- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part One Philosophy of Technology Today
- One Borgmann's Philosophy of Technology
- Two Philosophy of Technology: Retrospective and Prospective Views
- Part Two Evaluating Focal Things
- Three Focal Things and Focal Practices
- Four Technology and Nostalgia
- Five Focaltechnics, Pragmatechnics, and the Reform of Technology
- Six Borgmann's <i>Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen:</i> On the Prepolitical Conditions of a Politics of Place
- Seven On Character and Technology
- Part Three Theory in the Service of Practice
- Eight The Moving Image: Between Devices and Things
- Nine Farming as Focal Practice
- Ten Design and the Reform of Technology: Venturing Out into the Open
- Eleven Nature by Design
- Part Four Extensions and Controversies
- Twelve Technological Ethics in a Different Voice
- Thirteen Crossing the Postmodern Divide with Borgmann, or Adventures in Cyberspace
- Fourteen Technology and Temporal Ambiguity
- Fifteen Trapped in Consumption: Modern Social Structure and the Entrenchment of the Device
- Sixteen From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads
- Seventeen Philosophy in the Service of Things
- Eighteen Reply to My Critics
- Afterword
- Index
Introduction
Introduction
- Chapter:
- (p.1) Introduction
- Source:
- Technology and the Good Life?
- Author(s):
Eric Higgs
Andrew Light
David Strong
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
This book focuses on a philosophical discussion of technology and what constitutes the good life. The point of access to this discussion is Albert Borgmann's important distinction between “things” and “devices.” The term “device,” uniquely Borgmann's idea, refers very generally to the mass-produced artifacts that shape so much of contemporary life. In contrast, “things” are referred to as older, traditional technologies that reflect their surrounding natural and communal context and require developed skill and attention in use. The set of questions a philosophy of technology should address in order to fulfill its promise are often at the intersection of it and other fields. This chapter states that philosophy of technology at its best should appeal to a very wide audience partly because it illuminates our shared, ordinary everyday life, such as with things and devices, and partly because the issues it probes cut across the full range of disciplines.
Keywords: technology, good life, Albert Borgmann, philosophy of technology, everyday life, things, devices
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part One Philosophy of Technology Today
- One Borgmann's Philosophy of Technology
- Two Philosophy of Technology: Retrospective and Prospective Views
- Part Two Evaluating Focal Things
- Three Focal Things and Focal Practices
- Four Technology and Nostalgia
- Five Focaltechnics, Pragmatechnics, and the Reform of Technology
- Six Borgmann's <i>Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen:</i> On the Prepolitical Conditions of a Politics of Place
- Seven On Character and Technology
- Part Three Theory in the Service of Practice
- Eight The Moving Image: Between Devices and Things
- Nine Farming as Focal Practice
- Ten Design and the Reform of Technology: Venturing Out into the Open
- Eleven Nature by Design
- Part Four Extensions and Controversies
- Twelve Technological Ethics in a Different Voice
- Thirteen Crossing the Postmodern Divide with Borgmann, or Adventures in Cyberspace
- Fourteen Technology and Temporal Ambiguity
- Fifteen Trapped in Consumption: Modern Social Structure and the Entrenchment of the Device
- Sixteen From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads
- Seventeen Philosophy in the Service of Things
- Eighteen Reply to My Critics
- Afterword
- Index
