, ordinary objects that track, record, analyze and share every detail of our daily lives, and biomedical techniques with the potential to transform and enhance human minds and bodies to an unprecedented degree. Emerging technologies are reshaping our habits, practices, institutions, cultures and environments in increasingly rapid, complex and unpredictable ways that create profound risks and opportunities for human flourishing on a global scale. How can our future be protected in such challenging and uncertain conditions? How can we possibly improve the chances that the human family will not only live, but live well, into the 21st century and beyond? This book locates a key to that future in the distant past: specifically, in the philosophical traditions of virtue ethics developed by classical thinkers from Aristotle and Confucius to the Buddha. Each developed a way of seeking the good life that equips human beings with the moral and intellectual character to flourish even in the most unpredictable, complex and unstable situations--precisely where we find ourselves today. Through an examination of the many risks and opportunities presented by rapidly changing technosocial conditions, Vallor makes the case that if we are to have any real hope of securing a future worth wanting, then we will need more than just better technologies. We will also need better humans. Technology and the Virtues develops a practical framework for seeking that goal by means of the deliberate cultivation of technomoral virtues: specific skills and strengths of character, adapted to the unique challenges of 21st century life, that offer the human family our best chance of learning to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

Author : Hubert L. Dreyfus
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2017-06-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780192516039

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Background Practices by Hubert L. Dreyfus Pdf

This volume presents a selection of Hubert Dreyfus's pioneering work in bringing phenomenology and existentialism to bear on the philosophical and scientific study of the mind. Each of the thirteen essays interprets, develops, and extends the insights of his predecessors working in the European philosophical tradition. One of Dreyfus' central contributions to reading the historical canon of philosophy comes from his recognition that great philosophers help us to understand the "background practices" of a culture - the practices that shape and embody our most basic understanding of ourselves and the things and situations we encounter in our world. Background practices are all too often overlooked completely, or else their importance is misunderstood. Each chapter in this volume shows in one way or another how a broad range of philosophical topics can only be properly understood when we recognize how they are grounded in the background practices that shape our lives and give meaning to our activities, our tasks, our normative commitments, our aims and our goals.

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2013-11-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780226161488

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Crossing the Postmodern Divide by Albert Borgmann Pdf

In this eloquent guide to the meanings of the postmodern era, Albert Borgmann charts the options before us as we seek alternatives to the joyless and artificial culture of consumption. Borgmann connects the fundamental ideas driving his understanding of society's ills to every sphere of contemporary social life, and goes beyond the language of postmodern discourse to offer a powerfully articulated vision of what this new era, at its best, has in store. "[This] thoughtful book is the first remotely realistic map out of the post modern labyrinth."—Joseph Coates, The Chicago Tribune "Rather astoundingly large-minded vision of the nature of humanity, civilization and science."—Kirkus Reviews

Author : Hans Achterhuis
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0253339030

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American Philosophy of Technology by Hans Achterhuis Pdf

Introduces contemporary American philosophy of technology through six of its leading figures. The six American philosophers of technology whose work is profiled in this clear and concise introduction to the field--Albert Borgmann, Hubert Dreyfus, Andrew Feenberg, Donna Haraway, Don Ihde, and Langdon Winner--represent a new, empirical direction in the philosophical study of technology that has developed mainly in North America. In place of the grand philosophical schemes of the classical generation of European philosophers of technology (including Martin Heidgger, Jacques Ellul, and Hans Jonas), the contemporary American generation addresses concrete technological practices and the co-evolution of technology and society in modern culture. Six Dutch philosophers associated with Twente University survey and critique the full scope and development of their American colleagues' work, often illustrating shifts from earlier to more recent interests. Individual chapters focus on Borgmann's engagement with technology and everyday life; Dreyfus's work on the limits of artificial intelligence; Feenberg's perspectives on the cultural and social possibilities opened by technologies; Haraway's conception of the cyborg and its attendant blurring of boundaries; Ihde's explorations of the place of technology in the lifeworld; and Winner's fascination with the moral and political implications of modern technologies. American Philosophy of Technology offers an insightful and readable introduction to this new and distinctly American philosophical turn. Contributors are Hans Achterhuis, Philip Brey, René Munnik, Martijntje Smits, Pieter Tijmes, and Peter-Paul Verbeek.

