Ever since Achterhuis designated American philosophy of technology “empirical” there has been a Continental “push-back” defending the first generation of European—mostly Heidegger’s essentialistic “transcendental”—philosophy of technology. While I prefer a “concrete” turn—to avoid confusing with British “empiricism”—in a belief that particular technologies are different from others—this is a quibble. I admit I was very taken by Richard Rorty’s “anti-essentialism” and “non-foundationalism” in his version of pragmatism, and have adapted much of that stance into postphenomenology. In this contribution I reply to (...) the comments of Lars Botin and Robert Rosenberger. (shrink)

Humans, more than any other species, have been altering their paths of development by creating new material forms and by opening up to new possibilities of material engagement. That is, we become constituted through making and using technologies that shape our minds and extend our bodies. We make things which in turn make us. This ongoing dialectic has long been recognised from a deep-time perspective. It also seems natural in the present in view of the ways new materialities and digital (...) ecologies increasingly envelop our everyday life and thinking. Still the basic idea that humans and things are co-constituted continues to challenge us, raising important questions about the place and meaning of materiality and technical change in human life and evolution. This paper bridging perspectives from postphenomenology and Material Engagement Theory is trying to attain better understanding about these matters. Our emphasis falls specifically on the human predisposition for technological embodiment and creativity. We re-approach the notion Homo faber in a way that, on the one hand, retains the power and value of this notion to signify the primacy of making or creative material engagement in human life and evolution and, on the other hand, reclaims the notion from any misleading connotations of human exceptionalism. In particular, our use of the term Homo faber refers to the special place that this ability has in the evolution and development of our species. The difference that makes the difference is not just the fact that we make things. The difference that makes the difference is the recursive effect that the things that we make and our skills of making seem to have on human becoming. We argue that we are Homo faber not just because we make things but also because we are made by them. (shrink)

As a regular reader of Science, Scientific American, Nature and The Eonomist, I could not miss how so many articles in these science-technology journals refer to micro-processing, which today dominates so much science-praxis. I have become aware that how science happens, changes primarily with a wide context of instrument changes. That is what this paper is about. Heidegger’s technologies were largely Industrial-Big, Machinic, and Mechanical. Science, today often a leader, is now operating by using micro-nano processes and has often shifted (...) to biological and medical sciences, marking a change in how science operates. This has significant consequences for how we should think about the “transcendental” and the “empirical” in philosophy of technology. (shrink)