- 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 of Technology: Retrospective and Prospective Views
Philosophy of Technology: Retrospective and Prospective Views
- Chapter:
- (p.38) Two Philosophy of Technology: Retrospective and Prospective Views
- Source:
- Technology and the Good Life?
- Author(s):
Paul T. Durbin
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
This chapter takes up the twofold task of philosophy by first reviewing the two decades, 1965–1985, that saw the formation of the philosophy of technology in North America. From an explicit pragmatist standpoint, the chapter finds that philosophers were originally reaching to the philosophy of technology in hopes of better understanding and addressing our “major technosocial disasters.” It urges today's philosophers of technology to remember again these original concerns and to take up this struggle with particular pernicious technosocial problems one at a time, even though addressing these problems at a philosophical level will be very difficult in the coming technological culture. Within this frame it evaluates several possible readings of Borgmann's work.
Keywords: philosophy of technology, North America, technosocial disasters, technological culture, Borgmann's work, technosocial problems
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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