Author : Albert Borgmann
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780226066226

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Holding On to Reality by Albert Borgmann Pdf

Holding On to Reality is a brilliant history of information, from its inception in the natural world to its role in the transformation of culture to the current Internet mania and is attendant assets and liabilities. Drawing on the history of ideas, the details of information technology, and the boundaries of the human condition, Borgmann illuminates the relationship between things and signs, between reality and information. "[Borgmann] has offered a stunningly clear definition of information in Holding On to Reality. . . . He leaves room for little argument, unless one wants to pose the now vogue objection: I guess it depends on what you mean by nothing."—Paul Bennett, Wired "A superb anecdotal analysis of information for a hype-addled age."—New Scientist "This insightful and poetic reflection on the changing nature of information is a wonderful antidote to much of the current hype about the 'information revolution.' Borgmann reminds us that whatever the reality of our time, we need 'a balance of signs and things' in our lives."—Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly

Author : Donald Michie,Rory Johnston
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1985
Category : Computers
ISBN : STANFORD:36105113397280

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The Creative Computer by Donald Michie,Rory Johnston Pdf

Author : Shannon Vallor
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 697 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2022
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190851187

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The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology by Shannon Vallor Pdf

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neglected importance of technology for virtually every subfield of philosophy, including ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and political theory. The Handbook also gives readers a new sense of what philosophy looks like when fully engaged with the disciplines and domains of knowledge that continue to transform the material and practical features and affordances of our world, including engineering, arts and design, computing, and the physical and social sciences. The chapters reveal enduring conceptual themes concerning technology's role in the shaping of human knowledge, identity, power, values, and freedom, while bringing a philosophical lens to the profound transformations of our existence brought by innovations ranging from biotechnology and nuclear engineering to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. This new collection challenges the reader with provocative and original insights on the history, concepts, problems, and questions to be brought to bear upon humanity's complex and evolving relationship to technology.

Author : David Arnold
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2013-06-07
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226922034

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Everyday Technology by David Arnold Pdf

In 1909 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, on his way back to South Africa from London, wrote his now celebrated tract Hind Swaraj, laying out his vision for the future of India and famously rejecting the technological innovations of Western civilization. Despite his protestations, Western technology endured and helped to make India one of the leading economies in our globalized world. Few would question the dominant role that technology plays in modern life, but to fully understand how India first advanced into technological modernity, argues David Arnold, we must consider the technology of the everyday. Everyday Technology is a pioneering account of how small machines and consumer goods that originated in Europe and North America became objects of everyday use in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than investigate “big” technologies such as railways and irrigation projects, Arnold examines the assimilation and appropriation of bicycles, rice mills, sewing machines, and typewriters in India, and follows their impact on the ways in which people worked and traveled, the clothes they wore, and the kind of food they ate. But the effects of these machines were not limited to the daily rituals of Indian society, and Arnold demonstrates how such small-scale technologies became integral to new ways of thinking about class, race, and gender, as well as about the politics of colonial rule and Indian nationhood. Arnold’s fascinating book offers new perspectives on the globalization of modern technologies and shows us that to truly understand what modernity became, we need to look at the everyday experiences of people in all walks of life, taking stock of how they repurposed small technologies to reinvent their world and themselves.

Author : Don Ihde
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1990-05-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : UOM:39015049559084

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Technology and the Lifeworld by Don Ihde Pdf

" . . . Dr. Ihde brings an enlightening and deeply humanistic perspective to major technological developments, both past and present." —Science Books & Films "Don Ihde is a pleasure to read. . . . The material is full of nice suggestions and details, empirical materials, fun variations which engage the reader in the work . . . the overall points almost sneak up on you, they are so gently and gradually offered." —John Compton "A sophisticated celebration of cultural diversity and of its enabling technologies. . . . perhaps the best single volume relating the philosophical tradition to the broad issues raised by contemporary technologies." —Choice " . . . important and challenging . . . " —Review of Metaphysics " . . . a range of rich historical, cultural, philosophical, and psychological insights, woven together in an intriguing and clear exposition . . . The book is really a pleasure to read, for its style, immense learning and sanity." —Teaching Philosophy The role of tools and instruments in our relation to the earth and the ways in which technologies are culturally embedded provide the foci of this thought-provoking book.

Author : John McCarthy,Peter Wright
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2007-08-24
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780262250733

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Technology as Experience by John McCarthy,Peter Wright Pdf

In Technology as Experience, John McCarthy and Peter Wright argue that any account of what is often called the user experience must take into consideration the emotional, intellectual, and sensual aspects of our interactions with technology. We don't just use technology, they point out; we live with it. They offer a new approach to understanding human-computer interaction through examining the felt experience of technology. Drawing on the pragmatism of such philosophers as John Dewey and Mikhail Bakhtin, they provide a framework for a clearer analysis of technology as experience. Just as Dewey, in Art as Experience, argued that art is part of everyday lived experience and not isolated in a museum, McCarthy and Wright show how technology is deeply embedded in everyday life. The "zestful integration" or transcendent nature of the aesthetic experience, they say, is a model of what human experience with technology might become. McCarthy and Wright illustrate their theoretical framework with real-world examples that range from online shopping to ambulance dispatch. Their approach to understanding human computer interaction—seeing it as creative, open, and relational, part of felt experience—is a measure of the fullness of technology's potential to be more than merely functional.