- 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
Philosophy in the Service of Things
Philosophy in the Service of Things
- Chapter:
- (p.316) Seventeen Philosophy in the Service of Things
- Source:
- Technology and the Good Life?
- Author(s):
David Strong
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
On the basis of Borgmann's two works on technology, this chapter tries to step beyond them and characterize Borgmann's philosophy. For Borgmann, philosophy's strengths and limitations can best be understood in the light of things. The chapter challenges Borgmann to work out his general philosophy, especially his idea that there is a kind of symmetry between humans and things. The chapter finds that Borgmann's most significant philosophical advance has to do with his careful analysis of the physical characteristics of devices and things and of the physical transformation of Earth and our built environment. It questions whether some of the received religious elements of Borgmann's books are consistent with the radical nature of his general philosophy in its concern with physical things.
Keywords: Borgmann's philosophy, human and things, physical characteristics, devices, general philosophy, religious elements
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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
